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

Please tell me one of those secrets is blowing up the Moblin King's house. You gotta try that, the outcome after doing that a few times is just too awesome not to document. =P

Maybe. I'm not sure if I have the save anymore, but I guess I could grab a screenshot some point between now and next update. I'm itching to finish though, so that's on the back burner for now.



Anywho I guess with the Fun Club underway at this point, I should get my ass in gear and finish this thing... anyway, welcome back. Last time, we kicked Veran's ass to the curb only for Twinrova to drop by again and muck everything up. Zelda's gone AWOL, Ganon's back in town... what's a hero gotta do around these parts?



Before we bother with any of the final battle hulabaloo, we're gonna spend time collecting secrets. Secrets, in a nutshell, are passwords you can trade between games for exclusive upgrades to your equipment; all you have to do is track down the appropriate NPC, write down the password and give it to their specified counterpart in the other game. At that point they'll give you another password to take back to Farore in the first game, completing the cycle and getting cool stuff for both. Sounds easy, huh?

Thing is, the passwords themselves are linked to whatever you used for the Holodrum/Labrynna secrets; as such, there isn't an end-all-be-all master list of all the passwords to copy down, sadly enough. Still, I think showing off the locations will be good enough to give you a taste so on we go.



Our first secret comes from a Ghost in the graveyard east of Lynna City, which we're supposed to deliver to his friend back in Holodrum. He's hidden under one of the gravestones south of the 7th dungeon and we'll have to play a quick memory game with him first before he'll cough it up.



The next secret comes from an elderly woman south of Lynna City, which we're supposed to deliver to a hermit underground. He'll then challenge us to kill twelve beasts in under 30 seconds, after which he'll give us our third (and most important) sword upgrade: the Master Sword!



Next comes the Subrosian Smithy again, where we get our shield tempered yet again to forge the Mirror Shield. I'm not sure if the upgrade actually does anything, but hey: Mirror Shield.

After the Mirror Shield comes this fellow here. We're sent off by a woman by the coast to help this guy out with his bad luck, however we'll have to collect 777 ore chunks before he'll give us the time of day. Once you do though, he'll stitch you a new Bomb Bag to hold up to 50 bombs with.



Remember "Love, love the seed"? Turns out the Deku Scrub at the top of the waterfall east of the Sunken City has forgotten the second half of it. His friend gives us the second half of the song, and jarring the scrub gives him the inspiration to expand our Seed Satchel. Don't you just love the seed?



Another old woman sends us off on an errand, this time to deliver a message to Mayor Ruul. Once he gets it, he offers to expand our Ring Box once more, to hold up to five rings.



As you remember, Biggoron's another expy from the N64 games that makes a reappearance in these games, and as such his trademark sword makes a return as well. We teach him the instructions on how to forge it and he gives us the monstrous two-handed sword in return.



A pupil of the diving master in the Sunken City gives us a message to take to his old teacher, which leads us to a swimming minigame soon after. Winning it nets us the Swim Ring, which increases our speed in water.

Delivering a message from one fairy to another, the fairy hidden behind a waterfall in the Subrosian Temple of Seasons gives us another ring to appraise later, this time a Heart Ring L-1. It regenerates some of Link's health after a while, but it largely inferior to the L-2 variety we can find elsewhere.



Our last secret takes us to a Subrosian hidden in a room by the volcanoes, where we'll have to cut all the grass with our Magic Boomerang to win him over. Once we finish, he gives us some Bombchu as our reward, which are every bit as useless as their OoT counterparts (if not moreso since Seasons has a limited stock).



That's everything. But wait, don't we need this stuff for Ages? What's the point of going to all this trouble if its stuck in the game we already beat?



Ah, but remember: we were given another password for each one we told to take back to the other game. As such, all we have to do is redeem them all back at Farore in the Maku Tree and everything's hunky-dory.



Right now we're technically supposed to go kill Ganon, but there's one last obstacle we have to tackle before we do: Hero's Cave.



Hero's Cave, in a nutshell, is the dungeon to end all dungeons in the two games. Though the path to the end is fairly linear, the puzzles in the dungeon itself are much more nuanced than what we're used to, employing every trick in the book and throwing them together with sometimes devious results. Still, it's not actually all that hard, and aside from one particular puzzle you can still brute force your way through most of it. It's kind of a disappointment really, but that's not really something of a surprise at this point.



The cave starts off fairly simply with a block puzzle, netting us the key to move forward.

