When you think of The legend of Zelda, what do you think of?
Maybe you think of Ocarina of time. That's a fan favourite right? Maybe you think about Majora's mask, links awakening or maybe even wind waker.
All of those are great games, each of them have something that makes them stand out from the other games. A fresh new adventure, one with a boat, one with multiple masks that make you transform one that even lets you control time. But how many of you think of Oracle of Seasons?
The Legend of Zelda Oracle of seasons is having its 10th birthday this year. It came out for the gameboy colour way back in 2001. Although If you played it on the gameboy advance it would unlock new items for you.
The game opens up with Link, riding his trusty horse toward a castle. When he enters, he's teleported by the triforce to defend the land of Holodrum from the not so nice General Onox.
Link wakes up in a strange field within earshot of music. Of course he's checking that shit out, Link never misses a party. Upon arriving he finds a whole heap of people playing instruments and dancing, and meets a sexy redhead named Din. While the game its self never says, its speculated among fans that this Din is the incarnate form of the Goddess of fire, Din. Since Zelda games are all set in alternate time lines, except Wind Waker and the DS games, this is plausible and probably for the best to keep thinking of it this way.
So Din and Link dance around for awhile, having a gay old time, then in typical fantasy RPG fashion, disaster strikes! The sky darkens, Onox and his minions kidnap Din and take her to his Mountain fortress, trapping her in a crystal.
Needless to say all hell breaks loose. The temple of seasons falls to earth and everything becomes screwy. Thus begins your adventure to save Din and put the natural order of things back to how it was!
The game really sticks out in my mind for a number of reasons. You gain the ability to change the seasons, as the name suggests. Depending on the season, you're able to reach new areas, items, people and complete quests. Some people will only talk to you in some weather. Some items are only usable in some seasons. The game has a large amount of items and things to keep you playing for days and days and days.
As far as mounts go, wooo-weee this game excels. All Zelda fans know about Epona, Links trusty steed he rides into heated battles. Well yes, thats all well and good, but we're not in Hyrule anymore ! Link has the choice between 3 mounts in this game, Ricky, Moosh and Dimitry. Amazing super dooper special outstanding mounts that will stay in your mind LONG after you've finished the game. Each of the mounts has an ability and is useful for getting to new areas and finding new things. The first of the mounts is a Big blue bear, Moosh. He can fly for short amounts of time and is so bloody sweet I got diabetes.
Ricky, the second the mounts is a god damn kangaroo with boxing gloves. His abilites allow you to take out lage amount of enemys and kick some major ass. Hes a pretty chill doood. Since hes a huge bouncy asshole, he can also jump over holes and whatnot, to unlock new areas.
The last is Dimitri. A red dodongo. Dimitri is like that guy nobody really likes, but is useful sometimes and grows on you. He can climb up waterfalls and swim, thus unlocking new areas. He can also eat enemy's and shit. When you get the power bracelet, you can pick his red ass up and throw him around like a little bitch.
All of the animal companions have something about them that make them unique and nice. Even if Moosh is the only one you
REALLY need because of how bad-ass he is, they all have a special place in my dull, dried up heart.
In terms of items, I could go on for hours. You've got the usual afair, Sling shots, Swords, shields and what not. The catch in this game is you can only equip two things at once, that keybind to
A and
B. So that means if you want your Sword and Shield out, you can't use anything else at the same time. This game has some "FULLEH SICK AS ITEMS BRU" as my dear childhood friend would say. You later gain the ability to
jump through the use of an item. That's fucking cool.
The bosses in this game are interesting. There are 13 bosses all together, and many of them have a hint of familiarity about them.
For instance.
This here, is Aquamentus. He is the badass mother fucker boss of the first temple, in the very first zelda game.
And this here is Aquamentus, the first boss from Oracal of Seasons.
A few of the bosses are like this. Dodongo, Gohma, Mothula, Medusa and geelock. Thats more then a few actually, thats 5 out of 9 of the original bosses that show up in Seasons, Thats kind of cool.
Don't expect to be fighting Ganon at the end of Seasons though, no no.
At the same time The legend of Zelda: Oracle of seasons came out, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages, also came out. And while the stories are different, and are based on different gimmicks. If played together they form a new ending to both games. An ending where Ganon can be defeated, and ultimate peace gained.
When I was a young lad, I never knew anyone who had Ages, and while I was having fun coming out of my butt playing Ages, I never got to experiance the ultimate thrill of that special ending. The ultimate glory of downing Ganon with my friend.
I could talk about this game for hours and hours. And already this post seems too big. But I just wanted to talk about a game that's really stuck in my mind. All of the interesting characters, missions, items and environments, all of them make up one fantastic game and if you've yet to play it, I highly recommend you get one.
Happy birthday Oracle of seasons.
