History YMMV / TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames

!!The Manga

** Between the two titular oracles, Din isn't treated to much in terms of significance or character development, beyond being a damsel for Link to have to save. The most we learn about her personality is that she's outgoing and [[InformedAttribute supposedly]] strong-willed, and we don't get to experience her relationships with other characters like we do with Nayru, through Ralph. Also unlike Nayru, who exhibits the power of MagicMusic and control over the passing of day and night, the SeasonalBaggage that comes with Din's capture isn't even utilized very well, since the game never explains the extent of her powers or if she can call on them willingly or not. The greatest extent that we're shown is that when she's free, the seasons change normally, and when she's imprisoned, they go haywire.
** Farore, thanks to being DemotedToExtra during the development. She was originally intended to be ''the Oracle of Ages herself'' (Nayru would've been a painter in a color-themed game), but instead was relegated to letting you transfer secrets and new items between the two games. It's very possible to experience both ''Seasons'' and ''Ages'' without even speaking to her, and for no explained reason, she's also excluded from the scene where Din and Nayru combine their power to help Link reach the confrontation with Twinrova, despite still being as much of an oracle as they are.

** The Goron Dance on Platinum level requires up to 10 sequences of precisely timed button presses, and you have to do them perfect all eight times in order to get the Bomber's Ring, and there is no other way in either game to get it. The 3DS UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole release inadvertently makes this much easier by allowing the player to make restore points during the dance between rounds, so you can just save scum until you nail it.

** Onox's Castle in ''Seasons'' is just a set of three rooms, each one requiring you to defeat the middling enemies inside before it will let you advance, and then a final antechamber before the FinalBoss fight. The closest thing to a "puzzle" it has is that there are side chambers that contain recovery along the way, but send you back to the entrance of the castle once you leave them.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: The music that plays in the Temple of Seasons sounds a lot like the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasy'' prelude.

** In the Japanese version, Link woos an Uura girl named Urara ("Beauty"). In the English, her name is Rosa, [[LuckyTranslation preserving the pun almost perfectly]].

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Do the three Oracles merely have the same names as the three goddesses of Hyrule, or are they the goddesses themselves in mortal form?

* TierInducedScrappy: Among the animal companions you can unlock, Moosh is almost unanimously regarded as the worst of the three. He's a giant winged bear who lets you hover over pits and GroundPound enemies, but his attack is lacking in range and takes a while to charge up, and his hovering abilities aren't useful except in the areas where they're absolutely required -- not to mention, you have to mash the A button unforgivably quickly to get any sort of air time out of him or else you'll take fall damage. By contrast, Ricky allows you to more easily bypass pits as well as otherwise-impassable cliffs and ledges, and Dimitri serves as a welcome reprieve from the [[ScrappyMechanic Mermaid Suit]] who also lets you attack enemies while in the water, making both of them significantly more practical choices for Link's companion.

** The Uura ("hidden") and Tokagejin ("lizard-folk") races were translated as "Subrosians" (from the Latin ''sub rosa'', [[GeniusBonus referring to an old practice in which a rose was placed over a doorway to indicate a secret meeting]]) and "Tokay" (referring to a species of gecko).

* AntiClimaxBoss: [[spoiler: Ganon, despite having Ambi's Tower falling on him not hurting him, puts up less of a fight than Onox's [[OneWingedAngel dragon form]].]]

* SuspiciouslySimiliarSong: The music that plays in the Temple of Seasons sounds a lot like the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasy'' prelude.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Ralph from ''Ages'' gives a bad first impression with his immature and arrogant attitude, repeatedly criticizing Link for attending to everyone's needs instead of Nayru and not being of any help on his own--a surefire way to rub pretty much every player the wrong way. After Link rescues Nayru, however, [[SuddenHumility he suddenly mellows out]] and travels to the past to end Queen Ambi's life when she's possessed by Veran even if it means he will disappear because of the time paradox. Fortunately, Link prevents him from doing so and Ralph's newfound selflessness ended up winning over many of his detractors.

* GameplayDerailment: Nothing is really stopping you from using someone else's Linked Game password (whether obtained online or via a friend) and starting a fresh playthrough from there. The intent was clearly to play one version, get your own password, and go through the other version using it. The biggest advantage to doing this is grabbing a password from a file with a bunch of the best rings and being able to use them.

* VindicatedByHistory: While both ''Oracle'' games were high sellers as expected of the series, they were largely overlooked by the general public due to more attention being focused towards the 3D games. As time went by, the duology has slowly garnered more attention for their creative item selection, challenging dungeon and puzzle design, cool villains, and RPG-like customization system with the rings.

