Review: The Legend of Zelda: The Oracle of Ages

[Luneth Uchiha 72]

Link is drawn to Hyrule Castle by the Triforce when he is magically warped to the land of Labrynna. He meets Impa, a traveller who is being ambushed by monsters and chases off the monsters. Link helps impa move a "rock" and meets the oracle Nayru. However, upon meeting Nayru, Impa starts acting weird, as it turns out that Impa was all this time possessed by a sorceress, Veran. Veran then possesses Nayru and escapes into the past. Link chases Veran into the past and thus, Link's adventure through time begins...

------

[i]The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages[/i] was released in 2001. It was the first [i]Zelda[/i] game not to be entirely made by Nintendo (excluding CD-i games). It was made along with it's counterpart game [i]The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons [/i]in a partnership with Nintendo and Capcom. It featured 9 dungeons, and had an ability to connect to Oracle of Seasons for bonus material, such as if onel linked a game from [i]Ages [/i]to [i]Seasons[/i] instead of playing through Seasons on it's own, it has a different ending.

[i]Oracle of Ages[/i] story was overall pretty well done. It kept you eager to know what would happen next, but it had some drawbacks. Towards the end of the game it repeats parts found earlier in the game. Finally, the biggest problem with the story was that it had a cliff hanger for the ending, almost requiring you to play Seasons along with it. It enforced playing both versions a little too much towards the end of the game and story.

While gameplay was well done, unfortunately, it was literally the same gameplay as [i]The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening[/i], a game released 8 years before. Combat system was nearly identical, and borrowed a lot of the same puzzles. However, they did make the bosses harder in a lot of ways, and added the system of What you do in the past affects the present and etc. That was a nice twist that made up for an old combat system.

These were for the most part nice graphics, however, such as the combat system, almost all of the graphics were borrowed from [i]Link's Awakening[/i]. They reused most of the same monsters, tiles, and even characters in the same set as [i]Link's Awakening[/i], but they gave them color. Plus as kind of another sign of laziness, most of the monsters that appear in game, are color swaps of ones that appear earlier in the game. Same monster: Just a different color with more health and attack power.

Nintendo and Capcom did really well with the music. The music would affect the mood of the game. The music while composed by a different composer as regular [i]Zelda [/i]games, was nearly as good, if not better. It would linger in your mind, and all seemed to perfectly fit each area.

For the most part, [i]Oracle of Ages[/i] is a simple game. The bosses and dungeons can be easy for the most parts. HOWEVER, this game also had difficulties that would make you grind your teeth in frustration, such as the fifth dungeon, you could spend hours looking for that last spare key, just so you can make it to the boss, who then took you a lot of attempts to defeat. Or Jabu Jabu's Stomach, a later dungeon that played a lot like Water Temple from Ocarina of Time, but much harder. It is this difficulty that makes this game worth while.

This game is definitely worth at least trying, especially if you plan on playing Seasons. While it did borrow alot from earlier game[i] Link's Awakening[/i], it did was a lot of fun to play, and did have a lot of epic moments throughout the story line. It had a lot of parts that you would spend along time doing over and over due to intense difficulty of it, such as Goron dancing, Jabu Jabu's Stomach, the mine cart mini game, bomb dancing, and even traveling through time to solve all the plot problems.

Story: 7/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 6/10
Music & sound: 10/10
Replayability: 8/10
[size=3][b]Overall score: 7.8/10[/b][/size]

[i]Ovarall score not an average.[/i]

[Labrynnian 0]

My very first Zelda game. Ahh, I remember those Sundays playing with my friend in our Game Boy Color, hours and hours....


I'm so nostalgic that I must stop talking, if not, I'll cry like a kid xDD ...

[Sahaqiel 1232]

I don't see what's wrong with borrowing elements from a different game if it's different enough. :|
Hence, Majora's Mask.
It's not like they recycled environments, too.
And color-based monster ranks have been around since the original LoZ.
Sahaqiel

[Luneth Uchiha 72]

The only problem with the oracle games borrowing is it's from a game over 8 years older than them. MM borrowed from a game only 2 years older than it.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Oh ho ho ho.
Almost every Zelda game has borrowed music from a predecessor.
Hence LoZ overworld.
Age doesn't have to do anything with it. Spirit Tracks borrows from LoZ. It has Link in it.
OH HO HO HO, THEY'RE BORROWING CHARACTERS, OH NO.
Sahaqiel