Spring forward? Fall back? Let's Play The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Ages!

I DO remember fighting him, but I thought he was just a mid-boss.

Hey boss, why haven't you updated in a while?

Oh, uh, hey Percy. I was just working on Persona-



Didn't you say you were going to finish this up, boss? You should keep your promises.

I know, but-



You know what I do to people who break their promises, right boss?

OKAY OKAY FINE, I'LL UPDATE. GEEZ. Friggin' freaky persimmon.



Anyway, last time on Let's Play Oracle of Ages, we went through an irritating number of sidequests to reach the fourth dungeon and claimed its Essence of Time for ourselves in the name of justice and stuff. Yay.



First things first, we'll finish off the rest of the trading sequence before we move on, as the Switch Hook now enables us to trade the last few items and grab the sword upgrade. Though technically this part could've been done in the previous chapter, but what the heck. Might as well toss it in here and pick up a Ukulele in return.



Further down the line we run into Maple again. Say hi, Maple!



There's a section further down the beach that was, until now, inaccessable due to the expanse of pitfalls blocking it off. However, thanks to our spiffy new toy, we can cross and finish up the trading sequence.



In a cave further down the shore, we come across an elderly Zora (!) who wishes to hear the sound of the sea once more. Thankfully, a ukulele works just fine, and in return for the instrument he gives us a Broken Sword.

And when something's broken, you go see Patch to fix it.



Patch's ceremony is a little tougher this time, involving twelve Hardhat Beetles in waves of four each to fend off instead of just the one wave from before. Even still, it's just a matter of getting them to cluster together and shoving them into the pit as a group.



And with that, we've got the Noble Sword again.



Since there's still time to spare, I'll just take the time to dig up the money to grab the Piece of Heart from the shop. This takes about... half an hour or so, I think. Annoying, but still more convenient than hunting Octoroks for the cash.



And so, with all that done it's time we get a move on. North of Lynna City is another set of pits and we'll cross them in the same way as before.



Queue the disaster waiting to delay us. Sigh... at least this one is tangently related to the next dungeon, so let's get this over with.



You know what they say, good things come to those who wait. So let's head back to the future and make our way through the now (mysteriously) clear path.

Oh hey, another Piece of Heart! How convenient that's it's not too far off the beaten path.



Moblins? Here?



Figures. Who other than the Great Moblin would bogart all of the bombs?



It seems he's since learned from his last encounter with us, and tripped the path inside with collapsing tiles. Try as we might, we're too slow to reach the door in time and fall to the path below.



With no means of gaining entry in the present, it's time to head back to the past for some more clues. Onwards!



A couple of screens over and we run into - what else - a Pegasus Seed tree. The seeds dropped give us the boost we need in order to make it to the staircase in time.



And you're that meddling pig!





Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.

Humiliated once again, the Great Moblin bows out as gracefully as a charred pig could in this situation (not very much).



With the Great Moblin dethroned and the mountain no longer overrun by his minions, the Gorons give us their thanks and give us the very thing we were looking for: a Bomb Flower. Back to the past!



We'll just give it these guys here so they can blow the rock up...



And as a reward for going to all that effort, we (finally) pick up the key we need for the next dungeon.



Onward ho, to the Crown Dungeon!



Crown Dungeon is the first truly open dungeon in the game up to this point, focusing on having you fan out across the dungeon instead of weaving through it in a linear path. In addition to that, the colour switches return in full force, having a more complicated set-up than anything up to this point. Generally-speaking, it's a good idea to keep



The Switch Hook gets some use further in, with the usual stuff. A little further in is a chest surrounded by colour tiles which we can't quite get just yet.



These kinds of puzzle set-ups tend to be common with switch dungeons like this, the concept being that you'd have to clear a path over to the switch first before you can move on. However, this set up is extraordinarily common-place, so coming across it is pretty much all but expected at this point in the series.

Unlocking the chest here requires a little bit of cleverness on your part since you have to hit each of the three switches with one shot of the Seed Shooter.



Heading back through the path nets Link another key to use. Hooray?



This is just bad game design, though. You can go past it going either way fairly easily, so all it really serves to do is just slow you down. There's no real trick to it, so much as it's an unnecessary obstacle.



Ah, a darkened room with pits to jump over? The trick here is to use the Switch Hook to feel your way onto the right path, but if you want you could also just brute force it and jump your way to the chest.



Switches, switches, and more switches...



Oh hey, a Dungeon Map.



Heading further in brings us to this puzzle here, where we have to cover all four switches to make a chest appear... but it seems like we're a little short this time. How will we figure this one out, I wonder?



With no means of solving the prior puzzle, there's no sense in just standing around doing nothing. As such, Link heads further in, lighting torches and pushing statues into arbitrary formations...



...and comes across the solution to his problem, the Cane of Somaria!

