The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (2001)

Picking up where I left off with my previous comments on Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages was always my preferred title in this duology. As the more puzzle-focused entry, I find that the design of this game has aged much more gracefully than that of Seasons.

The dungeons, which were Seasons' big weakness, are much more enjoyable. At their worst, they can still be labyrinthine messes. Thankfully, the enemy encounters that made dungeons feel more like a punishment than a challenge are significantly toned down. In their stead are many puzzle rooms that take advantage of a variety of interesting new items. These include the Seed Shooter, which lets you ricochet seeds off walls, the Switch Hook, a fun spin on the Hookshot, and the Cane of Somaria which returns from A Link to the Past.

Ages does have a bit of a mixed ramp-up, but by the last two dungeons, I found this game to be devilishly difficult in all the right ways. Boss fights are much more about finding and exploiting item weaknesses, rather than learning and avoiding boss attack patterns. The dungeons do have their low points--I was a bit frustrated by Mermaid's Cave in particular, which requires time travel, but is unclear about when you need to leave the dungeon and make the switch. Once again, I felt that I had to consult walkthroughs repeatedly when I ran into one of the many occasions where the game fails to provide you enough information to know what to do next.

Outside of its dungeons, Ages also feels notably different from Seasons. Ages is significantly more story-driven, and its cast of recurring characters appear on occasion to helpfully guide you to your next destination. While I do enjoy the explorative nature of Seasons's Holodrum, I preferred the more compact Labrynna and how you are guided through it in a much more intentional manner. You may remember that Ocarina of Time already introduced time travel to the series, but Ages feels like it does more to take advantage of that fantasy. You constantly switch between times to navigate through the world, and you're often required to fix problems in the past to alter the state of the present.

I will also take a moment to mention the linked game functionality in the Oracle games, something that elevates them both. Once you beat one of the two games, you are given a password that lets you link your save to the other Oracle game. This system lets you find a variety of hidden items and upgrades, as well as to carry over your collection of magic rings from one game to the other. Most importantly, playing a linked game unlocks an epilogue chapter that includes a few additional boss fights and a "true" ending. It's a really cool way of rewarding players for playing these games side-by-side, and it gives you reasons to actively switch between the two games and swap passwords.

Taken together, the Oracle games aren't particularly revolutionary entries in the series, but they do contain many unique ideas that haven't been seen since. Making two unique but interconnected games is an admirably ambitious feat. So ambitious, in fact, that I doubt we'll ever see something like it again.

After many years of neglect, I have finally decided to play through the Oracle games. I've played Ages second. Both games are really great. If I had to pick a favorite, I'd say Ages. It's got more interesting puzzles, better bosses and better lore, in my opinion. Seasons is definitely the harder of the two games. Anyway, here's a list of pros and cons for this game only:

PROS

• Great world design;
• Great puzzles;
• Lots of secrets to uncover;
• Good music;

CONS

• Sometimes, the way forward is too hidden, if that makes sense. It's a common thing for older games, but this game isn't that old, and it's not an excuse.

Another good thing, for me, is that my favorite Zelda item, the Cane of Somaria, makes a comeback in this game. I was pleasantly surprised to find it.

So. I really enjoyed this game. Probably more than Seasons to be honest, because of the larger focus on puzzles. However, after Seasons, playing this right after felt kind of exhausting. I didn't even do the trading sequence until the very end (and even then I did it just because the Ganon fight was too tough for me with just a level 2 sword...), because I was just so ready for this to be done. I loved finding the linked game secrets, and definitely think that linking the games adds a whole lot to the experience, but they do end up feeling like just one suuuuuper long game and that can easily end up feeling like a chore to complete.

After Onox, Veran was really easy. I didn't mind that though, since after her I got to fight Twinrova and Ganon, and that was sooooo tough. After some tries I decided to do the trading sequence after all just to get the Master sword. After getting that, to my surprise I beat the fight on my first try! I was expecting for it to take at least two or three tries, and I only had like half a heart when I beat it, so I guess I got lucky :D

I can absolutely recommend this game, especially when it's linked with seasons, but expect to be in for the long haul.

I had a much better time playing this than Oracle of Seasons and Link's Awakening, though it's hard to say if it's because it's a better game or because after playing the other two I've finally gotten the hang of it. I have a lot of respect for these OG Zelda handhelds, but they also irritate the heck out of me—and it's not just a knock on old top-down Zeldas, because A Link to the Past is one of my top five favourite games.

