The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
Developer : Flagship
Publisher : Nintendo
Platform : Game Boy Color
Release Year : 2001
The Seasons Change
One of the few things I like about living where I do is that I get to experience all four of the seasons: the warmth and long days of summer; the beautiful colours and cooling down that arrives with autumn; the quiet blanket of white that covers the world during the long Canadian winter; and the ever so short spring that flies by in a flash, usually without any rain. It would be nice if I had a magical wand that could change the seasons whenever I wanted, because sometimes the summers can be way too hot, and the winters can be way too cold. Yet I am stuck here in the real world, and not in the fantasy land where such an item does exist, just like in The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons.
Oracle of Seasons is the companion game to the Oracle of Ages, and of the two games, I think this one is my favourite. The season changing mechanic is used in some really interesting ways and I think a lot more engaging than the time travelling in Ages, and I also appreciate the larger focus on action and combat in this game versus the focus on puzzle solving in Ages. Let’s jump into the weeds and look into why I enjoyed Oracle of Seasons so much, and why the Oracle games are so good.
Gameplay
Oracle of Seasons is your classic 2D, top-down Zelda game. As Link, you adventure across a sprawling map battling monsters, solving puzzles, delving into dungeons, and helping a variety of people with their problems. The defining feature of the game is the changing of the seasons via the magical Rod of Seasons: changing from fall to winter, from winter to spring, and from spring to summer is how you solve environmental puzzles and explore the land of Holodrum. Changing the season to winter so you can walk across a gap because it is now filled in with snow, or to summer to lower the water level of a lake so you can get to a dungeon are just a few of the ways that the season changing mechanic is used. There are so many more examples of how you explore Holodrum by changing the seasons, and I found it to be a really interesting and smart system. Manipulating the seasons is a fantastic mechanic, and I found that I liked it a lot more than the time travelling in Oracle of Ages; you don’t see this mechanic often in games, so it was nice to experience something new. Hell, I honestly can’t think of another game where you control the seasons (not including titles like Simcity or ‘god’ games like Black and White, I am talking about other action-adventure games here), and in my opinion, that gives Oracle of Seasons a leg up over Oracle Ages.
One of the most unique aspects of the Oracle games is linking them together via either the Game Boy Link Cable, or codes giving to you in game. This essentially makes the Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons one big game, with you only getting the true ending when you link your adventures together. Another awesome feature of this system is you can meet important NPCs from one game in the other, which does a lot to make the two games feel like one interconnected work. While the cynical part of me wants to believe that this linking mechanic was born from Nintendo/Capcom trying to mimic the success of Pokemon and make people buy two games, but the simple fact that both Oracle of Ages and Seasons are different adventures all the way through makes me think that is not the case. I don’t know, nor do I have any insight into the creative process behind these games, but just from playing them I really don’t think the Oracle games are a malicious cash grab.
Presentation
Both of the Oracle games look amazing on the Game Boy Color, with Seasons being the real stand out between the two. I find Seasons to be the better looking of the two games, which I think comes down to the whole season changing mechanic: The winters are a tapestry of blues and white; spring is alite with the new green growth; summer radiates heat with the deep greens and an overall hue of orange; and fall is a pastel wonderland of yellows and reds. It would have been easy to do a simple colour swap for each season, but the developers put the time and effort into showing how each season really changes the world (snow drifts, dry lakes, dead trees, and the like), and these changes are then used to solve a variety of environmental puzzles scattered about Holodrum. The thought that was put into the presentation of the world does wonders for this game, and I honestly can’t think of another game on the Game Boy Color that looks as good as Oracle of Seasons.
The sound design here is pretty standard across the board for a 2D Zelda game. Most of the game’s music is from past Zelda games, especially low-fi renditions of those songs from Ocarina of Time and Major’s Mask, which I feel fit the game’s theme so well. The sound effects are pretty standard for a 2D Zelda game on a handheld, with nothing standing out as either good or bad. For the most part, the sound design does what it needs to do, which is more than we can say about some games. I wish I could say more about the sound design, but like I said, nothing really stands out good or bad.
Story
Link’s adventure starts with the triforce transporting him to the foreign and distant land of Holodrum. Not long after arriving in this new land, Link meets the Oracle of Seasons, the young woman and dancer named Din. Moments after meeting Din, Onox, The General of Darkness, descends from the darkening sky to kidnap the Oracle of Seasons and also sinks the Temple of Seasons deep into the earth. With Din and the Temple gone, Holodrum’s seasons are thrown into chaos, and it is up to Link to journey across Holodrum, and through the underground realm of Subrosia, in his quest to rescue Din, calm the seasons, and save the land!
The underground realm of Subrosia is cool enough, but I felt like it was kind of tacked on. Like, the people you meet down there, and the small little quests you do for them, seem very inconsequential to the overall story; I am only interacting with them to get the few items I need to continue on with my quest, and I never felt like the people down here where connected to the plot in any meaningful way. It is a cool area, and like the rest of the game it looks really good, but I felt it was lacking in importance. I don’t know, but I just felt like this whole section of the game could be removed, and not much would be missed.
Since I connected the two adventures together via the code that I got at the end of Ages, Seasons played host to a variety of characters from Labrynna and also featured Princess Zelda, Twinrova, and Ganon. The inclusion of those last three make the Oracle of Seasons a direct sequel to Oracle of Ages, with you eventually having to fight Twinrova and Ganon to not only save Zelda, but both Labrynna and Holodrum. Connecting the games together makes me want to play them again, but in the opposite order so I can see how different Ages is if I play Seasons first. This replayability that is inherent in the connection system is awesome and is something I would like to see happen again. It’s a shame then that I know if a developer did this today, it would be a cheap cash grab and not nearly as thought out as we see it here.
Changing the Seasons like Changing Clothes
Of the two Oracle games, Oracle of Seasons is by far my favourite. From the game’s focus on combat, to the larger world to explore, to the season changing mechanic via the aptly named Rod of Seasons, and a whole a lot more, Oracle of Seasons was so much more fun to me than Oracle of Ages. Both of the Oracle games are great and connecting them together gives you probably the best handheld Zelda experience there is, hell, if not one of the best Game Boy experiences you could have. You are in for a real treat if you have not played either of the Oracle titles, and I highly recommend you jump into them both.
