Well done Capcom and Flagship, you’ve redeemed yourself in my eyes.Ever since The Legend of Zelda released on the NES, Nintendo has played the franchise relatively close to its chest. But Ages‘ complexity and willingness to let you get properly stuck makes me feel like the game respects me. The Oracle duo are probably the last time a Zelda game was truly challenging, with most subsequent entries having a nasty habit of wrapping Link in bubble wrap and heavily signposting what to do and where to go next. I still vibe on these being some of the last truly 8-bit games – it’s nuts that these throwbacks were released in the same year as Metal Gear Solid 2 and Grand Theft Auto 3. I’m never going to play these again, but I’m glad I ended on a high note by playing Ages after Seasons. On top of that they’re extremely difficult – Ganon is not messing around here, even committing the cardinal gaming sin of reversing your controls mid-fight. The bonus bosses can be played in either game, so all three just use your sword. Ages‘ bosses contain cool puzzle elements and require you to master your cool toys. This meant I got to bring my power-up rings from Seasons along with me and also opened up the true ending, where you fight Twinrova and a partially resurrected Ganon. This kind of thing is very much my jam.Īdding to my enjoyment was playing Ages as a ‘linked’ game – starting it with a code I received after finishing Seasons. Then you can return to the past, show it off and inspire him to finish his work. The solution? Travel to the future hundreds of years after his death, dig up his grave to steal it from his corpse. But there’s a sly Bill and Ted style vibe, like when you come across an inventor who hasn’t yet perfected the rope you need to sail across the ocean. These are usually pretty simple – a guy says “I heard long ago a great hero cured the King of his disease” and you travel back in time and become that great hero. The tree is unhappy because she has the hots for Link, but he only has eyes for Zelda.īeyond the dungeons there’s also time-shifting puzzles in the overworld. It challenged me, but was scrupulously fair about it.īeyond the dungeons there’s also time-shifting puzzles in the overworld. Zelda and difficulty have a funny relationship – running the gamut from the sadistic Zelda 2 to the hand-holding of Skyward Sword, but this felt nicely pitched. I was bruised and tired when I crawled out of Jabu Jabu’s mouth, but I had the Essence of the Rolling Sea clutched tightly my hands and no-one can take that away from me. After three hours of exploring every inch of that fish’s guts everything finally snapped into place. This is a Water Temple-like three-floor nightmare of raising and lowering water levels to change the layout of rooms and the behaviour of your items. This is a notoriously tough dungeon: I read a retrospective advising players to not even attempt it and just follow a walkthrough. There are some genuinely challenging brainteasers here that made me extremely happy when I finally figured them – the best example of which is Jabu Jabu’s Belly Sure, each room contains various contained puzzles, but many of them end up combining in interesting ways – and reward thinking outside the box and using all your equipment. This Goron rhythm minigame is notoriously tough, but my Space Channel 5 skills saw me through it.Īges‘ dungeons – especially the later ones – treat the whole place as one big machine that you must manipulate to succeed. But you soon realize that Ages presents bigger multi-part puzzles that require a good memory and spatial (and temporal) awareness. Going into Ages I was a bit sceptical of this, as Seasons had plenty of puzzles in it. I’d read that Oracles was intended to focus on combat and Ages on puzzles. But though it’s nice to have more motivation, I don’t play Zelda for the plot. Sultry time-travelling sorceress Veran isn’t exactly deep, but she’s much a better villain than generic bad dude General Onox. So what’s different? Well, on basic terms Ages has a substantially better story than Seasons. This pair of games share 95% of their DNA, but that 5% made all the difference. It proves that a game’s quality can rest on a knife-edge. Well, I’m pleased to report that Ages is way better than Seasons. I was expecting more of the same but just wanted to get through it to the cel-shaded awesomeness of The Wind Waker. Seasons rubbed me up the wrong way, and Ages was developed at the same time by the same people. After not particularly enjoying Oracle of Seasons I had doubts about going into The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages so soon.
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