The oracle duology intended to focus on one aspect each that make up the basic gameplay of a typical zelda game, puzzle solving and action. Ages is the one that focuses on the puzzles, though for clarification sake it's more like a 60% to 40% ratio of puzzle solving to action respectively, if that makes sense. Regardless, the spotlight is on the puzzles, and the rest of the game revolves around them:

Obvious stuff out of the way, the controls are solid and while it being a gbc game proved a barrier to me initially (due to not having played many games from that system as well as feeling too weird on a pc), the audio and visuals really grew on me. I think my only major complaint really is the lack of enough buttons (more on the system than on the game) which led to a lot opening and closing of the menu just to alternate between items. It’s particularly frustrating during boss fights since it breaks the tension, but at the least its the case with only a few of them.

You’d think a name like Labrynna would be pretty on the nose about the overworld being structured like a labyrinth, but progression in the land actually seems quite linear. The typical gameplay loop is being given access to a limited area initially, being only able to continue onto the next objective by utilizing your items or a new gimmick to access and traverse through a new area. This is made further interesting through the time travel mechanic accessed by the Harp of Ages. If you’re familiar with A Link to the Past, its like the traversal between the light and dark worlds. It feels more well-utilized here due to being present from very early on in the game, as well as being required to solve almost every major obstacle in the way that blocks progress. Furthermore it’s more apparent how actions in the past can affect the present, and the major consequences these can have makes it all the more fun. Time travel is a bit limiting at first however, requiring you to use designated portals to traverse between the past and present; you do gain access to two new songs for the Harp however, ultimately leading to free traversal anywhere on the overworld. I do wish these songs were available earlier as later points in the game can get frustrating due to excessive walking around to find and use a portal, but it’s not a deal breaker. The overworld itself is interesting otherwise with neat locales, the Zora Seas being my favourite.

Dungeons are primarily about puzzles of course. This isn’t to say you should be lax about enemies, but your ability for puzzle solving is the main thing that’s going to be tested. That also makes them easily the best and most fun part about the dungeons; the game is not chill about amping up the difficulty of these puzzles the more you progress and the process of trying to figure them out and solving them made it extremely satisfying for me. This extends to the bosses as well, who require some thinking to learn how to beat; a few go a little further by feeling more like a “regular dungeon puzzle” than an actual “boss battle”, if that makes any sense. Items are also well utilized and most are often necessary for areas outside of the initial location you get them in.

While the game generally does a good job of having challenging yet satisfying gameplay, some parts of the game, mostly in the latter half, can feel unnecessarily frustrating. It’s a mix of progression feeling too obtuse at times and/or complicated methods requiring the use of multiple mechanics and/or items that can become annoying after a while. Some examples in my case: Crescent Island can be really annoying since you lose all your items initially and have to get them back. It’s made a little worse by the constant back and forth due to being unable to have two items at the same time until right around the end of that whole fiasco. Rolling Ridge got really frustrating since it requires a lot of going back and forth between goron npcs to get access to the next dungeon. It’s made more complicated by having to also travel between the past and present and some sections within the area having enemies (albeit, simple enemies, but still annoying.) One particular section requires two items to use in conjunction every single time. Moreover you have to do a few minigames with the gorons, and the dancing minigame man, just no. It gets overwhelming. Mermaid’s Cave was very tedious; it's the first to integrate the time mechanic into its puzzles but since time travel is only allowed on the overworld, it makes for a lot of annoying backtracking made worse by enemies always respawning. Speaking of, some new enemies are also introduced which are annoying to beat quick. You also get the mermaid suit, allowing you to dive underwater, but this mechanic is unfortunately pretty awful initially due to swimming now requiring have to tap the arrow buttons constantly. It ended up being my least favourite dungeon due in part having gotten stuck on how to progress for a long while as well. Jabu Jabu’s Belly seems to be notorious for being one of the most frustrating, hardest dungeons in the series apparently. I actually like it more than Mermaid’s Cave, but it is challenging due in part the non-linear progression here requiring changing the water levels. It also feels pretty long and if you’re not used to how swimming works you’re gonna hate it even more.

The story isn’t really that noteworthy, usually involving some crisis in new areas Link has to solve to progress. There are some characters that make frequent appearances but besides the Maku Tree they’re also nothing really special, including the Oracle of Ages herself; this is more on me for making expectations prior to playing, but I’d have thought Nayru would have more of a presence and perhaps be the one guiding Link. Ah, well, it is what it is. I want to say Veran is a notable main villain, but my reasons really just come down to her being a rare female villain for this series and her funny as hell final boss form. As to be expected from a non-Linked version, the story ends on a cliffhanger; the story truly concludes if you play a Linked Game of Seasons. It certainly has me excited to play that.

