The Most Daring Zelda Game Turns 25 – And Its Ideas Still Hit Hard

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages hit North America on May 14, 2001. Debuting in the Game Boy Color era and using the bright visuals to great effect, the pair of games was a delight upon release and remains so a quarter of a century later. Developed by Flagship (who would go on to develop Resident Evil Zero, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, and Kirby & the Amazing Mirror), both games open at similar points (with Link called upon to save a distant land) and use similar underlying Link’s Awakening-style mechanics, but each genuinely feels like a stand-alone game. The shifting seasons and underground secrets of Holodrum gave Oracle of Seasons a woodsy charm.

Meanwhile, Oracle of Ages‘ time-hopping elements gave it an expansive sense of worldbuilding that feels like a play on what Ocarina of Time did on the N64 just a few years prior. Similar to how Pokémon Red and Blue were two separate games that came together for a greater whole, Oracle of Seasons and Ages each work perfectly well as a standalone adventure. However, there’s a secret element of both games that only comes into play after beating both games that makes it one of the more quietly ambitious Legend of Zelda games ever produced, given how its full scope is only revealed after you manage to beat both games.

The Oracle Arc Is One Of Legend Of Zelda’s Most Underrated Narratives

In both Seasons games, the Triforce calls upon Link to travel to a new realm to rescue a mystical oracle. In Oracle of Seasons, Link races to rescue Din from Onox, a massive and ruthless warrior whose true form is an imposing dragon. Meanwhile, Oracle of Ages pits Link against Veran, a witch who seeks to use the Nayru to impose her will on the timeline. Each adventure sees Link explore a distinct setting, run into unique characters, and encounter inventive enemies.

Along the way, the gameplay introduces some interesting tweaks by putting greater emphasis on items, including the ability to fully sub out the sword and shield for different gear. In essence, the two games felt like Legend of Zelda‘s answer to the alternative versions of Pokémon that have always come out as pairs: a similar underlying game engine but a unique experience with different characters and elements.

Either game could have been released as a stand-alone title and been fine, and releasing both felt like a big final push for the Game Boy in the years leading to the release of the Game Boy Advance. However, the true trick was that a third adventure was only unlocked by beating both games. After beating either Oracle of Ages or Oracle of Seasons, the Game Link Cable could connect the two games and use a secret password to introduce a new ending for whichever game was played second.

In this modified game, the second adventure ends with Twinrova attacking Zelda and capturing her, all while using the lingering effects of Onyx and Verna’s efforts to resurrect Ganon. This forces Link to follow after her and confront the pair of witches, eventually leading to a climactic final battle with a restored Ganon. The connective tissue between the three parts of Link’s distinct adventures weaves together a larger continuous story, the sort of longer narratives that the series doesn’t usually tackle — and it does it in a way that still works 25 years later.

The Power Of Two

The Legend of Zelda doesn’t really do direct sequels. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were largely a break from tradition in that regard. However, Oracle of Ages and Seasons did it over a decade earlier and took things even further by actually feeling like a real Legend of Zelda epic. Both Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons had memorable villains at the center of their narrative, with Veran and Onox still being fun villains for their respective games that feel genuinely threatening as final bosses. Notably, this doesn’t suffer from the same complaints that followed The Twilight Princess‘ Zant, who was upstaged by the arrival of Ganondorf in the plot.

Ganon’s revival after completing both games feels like an escalation of the adventure but doesn’t undercut the threat of those two other villains, with their memorable personalities and hard-earned defeats still feeling satisfying. Twinrova’s efforts to revive Ganon feel like an extension of that overarching adventure instead of a twist on it, leading to an epic final stretch where all the skills players picked up across both games come into play. It lent the adventure a real sense of scope that most Game Boy games of the era couldn’t easily match, creating the kind of three-part epic that the series has never really done before.

The Game Boy games did this without losing that stand-alone spirit of the series as a whole, with both Oracle games functioning very well as singular adventures. The fact that it was all done on a mobile platform only makes it more impressive, utilizing the Game Boy’s Game Link Cable better than almost any other title. Even as the franchise has grown more ambitious in its worldbuilding and scope, the Oracle games remain impressive examples of how easily the series can have overarching threats, even while retaining the singular sense of adventure that is inherent to a good Legend of Zelda game.