It is ludicrous that these games work as well as they do. Capcom taking the reins of Nintendo's second-biggest series, attempting to build a multi-game narrative on a nearly-dead 8-bit portable system using an 8-year-old game's blueprint, featuring a rocky development that went from remake to trilogy to a pair of games releasing simultaneously. In most realities, these games either died on the vine unreleased or were dead on arrival with a reputation approaching the CD-i games. But what we got in our reality is arguably the peak of 2D Zelda in terms of pure gameplay.

Oracle of Ages doesn't quite meet my dream vision for a puzzle-focused Zelda. Over time I've increasingly wished for dungeons that forego combat altogether and just focus on navigation and manipulating the environment/architecture. Look at the opening dungeon of Dragon Quest VII and tell me they couldn't do the same with Zelda. Ages gets close at times: Jabu-Jabu attempts to translate the Ocarina Water Temple to 2D and is largely successful, but it insists on littering the excellent design (which incredibly actually resembles a whale in terms of shape, unlike Ocarina) with annoying electric jellyfish that are frustrating to fight underwater. It also leans a bit too heavily on room-specific puzzles (all of which are good to great), and its one time-jumping dungeon is a bit more tedious and obtuse than one would hope.

In the overworld, I genuinely don't understand how the puzzle-focused game got a simple two-state switch as opposed to the four-way switch of seasons. As in similar implementations of such a mechanic like Link to the Past or Metroid Prime 2, it's usually just a matter of getting as far as you can in one world then flipping over and continuing or clearing some obstacle, rinse and repeat. Difficulty mostly becomes a matter of how many hoops you have to go through to switch between states, and I've yet to play a game that has a satisfying curve for this type of thing. There are a few fun riffs on time travel as in Ocarina, but it's not nearly as fleshed out as the seasons mechanic in its counterpart.

I'm a being more critical than is representative of my experience, which was largely excellent. Basically just a case of expectations being inverted for which game I'd connect to more, and wanting the reviews to maintain the distinctness of the games themselves. (And why not see how distinct the other review is, hmm?)

What these games unlocked for me is the way the Zelda series has cultivated a spectrum with one end being "you are an adventurer" and the other being "you are The Hero". I'd say the adventuring side is embodied by the original Zelda, Breath of the Wild, and the Oracles; even when you are technically constrained in terms of dungeon order or how much of the world you can access, you feel like you're making your own way based on your sense of direction and curiosity. When you're The Hero, you are driven instead by what needs to be done and have situations and setpieces placed in your direct path rather than feeling like you came across them organically. Both games cultivate that sense of adventure well: you're self-reliant and using every tool at your disposal to untangle knotted and unfamiliar dungeons. If you're into 2D Zelda and especially the adventuring end of the Zelda spectrum, you owe it to yourself to play them.

Loose thoughts:
-this one definitely got more love on the story front, with more ongoing plot development (some of which might be a result of playing this second) and a nice little emotional twist at the end.
-very funny that there's one Zora who's whole job is just to explain they aren't like River Zora, even though the Ocarina Zoras were in a river.
-I would play the shit out of that one minecart shooting minigame if it had longer tracks, why wasn't it expanded in Minish Cap??
-Nintendo absolutely fumbling the opportunity to build excitement for the series as a whole in the run-up to Tears of the Kingdom. You could have had these from launch on the NSO Game Boy library, plus Four Swords multiplayer with the NSO GBA. These are the origin point for the guy who's made the three most recent 3D entries, that's pretty important!

I’m in a state of mind lately where I can’t seem to find any joy in anything I used to do, except not in like an emotionally distressed way so much as this. With that in mind, I’m going to say that both of these are pretty much just Link’s Awakening, again, twice, with a better color palette, and with that comes all the fun and thrills of okay top-down combat, impenetrable gameplay which necessitates keeping your eyes glued to a guide, and hours of looking for other shit and heart containers you don’t really need just because it’s there. Shelving it because it’s probably fine after all and it’s just me

