The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Legend of Zelda: Jikuu no Shou

Or Oracle of Ages.

This time it is up to Link to stop the Evil Time Priest Veran, who has taken over the body of the Queen of Lavenne, and has started to build a Tower of Darkness to reach up to the Heavens.

The element of time is cleverly woven into gameplay by allowing Link to travel back and forth between the past and present. In the beginning you can only warp back and forth on set warp points, but later you will learn to play instruments and you'll be able to warp on the spot. So in other words, gameplay borrows heavily from Link to the Past, which would indeed be a good thing, if it didn't make me feel like, "whatever, it's been done" most of the time. Most puzzles are of the Link to the Past sort, which were great at the time, but do we really need another game in exactly the same vein?
What's more, LttP had oodles of atmosphere, a great soundtrack, an epic story and great boss battles. Oracle of Ages has none of this and really seems to be thriving on its parent's success. This game was made for Gameboy Color but was released only shortly before the release of the Gameboy Advance, maybe even shortly after, I'm not sure, so I think most people played this on their GBA. Knowing that, I see absolutely no reason why anyone would want to choose this over the rerelease of LttP, unless you've already played it, in which case this game has little new to offer.

It also borrows a lot of elements of Ocarina of Time, in terms of setting and characters, which is even less convincing and kinda like someone offering you a dollar after winning the lottery.

Also, what is it with logic in these games!? THERE IS NONE! I mean, I know the Zelda series has a healthy history of not taking itself too seriously, resulting in a very unique and charming wit that has made the series so enjoyable. Well, it's not here anymore (I love Capcom, but humor is not their strongest side) and it's been replaced by simple illogic.
Imagine this scene, right. There's this old library, and they have this very valuable artifact, only, the room it's in has somehow lost its flooring and noone can get to it anymore. The only things they know is that there's an old book somewhere that describes how to get it, so you travel back in time to the old library and you'll find the book there which the nice librarian will hand out to you immediately when you tell him you want to find out what it's for, cos he doesn't know.
Nice librarian attitude there, I'm surprised you still have any books left. But that's not the only problem! You take the book back to the present, use it to get to the rare artifact (Pixie Dust!), and the people will be so happy they finally got it back THAT THEY GIVE IT TO YOU FOR FREE as a token of their appreciation.
Yeah, that makes sense. "Oh we're so happy you have retrieved our long-lost treasure! Here, Take it!"

Whatever.

As I was not saying, this game is definitely the hardest of the two. The open-endedness of the time-travel system, some tedious and obscure fetch subquests in between and the general fact that hints seem to be just a little bit thinner on the ground make this a game where you are likely to spend some pointless running around figuring out what to do next. I never had this problem with Oracle of Seasons, but I had it several times with this one.
Also, towards the end I'd just had enough. I'm going to give this game the benefit of the doubt, cos there's the possibility that I just had enough because I've been playing it in rapid succession and after OoS as well, so it might just be an overdose. Because, on the other hand, the last couple of dungeons are some of the most original in the game. They can be hell to negotiate through though.

In all I would say that this is for more Die Hard Zelda fans, it's not quite as easily accessible as Seasons, and the fact that Ages uses a gimmick very much like LttP also gives Seasons the advantage of originality. I'd definitely say this is the least playable of the two, and if you're only going to do one (although the games are better when paired with the Password System) I say play Seasons, especially if you're already familiar with Link to the Past. An 8.8

Next up, the last instalment in the series: The Wind Waker!

posted by Ingen! @ 8:35 PM