Saturday, June 21, 2014

Saving Nayru & Din (again)

Since I wasn't prepared to buy a Nintendo 3DS just to get the new Zelda game, I decided to replay Oracle of Ages last Christmas, and later I played Oracle of Seasons as well. I just finished it, so it’s time to vent sentiment.

I've long said that Ages was my second favorite Zelda game after A Link to the Past, largely because of its clever items and very classic Zelda feel. I definitely enjoyed it the second time through, but I noticed that I enjoyed the dungeons (levels, whatever) a lot more than the overworld; I actually found myself sort of rushing through the overworld stuff to get to the next level.

And strangely, I may have actually enjoyed Seasons more this time through. Part of this is because it's even more classic than Ages is; Seasons has all the bosses from the original Legend of Zelda for instance, for instance. And while I remembered Ages for its clever items, Seasons has some pretty unique ones too. The other thing is the map: Ages has essentially double the regular map size, because you can travel between the present and the past. And one of the items expands on a huge part of the map even further, in both times. So I was a little disappointed to find that Subrosia, the “map extension” area in Seasons, is much smaller than the main map. The thing is, though, that the main map is larger in Seasons, and it’s more varied since it’s not just two copies of the same terrain. So there might actually be more to explore in that game.

My final sentiment is about the games’ rings. When I first played the linked game, I carried the Blue Ring (which cuts the damage you do in half) over from Ages, and I used it all throughout Seasons. This time through I completely ignored all of the item-transferring stuff between games. It went okay, too, until the last set of battles. I ended up having to go get the Red Ring (which doubles your attack power) in order to make those battles reasonable. What I’m saying is that the difficulty level spikes pretty drastically at the end.

Both games are very good, and I’m still psyched to play A Link Between Worlds eventually. Let’s hope I finish The Plasma Storm before then, though, because there’s such a thing as too much awesome, at least in terms of time management.

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