Further in is another block puzzle. You can actually screw up by accident here if you're not thinking ahead, but otherwise it's fairly standard work.



Remember these switches? That's right, it's time for another Seed Shooter puzzle. Just keep aiming at an angle until you reach the other side.



The next room has another puzzle along similar lines, however this one is a fair bit trickier. You have to position yourself just right to hit all four statues with one shot, which takes a bit of trial and error. We only get a Gasha Seed for solving it...



But a portal appears right after as well.



The puzzle here is pretty simple, just match the coloured statues so the right half mimics the left. You'll have to "borrow" one of the blue statues to complete the arrangement, however, which tends to be a bit of a stumbling block for some.



Switch Hook shenanigans! We end up netting a 200 rupee here, but at this point we've already got everything we need.



This puzzle gets me every time. Basically you have to push the two statues on their respective spaces, however moving around inside those cramped quarters with the Switch Hook is a pain in the behind and easy to mess up if you're not careful.

Next room over leads us to a switch surrounded by blocks we can't push. But that's fine; the Cane of Somaria creates a block through there anyway.



This puzzle is evil. Like all the others before it, it suffers from the fact you can't scope it out all at once due to the size of the room. But that's not all...



Once you stepped on every tile except one, you have to cover that last one with the Cane of Somaria to finish the puzzle. This seems clever at first, but keep in mind that there's absolutely no hint you have to do this in the game - no hints, no precedent, no nothing. You can literally spend hours trying to brute force the puzzle to get all the tiles in one go and never realize you have to pull out the cane to finish it off. The solution is every bit elegant as it is maddening.



Once you pass through that clusterfuck of a room, you're taken to an obstacle course going underwater. That last Switch Hook puzzle is annoying to pull off, but doable once you realize you have to drag one of the blocks out of that square and switch it back in from there.



This one is just annoying. You have to pull the switch to freeze the lava and slowly push the block over to all three panels. There's no real trick but it's easy to screw up so take your time.



We pick up another Gasha Seed and make our way over to another warp point...

And that's all, folks. For all our trouble getting through the Hero's Cave, we're awarded with the L-3 Armor Ring. This baby boosts our defenses massively but at a cost of a huge chunk of our offensive power, and as such it'll probably go unused for what little's left of this game.



There's only one thing left to do now. Let's hunt ourselves some pig.

Next time: Showdown at the Room of Rites: Link vs. Ganon!

Is there just the one Hero's cave? Or is there a different version for the other game (and the other tools)?

I never got very far in ages, so I'm curious to see what old Ganon is like in this game!

The Hero's Cave is always a wussy mini-dungeon in the game you start with, and a harrowing gauntlet of mind-bending puzzles in the game you link to. So if you start with Ages, you get to mess around with the world's worst Magical Boomerang puzzle until you start to wonder why you even like Zelda.

Also, Pappy, please take a screenshot with Biggoron's Sword equipped. It is too silly to ignore.

Last time, on Let's Play the Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Secrets, we did... stuff. We took out the Sorceress of Shadows, Veran, the Black Tower crumbled, Zelda got kidnapped again and is about to be sacrificed to bring the ultimate evil back to life, we conquered the bonus dungeon, wrote down and used every secret in the game... there's nothing much left but to finish it at this point, huh?

It's been three years since this LP started; let's wrap this one up and go home, team.



Our first order of business: the Biggoron's Sword! There are two things to note about the Big S here. First: Since it's a two-handed sword, it takes space up for both buttons so we can't have anythign else equipped while we're using it. Anything that's in the slot when the Biggoron Sword gets equipped is unequipped and put back in the item menu.

Second (and more importantly): it's one of the single most powerful weapons in the game, if not THE most powerful. It's stronger than even the Master Sword, swings in a full 180� arc and can break through some obstacles that normally only a bomb can destroy. The downside to this all is that it's incredibly slow, you can't charge a Spin Attack with it, and faster enemies tend to move out of the way before the blade connects. It's cool though, and really kind of goofy - it's one of the better easter eggs, to say the least.



Next on the list is to check up on the Moblin King back in the Sunken Cty. Just look at that face! It is the saddest face. Poor guy seems to have hit a low since we busted into his castle way back when and blew it up. Looks like he's been spending the time rebuilding his empire, one bomb at a time.

I'm not really sure it's safe having all those bombs in one-



Oh no



Oh nooooo

So, uh, yeah. We totally just blew the Moblin King and possibly everything else in a fifty mile radius to kingdom come with a single bomb.