!!The Mangas

* AntiClimaxBoss: The TrueFinalBoss is slow and predictable, and he doesn't have a second/third form like the two vanilla final bosses and the boss that comes before him. Some of it is justified by the fact [[spoiler:Twinrova couldn't offer the proper sacrifice for his mortal vessel, making him a mindless beast and likely less powerful than he ought to be]], but it's still a bit jarring.

* BestBossEver:

** The first battle with Veran in ''Ages''. A gimmick fight, but a fun one nonetheless in which the player is forced to swap between three different items (Seed shooter, Switch hook, and the sword) to defeat her. What's more, it's even a FinalBossPreview since it's repeated in the first phase of the final battle...with some new tricks up her sleeve.
* BestLevelEver:

* BrokenBase: A much more mild example. The games are both loved equally, but some people still have preferences over the "Best" order to play and what is the "best" way to link them together.

* EvilIsSexy: [[https://zelda.gamepedia.com/File:Veran.png Veran]]. As you can clearly see, Veran reads like a scrolling laundry list of kinks, and then some. [[spoiler:Even two of her OneWingedAngel forms (her true appearance as a fairy and her beetle transformation) are {{Cute Monster Girl}}s, although they ''do'' veer a bit toward the creepy side.]]
* FandomEnragingMisconception: Due to the way the games were marketed when they first came out and the general timing, a lot people got the impression that they were [[OneGameForThePriceOfTwo just two very similar games with slight differences]] like the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games. Because of this, a lot of people accused the duology of being a lazy cash grab, in which you have to pay for essentially the same game twice in order to see the whole story. Of course, this is a fool proof way to enrage fans, who will "passionately" explain that they are two completely different, full-blown ''Zelda'' games that just happened to be released simultaneously.
* GameBreaker: The Red Ring in ''Seasons'' doubles all sword damage. This makes any normal attack a Spin Attack and Spin Attacks do ''quadruple'' normal damage. With the Noble Sword, Spin Attacks reach 8 power, and the Master Sword in a linked game raises that to ''12'' power. Even the final bosses of the games will die in three or four spin attacks at that rate [[labelnote:Specifically...]]Veran's second and final forms will go down in two each, Onox's first will drop after four, and his second in three, Twinrova can be stunned with just one, and Ganon's bacon will be smoked after five[[/labelnote]]. This also explains why so many late game bosses and minibosses are immune to sword strikes or are {{Puzzle Boss}}es.

* {{Padding}}: ''Oracle of Ages'' contains two major instances. The first is when Link is shipwrecked on Crescent Island, loses all of his items, and has to go back and forth across the island to get them back. The second is later on, when the player must complete an elaborate trading sequence in the Goron village, requiring many traversals through the mountains and crossing between time periods. Neither of these advance the plot or introduce any new gameplay mechanics; they're just there to fill up time between dungeons.
* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Ralph from ''Oracle Of Ages'' gives off his first impression with his immature and arrogant attitude, repeatedly criticizing Link for attending to everyone's needs instead of Nayru which rubs every player the wrong way while also being less helpful but after Link rescues Nayru, [[SuddenHumility he suddenly mellows out]] and travels to the past to end Queen Ambi's life when she's possessed by Veran even if it means he will disappear because of the time paradox but fortunately, Link prevents him to do so and his selflessness wins many of his approval from players.

** The two Pieces of Heart you get from a Gasha Tree and Maple. It is ''completely'' random when these pop up, so prepare to spend a long time trying to get those. Worse yet, depending on where you run into Maple, there's a chance the Piece of Heart can end up stuck in a tree or rock wall, where you can't grab it. [[spoiler:The trick to the Gasha heart piece is that only some spots can give it up at all, making it a GuideDangIt instead.]] Maple is still just as aggravating, but both of these heart pieces can be [[SaveScumming save scummed]], provided you manage to snatch Maple's before she gets to it first, anyway.

** Digdogger, the boss of Unicorn's Cave in ''Seasons'', is subject of a fight where you're more likely to be killed by your own hand than from anything the boss does. You can only damage him by bowling over him with an enormous metal ball, but not only is Digdogger hard to hit with the thing due to how much he moves around the room, but the only way to move the ball is using the newly-acquired Magnetic Gloves. The ball will also damage Link if he comes into contact with it, making it that much harder to get the ball into the proper place to strike the boss and all too easy to mess up the polarity and accidentally crush Link with it.