The Cane of Somaria is almost completely unchanged since its original appearance in A Link to the Past, with only the slight modification of it now being unable to blow the magic blocks created up. Even still, I've always kinda liked the ol' staff - it allows for some creative solutions to problems whenever the developers give it some thought.



Case-in-point, this section here, where we have to create a block to use as a stepladder further upwards. As I said, not a bad item by any means.



A little ways in we come across a couple of statues here, both of which move in tandem when either is pushed. The solution is, of course, to blockade one of the statues and get them to line up on the pair of red tiles shown. Nothing too bad.



Mini-boss time! Smasher here is another of many veterans to return from Link's Awakening, however this time he's much more annoying on account of the increased dimensions of the dungeon. You can kill him pretty quickly if you manage to corner him and wail away, but most likely you'll otherwise be spending a lot of time chasing him around instead.



Just after squaring off against Smasher, we come across a compass. Yep.



Anyway, with the Map, Compass, and Dungeon Item in our grasp, its time we wrapped things up here. A quick underground path after the mini-boss leads us to the cross-shaped upper section of the dungeon, revolving around the use of yet more colour tiles. This is where the vast majority of the keys Link's collected in the dungeon go to use, counting three in all.



Another quick puzzle revolving around the Cane of Somaria (hint: the actual organization doesn't matter), and the Boss Key is soon ours. Now let's get the hell out of here.

Introducing the boss of Level 5, the gas with the sass, it's Smog!



The gimmick with Smog is that he'll split himself into two or more parts and have them travel around a set of blocks each, tasking Link with gathering him back up together and finishing him off. In order to do this, the Cane of Somaria yet again finds more use; by connecting the two parts together as shown, Smog will revert to his old form when his parts collide, leaving him wide open for attack.



This goes on for three times more, each time growing more and more complicated and the Smoglings growing more aggressive. The logic is, of course, that the puzzle should grow more difficult in order to scale with the player's adjustment, and all-in-all, it's actually not a half-bad boss fight. He's no Helmasaur King, sure, but at least there's some cleverness to the actual conflict.



Anyway, with that Link collects the Heart Container and heads for the next room over to collect the next Essence of Time, the Sacred Soil!



In all seriousness, Capcom really phoned it in with the Esssences for Oracle of Ages, to the point where they're pretty much just grasping at straws. It's a little bit sad, honestly.

The Maku Tree, as if on queue, let's Link in on the location of the next Essence...



...and with perfect timing, a Goron busts in on our conversation lets us know that the tunnel east has just been completed. Huh.



But that's something for another day.

Next time: Mermaid's Cave and the Lonely Peak!

You know, if you dig in the town you've got a pretty good chance of digging up giant Rupees.

I think I might've ran into a few of them when I was digging actually, though I've been sitting on this update for so long that I, er, don't really remember all that well.

So, uh, welcome back? It's a little late, but what the heck. Last time we left off, we were dragged off course onto another side quest and saved the Goron Elder from a cave in. After that came the Crown Dungeon, and here we are now.



During the time we spent in the last dungeon, the Gorons finished clearing a path to the mountains east of here for us to explore. And if past experience serves, that's where we're off to next.



Oh hey, a warp tile. Better file this one away for now.



There's another Heart Piece here that you have to warp around to get to, which adds another tick to our health.

...Or at least it would, if I got it. This is roughly the point in the game where things get a bit hazy, so I might make a few mistakes here and there. Oh well.



Anywho, a nearby path brings us to the base of the mountain on the east side. We run into Maple right away, and manage to snatch a Magic Potion from her in a lucky drop.



Rounding the corner brings us to another cave...



And hey, it's Rosa! It turns out the Goron Mountains are the next stop on her journey across Labrynna, making a small detour to check out the Goron Dance. But what is the Goron Dance, you ask?



Well, it's another dancing minigame, basically. Instead of it focusing on dance moves like the Subrosian Dance, the Goron Dance is more of a test of your rhythm. The gist of it is the Goron Elder will dance out a specific rhythm and you have to copy it exactly - if you're off by a second, you mess up the round. Getting a perfect nets us the Brother Emlem, which we'll need to explore the rest of the mountain.

Yep.



Of course, it figures that the game would throw one or ten pointless roadblocks in the way to the next dungeon. Welp, let's get to work then. I swear, the things I have to do in this game...



Anyway to start off, Mr. Guard here is looking for food to eat since he can't leave his spot.



We pass by a patch of soft soil heading further up the mountain.



Further up, we come across a game room that's been shut down for the time being. Turns out that the proprieter's been up too many nights the past week and is too tired to get to work.



There's nothing left to do in the present for now, so it's back to the past for now.



The guard's ancestor is looking for an heirloom to past down to his desccendants, huh? Bo-ring.



