The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
Year: 2001
Rating: E
Time Played: ~30 hours
When video games started splitting off into “two-part” versions in the mid-90s, my brother and I would always split who got which game. As a result, I realized that I had never played The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, as I had the Oracle of Ages version. After finishing Link’s Awakening DX, I decided to remedy this situation. While it was evident that this game used a lot of the same assets from Link’s Awakening, there was also ample evidence that the Zelda games on the Nintendo 64 influenced these handheld games.
The base mechanic of Oracle of Seasons uses the four different seasons to solve a variety of puzzles in the over-world to progress to each of the eight dungeons. While this sticks to the core Zelda formula, this game’s unfortunate aspect is how lackluster the story is. This was weird because of how the Nintendo 64 titles really emphasized their stories. Still, this handheld title was basically telling me to explore eight dungeons with no significant reason as to why I should. The only reason I continued was to see what new item I would gain by beating each area.
While I did appreciate the modifications to Link via the ring system—and how I accidentally stumbled upon the L-2 sword—Oracle of Seasons also shares some of my frustration that I experienced when playing through Link’s Awakening DX. Partly because the story didn’t flow smoothly, I found myself at a loss of where to go or what to do next. I understand that the game being less intuitive forces me to explore more. However, with such a large map (at least for a Game Boy title) to explore, it became tedious trying to puzzle out the solution to get to the next dungeon.
An adequate Zelda title that lacks a significant story, I give The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons 3.0 stars out of 5.
