The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages

Jesus, time has a way of slipping away from you. I thought I played through Oracle of Seasons just a year ago. Nope! That was The Minish Cap. Okay then, must have been in 2015. Nope! Went Zelda-free that year. We're looking at a full two and a half years, folks. Yowza!

I've got the same complaints and faint praise for this game as I did for that one. Amazing that these were co-developed as frankly they're probably the "fullest" games on the Game Boy Color, Pokémon notwithstanding. But they're also just Game Boy Color games, which means switching between items was agonizing and the dungeons could only be so varied. I saw a set of Zelda rankings recently that had these two games tied for third on the list, and that's admittedly a head-scratcher for me. Why? How? There's nothing exceptional about these. They are eminently forgettable. Before starting Ages I had to double-check just to make sure that what I'd already played was in fact Seasons. Maybe it's easy to shrug these off in 2017, and perhaps I'd be much more impressed playing through them when they actually came out - I did already say I thought they were among the best games on their handheld, so there's that. But yeah - just nothing to love here. Three stars out of five here. That Minish Cap followed this pair just a couple of years later is astonishing, and if anything makes me like that game even more. (These, by comparison, didn't feel like a huge step up from Link's Awakening graphically or otherwise, and that game came out eight years prior.)

Oh, lastly - if I had to pick between Seasons or Ages, I'd say Ages holds the slight advantage. I liked what it did with two time periods more than I liked what Seasons did with its four environmental tweaks.

Anyway, Four Swords Adventures aside, this leaves me all caught up on Zelda games through the early days of the Wii. Why not bust out an ill-thought and very preliminary ranked list?

1. Twilight Princess - It's everything you all think you loved about Ocarina with less of the tedium and fewer design flaws and control issues.

2. The Wind Waker - Light on dungeons, but still possibly the best-looking Zelda I've played, and holy shit, nothing's like that feeling of taking to the high seas.

3. Ocarina of Time - The classic's a classic for a reason, and I loved it too, and I ain't here just to stir shit up with baldly controversial takes! I'm sure the 3DS version is even better.

4. Majora's Mask - I've come all the way around on this one; was an early adopter of the "it's actually better than Ocarina" mindset but in spite of its darker, cooler, deeper vibes it was still a pain in the ass to play. Same 3DS comment holds, though.

5. A Link to the Past - I always want to jack this one higher up my list, but there's something about it that always left me just the tiniest bit cold. Can't put my finger on it. 

6. The Minish Cap - Latecomer here, but what a beautiful fucking game! Mixes the gameplay of Link to the Past and all the other top-down games with the bigger vibe and feel of Ocarina and nails it.

7. A Link Between Worlds - Feels so much like an updated port of Link to the Past that it loses some credit for unoriginality; I actually had more pure fun with this one than anything but the top two or three, but story and memorability matter, and this lacks both.

8. Spirit Tracks - The rails were annoying but this was plenty of fun. Never had the same issues with the pan flute the rest of you seemed to struggle with.

9. Phantom Hourglass - Honestly can't distinguish between this and Spirit Tracks all that well, but I know I preferred Spirit Tracks to this one - could be the central dungeon gimmick that annoyed me a bit.

10. Oracle of Ages - See above.

11. Oracle of Seasons - Likewise.

12. Link's Awakening - Definitely the Zelda game I remember the least. That's my fault and time's fault, not its fault, but still.

13. Four Swords - Is this canon? Four Links? Whatever - made for an easy fun evening a year ago that I still remember fondly. Wait - [checks] - okay yeah, whew, only a year ago.

14. The Legend of Zelda - Iconic status in gaming history aside, we all agree that this is a nightmare to play now, right?

15. The Adventure of Link - Legitimately a mediocre game, even for its time.

Those are my takes. Come at me with yours! (Yeah, I smell a Rank & File alright.)