There’s highs and lows to the experience of Tri Force Heroes. The premise seems pretty player-unfriendly, but by connecting with an active online community I was able to wring some enjoyment from it.
The Zelda series is no stranger to simultaneous multiplayer. Four Swords, Four Swords Plus, the battle mode in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, Hyrule Warriors co-op, and of course Tingle’s Balloon Fight DS. It’s usually part of a larger package, but here they’ve built on the mechanics of A Link Between Worlds to create a full game that’s multiplayer-only. (You can technically play stages solo but it’s a thoroughly miserable experience, as the design is so laser-focused on having three and only three human participants, and they don’t deign to include the kinds of quality-of-life features Four Swords Anniversary Edition and Plus had for solo play.)
TFH does have a plot but it’s a bit half-arsed. Link (external sources claim it’s the same one from ALBW, and that the change in look is due to a disguise even though the reason he’s accepted as a hero in the game is strictly derived from his appearance) comes to a town—comprising three houses and a castle—with the quirk that everyone is obsessed with fashion; this does tie into the game mechanic of crafting outfits to get different abilities. Then there’s two other Links for some reason. They have to defeat a fancy-clothed witch to break the curse on the local princess who has been forced to wear an unflattering unitard. It’s 100% the weakest story of any Zelda game.
From there you venture to the themed zones outside the castle. It’s the usual: forest, ice, volcano, haunted mansion, sky, etc, etc. While there there’s a robust series of mini-dungeons and stages with decent puzzles and combat, centering around usage of a limited set of items and teamwork. There’s good variety here, especially when you include extra challenge conditions; but only when you’re ready for them. Less successful is the havily-leaned-on “totem” mechanic, where Links pick each other up to interact with different vertical planes. It’s… rarely fun, unfortunately.
Being a multiplayer-only game, your enjoyment will vary based on your party. If people have similar skill levels, everyone is using the cute emotes enthusiastically, and everyone’s being a good sport, then it’s a surprisingly good time. On the other hand you could get dragged into a very difficult challenge and have to redo a level several times, or your run could quickly come to a close from contending with claustrophobic combat chaos, not to mention the dreaded lag and “buffering” wheel.
After playing Metroid Prime: Federation Force with my American friends, I was hoping for a similar experience with people I knew online; unfortunately the multiplayer is region locked, ostensibly to reduce lag, which is cold comfort for an Australian playing with French and Mexican players (technically the latter was playing outside their region with an EU copy of the game, but “EU” still includes countries as distant as South Africa). To be fair I rarely experienced really terrible lag, but I missed playing with friends, and there’s no way I could regularly get two other local friends. The Discord community I found usually provided me with games (and luckily I had a lot of free time during the day), because otherwise it’d be sitting for uncountable ages waiting for random players at this late stage of the game’s life. Online places like that to match you up with willing people are the only tenable way to still play reliably, and even then there’s of course a lot of stuffing around with Friend Codes.
The complications of even starting and maintaining a game make me wonder if it was worth it. If this implementation of a “multiplayer Zelda dungeon” experience really works. As a frantic co-op experience it can be fun, and frustrating, and satisfying, though it is just dungeons, without really fulfilling the other aspects of a Zelda game. But that’s ok, and when I reflect back on my time with TFH, it’s those moments of positive interaction I had with humans on the other side of the screen that I remember. But it’s still a toss-up if you’ll ever get to that point. I’m torn! Either way, Link can wear a pretty dress in this game so that’s cool.