The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons

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The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
Developer(s)	Flagship
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Designer(s)	Hidemaro Fujibayashi (director)
Release date(s)	February 27, 2001 May 14, 2001 October 5, 2001
Genre(s)	Action Adventure
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: E (Everyone) ELSPA: 3+ OFLC: G8+
Platform(s)	Game Boy Color
Media	8 megabit Game Boy Color cartridge[1]

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, released in Japan as Zelda no Densetsu: Fushigi no Ki no Mi Daichi no Shō (ゼルダの伝説 ふしぎの木の実 大地の章, Zeruda no Densetsu Fushigi no Ki no Mi Daichi no Shō^?, lit. "The Legend of Zelda: Nut of the Mysterious Tree: Chapter of Earth"), is a video game developed by Nintendo in conjunction with Capcom and published by Nintendo on February 27, 2001 in Japan, May 14, 2001 in North America, and October 5, 2001 in Europe. The game was released for use on the Nintendo Game Boy Color, but special features, such as additional items, are available when played on a Nintendo Game Boy Advance.^[2] It interacts with The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages, a game concurrently released for the Game Boy Color, via a Game Link Cable^[3] and a password system.^[4]

Contents 1 Plot 1.1 Characters 1.2 Setting 2 Gameplay 3 Development 4 Reception 5 Manga 6 Notes and references 7 External links

[edit] Plot

According to the instruction manual, the Triforce called out to Link from within its Temple. Link approached it, and was sucked into a vortex that tossed him out into a dark forest where upon landing, the young hero heard music and voices from just beyond a group of trees. In a clearing, a group of traveling entertainers were cheering a beautiful red head who was dancing around a fire. The dancer motioned to Link for him to join her. She welcomed the Hylian to Holodrum, and mentioned that her name was Din. Din took Link's hand and the two began to dance around the fire. Din notices a strange triangle mark on Link's hand, but won't say much about it ... The other people started cheering them on, but the happy moment was short lived. The sky over the forest became covered in black clouds followed by several strikes of lightning and booming thunder from which an ominous voice spoke. The speaker declared himself as Onox, General of Darkness and added that Din was the Oracle of Seasons.

After his short speech, a funnel cloud dropped from the sky blowing back everyone including Link before sucking up Din into its dark heights. As the tornado dissipated, the seasons of Holodrum fell into disarray with them changing rapidly.

The Rod of Seasons is a powerful item that holds some of the power of the Oracle of Seasons, Din. The item is hidden in the world of Subrosia where it is said that the Temple of Seasons is buried. When obtained, swinging the rod results in a change of season.

[edit] Characters

• Link, as always, is the hero of the game.
• Princess Zelda requests that Link saves the Oracle of Seasons, yet unknowingly is also a target as she is the key to releasing Ganon.
• Impa is Zelda's messenger.
• The Maku Tree is a large magical tree similar to the Great Deku Tree.
• Din the Oracle of Seasons who was captured by Onox General of Darkness and must be saved by Link.

[edit] Setting

Holodrum is much larger than Labrynna in Oracle of Ages, but it has no underwater or past to explore. It does, however have the small subterranean world of Subrosia beneath it. The name Subrosia is derived from subrosa, meaning "secret", and the people of Subrosia are very secretive about their rare movements in the overworld.

Subrosia acts as a go-between with the upper world, with shortcut portals to take Link to different parts of Holodrum quickly; similarly, warping to a different location on the overworld can lead to different Subrosia portals to access isolated areas of Subrosia that cannot be reached via the underground plane alone.

[edit] Gameplay

Oracle of Ages concentrates more on puzzles, while Oracle of Seasons focuses more on action.^[5] Though each is a complete self-contained game, they have the ability to link with one another, using passwords^[4] or a Game Link Cable.^[3]

Upon completing Oracle of Seasons, players receive a password that can be used to play an alternative version of Oracle of Ages.^[4] In this version, some characters mention passwords that can be given to characters in Oracle of Seasons in exchange for an item or upgrade. Then, by taking a new password back into Oracle of Ages, the item or upgrade can be transferred.^[4] Rings can be traded by this password system or randomly created by connecting two games with a Game Link Cable.^[3]

The alternative game has many extras. Some items move around and must be found in different places. The pirates appear in a different place, and in the alternative version of Oracle of Seasons, it is mentioned that the pirate captain was the long-lost lover the Oracle of Ages character Queen Ambi has been waiting for. Also, once Veran is defeated, the witch Twinrova appears. Veran and Onox were ploys to light the Flames of Sorrow and Destruction. Upon kidnapping Princess Zelda, the third Flame of Despair lights, and Twinrova attempts to offer Zelda as a tribute, along with the energy of the three Flames, to revive Ganon.^[6] Link must then enter Twinrova's lair and defeat both Twinrova and Ganon.^[6] Upon completing the alternative game, another password is shown that gives the player the Victory Ring, which commemorates their defeat of Ganon.^[7]

