Did you know there is a major supporting character in Zelda named Ralph? I didn't either, until playing this game.

After playing Oracle of Seasons I wasn't expecting Oracle of Ages to have much of a story. In Seasons the only real story takes place at the beginning and end of the game, so I was expecting the same here. But it seems as though someone at Capcom really wanted to make their Zelda fanfiction into an officially licensed Nintendo game, so the end result is Oracle of Ages.

The story in Oracle of Ages is about the oracle Nayru being possessed by a sorceress named Veran. Veran uses Nayru's control of time to bring sorrow to the people of Labrynna. She travels back in time and manipulates the queen into forcing the citizens to build a dark tower without rest. It's up to Link to stop Veran and save Nayru.

It's a weird story for a Zelda game, but at this point I appreciate any Zelda story that's different from the usual "Ganon is up to no good" schtick (although Ganon does appear in a linked game). The story takes a more active approach and even has a few small twists, which is appreciated for an old gameboy Zelda like this. Time travel has been done before in Zelda, but it was still interesting to watch the present time changing based on Veran wreaking havoc in the past. She's a much better villain than Onox, who doesn't do much.

The story, while not life-changing, helped draw me the world of this otherwise pretty uninspired Zelda game. The time shifting mechanic is the main gimmick, but it's functionally the same as the ALttP dark world, and narratively it isn't as interesting as travelling to OoT's ruined future. This game also has one of the most boring selections of dungeon items out of any Zelda game. Three of the dungeon items are just upgrades to existing items and one is the wand from ALttP that just creates a block. The true saving grace of this game is the Switch Hook, which is an interesting concept not really seen in future Zelda games. It's good for puzzle solving, which this game has a lot of.

It is said that Oracle of Ages focuses more on puzzle solving while Oracle of Seasons focuses more on combat. I've played both, so which would I say is the right approach? Well, 2D Zelda combat isn't anything too special (much like 3D Zelda combat to be honest), but higher difficulty mostly comes from more combat scenarios because the fail-state of solving puzzles isn't as punishing. So I like how the challenge ramps up in Seasons. But I miss the truly intricate puzzle design of the pre-BotW games, so I appreciated the dungeons of Oracle of Ages way more.

I also appreciated the overworld design of OoA way more than OoS. Oracle of Seasons carries the Skyward Sword philosophy of "solve puzzles to get around the overworld", which can be a bit of a hassle. Oracle of Ages has a simpler overworld, so you're free to travel around the area you've unlocked without running into anything that will break the pace.

Oracle of Ages is less inspired than Oracle of Seasons in some ways but I definitely prefer it based on the gameplay differences. Most people seem to prefer Oracle of Seasons, so I was surprised to see how much more I enjoyed this game. But whatever game you prefer, be sure to try linking the two games together because the endgame of the Oracle duology just might be the best thing about them.

Just as I said in my Seasons review: "So good. I know the limitations of the GBC can bother a lot while playing (only 2 items at the same time) but the game still shines through!
Classic 2D zelda movement, combat and everything else, which is one of my favorite types of games."
The big difference with Seasons is that this game has no handholding and just throws possibilities at you. The puzzles/dungeons are really interesting (probably some of my favorites from the series), the interaction you are able to have with the characters/npcs and the world are always clever (after you are first able to get through them, as I had to pick up a guide a few times to know how to progress), the combat is snappy and responsive!
So many praises! I absolutely loved this game, the only thing holding it back from greatness is that switching items really bothered me. Nevertheless, one of my favorite Zelda games!

+ Grand adventure on humble handheld
+ Well designed dungeons are a blast
+ Whimsical/fun new world to explore; creative use of time travel for puzzles

- Item gates and frequent item swapping make overworld exploration a chore
- RNG, bloat, and unnecessary complexity in Gacha Seed and Ring systems
- Uninspired story
- Overly iterative, doesn't bring much new to the table
- Some boss fights and puzzles should be better explained; frustrating w/o guide

I found this one to be the better of the two. The overworld especially was a lot better at using the main item for puzzles in interesting ways from saving a town in the past to using the shifting of land to reach new areas. I also enjoyed a lot of the puzzles in dungeons there where some repeating puzzle ideas that where fun to solve as they got harder. While the bosses where easier then in seasons I found most of them more fun to fight. I played ages as a linked save from seasons and i really like the added content and getting to go back to seasons for the codes for new items was cool to see. I would love to see a remake of these games like the link's awakening one on switch as these two game's biggest issue is only having two buttons for items meaning a lot to menus to swap between things. I think a remake like that might become my favorite 2D zelda as these two are already close to the top.

I played this as a linked game (get it? linked...) after playing Oracle of Seasons a few years ago. For the most part I think this is a good 2D Zelda game, and I enjoyed most of my time with it. One thing I found irritating was that some of the late game bosses were weak to things that seemed totally random to me. The eighth dungeon boss in particular was annoying as it had multiple phases and each phase had its own weakness, along with some very specific timing to exploit that weakness. It was trial and error, but a bit more extreme than I liked. It wasn't the only boss like this, but the worst offender, and these fights marred what was otherwise an enjoyable journey of exploration and discovery. Overall I think Link's Awakening is a better handheld Zelda, but Oracle of Seasons and Ages are definitely worth spending time on if you have that classic 2D Zelda itch.