Link is a hero!



Back over in Ages, we run into Maple one last time while heading back to the Maku Tree. It looks like she's upgraded her vacuum in the past while to a flying saucer! Nifty.



She's still not fast enough to beat us in a collectathon. :T



I make one last stop at Syrup's shop to stock up on some last-minute supplies. The Magic Potion will definitely come in handy for the battles to come, as the final boss fights can get really nasty if you're unprepared.

As for the Bombchus, I figured I'd pick up a few extras while I'm at it, because hey, why not? I don't remember if Syrup restocks them or not, however.

Here we are: our complete inventory. It would be a bit more optimal if we were playing the linked game in Seasons on account of the Roc's Cape being totally rad, but eh. The Feather will do, I guess. What's important is that we have the Master Sword, since that's the best way to damage you-know-who in the fight to come.



Now, onto the final dungeon!



For all the hype and build-up the game has been throwing at us up to this point, the dungeon itself is... honestly pretty lacklustre. It's only a few rooms long, and each one is filled with the same googly-eyed statues staring off into random directions. The puzzle itself is pretty simple as well: whichever door the statues aren't eyeing is the one forward.



After a minute or so, we come across the altar room that Kotake and Koume have been hiding out at for most of the game, and Zelda with it. All we need to do is get her out of there and...



Nope! Sorry Link, but it's never that simple.




Oh my God, you two. It's been over three years since I last made a post about these games and I'm still fed up to here with your meandering bullshit. This beatdown has been a long time coming, and I am going to enjoy every single minute of it.

Okay, so: Kotake and Koume. Like everything else this game has cribbed from other Zelda games, this fight plays out pretty much the same way it did in Ocarina of Time. The two sisters are weak against each other's element and fire off fire- and ice-balls aimed at your position, so your goal here is to go to bat on them with the Master Sword and hit their attacks back at each other.

As simple as this sounds, the timing for this is a huge pain in the ass and makes the fight really unpleasant as a result. Redirecting the fire/iceballs is difficult enough as it is as their angle and speed depends on where the sword strikes them, but Kotake and Koume are flying around the room at fairly high speeds as well.



After knocking them around a bit, they decide to get "serious" and merge together to form Twinrova. Just like they did in Ocarina of Time. Yep, that's certainly a thing that happened, isn't it.

...Really, it's fights like these that call into question the... capabilities of the team Capcom assigned to these games. I can understand wanting to pay homage to the source material - really, I do. But Ages relies on it to the point of using it as a crutch, rehashing characters and boss fights without understanding the original context that made them interesting in the first place. They're thrown into the games mainly to play the "hey, these are the wacky NPCs you knew from OoT and MM aren't they great" card without anything to distinguish them here, and it comes off as extraordinarily lazy because of it.

In this instance: Twinrova was an interesting fight in OoT because it showed first-hand the kind of people that Ganondorf grew up around and Kotake's and Koume's background and abilities helped establish why Ganondorf grew up to be as ambitious and well-versed in magic as he was. Divorcing that from the original context, playing them up as cartoonishly evil and throwing them haphazardly into these two games undermines what made them interesting in the first place and weakens the overall impact of this eleventh-hour twist. It's boring, and completely devoid of the flair the original fight had.



Anyway, at least this fight was changed from OoT... somewhat. Depending on which colour dominates at the time, Twinrova will either turn large parts of the floor into lava or freeze it solid to try and impede you while she pelts you with fire keese and ice blocks. The Roc's Feather/Cape helps tremendously in getting you close enough to slash her with the Master Sword, and after a few hits she'll be stunned - simply hit her with the Seed Shooter/Hyper Slingshot and repeat as necessary to win.



Eventually Twinrova go down and the ritual is stopped partway, but they sacrifice themselves to bring Ganon back. Serves them right, the chatterboxes.



See, Twinrova? THIS is how a real boss should act - quick and to the point. Save the monologuing for a game with a better plot.



So: Ganon. Like the fight in A Link to the Past (and, to a lesser extent, Zelda 1), Ganon teleports around the room and attacks with his trident, by firing fireballs and by hitting the ground hard enough to shake it and stun you, however this time he doesn't think to turn off the lights or knock out the floor like he did in that fight. Near the end of the fight he'll also reverse your controls, turning up into down and left into right - annoying, but manageable if you've made it this far.

