Parents' Guide to The Legend of Zelda: TriForce Heroes

This puzzle adventure can be pretty fun -- assuming you're playing with other people. Playing alone by switching among heroes (the game calls these dummy characters "doppels") is a slow and clunky business that only gets worse when you're facing real-time dangers, such as boss fights. But getting a couple friends together on the couch or even hooking up with strangers online can be a lot of fun. You'll puzzle out solutions as a group, help each other through dangerous gauntlets and repel hordes of enemies, then fire off congratulatory and celebratory emoticons when things go your way.

Be prepared for some repetition, though -- especially when playing online, where players must vote for the levels they want to play in each dungeon. Players also are tempted to replay previously completed levels with modifiers meant to make the game more challenging (such as starting with fewer hearts), all for the chance to earn rarer textiles needed for various costume recipes. The problem is diminishing returns: Once you solve a puzzle, it's a lot less fun to solve it a second time, even under more challenging circumstances. With the right trio of friends aiming to avoid repetition, The Legend of Zelda: TriForce Heroes can be pretty entertaining, but it's not exactly an essential entry in Nintendo's iconic series.