It’s the same game for the most part so most of what I said regarding Seasons applies here except a few things. I mentioned liking Ages more the other day when speaking about how I felt about Seasons and after completing it the feeling is roughly still the same. While the issue of dungeons meshing together and lacking memorable theming is still prevalent, Ages’ selection was more striking with the emphasis on a puzzle box design rather than Seasons’ simpler approach with attention on enemy encounters and open feel with the various items and weapons gained in the journey; this isn’t to say the dungeon items in Ages didn’t have combat potential but the selection is very geared towards solving challenges, a decent amount that stumped me and were pretty satisfying when not recycling basic color matching puzzles. While not all of them are winners, at least half of them left a pretty good impression with some sprawling challenges across rooms and cool room-specific ones all distinctive to the levels; Mermaid’s Cave and the Ancient Tomb being my favorites with how meaty and complex at times they were structurally in unlocking everything within even with the systemic issue of lackluster bosses and dungeon identity.

Regarding time traveling versus seasonal control, my opinion on the former has grown with the harp of ages being a much better and interesting experience with the latter half of the game introducing a free transition between the past and present without needing to be at a specific tile unlike the rod of seasons still requiring it even after getting all of the seasons. It’s more fluid and less obvious like seeing a random stump on the screen nudging the use of mechanic which Ages eases off of later on. I can see complaints of this leading to time traveling puzzles being too obscure but given the kitchen sink approach that is already prevalent throughout both games’ designs, it didn’t feel like too much of a hassle and finding out these secrets were very thrilling rather than frustrating in most circumstances.

Even more surprising is how involved combat still is even with puzzles taking the spotlight. Several boss battles still relied on pretty simple solutions of sword striking weak points or bomb/seed throwing if the dungeon items aren’t relevant to damaging them. Enemies still litter the screen within the dungeons and a part of me wished there were less of these encounters as it does interrupt some of the flow in solving the puzzles and led to a lot of frustration. The Black tower and the final boss fight felt geared more towards Seasons’ combat gauntlet and survival design rather than Ages’ more puzzle-centric design and it would have been more interesting if Ages dug its nails deeper into own focus more, despite still enjoying what it did here coming out of the game.

Ages also weirdly feels more padded in getting to the dungeons with the aforementioned Mermaid’s Cave requiring a particularly heinous one. Seasons required only one dancing mini game in order to get an item and progress the story, while Ages throws four (six counting an earlier ones in a separate chapters) Goron-related mini games in a row to complete in order to receive specific key items for a needlessly long fetch quest to unlock the dungeon. These four mini games, especially the Goron Dance and Big Bang Game, were particularly headache-induing without save states and felt overkill in adding more length and ‘difficulty’ to the game. The path to the dungeons is a tradition in the series but they felt especially long and tedious in Ages, even unlocking Jabu Jabu’s Belly given the insane swimming control of the mermaid suit “upgrade”. People talk about Mario Party’s joystick rubbing with mini-games and yet I never hear about Ages’ mermaid suit, even in the fandom, requiring thumb spamming the D-pad to move an ounce in the water versus holding down a single direction before getting it and the suit can’t be removed with much of the rest of the game necessitating swimming.

While adventuring can still be done here, the world of Labrynna is immensely more clunky and less expansive by design compared to Holodrum. Holodrum’s roaming and adventuring isn’t as prominent with navigation being more railroaded and more of a chore, though this could be a side effect of burnout from playing them back to back rather than experiencing Ages as my first like Seasons. There are still pretty distinctive areas to Labrynna like the Yoll Graveyard, Zora Village, the Forest of Time, and Crescent Island with the version exclusive Tokay species; time traveling offers some nice differences in layout and puzzles even with the smaller scale and detail of the larger world. Additionally, underwater traversal is a unique component to Ages and it is way more fleshed out than the handful of times it popped up in Seasons; even with the complaint of how obtrusive it is to move, the mermaid suit opens up so much of the aquatic terrain, done very well in the trek to the Zora Village and the lead up to Jabu Jabu but it feels like more could have been done with having more of these opportunities and thus giving Labrynna more spice in a pretty whatever overworld where the dungeons were more the star of the show.

At the very least, Ages has much more going on narratively. It follows the same structure of Seasons but with Nayru needing rescuing but more screen time is given to plot development and some original characters. Veran, the main antagonist, is more memorable than Onox with the usage of time in causing harm and gaining control, though she ends up being as milquetoast as Onox with them both being a set up for Link’s final encounter with Twinova and Ganon as the linked game ending. Ralph, off and on hothead and protector of Nayru, has some funny encounters with Link along with a nice twist in the end but nothing to write home about. Overall there is a more of a story compared to Seasons but I’m grasping at straws for what is still pretty by-the-numbers, even worse with the secret final bosses of the linked game being a weak puzzle leading to two lengthy fights with Twinova and then Ganon to cap it off. It felt very out of place with Ages’ focus but this critique could still be applied to Seasons if I experienced it there rather than here.

Anyways, yeah yeah remake, pull it from the dusty tomb of the game boy color, Nintendo is never gonna make another 2D Zelda game again because they’re in their 3D 'open air' era, please don’t make the Goron mini games all mandatory for story progression if this does get remade or I will scream.