Yesssss



A little pushing sets up a bean stalk that'll sprout and grow in the present. So let's head back there now!

Convenient.



The next minigame we'll have to slog through today is the Target Carts game. The prize is a piece of grade-A Rock Brisket, for you-know-who.



Unlike the other minigames so far, Target Carts is... pretty fun, actually. The basic concept is to aim and fire the Seed Shooter at the twelve rupees along the course. Hit all twelve and you'll win a fabulous prize.



It's also pretty easy, and we get the Rock Brisket on the first try.



Not to mention a few other nice things...



Heading back to the past brings us to another minigame, the Goron Gallery. It's essentially the same as the one in Labrynna save for a few variations, however winning nets us a Lava Juice for you-also-know-who.



Leaping off the ledge below the cave brings us to a Mystery Seed tree we'll use as a checkpoint. There's also a Subrosian standing around, but we'll talk to him later...

Giving the guard the Brisket nets us the Goron Vase...



And trading the Vase gets us some Goronade.



After which we give the Goronade to the half-awake businessman...



..and participate in another minigame. I don't know how I feel about th-



OH GOD WHAT'S GOING ON HERE



We still won anyway. Hoo-hah.



We show the key off to this guy here, who offers to introduce us to the Graceful Goron. Aren't we greedy...



He wants Lava Juice for the effort, though. Thank goodness we already have some!



Other way around, smartass.

So you think you can dance, huh?



What a coincidence, so can Link.



And that's two Mermaid Keys. But why two...?



That's because there are two dungeons! In one of the very few instances that the game uses time travel in an interesting way, the Mermaid's Cave is divided into two different halves that are connected in more ways than one. As opposed to the Spirit Temple in OoT where it was simply two dungeons split off from each other, small things like bombing walls to opening doors in the past version affect the future version as well, making it seem very natural in comparison. All things told, it's probably my favourite dungeon for this reason alone and is probably the bright spot in an otherwise dull game.



Anywho, let's head onwards and inwards.



As expected from a place called the Mermaid's Cave, the place is waterlogged and swarming with aquatic monsters. There are also some spots that are blocked off for now (as we're exploring the Present half first), however we'll be getting to those in a minute.

There's a room that alters itself depending on what colour the switch is set at, so taking out the Seed Shooter is just what the doctor ordered.



I love this puzzle. Love love love it. It's tricky in that you can't really figure out what to do just looking at the room (hint owl aside), however there is some logic as to how to solve it so it doesn't feel like a waste if you can't figure it out right away. It's not like the stupid doors in Link's Awakening that you have to throw jars in (I'm looking at you, Kanalet Castle!)



Badabing, badaboom.



This puzzle is a lot trickier than it looks. There are a lot of places where you can push the block into a corner by accident, so you have to be careful with how you position yourself. It's not too hard to figure out, though.



Oh, and we get a Dungeon Map not too long after it either.



Welp, that's it for the present for now. Time to head back in time for the next section.



Mermaid's Cave: take two!



Heading further to the right brings us to... candles? Or, more specifically, Candleheads. Lighting them on fire takes them out, however they'll dash around the room before dying off, making them a pain to deal with.

Two dungeons, two maps. Makes sense, right?



Lighting the five torches moves the wall and lets us pass by it. In addition, it also moves the blockade we saw earlier in the present version of the dungeon as well, letting us explore there later on.



Compass~



Block puzzles? How blasé.



Bombing open this wall opens it up in the present version as well. Neat.



Another spin wheel in this dungeon, however we lack the keys to explore the place further. Time to head back to the other dungeon!



Oh hey, another wall we bombed open in the past. It's these touches that really make the dungeon the cream of the crop.



Compass~



Lots o' keys in this dungeon, aren't there?



Here there are two switches - one reveals a chest containing the Boss Key, the other drops a nest of Snakes on us. However, there's a trick here: the switch with the Boss Key changes every time. It's a bit of a pain figuring out which one, but what are ya gonna do?



Cane of Somaria~

Cave #2 that we blew open in the past dungeon. I really love how cohesive the two dungeons are.



Oh geez.



The gist of it is there's a key and a door we have to get through at this point, and navigating the discs in a specific order is what the doctor ordered. Not really much else to say about it...



But hey, it's Vire! Turns out Vera's sent him to try and take us out again.



He goes down like a chump just like before, though.



The next room is a little tricky with the layers, but we get a Mermaid Suit out of the deal.

The Mermaid Suit is... well, odd. On one hand, the ability to let us dive underwater and explore deeper water is a nice ability to have and opens up a whole new world for us to explore. However, in exchange we have to tap in a straight direction to move in water now, which is really hard on the fingers. It's a bit of a mix, really.



That said, we've got a lot of exploring for us to do once we finish up the dungeon.



