The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures - Plot

Plot

The game begins with the land of Hyrule in a state of fear because of strange happenings that have occurred recently. On a stormy night, Princess Zelda and the six shrine maidens fear that the reason for these events is that Vaati's seal is weakening. She summons Link and brings him to Hyrule Castle so he can protect her and the other maidens while they open the portal to the Four Sword Sanctuary. When they do, however, a shadowy figure appears from the portal. This figure was Shadow Link, who then kidnapped the shrine maidens and sealed them in crystals. Link follows him to the sanctuary where he retrieves the Four Sword to destroy this doppelgänger. The Four Sword is a magical sword that splits the wielder into four clones of himself and binds Vaati in his prison. Vaati is once again released as a result of Link's actions and wreaks havoc on the once peaceful kingdom.

As Link and his three counterparts wander the overworld of Hyrule Field on their quest to restore peace to Hyrule, they learn that the creation of Link's evil counterpart and the release of Vaati is only a small part in an insidious plot to conquer the land of Hyrule and the world beyond. As the four Links battle thousands and thousands of evil creatures and monstrosities, it becomes increasingly obvious that there is an even more sinister force behind Vaati that is manipulating all the events of the game behind the scenes.

To further complicate matters, the parallel dimension of Hyrule known as the Dark World appears, which begins to spirit away many citizens of the kingdom, particularly children, and trap them within the mirror dimension. To make matters even worse, Link soon learns that he and his three counterparts are the last line of defense against the growing evil as not only have the knights of Hyrule mysteriously disappeared, but evil versions of them have allied themselves with Vaati and have claimed territory in his name, including Hyrule Castle itself. The only pathway to the Realm of Heavens, the Towers of Winds, has also vanished along with four jewels that kept it stabilized.

It is revealed halfway through the game by the Deku Shrubs who worship the mastermind that the true villain and creator and master of Shadow Link is none other than their own master, Ganon, King of Darkness. The back-story behind Ganon is gradually revealed to Link by the Gerudos, who inform him that Ganon was once a Gerudo named Ganondorf. He betrayed his people, fled to their sacred pyramid grounds, and stole a powerful trident that the Gerudos were meant to protect from the outside world. According to legend, the trident was created and placed in the pyramids by a sinister cult known as, "The Tribe of Darkness", and contained their horrid powers and, as a result, it transformed Ganondorf into a demon of horrifying power.

Now known as Ganon, the demon then used the incredible powers of the trident to seize control of entire areas of Hyrule and transform them into lands of darkness. Knowing of Link's potential threat to his plans, Ganon stole a dark artifact that holds the ability to take the inner darkness of a person and bring it to life, in order to combat Link. This artifact is revealed as the Dark Mirror, where the same Dark Tribe that made the trident were exiled to, which Ganon used to create Shadow Link from Link's own darkness, brought the Dark World to Hyrule, and then sent the evil doppelganger to kidnap the shrine maidens and trick the real Link into releasing Vaati. Taking control of the Realm of Heavens, Ganon used Vaati's Wind Palace as his base of operations, created a shrine around the Dark Mirror that amplified its power to make hundreds of Dark Links, and used Vaati to dominate Hyrule and, eventually, the world.

In order to gain as much power as possible and build up his army, Ganon desired to trap the shrine maidens so that his forces could siphon their power and increase their own along with his. Each guardian of the shrine maidens were loyal followers to Ganon, including Phantom Ganon, who began draining the maidens of their power. The abductions throughout Hyrule are revealed to be the work of Vaati and Shadow Link under Ganon's orders, who have been sending citizens and children into the Dark World where they would become part of Ganon's army to booster his ranks. Vaati, who soon became nothing but another manipulation for Ganon, furthered his plans by creating monsters to add to his army and also created devices that sapped the power from the very land of Hyrule itself and slowly began turning it into a rotting wasteland. It is also revealed that the knights of Hyrule were murdered by Ganon, who used his trident to trap their souls in the Dark World where they became creatures of Darkness forced to bend to his and Vaati's will. Using the knights, Ganon stole the fours jewels to make the Tower of Winds vanish and turned them into portals of darkness.

The Links were eventually able to wipe out thousands of Ganon's minions, save Zelda and the six shrine maidens, retrieve the four jewels, lay the soldiers to rest, destroy all of Vaati's devices, rescue all the citizens from the Dark World, reconstitute the Tower of Winds, retrieve the Dark Mirror, destroy Shadow Link and Vaati, and face Ganon in an ultimate showdown. After restoring peace to the Realm of the Heavens and destroying the Wind Palace, the four Links were able to defeat Ganon in a brutal battle and seal him firmly in the Four Sword. The Four Sword was then placed back in its' pedestal at the Four Sword Sanctuary, allowing the four Links to become one again. As Link and Zelda leave to celebrate in Hyrule, the six maidens restore Hyrule to peace and tranquility while the people of Hyrule celebrate all the traces of evil being vanquished from their kingdom.