The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures is coming to DSi Ware next week on September 28th.  The game will be completely free for a limited time, almost 5 months in total, until February 20th 2012.  While the original GameBoy Advanced / Gamecube title required link cables between the systems to play the four player co-op mode, the new game will allow for wireless LAN play between Nintendo 3DS,  Nintendo DSi and Nintendo DSi XL systems.

We previously reported that The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures would be coming to DSiWare in the future, and for free, to boot. Nintendo has just revealed that it will be available in September.

At Nintendo's E3 conference, a brief little snippet was dropped that was good news for co-op fans.  The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures will be released in the DSiWare store this fall, for free.  Released originally as a bonus with the GBA version of A Link to the Past, the game was remade and released for the Gamecube, using the quirky GBA link cable to great effect.  We covered this version of the game here.  It had long been rumored that a DS remake was in the works, and now it appears the rumor is becoming fact.  Recently, Nintendo confirmed that the DSiWare release will be the GBA version.  This is unfortunate, as the Gamecube remake was a significant upgrade, particularly visually.  Still, free is free, and the core gameplay of four Links running around solving puzzles together is awesome, regardless.  DSi and 3DS owners can look forward to Four Swords this September.

The Legend of Zelda series is inarguably classic.  Born in the heyday of the original NES, the first game and most of its sequels are wildly popular, and for good reason.  The Zelda series delivers a solid adventure almost every time.  However, we aren't concerned with single player games here at Co-Optimus, so why do we bring up Zelda?  It's a bit obscure, but there has been a version (or two, depending on how you look at it) of The Legend Zelda that was meant for co-op play.  Four Swords for the Game Boy Advance, and its big brother Four Swords Adventures for the Gamecube, are the focus of this week's Co-op Classics. You might be wondering why we are discussing such a recent game here.  Both the GBA and the Gamecube are fairly recent systems, to be sure, but as long as it isn't from the current generation, we consider it fair game for inclusion in Co-Op Classics.  Four Swords for the GBA was included with the port of A Link to the Past way back in 2002.  Four Swords Adventures was released just a hair over four years ago, back in 2004.  That's practically ancient in videogame terms!  In addition, there were some strange hardware requirements to play the game.  This means that many gamers might be unaware of Four Swords, and that is really a shame, particularly for fans of cooperative play.