Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (spoiler free)

[Setzertrancer]

Saving Holodrum

Oracle of Season is another Zelda game that is set outside of Hyrule and is instead in Holodrum. Which is a place that Link just so happens to come across when a disastrous event is about to shake this land. To cut it short a bad guy kidnaps Din and then causes the land's 4 four seasons to go into chaos. It is up to Link to restore the Seasons to their original state by collecting the 8 essences of Nature. Of cause as with many all Zelda game this involves going through 8 puzzle filled dungeons in order to find them. Although I haven’t yet played Oracle of Ages, the two games tend to focus on different game play elements in order to create games that can appeal to different types of gamers. Oracle of Seasons is the game that is based more around action and general difficulty of the enemies rather then hard puzzles. There are puzzles in OoS but they are evidently quite simple. Trying to get through the dungeons and the wilderness tend to make this Zelda a but of a hack and slash game, with the most common thing required of you to get to the next room of the dungeon being to defeat all of the enemies. The world is quite a large place to explore with 16 x 16 screens to explore in a style like all the other handheld and other older Zelda games and there is also a slightly smaller world that resembles and underground hell, filled with friendly NPCs to explore as well.

Always Keep your Sword Equipped

The difficulty of Oracle of Seasons is intense and you'll often find yourself walking carefully through the dungeons flinching at everything that moves because you only have a quarter of a heart left. Many of the enemies in the game also require you to switch weapons and items quite often just so it's possible to beat them and this can get annoying at times because you have to keep going into your inventory and changing the one button you can assign to an item, because you pretty much have to always have your sword equipped. There are also a lot of miniquest to do in the game and things to find. For example you can collect rings which you can have appraised and they have a variety of effects from turning you into an Octorok to increasing the damage of your sword, unfortunately a majority of the rings tend to be useless or have very minor effects like protecting you from the fire attack of a particular enemy, this could have been good if you could put the ring on when you come across this enemy, but unfortunately since you have to go back to town every time you want to change rings using it this way is impossible. The items in the game are fairly interesting however most of them are copied from Link's Awakening like for example the Power wrist and Roc's Feather, which unfortunately makes it so that their isn't as many interesting items to keep people that played Link's Awakening interesting in getting the next item. On the other hand there are some new items that are very cool, like the magnetic glove that enables you to pull metallic object towards you or pull yourself towards them.

Changing Seasons

The main ability Link has is his ability to change the seasons when you find a stump to stand on. During the first half of his quest he has to obtain the ability to control all four seasons. However this season changing tend to be quite small in terms of what it actually does. In Winter lakes will freeze and snow will pile up, In Spring flowers will bloom, In Summer, vines will grow and lakes will dry up and in Autumn Leaves will fill up holes and Mushrooms can be picked. When you memorise the effects the puzzles the game presents that involves changing the seasons tend to be quite easy and obvious, because you can see the flowers that will bloom in Spring during any season and you can see where vines will grow during summer. So sometime the Seasons can just be an annoying thing to change between rather then and additional challenge to the game. The great thing the seasons to demonstrate however is how great the graphics for the game are considering it is for gameboy color. They are probably the best ever seen on gameboy color and the seasons are easy to recognise just by the rich and well used color present in each season.

Linking

A very nice feature about both Oracle of Season and Oracle of Ages is that you can play one first and then continue your game in the other and continue a storyline that actually stretches over both games and can only been seen by playing them both in any order. In fact the order you play them also creates different storylines and extra features in the game.

The Verdict

Overall the game is a very good addition to the Zelda series and I couldn't think of a better game to play on a long train trip, if you haven’t already clocked it that is sitting on the couch in front of your T.V. and Wii.

Graphics: 9.5/10, for the Gameboy colors some of the greatest graphics on the console
Sound: 8/10, catchy Zelda tune are surprisingly done justice even on the GBC's monotone speakers.
Story: 7.5/10, would have gotten a point less, but because there are multiple storylines through linking it does well
Lastability: 9/10, The length of the game is tripled if you have Oracle of Ages as well and there is a huge amount of secret easter eggs to find.
Difficulty: 9.5, just be careful not to get angry and break your Gameboy.
Overall: 9/10, Really really great game, not sure what else I can say.

9/10

If you have any more specific questions about the game just post here and i'll do my best to answer.

[Kyle]

I used to play this game way back. It was really good for it's time, but right now, I probably wouldn't enjoy it as much. Having said that, it was a great game for the GBC.

[hellbred]

Is this Zelda for the GBA?

[Victoria]

Is it just me, or does this go in the RPG section. Last I checked, Zelda is an RPG. >.>;

And actually this game is for Gameboy Color. But.. you can play GBC games on a GBA, so... I guess technically, it is.

[hellbred]

Is it just me, or does this go in the RPG section. Last I checked, Zelda is an RPG. >.>;

And actually this game is for Gameboy Color. But.. you can play GBC games on a GBA, so... I guess technically, it is.

Well I have a NDSLite, and since you can play GBA games on a NDSL does that mean you can play GBC too, lol?

And yes, it should go in the RPG section of the Writers Corner

[Victoria]

I'm not entirely sure if you can or not. You can always try. And if not, you can just buy a cheap GBC, lol. They're not that expensive. Or wait, I have two of them. I can mail you one!

[Setzertrancer]

I always thought of it as an adventure game, because it lack many of the elements defined in RPG games.

Just to make it clear this is a GameBoy Color game.

If any moderator want to move this and my other reviews into RPGs then please do, they'll be more noticable there anyway.

[SuperSabin]

i played this game a bit on a rom. it pretty good, i also liked ages, which is basically the same game just a different version. its funny that in both versions link and epona are in a certain camera view. seasons: they're coming right at you. ages: it shows them from the side.

[Stevie_boy]

I really liked Oracle of Seasons & Ages. Probably two of the best GBA games I've ever plated. They were fun to play, lasted just the right length. Some good storyline and the linking really makes it awesome. In fact I'd pretty much agree with all your scores, dude.