While it might not have the polish of link to the past, oracle of ages has such a magic to it that it surpasses every previous game in the franchise for me. With a fairly limited map it gives me the Hyrule that so far in my Zelda journey I've most enjoyed exploring. The characters have so much personality, the various groups that live here are all so distinct and well implemented. It also gives you really unique things to do that extend past the classic trading quests (although they don't go away), one stand out for me is the Goron dance, essentially briefly turning the game into a rythm game and it's fun as hell. Another section I absolutely adore is when you wash up on Cresent island and you have all the belongings you've acquired up to this point stolen, it makes for a really memorable puzzle and hammers home exactly how certain abilities need to be used. It's not a perfect game, there's some annoying design to be found and I haven't played the linked game stuff so I can't fully comment on that, but I just loved my time with this game so much. Also it has moosh in it

Scattered thoughts warning

Awesome time mechanic, I didn't actually expect it to develop into what it became by the end of the game. The map was 3 times bigger than I thought, the dungeons had some fun puzzles. Most of the bosses were a bit easy with the right gear, but it was still fun to figure them out. Water temple was awful like always. Swimming controls after getting mermaids tail is abysmal, who thought mashing the dpad was a good idea? I don't really get why they swapped it once the flippers were obtained. Also, the amount of dialogue was great, the characters in these early 2D Zeldas are so strange and genuine. Didn't care for Maku tree love interest or Ralph who basically had no presence but was supposed to be a major character by the end. Items were interesting, the switcher was unexpected but probably ended up being my favorite. Kept expecting it to be useful on enemies though, and it was more of an escape method than anything.

As a certified Gameboy Zelda Lover, I am biased, and the ability to transform into an Octorok deserves a perfect score.

On their own, the Oracle games are a pretty middling Zelda experience, with Ages not shining as brightly as Seasons. But together, through the programming magic of sharable passwords, they become a much more interesting and full experience. An experience that feels like the season finale of a Saturday morning action cartoon. This review, copied and pasted for each game, for better or worse, will be on that experience.

I should start by saying that when these games were first released, you had to buy each of them. For twice the price of a regular game you got the Oracle Twins’ full experience. Nowadays, one could easily play both of these games for as little as one savvy google search. Regardless, it’s worth criticizing nintendo for more or less selling you two weak games that make up a somewhat stronger, more interesting experience, rather than just making a great experience from the start for half the price. But what’s done is done, and I’ve said what I wanted to say on that.

The Oracle Twins are at their most fun and interesting when you have beaten at least one of them, but which one should you start with? Which Oracle game takes place first in the Zelda Timeline? Well, as far as the games themselves are concerned, each game has the potential to be the first or second in your playthrough. So start with whatever you want. Oracle of Seasons for the action? Or Oracle of Ages for the puzzles? Do you like blue haired ladies? Or redheads?

But why is it more fun to have already beaten one of them? Why not be fun from the start? Well, it is fun from the start. You’re playing a Zelda game, after all. But once you beat it, you’re given a special unique password that you can then use when you start the other game to turn it into a sequel of the one you started with. There are dialogue differences that slightly change the context of the games’ respective intros, your animal friend is carried over, and most importantly, your magic rings that you spent countless hours grinding for, which I will get into later, are also carried over. It makes the second playthrough a much more personal experience than just “the next game to play”. It’s a continuation of Your journey.

Since these games started off on a handheld console, they already had the benefit of being more personal than something that is played on a tv where anyone in the room can watch. Add to that the intimate nature of the Oracle’s Linked Game, and you have a nice quaint story all to yourself. Add to THAT the Linked Game Only side quests that require you to go BACK to the previous game and talk with old characters to fulfill those quests and bring the reward back again to the second game, and you have not just a story but an ongoing saga with living breathing worlds, all in your back pocket.

Now maybe you’re more of a Zelda Freak than I am. I only beat Ages and then a Linked Seasons, but if you want to get the full Oracles Experience and get all the little details: you beat each game, and then using the link codes, start a linked version of them, effectively starting both games again with slightly different contexts. That’s too much work for me, but here I am writing a review on it, so maybe I should have done it.