[edit] Development

Yoshiki Okamoto, a game director for Capcom, worked with a team to develop a Zelda title, but couldn't agree on the direction development should take. Okamoto wanted to remake the original The Legend of Zelda for the Game Boy Color, using it as a test and moving on to a "more ambitious game" if successful. Other members of the team wanted to create an original Zelda title immediately.^[8] Dismayed at the rate at which the team had been spending money for a year without results, Okamoto had Capcom director Yoshifumi Yamashita join the team. He also asked Shigeru Miyamoto, the game designer at Nintendo who created the series, for help.^[8] Nintendo and Capcom began collaborating concurrently on six Game Boy Color Zelda titles: two based on previous games and four original works.^[9]

Okamoto wanted to release games in quick succession, spacing sequels only four or five months apart. Because Nintendo does not work in this fashion and Miyamoto was involved with other projects, the team asked Flagship, a design studio headed by Okamoto and funded by Nintendo, Sega, and Capcom,^[10] to begin developing scenarios for the games.^[11] This is in sharp contrast to Miyamoto's usual strategy of creating a game's story and characters only after the basic gameplay has been created. The team ran into trouble, as Flagship had to constantly rework the scenario and maps to match the gameplay as it changed.^[8] The Game Boy Color's screen presented additional problems when attempting to rework existing Zelda titles. Since the screen is narrower than that of a television, players were unable view an entire room without scrolling; this made it easy for the player to overlook stairways or clues on walls.^[8]

Despite these problems, the team's experience porting the original The Legend of Zelda to the Game Boy Color emboldened them to work on a sequel; it was decided to create a set of three games that could be played in any order.^[11] This trilogy was referred to as the "Triforce Series",^[12] named after a fictional holy relic known as the Triforce^[13] that plays a major role in many Zelda titles. The Triforce is composed of three parts: the Triforces of Power, Wisdom, and Courage; each game in the trilogy was associated with one of the Triforces.^[13]

The first game of the three was demonstrated at Nintendo's SpaceWorld trade show in 1999 under the working title The Legend of Zelda: The Acorn of the Mystery Tree -- Tale of Power.^[14] This action-oriented game concerned Ganon's theft of Princess Zelda and the "Rod of the Seasons", which threw the seasons of Hyrule into chaos^[14] — a clear precursor to the story of Oracle of Seasons. In the playable demonstration, Link solved puzzles by using the Rod of the Seasons to manipulate the environment and change the current season. Tale of Wisdom, which focused on color-based puzzles, and Tale of Courage, which used times of day to solve puzzles in a mechanic similar to the use of seasons, were not shown.^[12] The Japanese title of the series was later changed to The Legend of Zelda: The Mysterious Acorn: Chapter of Power, Chapter of Wisdom, and Chapter of Courage.^[13] In the US, the games became The Legend of Zelda: Mystical Seed of Power, Mystical Seed of Wisdom, and Mystical Seed of Courage.^[15]

The games interacted with each other: players could begin with any of the three titles and have the actions of the first game affect the story of the other two.^[16] The developers considered using a cell phone adapter to transfer data, but later decided on a password system.^[12] The limitations of this system and the difficulty of coordinating three games proved too complicated, so the team scaled back to two titles at Miyamoto's suggestion.^[8][17] Condensing the games into a single cartridge was never considered, as the prospect of multiple endings and the added replay value afforded by the ability to play the titles in either order was very attractive.^[8] Oracle of Seasons (Chapter of Earth in Japan) was adapted from Mystical Seed of Power, Oracle of Ages (Chapter of Time and Space in Japan) was adapted from Mystical Seed of Wisdom, and Mystical Seed of Courage was canceled.^[12] Staggered releases were abandoned in favor of releasing the two games simultaneously. This made it easier for the team to test the interaction between the games and keep the style consistent.^[8]

These sweeping design changes pushed the release dates closer to the upcoming release of the Game Boy Advance (GBA), the next system in the Game Boy line that is backward compatible with Game Boy Color games. The team considered adding special functionality to the game triggered only when played on a GBA, but was afraid that the additional development time required for the addition would cause the games to be released after the GBA.^[8] When the release date of the GBA got postponed, the team was able to incorporate GBA functionality and still release the games approximately a month before the GBA was released.^[8]

[edit] Reception

Gamespot gave Oracle of Seasons a 9.2,^[5] like its counterpart Oracle of Ages, and IGN gave it a perfect rating of 10.^[18] All five Nintendo Power reveiwers gave the game five stars out of five.^[1]

[edit] Manga

The official but non-canonical manga introduced plotlines and characters that were unidentified in the original game. It introduced Link's grandparents and established that he lived in the country with them. It also introduced more of Din's troupe and gave names to the unidentified characters. They included Johvan the troupe leader, Barrot the guitarist, Mel and Rom, tambourine-playing twin sisters, and finally Johvan's son Rishu, who aspires to become a fighter. Also included was a small Cucco chick named Pyoko, who acted as one of Link's companions.

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons official site
• Collection of reviews of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
• The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons at MobyGames
• The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons at GameFAQs

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Characters · Enemies · Manga · Musical instruments Races · Songs · TV series · Weapons and items

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The Legend of Zelda • The Adventure of Link • A Link to the Past • Link's Awakening • Ocarina of Time • Majora's Mask • Oracle of Seasons & Ages • Four Swords • The Wind Waker • Four Swords Adventures • The Minish Cap • Twilight Princess • Phantom Hourglass