7 replies to this topic

[TheAvengerLever]

I don't remember these games being as hard as they fucking are.

 

I'm playing OoS which is supposedly the easier of the two, and it's kicking my ass. Not only is getting around the world frustrating, but the dungeons are confusingly designed and over-complicated. Each screen of this game, whether in a dungeon or out, requires some menu item switching to get through and its driving me nuts.

 

Now, I've never beaten Ages. I've gotten to Onox in Seasons but never beaten him, so I can only speak for most of Seasons, but this game is ridiculously contrived. Link's Awakening was a far more pleasant experience.

 

Playing it is reminding me a lot of The Minish Cap, which is also a frustrating game to explore the overworld in. Phantom Hourglass is almost a fun experience next to these games.

 

Now, having said that, it's still ridiculously addicting and nostalgic and I'm having lots of frustrating fun.

[SteveT]

I played them both a few years ago when they hit the 3DS Virtual console.  Playing them back to back, anyone who claims Ages is the harder game is speaking nonsense.  Seasons had much more grueling dungeons and a more annoying overworld.  Trying to get from place to place was an unnecessary frustration.

 

Ages4Life!

[Fin]

Seasons was always the harder game for me. But god, I'll never forget how frustrating all those mandatory Goron mini-games are in Ages.

 

Constant item swapping between screens is something Link's Awakening did too. Definitely one of the features of the portable games that annoyed me the most. I would have preferred if you just had to remove those overworld obstacles once and be done with them forever, like in the dungeons.

[Veteran]

I remember dreading the Goron dancing in Ages and the magnet boss in Seasons when looking to replay them both. I did enjoy how massive the dungeons were though. If you play them straight after Link's Awakening it's like turning on hard mode.

[Raien]

As I understand it, Seasons was always presented as the "action" game whereas Ages was the "puzzle" game. As someone who enjoys (and is pretty good at) action games, I found Seasons to be very enjoyable and even got myself a physical copy of it. Yes, the overworld is confusing and a bit labored but I enjoyed the dungeons and the general feel of the game.

 

Ages, on the other hand, is one of my least favourite Zeldas. Everything that AvengerLever complained about with Seasons is turned up to eleven in Ages. You can't find a dungeon in Ages without performing a lengthy and annoying fetch-quest first. Switching between time periods is handled way more often and obnoxiously than Seasons season-changing mechanic. There is a dungeon that has two states in the past and present and requires you to leave and re-enter the dungeon in order to beat it. And then there's the mermaid suit, which forces you to swim by repeatedly (and uncomfortably) tapping on the d-pad in the direction you want to go. And to top it all off, you must use the mermaid suit in a dungeon that is basically OoT's Water Temple but worse.

 

Ages' only saving grace is that it at least takes place in an original and unique world, much like Seasons does. It's another reminder of how low Nintendo has fallen when it comes to world-building these days.

[wisp]

The overworlds of both those games make me gnash my teeth in frustration. I felt like Seasons was a larger headache overall, but oh GOD those Goron games in Ages were terrible.

[Masamune]

The last time I played the games, I enjoyed them but I definitely felt like they lacked polish. And I think you hit it on the head about the overworld. I think the best comparison is in fact to the overworld in Skyward Sword. Oracles was the first games in the series that turned the overworld from something you explore into an obstacle course you have to maneuver your way around. Link's Awakening had elements of this, but both Oracle games take this to another level. Unlike Skyward Sword, you're never given the ability to create shortcut paths to make it less painful on repeat visits. The great thing about A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, etc is that when you get to the open world - it's open. There may be places you can't access just yet, but you're free to explore all the nooks and crannies. In Oracles, you only get as far as the game wants you to.

[FalconZero]

It's been years since I last played and beaten the Oracle series. i started playing it again last week for sentimental reasons (and way too much free time here, I might add). Of the two Oracle games, I still view Ages as my personal favorite. Maybe because it was the first Zelda game I purchased with my own money (the others were given as gifts from my grandparents).

 

I never found the Oracles series hard when I first played it. However, I do not deny that I became frustrated by certain puzzles later in the game. I remembered that it took me a very long time to figure out a puzzle in the mountains in the Ages game and even longer for me to figure out how to kill the last Essence boss, Ramrock (I guess it's funny when I finally found out the moment I grabbed his "hands" out of frustration). To me, first timers or newcomers in the Zelda series would experience lots of frustrations in the Oracle series if they never did a puzzle dungeon before, which was why I always recommended to my younger cousins to play the old Zelda games first (NES ones don't count) before going into the Oracle series.

 

I also noticed that in any Oracles game in the Game Boy Color console, maneuverability was too easy for me, which gave me a huge advantage over monsters and bosses. I suppose that's natural since I had played Zelda 3 (LTTP) and Link's Awakening many times in their respective consoles before I got my first Oracle game. But when playing it in an emulator, that's a different story: I keep getting hit a lot, making the game hard to advance. So, I always prefer playing the game with the handheld console.

Edited by FalconZero, 10 October 2015 - 08:36 AM.