It’s kind of wild how much of a preamble this review has, considering the overall simplicity of the games themselves on their own. They’re your usual 2D Zelda affair, elaborating on 1993’s Link’s Awakening’s already abundantly charming graphics and fun controls. As someone who in turn abundantly loves Link’s Awakening, the Oracle Twins are a great time if only because I get to play as this Link some more. And then you tell me that there’s new goodies for this Link to play with? Like the Roc’s Cape that extends your jump into a glide? And the noisy but interesting Magnet Glove that opens up a host of interesting puzzles? I’m sold.

To add to the fun, there’s a horde of 64 magical rings to collect across both games. The usefulness of these rings range from simple baubles commemorating an achievement, to making enemies drop extra money when you defeat them, to tripling the damage you both deal and take. There’s also rings that transform Link into a green palette swap of some of the enemies in the games, like the shield swallowing Like-Likes or the perfect little Squit, the Octoroks. These rings are kind of just for show and don’t act as a disguise or anything, which is a shame, but they’re fun and I like having fun.

There is however, something shameful about the rings that I find indefensible, and it isn’t that you can only wear one ring at a time. It’s how you acquire these rings that I cannot defend. While some of them are scripted rewards, a great majority of the rings you collect will be through sheer chance. You might occasionally get a ring drop in the Maple the Witch minigame, which you have you grind for. You might also get a ring drop from a Gasha Nut, which randomly gives a tiered prize depending on how much you’ve grinded. So you could be like me and spend half an hour grinding away at killing enemies to spawn the Maple Minigame and then harvest a Gasha Nut only to get the same useless ring three times.

Because of this, I did not get every ring between the two games. I got every piece of heart between them, but I didn’t 100% them and I’m okay with that. There are other, better Zelda games to spend every waking moment with.

I’ve talked mostly about the mechanics of the games and not the story, because the mechanics are much more interesting to me. That doesn’t mean there isn’t intrigue here though. Veran is a fun villain for Ages with a really strange design (I’m serious look up the promotional art for her and try to figure out how her hat looks, it’s infuriating), and Seasons is the only Zelda game where you can find the Jawa-like Subrosians. They’re very fun and silly but I think it’s the simplicity of their designs that held them back from being a recurring Zelda race. It’s a great design though. Everyone loves a little cloaked freak.

I think Subrosia alone is what makes Seasons the better of the two games. Being a pseudo-dark world with its own currency, it makes the world in this little game feel so much bigger, despite its relative simplicity.

There are sadly, other reasons why Seasons is the better of the Oracle Twins, and those reasons are things that are in Ages but are absent from Seasons. The most egregious being the Mermaid Tail. Ages gives you a swimming upgrade to make you move not only move faster in water, but also dive down into combat-capable underwater rooms. However, the Mermaid Tail requires you to frustratedly mash the directional buttons to move. You can't just hold the left button to move left. When switching back and forth between the linked games, the different swimming styles become dreadfully apparent, and playing Seasons just becomes less annoying.

Ages also has the Simon Says-like Goron Dancing minigame, which was a miserable time for me. And you can't hit me with that Skill Issue nonsense, i'm the Karaoke King in all the Yakuza games and i soloed the Orphan of Kos. It's not me.

Regardless, both games are a fine time. I have my problems with Ages but the good outweighs the bad. Despite the mermaid tail, I will probably play it again some day. Honestly, I dread running into the last few dungeons in each game than I do the mermaid tail. Those dungeons can get pretty tedious.

I have played each game twice, but only done a Linked Game once, where I got every piece of heart for each game.

I recommend the Oracle Twins Experience for anyone who enjoys Zelda but also anyone who likes the Game Boy. For some reason, the Game Boy has had a massive resurgence in the DIY/custom building scene, and the only reason i could see myself sinking the time and money into putting a backlight on a Game Boy Color would be to play the Oracle Twins again.

Great late gbc classic. An ambitious game chock-full of devious puzzles. The real fun begins when you link up Oracle of Seasons with this one. Allowing for an slightly altered storyline with references to your past adventure and exclusive items. The ring system is unique and exciting and makes playthroughs variable. This is further pushed with the different main animal buddies that aid you. There are some issues with reaccuring puzzles that get annoying, as well as the not too common design decision head scratchers, such as the mandatory and obtuse Goron dance mini game. The story is very shallow and makes no sense, but works in the context of this light hearted game. But at least there is a story and lore to get mildly invested in, unlike Seasons, which had none. Overall, an absolute blast to play for anyone remotely interested in 2D Zelda or similar games. Full of charm and brimming with content.