The big problem I have with the older Capcom entries is the unsolvable puzzles. I'm a big fan of puzzles—I'm the kind of guy that genuinely thinks Sticker Star is the best game in the Paper Mario series because it has the best puzzles. And the great appeal of old-school Zelda is not only the puzzles, but the adventure: the fact that you get to explore a huge map with little direction on where to go next. Unfortunately, the way Capcom handled this was by blocking progression and puzzle solving behind seemingly random encounters, which frustrates me to no end.

An example: at one point, in order to progress, you need to find your kangaroo buddy. But not only is he just sitting in a random part of the map, he also never appears until you've talked to a certain NPC. Again, the idea is to force you to explore and talk to everybody, but for me, exploration should be something I do because I want to, not because I'm forced to, and I don't want my puzzles to simply be time consuming rather than logically challenging.

Fortunately, I found this to be handled much better in Ages. Other than what I just mentioned, most progression was more logical or made you recall something you'd seen before. At one point you need to get a magic potion to save the king of the Zoras. You aren’t given any clues as to where to look, but if you’ve been paying attention, you should remember where you’ve come across one before. Much better.

Other than that, this is just a solid game. It was sitting at a solid “pretty good” for the first half, but by the time I got to the sixth dungeon, I realized that I was actually having a lot more fun than I thought I would; Mermaid’s Cave is now in my top 20 Zelda dungeons. From there on out, I just felt that the puzzles, dungeons, and story were all really creative and fun, and the final dungeon was one of the better final dungeons of the series. When it came time to write a review, I couldn’t really think of any reason not to give it 5 stars.

Just a quick comment on the two games together: I’m thoroughly impressed with what they created. I’m curious what it would be like to play Ages first, because the whole time it just felt like this was a natural continuation of the journey. The “true ending” after beating both games is really cool, but it’s also insanely difficult. I think it’s a lot easier if you do all the upgrading by going back and forth between both games, but I wasn’t feeling that. I just got the one sword upgrade and went for it. I don’t even think I had a shield. Extremely tough final battle, but also a really cool end to the games.

It was really tough considering where to place this in my ranking of all Zelda games. It’s worthy of top 10, but definitely not a top 7. For a while, I juggled around Ages, Minish Cap, and Skyward Sword. While it has nowhere near the same highs as Skyward Sword, it also doesn’t have the same lows, therefore I put it higher. But by the same logic, I should really put Minish Cap higher than Skyward Sword, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. They’re all lovely games, but in the end I put Oracle of Ages as number 8.

I'm just going to write one review for Seasons and Ages, since it seems to me that they're really parts of one long game that were on two separate cartridges (a pretty cool concept.)

I played these games as a child with my brother - he started with Seasons and I started with Ages, and we swapped to play the linked games (I think? I didn't remember that, but when I played the linked game I remembered so much about it that I have to assume we played it.) They were mindblowingly awesome to me then, and I wasn't sure they would hold up, but I'm glad to report that they did! I have suspicions that they hold up partly because of intense nostalgia - they were really important to me as a child, and I spent a LOT of time with them, so they're very memorable. For me, these and Link's Awakening are what defined "the Zelda games," and the Zelda games were what really made me love video games in the first place (with the possible addition of Pokemon, but I loved Zelda even more.)

These games are very different in feel from the 3D Zelda games. For one thing, they're less serious, more childlike. They're goofy, with lots of dumb little jokes and references to other Zelda games. But they're also much more puzzly and less action oriented (which makes sense, because they're 2D.) This means, though, that they have some really interesting and creative puzzles, like the "walk over the floor tiles without doubling back so that they all turn from red to blue or vice versa" puzzles that I remember so clearly from my childhood (still fun!) I found that the puzzles were much more sit-back-and-think or riddly type puzzles, as opposed to technical skill type puzzles (like, for example, trying to shoot things from horseback). I enjoyed that aspect a lot.

Overall, I found these games more fun than the 3D Zelda games I've played in my current attempt at playing all the Zelda games in release order - to me, they were simply less exhausting. Perhaps it was the goofiness; perhaps it was that the 2D made the dungeons less sprawling. Perhaps it was simply the nostalgia. Whatever it is, I can heartily recommend these games to lovers of Zelda and action adventure games in general, or puzzle lovers, or anyone who's trying to get into the Zelda series.