The superior half of a two-part saga hits a home run by cleverly adding season-shifting to classic Zelda gameplay.

User Rating: 9 | The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons GBC
Looking to try something a bit different with Zelda for its next iteration, Nintendo created two games meant to be played as a matched set (but still capable of being played individually). While the other half falls short, Oracle of Seasons is a masterpiece of fun and smart gameplay mechanics.

Set in an area called Holodrum, you're immediately charged with rescuing Din, the Oracle of Seasons, from the evil General Onox. Without her, spring, winter, summer, and fall go out of whack, staying static in some regions, and shifting rapidly in others. Taking a cue from Ocarina of Time, you'll manipulate the four different landscapes, as you gradually gain the power to control which of the four seasons prevails across the area you're in. Using winter to ice over deep ponds or summer to make climbable vines grow is essential to getting where you need to go. Toss in a volcanic underworld called Subrosia, and you nearly have five distinct environments to explore. A new element of allowing you to grow seeds that dole out prizes when they become trees also adds to the experience. The overall goal is to recover eight Essences of Time that will allow you to unlock the final castle and take on General Onox to bring Din back home to her people and restore balance to the seasons.

As with Ocarina of Time, avoiding the temptation to completely remake the franchise is the biggest asset. By keeping things very familiar, with just a few minor additions and subtractions in gadgets, the excellent Zelda core gameplay remains in tact while still feeling fresh. The season-switching mechanic provides lots of new puzzle options, and they're put to good use, with an equal amount of shifting needed to merely advance in the game as to find optional goodies. The real kicker is when you combine the game with Oracle of Ages. After playing either of the two games, you can port some attributes over to the other game; what's more, you'll learn secrets to take back to the first game to get additional powers in the second, so when you've finished one game, you're really not finished with it at all. It provides a nice incentive to play the games as a set, as they're meant to be played.

A small number of warps, combined with a more maze-like environment, does lead to some irritating backtracking that serves no purpose. You'll also encounter large animals who will transport you places you can't get until you obtain certain skills; they sort of feel tacked-on, don't serve a major purpose (some you'll use for 30 seconds and never see again) and could've been dropped in favor of simply doling out skills earlier. Sadly, they've still not added a reload feature, so if you want to start exactly as before you died, you'll needed to turn on and off your machine. They also accidentally shot themselves in the foot by putting in GBA-only goodies; by adding a ring that greatly enhances your life, they negate any to desire to use any of the other 40 rings you can acquire in the game if you play on a GBA. There's also a bit too much experimenting needed to beat General Onox; what wouldn't be a big deal on modern system with a dozen buttons becomes a headache when you only have two action buttons and constantly have to pause and reassign items to find one that works.


Anyone playing an earlier GB or GBC Zelda game will feel right at home, as the tight gameplay remains--everything does what you need it to, when you need it to. The graphics and sound are limited due to being GBC games, but admirable work is still done on both fronts. You'll get bang for your buck, with easily 20+ hours available to hearty adventurers looking to find all the games secrets. While I'd recommend playing Seasons along with Ages as possible for full effect, if you can only get one, this is the title to purchase.