Oracle of Ages was a much more enjoyable experience when compared to its counterpart, Oracle of Seasons. However, I believe a vast majority of this came from utilizing the linking ability between the two titles on my playthrough.

This linking ability still dazzles me even 20 years later - the ability to trade prior game overworld occurrences and progression between the two games by trading generated passwords is just fantastic. It also made this title a much easier experience than Oracle of Seasons was (I received extra hearts through the linking ability, better weapons, etc).

I think Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages are best judged as a package, and frankly I think the combined experience elevates both titles in their own ways. Overall, however, I enjoyed my time with Oracle of Ages moreso, and it was a very satisfying conclusion for this recent Zelda outing.

I haven’t played the Oracle games in years, so I figured I should give them another shot. To that end, I played them in the opposite order, partially to have a newer experience, and partially because… Ages is better.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages is fantastic, full stop. It’s less of an action-adventure game and more of a straight-up puzzle game. The overworld unlocks bit by bit, and you have to do things in a very specific way at a specific point in time to progress. The items are clever problem-solving tools that are utilized both in-and-out if dungeons. The dungeons themselves are elaborate mazes filled with riddles, confusing layouts, and deadly traps. Time travel is utilized far better than it was in Ocarina of Time, as it’s now a lynchpin for the entire game experience; Oracle of Ages simply wouldn’t work without its complex time-traveling puzzles.

The dungeons are great overall. I don’t have time to go into every single one, but it’s a very solid and challenging lineup, with my favorite being the Skull Dungeon. However, I’m still not a huge fan of Jabu-Jabu’s Belly. It’s not as soul-crushingly difficult as I remember it being on my first playthrough a few years ago, but the constant backtracking and the water-level gimmick (which doesn’t really work in a 2D plane) got kinda dull. Aside from that, great dungeons.

Only a few other criticisms. The music is very hit-or-miss. The Mermaid Suit controls are annoying as shit. Then there’s the Goron Dance minigame. What the fuck, Nintendo?

Now for the story, Oracle of Ages has a fairly basic plot (Link take sword, save girl, kill bad guy), but the worldbuilding is surprisingly deep for a Game Boy Color game. By speaking to NPCs and paying attention to the environment, you’ll learn interesting details about how Labrynna has evolved over time, and how badly Veran is fucking everything up. You’ve even got some darker themes lurking underneath those 8-bit sprites, like enslavement (the men of Lynna Village are forced to work on a giant tower for days on end, without any food or sleep), a disaster (Veran causes a volcano eruption that completely massacres an entire city), and regicide (Veran poisons the ocean, killing the Zora King; Veran is super evil). They don’t really lead to anything super intelligent or meaningful like Majora’s Mask and Twilight Princess, but it works well for a handheld, 8-bit adventure.

So yeah, the game is great! Very challenging, complex, and ultimately rewarding.

Good but pretty derivative. There's not much here I haven't experienced in ALTTP or Link's Awakening. Capcom takes the sprites, music, and mechanics from LA to create a new realm of Labrynna with a new villain. This sounds exciting, but with the exception of a few cool items, this new realm is just the same as Hyrule or Koholint with the same NPC races and enemies, and the same time travel/dark world mechanic we've seen over and over.

It's mostly good fun, but it does hang on the edge of being overly long and complex. The dungeons are very complicated compared to other 2D Zeldas and there were many parts of the game where the next objective was so obtuse a guide was pretty much necessary. The music is also a little grating especially for the dungeons, which is unusual for Zelda. Most are just 10 second repeating clips.

It wasn't bad, but at the same time I've seen and done this all before in better games. Minish Cap had the courage to change up the formula a little and it was memorable for it, but this feels more like someone took Link's Awakening and just doubled the length.

My least favourite 2D Zelda so far, but again it's competent enough to still be fun. I liked the Ancient Tomb dungeon, and the first 4 dungeons were also pretty fun. Jabu Jabu's dungeon was easily the most complicated one I've seen in a 2D Zelda, but it was probably actually the best designed in the game and was pretty enjoyable. The Crescent Island part where all your stuff gets stolen is a unique challenge as well.

