I have an old GameCube with a Nintendo Advanced
attachment, so I plugged in these games and played them that way so I wouldn’t
have to strain my eyes looking at a small screen. Even though they were blown
up way bigger than they were ever meant to be on a modern screen the games still
looked pretty good. While the graphics lacked the “pop” of the sixteen bit
Zelda games they were still relatively pleasant to look at. The boss designs
were interesting, as were some of the NPC sprites. The environments were also very well done,
and I personally find them more impressive than a lot of what was in the
original Zelda and Link to the Past—to which these two games owe quite a bit in
terms of concepts and design.
The design of these games was really well done, with
interrelated stories and characters and solid game play. The Nintendo
color was only an 8-bit system, but Nintendo managed to draw on some of the
best developments of earlier Zelda games. Compared to LTTP there was an actual
narrative and a story worth following, and the side characters were somewhat
interesting. The most interesting feature of the games however was the password
system that let you move data from one game to another; continuing the story
and unlocking special items and secrets. While the password system as not aged
well, it makes the overall gameplay far more interesting. I especially enjoyed
the 2-D Mario like environments inserted into parts of the game. The one design
element worth complaining about is the controls. In many Zelda game the
sword is permanently assigned to one button and you can assign a weapon of choice
to another button. The shield is not assigned to any button. It is an accessory which just deflects things coming
at you from a certain angle. In these games both of the two buttons can be
assigned a weapon. The problem with this is there is no way to quickly cycle
through the weapons other than pausing, and while putting the shield on a
button makes it more usable, you usually need the button for something else. It took me quite a while to adjust to this
control scheme and I never liked interrupting gameplay to quickly switch
weapons, something that I found necessary against the final bosses.
The story linking the two games is a bit simplistic. The
Triforce drops you into a land you and have to save the local holy maiden from
some evil force. In the end its revealed that the evil forces are part of a plot to revive Ganon. I’ve heard they meant to make a third game but
had to settle for two. As a result there seems to be a slight plot hole at the
end covered up by some sloppy writing. However I find the story elements make
the games much more interesting on the whole. It’s clear that in the near
decade between the Oracle series and LTTP Nintendo learned a good deal about
story telling. While the story is not nearly as polished as in latter handhelds
like Link Between Worlds or even Spirit Tracks, It is a marked improvement over
many early entries in the franchise.
Comparing the two games, I always felt that Oracle of Ages
was a better game than Seasons as a kid. I still feel that the story of Ages
is better, but overall I think Seasons as a slight edge. The bosses and dungeons
are more difficult. But Ages has a slightly more enjoyable map,
whereas the map in Seasons gets very annoying with the four different seasons
giving only slight changes totally necessary to navigate from place to place.
The secrets that could be accessed in the play through of the second game make
it far easier but also add an element of fun. I especially enjoyed Biggoron’s
sword which made several of the boss fights much easier.
While I based this review on original copies of these games
for the Game Boy Color I have heard they are available for the 3DS via virtual
console. I am happy to hear this because these games are certainly worth
playing and among the best of the 2D Zelda games.
9.2 out of 10
-Gedaemon
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