Make no mistake, you need to play this game.
User Rating: 9.2 | Zelda no Densetsu: Fushigi no Ki no Mi - Jikuu no Shou GBC
Link's adventures, it seems, will never end. And that would probably be a good thing, seeing as how they're probably some of the best games that have been released on any system. With it's excellent gameplay and the unique connection between the other Oracle game, Oracle of Seasons, this is definitely a worthy addition to the series. The game begins with Link being transported to the world of Labrynna. Once he's there, he meets up with Princess Zelda's nurse, Impa. She asks Link to escort her to meet Naryu, a girl who is found singing to some local animals to the north. However, once they meet up with her, a mysterious individual known as the sorceress Veran comes out of Impa and possesses Naryu, claiming her to be the legendary Oracle of Ages. She then uses Naryu's power to travel back in time and begin messing around with the past. This causes various catastrophes to occur in the present, and thus Link must set out to find the means to stop her and rescue the Oracle. Gameplay is almost exactly like that of previous Zelda games, especially Link's Awakening, which was his first Game Boy adventure. You spend your time exploring a world from a top-down perspective, talking to people and slaying evil monsters until you find a way to enter a dungeon and retrieve both a special power-up and defeat a boss character to gain a special item that is necessary to finish the game. All of this is very welcome, and quite fun, but there are some changes in store for all of it thanks to the Harp of Ages. With this device, Link can travel back 400 years into the past. Then he can do things there to change things in the present. For example, placing a seedling next to a cliff in the past can create a vine to use as a ladder in the present. Moving a stone in the past can change the path of a river in the present. And so on. This all works very nicely, and creates some very clever puzzles. Graphically, this game looks just as good as any of the best-looking GBC games. Unlike Link's Awakening DX, this game's visuals were designed with color in mind, and they look very nice. The present looks very bright colored and friendly, while the past is all dark and mysterious. The graphics look very good, even though they don't quite live up to the standards of a game like Link to the Past, namely because of the hardware that they're on. They simply don't have quite as much detail as some of Link's other games, but that's pretty much just a minor quibble. Sound in this game is pretty good. You'll find tunes like the Zelda theme, and some new music that works very well. The sound effects aren't quite as good because they're on a system that just isn't the most high-tech device out there, but they still work well. Overall, sound is fine, but it's limited a bit by the system that it's all on. A review of this game would not be truly complete without mentioning the connectivity feature between this game and Oracle of Seasons. Basically, when you finish this game, you gain a password that allows you to continue your adventure onto the other game. Characters and storylines that begin in Ages will show up and continue on in Seasons if you do this. Also, you will begin that game with some items that you wouldn't have if you started without entering the password. And if you finish that game first, you can input the password that you get there to continue the adventure that you start there into this game. So this system definitely rewards repeated playing. So overall, this is a very good game, not only because of it's excellent gameplay, but also because of the feature that allows you to turn your individual adventures in both games into one big epic adventure. So it's very worth getting this game, as it turns out to be not only one very long and satisfying experience, but two of them.