Oracle of Ages is an intriguing game for the 2D series. Of the GBC duology, this is the one that has a greater focus on setting temples and puzzles with a higher degree of complexity, and also in making things a bit cryptic to be difficult to figure out, however, that's what makes it a memorable journey.

The main innovation of this title, is that unlike games that have in their title phrases like "A Link to the Past" or "Ocarina of Time", here there is a real time travel to the past involved, because in this game we will travel the lands of Labrynna through the present, but also from hundreds of years in the past. Traveling between both eras becomes something primordial and very entertaining that is very reminiscent of the parallel dimensions of the previously mentioned Super Nintendo game, and personally I have always liked that kind of games in which you have to travel in time to get things that do not exist in the other and vice versa, even some temples make use of this dynamic, and although at the beginning you start with certain restrictions to travel between eras, as you advance in the game you can travel in time with greater freedom.

The game is set in the kingdom of Labrynna, where the Oracle of Ages, Nayru, is located. However a sorceress named Veran ends up possessing her and traveling back in time to wreak havoc on the timeline and conquer the world, the usual. So this time we have to go through 8 temples traveling between two different times in order to obtain the 8 essences of time to rescue our friend Nayru.

Oracle of Seasons has probably one of the most intricate overworld map and temple designs, because figuring out what you have to do or where you have to go is not something you can deduce at first glance. In the beginning the game takes you by the hand, and certainly, it is a somewhat linear game. As you advance in your quest, things will get more and more complicated, so you'll have to have a lot of wit and a good memory to know what you need to do at certain points in the story. And as for the temples... these have a brilliant design, as the puzzles are quite "demanding" to say the least, as these feel like real logic challenges in which you will have to have a lot of patience if you don't want to lose your mind in the process, making this, more than an adventure game feel like one of puzzles because of the great emphasis given to this section, as even the bosses have their logic and many times you will have to think outside the box to solve the puzzles. This is especially noteworthy considering it's a 2D game for the Game Boy Color. The level design is on par with 3D games in terms of complexity. Take for example the water temple in this game, this one is equally or even more difficult than the water temple in Ocarina of Time.

As for the items you can get in the temples, these are not as new as in other games, since they are improved versions or with a little "twist" of items that we have already seen before. But one that I really liked is the replacement for the bow/sling shot, which is a seed shooter whose projectiles have the ability to bounce 2 times off the walls and is used to solve pretty good puzzles. The hook on this occasion works in a pretty cool way, as it swaps your position with the position of the grabbed object.

A section where this game takes inspiration from the N64 installments is in the mini-games, as there are many and each one is quite entertaining, although a bit difficult too. The most difficult one is when you get to the Goron region, it consists of a small memorization game that reminded me of my time when I played Brain Age, only here it's much more difficult because you have to follow a rhythm. I almost lost my mind trying to complete the highest level. I don't recommend doing it.

Conclusion
Oracle of Ages is fascinating without a doubt, although this ends up being like a double-edged sword, as it can result in some pretty frustrating moments being totally honest. But in the end, I'm left with the satisfaction I got from solving those puzzles and those "Eureka!" moments. I recommend playing this game without a guide, as it is something that is really worthwhile, even if there are many moments where you don't have even the tiniest idea of what you have to do.

Secret 2: -----------------aurith/list/--1/

← The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons - Review

Honestly, much better than I remember it being. I will fully admit, my admiration for this game is somewhat based around nostalgia for the Game Boy. I've always loved the Game Boy aesthetic. I'm also pretty convinced at this point that 2D Zelda just gels with me more than 3D.

With that being said, I do think this is great. The dungeon design is excellent, with some genuinely tough puzzles. Bosses are mostly pretty cool. There's a ton of side content too, not just due to the ring system, but also the really neat game link thing you can do if you have Oracle of Seasons as well.

If there's any main complaints, it's that the overworld of this really does feel like a bit of a pain to navigate at times. Going back and forth from the past to the present is cool, and honestly there are some aspects of this that I think Ages does better than OoT. However, it can be a bit of a pain going from point A to point B when it involves using different songs on the harp multiple times.