The trick to this fight is that the Master Sword is the only thing that'll damage him normally, as anything else won't scratch his hide. I think the L2 Sword might hurt him with Spin Attacks though (maybe the Biggoron's Sword as well)... but at any rate, just keep hammering away at him with the sword and use the Roc's Feather/Cape for defense and he'll go down in no time at all.

Yep. You sure are, buddy.



Aaaand that's pretty much it. There's a screenshot cut out here that I forgot to capture, but the gist of it is that, because the wrong people were sacrificed, a mindless, stupid Ganon was brought back to life instead of the one brimming with charisma that we all know and love from LttP.



Looks like the temple's collapsing in on itself now that Twinrova's gone. Stupid cheap Capcom didn't put in a good foundation!



Before we can properly panic, the Maku Tree pulls us out of danger in the blink of an eye. Handy! I knew there was a reason I put up with ya, Maku.



The last Triforce is in captivity.

The world... is at peace.



Glad to see you two are doing all right. Though, uh... you should really start inviting your sister to these get-togethers - it really isn't healthy leaving Farore alone with her books all the time like this.

We've returned the seasons to normal and brought the flow of time back to order, and proved ourselves worthy of the Triforce. We even get a victory kiss out of it as well! Sh-shucks.



And that's it! Stick a fork in this game 'cause it's done.



Ralph and Nayru settled down in Lynna City, living out the rest of their days quietly and without much incident.



Din, now free of Onox's clutches and out in the open air again, rejoined her troop and started travelling the land again.



Ricky, Dmitri and Moosh have returned to the wild where they came, and can be spotted in both Holodrum and Labrynna, often seen travelling the countryside with Link.

Zelda returned to Hyrule Castle and her royal duties, but occasionally can be seen staring out into the horizon for reasons unknown.



Lastly, Link set out to sea in the hopes of finding more adventure and squashing evil wherever he finds it. Hopefully he won't find himself ship-wrecked on an island or anything. That would just be terrible!

So... that's it. We're done here. I feel terrible having left this thread to languish as long as I have and I can't help but cringe on rereading some of the rushed commentary, but now I can rest knowing that this one's at least reached its end. As far as games go though... I was not expecting to hate Ages as much as I did during this LP. It's weird; the first time I played it I didn't really think much of it; nothing really stood out at all when I first beat a linked game. However, replaying it and having to report the numerous roadblocks, the piles of exposition and the lazy, half-baked sidequests first-hand really drove home just how much this stuff didn't work at all.

Seasons gets a pass because it's short, punchy and to the point - it lets its design speak for itself, and the only barriers are natural ones which rely on the tools you have and don't have to surmount them. Ages, however, sabotages itself at nearly every opportunity, throwing numerous pointless sidequests and arbitrary road blocks to slow you down to getting to the good parts (i.e. the dungeons) and it really, truly suffers because of it. There's a good game in there somewhere and stuff like Mermaid's Cove is proof of it, so it's a shame that it never really rises to that potential beyond the one dungeon.

Anyway: Next up will be in bringing back ToD II and Pkmn White - hopefully I'll have those ones at least up-and-running before the next month is out. It might take a while to get back in the swing of things, but I definitely plan on bringing both of them to a conclusion no matter how long it takes.

That's it. Until next time, everybody!

~FIN~

Good show, Papillon

Thanks!

Don't ever say I didn't do good by you.

Wow. So... three years, huh?

I really liked the Oracle games, but then I never played OoT to have them spoiled for me.

I always love it when an LP is completed. Congrats!

I like the Oracle games, even if Ages is awful, so I'm glad this is completed!

I did not know this thread existed! I'll have to go back and read it posthaste!

Edit: Okay, I'm caught up now. I remember playing these games several years ago (I even had the strategy guide for them), but I never beat either one. I'll have to correct this soon (and make sure to play through Ages first when I do, heh).

Nice job on the LP, Pappy!

Now someone do a linked Seasons game.

I must have played both games over a dozen times. I really love both games. I beat Ages first because I couldn't solve the puzzle to the Lost Woods. I didn't understand that puzzle for three months. Playing a linked Ages game and seeing what changed there was really enjoyable.

Wow, that came out of nowhere! It's great to see this LP finally finished! Good job, Pap.

I also see you blew up the Moblin King's house, with you and him in it! That's great as well, though the best part comes if you leave while the bombs are flashing. And the best best part comes after you've done that a few times.

This LP has been here longer than I am... still, glad to see it finish!