One of the few surprises at this year's E3 was The Legend of Zelda GBA, which contains a port of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and multiplayer game called The Four Swords. Although I personally would have preferred a brand-new Zelda adventure for the Game Boy Advance, a port of the SNES classic and probably my favorite of the series is certainly an acceptable substitute.

This version of A Link to the Past looks so far to be a straight port of the original. I wouldn't be surprised if some small additions to the game were made, similar to the changes made to the Super Mario Advance titles, but the portion of the game I played was identical to the 11-year-old original. The control layout is altered from the original due to the lack of four face buttons on the GBA, so the trigger buttons are now used as two of the primary action buttons.

The Four Swords, the multiplayer game within The Legend of Zelda GBA, was a fun, great-looking part of an already impressive package. Up to four different colored Links can play together, cooperating and competing at the same time. The object of the game is to collect the most rupees in a specific timeframe, but players will have to work together to stand on switches and push large blocks in order to progress across the levels. The graphics of The Four Swords looked much more detailed than those of A Link to the Past, and the visual design of Link is new and quite similar to the look of the Link seen in the GameCube The Legend of Zelda.

The Legend of Zelda GBA was already a very polished package and will most certainly be fine-tuned to perfection before its release this December.