Oh yeah, also the Goron dance minigame. The mandatory ones you have to do aren't that bad, but godspeed to anyone who tries to do the higher difficulty ones legitimately. I can't imagine how many zoomers will end up filtered by this part when they try to play it on the NSO thing.

It's hard to fully appreciate what the Oracle games are doing until you've played both of them in a linked game. Whilst each exists as its own entity in many ways with very different focal points in terms of level design, they are also simultaneously separate halves of a larger whole. I played Oracle of Ages second meaning this was the game where I finally met and rescued Zelda after having only heard her name in Oracle of Seasons, this was the game that both continued the story and got an actual climax associated with it, and a ton of characters would refer back to happenings in the previous game also. It's not a perfect system, the notion of having to note down a code, boot up the previous game and go exploring to reap the rewards of the interlinked nature of these seemed laborious enough to me that I just couldn't really be bothered, but it is both very cute and oddly ambitious in its own way, both the final swan song for the Game Boy Color and a dramatic evolution upon what Pokémon Red and Blue had been attempting five years earlier.

I will say that playing through a second game of this made me realise how much a lot of the secondary systems and such in this duology just don't really click with me. Gasha seeds get planted in suitably obscure locations that it's easy to forget to ever go check on them, I had little motivation to ever really experiment with rings, and the aforementioned code entry system whilst very cool in context of when this game existed is sadly archaic enough that I never actually used it outside of the initial linking of Oracle of Ages to my completed Oracle of Seasons playthrough.

This is definitely a part of where Ages stumbles for me more so than Seasons, as whilst Seasons had a very clear focus on streamlined, fun dungeon-based gameplay, Ages makes you spend an awful lot more time doing everything else in-between them and that content, whilst charming, would often fall flat. The low-points in that regard for me were the Crescent Island, which lands halfway between a trading quest and a scavenger hunt, and the Goron minigame village which locks the next dungeon behind not only a fully fledged trading quest but also the worst minigame in either Seasons game, a deeply frustrating rhythm game that costs heaps of rupees to attempt and repeatedly fail.

That all said, Oracle of Ages is very much more of the same and a pretty good time overall. The dungeon design is largely really engaging and fun, the item set is a touch worse than Seasons but the Switch Hook is still among the better Zelda items out there (though the Mermaid Tail is among the all-time worst Zelda items for making your movement feel actively worse from the moment you get it), and honestly the bosses might actually be better here than in Seasons as the increased focus on puzzles in Oracle of Ages allows for some really creative boss designs (but, just like with Oracle of Seasons, the final boss here felt excessively challenging compared to the rest of the game). Not the best Zelda game, but a perfectly solid entry.

Zelda: Oracle of Ages manages to squeeze a lot out of the Game Boy Color's limited hardware. It's a surprisingly deep portable Zelda with some pretty solid, inventive puzzles, though it never quite resonated with me the way Link's Awakening did.

Oracle of Seasons, the follow up to Ages, might seem at first glance like a Pokemon-esque alternate version, a practice that was very popular on the Game Boy at the time. Each game is substantially different, though, with their own storylines and unique dungeons. A password feature allows you to earn codes in one game and unlock things in the other, which is novel, but not something I bothered with too much.

Ages is more puzzle focused between the two. The intention was to release three games, with Ages and Seasons focusing on the puzzle and combat elements of Zelda respectively, but the third title in the series was ultimately cancelled due to difficulties in managing the three game project. I wonder what they would have emphasized in the third game, if it would have balanced the puzzle and combat more evenly, and where they would have taken the story. It's a shame they never fully followed through with the "Triforce Series," but at least we still got two good games out of it.

Continuation of the adventure started in Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages is a game that changes its tone, preferring a more melancholic atmosphere. Led by an interesting concept of time travel thanks to the Harp of Time, the title focuses more on puzzles, both in the open world and in the dungeons. These are, as such, more memorable and interesting than their seasonal counterparts: in particular, the bosses are more ambitious and require a moment of reflection to figure out how to defeat them, with the help of the various items in our arsenal. Story-wise, the main cast is particularly charming from the start, with the pair of Nayru and Ralph being somewhat incompetent idealists. Veran proves to be more charismatic than his Seasons counterpart, while the rest of the characters make broad echoes of Majora's Mask, taking advantage of their past characterisation. Mechanically, the title keeps the logic of a great diversity of objects from Seasons, with a few changes: the grapple, for example, is swapped for the item that allows you to swap places with a removable element, making the puzzles and interactions with the environment marginally more complex. The rings from Seasons are obviously present, but their usefulness remains, once again, circumstantial, just like the mounts.

