The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages is an action-adventure game in the Legend of Zelda series, developed by Flagship (a subsidiary of Capcom).

The game was released along with its "sister" The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons on February 27, 2001 in Japan, May 14, 2001 in North America, and October 5, 2001 in Europe for Nintendo's Game Boy Color handheld console.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The Harp of Ages is the central item of the game. With it, Link can travel back and forth through time (400 years into the past and future respectively) allowing him to solve various puzzles on his quest.
 * 2) Certain choices made on the adventure will affect an outcome later on, making for various possible scenarios in a single play-through.
 * 3) An important element of gameplay in Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons is that after one game is completed, the other can be linked to it using passwords provided by the game, or a Game Link Cable.
 * 4) Additionally, Linked Games unlock additional content not seen in the separate games. The most notable change in a Linked Game is the extended or true ending.
 * 5) Choose your partner from one of three options, Ricky the kangaroo, Dimitri the Dodongo, and Moosh the flying bear. Your choice carries over to The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons if you use the Linked Game pass code provided by beating The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages.
 * 6) A unique feature of the Oracle series is the appearance of Magic Rings, that when worn provide Link with a variety of bonuses and abilities, giving an almost RPG-like twist to the game.
 * 7) Spectacular graphics and soundtrack for a Game Boy Color game.
 * 8) Lengthy game that can be finished in 10 hours more or less, and using a Linked game increases the amount of time even more in the other game.
 * 9) Some characters, weapons and items from the first game appear, as well as new ones. In particular, this game references Majora's Mask with its characters.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Some of the dungeons are terrible, such as Crown Dungeon and Jabu-Jabu's Belly. The latter is perhaps one of the worst dungeons in Zelda history.
 * 2) The puzzles can get repetitive as many are repeated over and over.
 * 3) Some of the bosses weaknesses are tough to figure out on their own. For example, how were you supposed to know that Veran is weak to mystery seeds?
 * 4) The Goron dance mini game is extremely bad. You need good timing and memory to beat it. And you need to play it twice to get to the sixth dungeon.
 * 5) This also applies to The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, but the invincibility frame from taking damage from enemies is very low. If ambushed in the midst of a large enemy onslaught, there is a chance that you could lose of ton of health in just a small span of time.
 * 6) Once again, this also applies to The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, but the true finale of the game was insulting and anticlimactic to many, as it turns out that the true villains of the two Oracle games were Twinrova and Ganon. This was especially insulting given that in Ages, the main villain Veran was a genuine threat (as she was responsible for altering the past and nearly ruining the future) to the game's story. Heck, Veran in particular is considered a "pure evil" villain in the Zelda series, yet she is not the true antagonist!
 * 7) It doesn't add favors that Twinrova's fight is cheap and rather unsatisfying to many, at least when compared to Onox and Veran. Ganon's final boss fight is better. but nowhere near as epic as the fights with Onox and Veran.

Reception
Oracle of Ages, or quite simply the Oracle Series in general, were very well received by critics and received mostly positive reviews. Both games received 9.2/10 ratings at GameSpot.

The game is often credited as being one of the top (if not the best) game for the Game Boy Color. In fact, Oracle of Ages was ranked by Nintendo Power as being the fifth best game for Game Boy/Game Boy Color, respectively, while Oracle of Seasons was ranked the fifth best game.