I have a bit of history with Oracle of Ages in particular. I first played this game years ago on the 3DS virtual console, but I was always stuck at the final boss. I just couldn't beat it. Now because of a challenge I've started, this game was selected to be the one I played, so I knew what I needed to do.
Before anything else, I want to add I didn't do the game link stuff. I want to do that when I play Oracle of Seasons, as it feels more fitting to do it when I play the other game. But regardless.
I think Oracle of Ages is really interesting! Being a puzzle-oriented game, this is definitely up my alley. And a lot of the puzzles are really fun, I definitely got stuck a couple times, but I was able to eventually figure things out. The time travel mechanic allowed for such interesting puzzles too, switching back and forth between past and present, and seeing what actions in the past effect the present. It's all really fun!
The bosses as well definitely feel like puzzles too. And while for the most part none of the bosses are too annoying, I didn't really care for the Crown Dungeon boss. Funnily enough though, the one boss I couldn't originally beat was among the bosses I beat on the first try this time around.
I feel like certain parts of the game soured my whole experience of it though. It doesn't ruin the game by any means, but it just makes it not as good as it could've been. For one, once I got the Mermaid Tail, the swimming controls were terrible. They were fine for general movement, but for precise movement, which is sometimes necessary, it was terrible. And god, the entire Goron segment was terrible. Most of the minigames were fine, and on their own passable, but that damn Goron Dance. It's the only minigame you have to do twice, and even though it's a basic memory game, somehow the timing you need is just off in some form. It just became really damn frustrating.
Oracle of Ages is an interesting game. It's far from my favorite Zelda title, but it's not a bad game for the most part. I really do wanna see a remake for this game if possible, alongside its sister title. It could definitely touch up the rough edges this game has.

Definitely does not have the story of its predecessor. In some places it makes up for this, I absolutely love the dungeons so far and overall they are actually an improvement. The whole island section is now one of my favourite moments in any Zelda game for how tight and thoughtfully challenging it is. I enjoy the RPG aspects included for more variety as well. Definitely coming back to this but I do find it harder to engage with as while I like its puzzles, I dislike being stuck in the overworld because of some random person I need to talk to in some meaningless location.

these games were so charming dude. dungeons, bosses, graphics, music are all peak. some of the best pixel art on the GBC. it's crazy how well capcom emulated the zelda formula. easily better than LA/minish cap


patches used:

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3580/ - Oracle of Ages Force GBA Enhanced Mode
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3589/ - Oracle of Ages GBC palettes
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2934/ - Oracle of Ages VWF Edition

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.

Pros: Ages is one half of the Oracles duo for GBC, and this is a big unique Zelda adventure. Top-down, classic puzzles, dungeons, actions, tons of unique new weapons/items, magic ring collection, and so much more, hell, there's even Animal Buddies in this, Moosh the flying bear, Ricky the Kangaroo, and Dmitri the Dodongo (no Epona, which always felt strange to me, but hey, I love me some rideable animals). Ages has the unique gimmick of time travel, but it's not like OoT's, no you're just travelling to the way past, and back to the present, which shows a ton of changes in the overworld and the people you come across. There's great puzzles in this one for reasons like that, and just in general, Ages is more puzzle focused than Seasons is. I recall dungeons were a bit trickier in this one too. One thing that I remember liking more about Ages than Seasons, was that Ages had Zora, the same type of Zora from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, and that was really cool to me. It had Gorons too! It was just nice to have 2D 8-bit depictions of these characters and races that were created in the 3D era. It's a good time! And upon beating both Ages and Seasons, you get a special extra final boss that's definitely worth doing!

Cons: There's some Game Boy limitations felt, just like with Link's Awakening. Smaller screen, and only two action buttons for all of your weapon usage. And... I didn't really dig the time travel stuff in this game nearly as much as I did the season changing gimmick in Oracle of Seasons. So that one gets half a star higher than this one, that'd be why.

What it means to me: After completing Seasons, I was hooked, I had to get my hands on Ages somehow! I believe at the time, my step brother had gotten the game, and so I just... played his copy, transferring over my password from Seasons, heh! Whatever it took! These two games were a grand journey, and it was the first time I ever really completed a Zelda adventure all by my little lonesome.

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.

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.

A mostly enjoyable experience. I've had a difficult time getting into 2D Zeldas, but this is definitely one of the best ones I've played so far. A lot of creativity in its puzzles, and the dungeons are mostly pretty good too. None of them are terribly long, and they do reuse some types of puzzles, but reused content is expanded upon and never actually felt repetitive.

There are also lengthy segments of the game between dungeons. One is downright awful (Goron Dancing and that whole minigame section before the 6th dungeon), but then others are outstanding and make up for it (Tokay Island quest before the 3rd dungeon).

No individual segment, dungeon or in-between dungeons, is very long, so it's pretty easy to play in short bursts and feel like you accomplished something. I often would take a break after finishing a dungeon or reaching the next dungeon. The game has good pacing, and aside from the leadup to the 6th dungeon, doesn't feel like it drags on.

The actual premise of the game is interesting and delivers on its potential. The ability to travel between the past and present is fun and it creates a lot of cool puzzles. Almost everything in the game feels fair to solve as well, although there were 1 or 2 points when I gave up and consulted a guide.

Overall, Oracle of Ages is a pretty good game. It's nothing that will blow you away, and definitely has low points, but its great parts make up for it to me.

8/10

Having never played Oracle of Ages and hearing that its was more puzzle based I decided to start with it. And I think it was a wise decision. Some of the puzzles require more patience that I would have it if I was playing the Linked game.

JFC, whoever designed those color-based Puzzles deserves a place in hell.

Regardless, I had a lot of fun with Ages and this reinforces my idea that Oracle games are underrated. Yes, the map is kinda small and nothing here is revolutionary for the Zelda formula, but Ages is still an incredible fun adventure worth having.