Oracle of Ages thus appears as a title whose ideas go further than those of Seasons. Admittedly, this ambition may put off the average player on some particularly devious puzzles, but the title thus forges a more memorable identity and enjoys the comparison and the bundles of references with past titles.

Pros -
As good as Link's Awakening
Less annoying trading mini-game
It's really cool seeing species from Zelda OoT in an 8-bit adventure.
Some of the puzzles are cool.
Takes advantage of the GBC.
Really unique boss fights. Not the same ole thing again.

Cons -
original music is bad
It's hard. I never would have finished this without a guide.
Ring system feels unnecessary.
Witty dialogue from Link's Awakening isn't here

i almost skipped these for being cough third party but getting the true ending and all the linked secrets is an experience i'd recommend to anyone

generally prefer the dungeons in this one over seasons, but i think the season mechanic is better than the time mechanic

except for the water dungeon whoever made that should punch a fist through their own chest, as is tradition

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages is surprisingly great. With an asterisk but i'll get to that. The Oracle duology was always a missing piece of my history with this series and now that i've completed Ages, i gotta say, it kinda goes hard.

This is the Zelda game that puts it's biggest emphasis on it's puzzles. The puzzles here feel like a step above Zelda's usual puzzle selection, in fact, i don't think the games get this crazy again in that department until Breath of the Wild. As things stand right now, the game is probably the closest the series comes to the CrossCode level of puzzle quality (though i'd say there's still a big difference between this game's puzzles and CrossCode's).

Veran is an interesting villain if only because she's the only main villain who is female. Rather insane when you think about it. I also want to point out that she looks like an animated Disney villain. The way the time travel works allowed for an improved execution of the Dark World concept when compared to A Link to the Past (and tbh A Link Between Worlds) where both worlds matter instead of just only mattering half of the time. It is also pretty funny that this is the second Zelda game that handles the element of time way better than Ocarina of Time.

Also the soundtrack kinda goes hard. I mean the overworld themes and boss themes are reused from Link's Awakening but nobody told me Moonlit Grotto and Skull Dungeon had banger of a theme. And it was around this point i realized that Zelda dungeon music is usually just noise to me and the two dungeons i mentioned are two of five Zelda dungeons in the entire series where i've gone "oh yeah, this music slaps".

My main gripes with this game stem from the fact that it's a Game Boy game. The tiny 4x4 screen makes the navigation a massive pain in the ass, turning this game into a certified "walkthrough game" and although i had more fun with it than A Link to the Past, another "walkthrough game", at the same time i wonder how the flying hell anyone was supposed to get to Crescent Island without looking it up. Or the entire Rolling Ridges segment. Other Game Boy specific gripes include the constant menuing cause the game only lets you equip two items at a time and this includes stuff that would normally be passives in the other games and the fact that the map screens are useless.

The good news is that this game would benefit tremendously from a Link's Awakening HD treatment. When most of your issues are simply because the console limits your power, that's the mark of a really good game. As it is though, the Game Boy is pretty much the only thing keeping me from giving this game a higher score.

8/10, Switch Hook and Seed Shooter go hard.

My expectations when I started playing Oracle of Ages after playing Oracle of Seasons two times weren't low, but they also weren't high. As I said previously in my Oracle of Seasons review, these games use Link's Awakening as a base. This gave the developers the possibility to experiment and play with cool concepts. My main complaint of Seasons was that it could be called Link's Awakening 2, because that's what the game, on its own, feels. Hence my apprehension. But now, after playing it, I'm amazed.