Might as well take a detour back to the Crescent Island to pick up our old shield. Turns out polishing a plank of wood turns it into Iron after a long enough time? Huh.

Anyway, it's back to the past dungeon one last time to finish things up.



Remember the deep water from before? There's some in the Mermaid's Cave and that's where we're off to next.



Our goal in this corner of the dungeon is a Small Key, the very one we need from before.



Just one more place to go. Onwards!



This section is slightly boobytrapped, but no big deal.



Our goal here is... another key. How intriquing.



With the extra key, we can now clear open the block and trigger the two switches. And now it's onto the boss of the Mermaid Cave:



Octogon!

This fight basically boils down to one thing: layers. Using the Mermaid Suit, you have to alternate between going underwater and swimming along the surface, damaging Octogon with the Noble Sword and Seed Shooter in the process. It's a surprisingly uncomplex battle, by this game's standards - just track down the octopus and attack, attack, attack.



He goes down quickly enough, giving us another Heart Container to add to our health.



And we get the lamest essence yet, the Bereft Peak!



Ugh.



Once we're out of the Cave, the Maku Tree notifies us of this fortuitous turn of events. Now onto the castle to plot an assassination!



Next time: Jabu-Jabu's Belly and the Rolling Sea!

Take Wood + Several Hundred Years = Petrified Wood? That's Iron? I dunno.

Nah, I doubt it. The Iron Shield's found in the past Labrynna, so at most only a few weeks have passed since the Crescent Island affair.

Wow, this post makes the Goron dancing look so easy. Last time I play I literally spent hours trying to finish, but then again I have no sense of rhythm.

It's back! Thanks for returning to this.

Yes! I'm delighted this LP's back. I'm amazed by how little I remember of Oracle of Ages though.

Yeah, the difficulty of the game seems to be dependent on your own personal rhythm, so it's a bit hard to pin it down. Personally I didn't have much trouble since I've got a little musical background, but YMMV.

It's honestly a pretty forgettable game. :/



Anyway, it's good to be back, and I'm happy to see people are still following along! So welcome back - last we left off, we ran into yet another roadblock- I mean trading sequence and polished off one of the more interesting dungeons in the process. With the Mermaid Suit in hand and some rather fortuitous news from the Maku Tree in mind, it's off to the castle to see Veran about a little someone called Nayru.



Before that, however, we run into Maple and the brand-spanking new UFO she must've bought sometime before the end of the next dungeon. At this point, she turns into a veritable speed demon, rocketing across the screen and sucking up rupees before Link can grab them. It's still not a big deal if you luck out with the drops, though.



Anyway, onto the castle!



Speak for yourself. What the heck are you doing here anyway?



Oh, right. That stupid rivalry. You know, it would probably be easier if you and Link teamed together instead and saved yourself the trouble. He mentions something about a hidden entrance sometime after that, interestingly enough...



Well now that you mention-



-it. ...And he's gone. Dick.



First things first, we'll harvest the seeds here for a quicker means of getting back to Lynna City.



Long story short, the trick with the palace garden is pretty much the same as it was way back in Ocarina of Time - avoid the guards and sneak your way into the castle. The guards will throw you out of the castle if you get caught, but for absolutely no reason whatsoever they leave the gate wide open. We're dealing with real geniuses here, people.

Using the Mermaid Suit, we dive underwater and swim into the castle...



And here we are: Ambi's Palace. Pretty swanky place, isn't it?



Just don't head outside, unless you want to deal with the armed guard waiting there.



Anyway, the palace itself is so trivially easy that it's not really worth mentioning at this point, so we'll just cut to the chase...



Burn the witch!



...Oh. Well, there's got to be some way to lure her out of there...



Right, she hates mystery seeds, doesn't she? But how will we draw her out of there...

Right, we can just pull her out, hook, line and sinker. A few slashes later and she's down for the count.



Look Ma, no damage!



And that's all she wrote! Queue credits-



Um...



Well, shit. You know, I don't think this is the first time's this has happened to me, either...



I don't know, what are you going to do?



"I want to be the very best, like no one ever was."



"To catch them is my real test, to train them is my cause."



"I will travel across the land, searching far and wide."

"Teach Pokémon to understand the power that's inside-"

...Oh! Sorry, got a little carried away there for a second. Where are we, anyway?



Right, we saved Nayru, didn't we? All's well that ends well, I guess.



And everything starts to go back to normal now that Nayru's safe and sound. Hooray!



Looks like we've still got a job to do, though. Guess it's onwards to the next dungeon so we can get MacGuffin #7 to kill Veran with.



Yeah, sure. You keep telling yourself that.



Meanwhile we'll just learn how to travel through time at will and beat you to it.



Forget about who?



Oh God, these two nitwits. Let's just fast forward past the babble already.