I’m too tired to really go indepth much on the dungeons right now, but to make a quick summary: Spirit’s Grove is relatively simple with basic puzzle mechanics, good for a first dungeon, same for the Wing Dungeon (plus points for being where you get the Roc’s Feather, one of my fave items from the game). Moonlit Grotto is where the puzzles start feeling more advanced, and had me thinking a good few minutes here and there. The path to getting to Skull Dungeon is pretty annoying but the dungeon itself is fine otherwise; it introduces another fave item, the switch hook, leading to my favourite puzzle gimmick. Crown Dungeon mostly is made up of the red and blue block mechanic ever so present in alttp dungeons, the boss here was super annoying though, but the concept was fun by heavily involving the cane of somaria. I’ve already spoke on Mermaid’s Cave and Jabu Jabu Vore, Ancient Tomb initially felt pretty frustrating but it quickly grew on me, I’m inclined to say it was cuz of the previous dungeons that I was feeling more down if anything. The boss here is tougher two, with three phases, but I liked it. The Black Tower is mostly just going up some rooms fighting a variety of enemies till you get to the Turret that’s kind of just blah with its puzzle. Veran is the final boss with a total of three phases, one of which you already fight before (its fine but requires constant menu switching that really breaks the pace), the 2nd form is a winged version of her that’s kind of funny to look at and its also relatively simple, the final form of her as a turtle is fucking funny and stupid lmao but the bee and spider form are pretty rad; that final phase is still relatively simple though, with the spider requiring the additional use of the bomb.

Overall, Ages is definitely a game I’d recommend. I think one major barrier might be that if you haven’t played Zelda in a while or never before then it might prove more frustrating due to having to deal with both challenging puzzles and learning to deal with different sorts of enemies; for that reason, some might recommend to play Seasons first. Regardless, give it a try still, its a good time.

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.

The Oracle dualogy has always been a blind spot for me when it comes to the Zelda series. I was so glad to find upon diving in that not only does Oracle of Ages live up to the high bar the Zelda series has set for itself, but it also executes certain ideas better than other games in the series!

The story is fairly standard for a Zelda game. In Oracle of Ages, Link finds himself in the world of Labrynna needing to rescue the Oracle of Ages herself, Nayru from the clutches of evil. And lo and behold, you do this by spelunking through many dungeons, gaining new items, and helping the townsfolk of the world in typical Zelda fashion. The main gimmick of this game is the Harp of Ages, an item that allows you to teleport between two separate maps of Labrynna, the past timeline, and the present timeline.

Traversing through the world to locate your next objective presents itself as a puzzle box. With only the vaguest sense of direction as to where your next objective lies, you need to poke and prod at the limits of the map to chart your course. The act of getting from point A to point B can be challenging, requiring clever use of the items in your arsenal as well as spatial thinking of how the past and present world maps fit together. While the path you take through Oracle of Ages is strictly linear, I found that exploring the world still felt open-ended and rewarded my curiosity. Two aspects of the game's design are key to my feeling this way.

1. The game does not care if you get lost and do not know where to go next.
2. Your traversal of the world unfolds entirely on a continuous map.

I got lost many times throughout the adventure! However, I found that getting lost only increased the satisfaction I felt when determining the correct path forward. Since the world map you traverse is relatively small in the grand scheme of things, there are only so many places to check when figuring out where to go next. The game design allows you to get lost in the world of Labrynna but be rewarded for your exploration efforts before too long. Having your exploration take place across one continuous map also helps to instill this feeling. It feels as if you are exploring a living space rather than discrete zones.

I was surprised to find myself constantly comparing the world design of Oracle of Ages to that of Skyward Sword; both of which are games directed by Hidemaro Fujibayashi. Skyward Sword's world design acts in a very similar fashion where traveling through the overworld to get to the next objective feels like one giant traversal puzzle. While I like Skyward Sword, you rarely feel like you are charting your own course through its world. The linearity of your route becomes obvious since the way forward is constantly signposted and overworld areas are separated into distinct zones. This makes the world feel more disconnected.

Oracle of Age's dungeons are also a delight to puzzle out. Many of the games' dungeons force you to think about the architecture of the entire space rather than only think about one puzzle in a specific room. In that way, Age's overworld design and dungeon design are tightly linked. My favorite Zelda dungeons adopt this approach and it's why the Crown Dungeon, Mermaid's Cave, and Jabu Jabu's Belly were some of my favorite dungeons in the game.

This is a top-tier 2D Zelda experience and I'm excited to see what lies in store in Oracle of Seasons.

Favorite Tracks: For a Zelda game, the soundtrack is unfortunately one of the weaker aspects. The dungeon themes especially don't stand out much and can seem to drone on.

Title Screen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3LXEInpQCc&list=PL2F0B084555138765&index=1

Skull Dungeon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K4RR12EUhs&list=PL2F0B084555138765&index=21

Boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f327T53lEmM&list=PL2F0B084555138765&index=45

Credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOvyyiv8fHk&list=PL2F0B084555138765&index=41

Not as big on the time travel mechanic as I am the seasons mechanic because it was done before and, time wise, using the harp is more tedious than the rod in OoS. There are some great dungeons but the bizarre control change for swimming after getting the mermaid suit is my biggest reason for preferring the other version. Swimming becomes obnoxious. The reuse of music and graphics is why I ultimately end up preferring Link's Awakening to either Oracle game. Nonetheless, Ages is still an enjoyable game.

I have genuinely no idea why everyone says this game is more focused on puzzles than Seasons, in the slightest. There's a couple okay dungeons in the second half of the game but everything else about this game was a linear snoozefest I really didn't feel like playing. The puzzles and overworld design never get anywhere close to the creativity and depth that Seasons consistently churned out, which really surprised me as these games came out on the same day. The music was way worse than Seasons too. The story is better but that's not saying a whole lot.
Better than Zelda 1, I guess, but this game is what I thought the Oracle games were before I had played them fully.