Oracle of Ages doubles down on the story. Here we have, aside from Nayru the oracle, Ralph, a clumsy but determined hero, and Zelda. The game from the very start hits you with a long cutscene for Game Boy standards, so be prepared to read and watch cute animations. After that you're free to roam through Labrynna, and right away it is clear that the focus here are the puzzles, opposed to the focus on combat in Seasons. The general feeling I had is that Ages is more than its counterpart in everything that is proposed for these titles. I got this feeling from the very start with the variety of characters, scenarios and music. The time traveling mechanic that allows you to alternate from past to present is responsible to make two different maps and therefore different scenarios. It also gives us different soundtracks for the same locations either changing the instruments or tempo of the songs, a welcome improvement. Time traveling is essential throughout the whole game for crossing the map, for solving puzzles and for beating the dungeons. Also the developers were clever to change some subitems in each game to mix things up a little. Here we have the switch hook instead of the boomerang and the pea shooter instead of the slingshot (more puzzle oriented items).

Unfortunately both games suffer with the limitations of the hardware. If Seasons needed enemy variety, in Ages there's a lack of puzzle variety. In the first three dungeons I believe, all of the puzzles were already used. I didn't feel as much because I was invested in the narrative, but I can see someone getting tired of them. Also worth mentioning one of the sections where it's necessary to play a bunch of minigames to progress. The minigames weren't difficult but I felt a bit annoyed by that (I noticed I'm not a big fan of minigames in Zelda).

I forgot to mention that Oracle of Ages has a final boss. Unlike whatever that thing in Oracle of Seaons is, anything but a final boss.

I don't want to be repetitive so as far as the other elements of both games go (like the pets, graphics and difficulty) I think I covered them all on the Oracle of Seasons review because my criticism holds for Ages too on those matters. So to finish the Oracle of Ages review I'd would say that it's a fun game. The focus on the story hooked me and solving puzzles felt nicer than slaying mummies and bats. I don't know why but I like the atmosphere of this game. Zoras's domain, the library and symetry city are lovely. And Tingle is in this game, that's important to mention. There's definetly moments here I think I won't see in any other Zelda games. But as a standalone game though, I still think that Link's Awakening is the one to go.

I'm done with Zelda games for this year. The ones I got backlogged are A Link to the Past, Zelda II, Majora's Mask and Windwaker. Which one should I play next year?

------ There will be spoilers down here ------
I want to use this final section to talk about the linked game and also to appraise the execution. It's important to mention that I'm talking about my experience playing Seasons and then continuing the story on Ages. It's a small game so the main difference are some dialogues and characters from the previous game played. Despite that it is done very well, I felt like being part of a bigger story and the references to the prior adventure are always good. One example is Rosa, a "subrosian" who you help in Seasons. Here the roles are reversed and she's the one to helps you. Also, throughout the gameplay you'll encounter characters that give you codes to unlock power ups on the other game. But that doesn't do much because everything to do in the other game has been done. For the future I plan to replay both games but Ages first and the Seasons.

As for the story and gameplay the reward is minimal. The twins capture Zelda and since them and the other two bosses lit each their own flame, Ganon is back. So we get a 3 stage final battle, the first two stages we fight against Twinrova and the in the final stage we fight Ganon. It's a tough battle, a cool challenge that was definitely missing in Oracle of Seasons.
After that... that's it. A title screen with Link sailing away in the Link's Awakening boat. I won't lie, I was expecting more for completing the story but I think the experience is worth it. I want to point that these are games for people who love the Zelda game series. If you're not invested you won't have a good time with these entries.

Aside from A Link to the Between Worlds, I think I played every handheld Zelda game. I'll summarize my experience with them here:

Link's Awakening: charming adventure that laid the groundwork for the series. Can't recommend this enough;

Oracle of Seasons and Ages: fun entries, despite not adding much to the series they are special in their own way;

Minish Cap: By far the best handheld entry. Amazing graphics, dungeons, mechanics, characters, story, everything. Not for everyone though;

Four Swords: I wish I could play with 3 friends but playing with my friend in school was a good time. They nailed the coop mechanics;

Phantom Hourglass: don't be discouraged by the controls, it's a cool game with a lot of stumbles. Play it if you can.

Spirit Tracks: it improves the predecessor in every way except the world traversal. Play it if you liked Phantom Hourglass.