** The Ancient Ruins boss Manhandla, a giant Venus flytrap that shoots fireballs. Sounds easy enough, except that: you need to take out the heads with the boomerang, the heads are only vulnerable when they're shooting at you, the boomerang averts the "precise" part of PrecisionGuidedBoomerang when you're trying to guide it around (the heads are on all four sides), the boss gets faster with every head destroyed, you ''use the same buttons to move as to control the boomerang'' (making you a sitting duck), and, adding insult to injury, there are conveyor belts on the floor that pull you into the boss if you step on them (see: same buttons for movement and boomerang). [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman Good thing you found that Quicksand Ring a while back]], [[LuckBasedMission right?]]
** The Ancient Tomb boss Ramrock is a long and complicated PuzzleBoss requiring the use of many different items and strategies, many of which are very unclear. For instance, in its first two forms, it is immune to the seed shooter, yet in its third form this inexplicably becomes its only weakness. You will basically only discover this if you flail around trying absolutely everything, but why on Earth would you use the thing you've already established is useless? You are also supposed to throw bombs between its hands in its second form, but the window (in both time and space) is incredibly narrow, so it's easy to throw a bomb only for it to prove ineffective, at which point you might reasonably assume that you're supposed to do something else.
** Veran's spider form can be frustrating. The only way to make it vulnerable is to detonate a bomb on it. There is a respawning bomb drop in the arena, which is a pretty big hint...but it also has an attack where it tries to catch you on silk and reel you in, making FeedItABomb a reasonable assumption. This will, of course, mean you will be detonating the bombs ''away'' from the boss, making it difficult to discover the weakness.

** In an unlinked game, Hero's Cave is just a short dungeon existing only in ''Seasons'' that you go through to first get your sword. In a linked game, it's 21 rooms long in ''Seasons'' and 15 in ''Ages'', and in both cases you need to have the equipment from the 7th dungeon in order to clear it.

** A few of the linked game mini-games can be this. If ''Seasons'' is the first game you beat, cutting grass with the Magic Boomerang in just 3 throws. With ''Ages'', the one that stands out is doing the sword batting cage mini game ''with the Biggoron Sword''.

** Both Veran and Onox were interesting villains with unique powers, cool character designs, and creative methods. [[spoiler:However, the BigBad turns out to be Twinrova, with Ganon as the GreaterScopeVillain and TrueFinalBoss.]] Veran exemplifies the ''Wasted'' part of this, seeing as her plan is significantly more complicated than Onox's and her character receives much more focus, making it seem extra-jarring that she lacks any motives of her own.

** Farore, thanks to being DemotedToExtra during the development. She was originally intended to be the ''Oracle of Ages'' herself (Nayru would've been a painter in a color-themed game), but instead was relegated to letting you transfer secrets and new items between the two games. It's very possible to experience both ''Seasons'' and ''Ages'' without even speaking to her, and for no explained reason, she's also excluded from the scene where Din and Nayru combine their power to help Link reach the confrontation with Twinrova, despite still being as much of an oracle as they are.
* TierInducedScrappy: Among the animal companions you can unlock, Moosh is almost unanimously regarded as the worst of the three. He’s a giant winged bear who lets you hover over pits and GroundPound enemies, but his attack is lacking in range and takes a while to charge up, and his hovering abilities aren’t useful except in the areas where they’re absolutely required — not to mention, you have to mash the A button unforgivably quickly to get any sort of air time out of him or else you’ll take fall damage. By contrast, Ricky allows you to more easily bypass pits as well as otherwise-impassable cliffs and ledges, and Dimitri serves as a welcome reprieve from the [[ScrappyMechanic Mermaid Suit]] who also lets you attack enemies while in the water, making both of them significantly more practical choices for Link’s companion.

* ViewerSpeciesConfusion: While it’s a lot easier to identify his in-game sprite, the official artwork for Moosh makes him out to look more like a morbidly-obese cat than a bear.
* VindicatedByHistory: While both ''Oracle'' games were high sellers as expected of the series, they were largely overlooked by the general public due to more attention being focused towards the [=3D=] games. As time has gone by, the duology has been slowly garnering more attention for their creative item selection, challenging dungeon and puzzle design, cool villains, and [=RPG-like=] customization system with the rings.

** LuckyTranslation: In the Japanese version, Link wooed an Uura girl named Urara ("Beauty"). In the English, her name is Rosa, preserving the pun almost perfectly.

%%* EnsembleDarkhorse: Veran. Despite only appearing in one game, she's one of the most popular villains in the series. Aside from her [[EvilIsSexy attractiveness]], she doesn't just sit around [[OrcusOnHisThrone waiting for Link]] to pick up the Macguffins unlike most ''Zelda ''villains. She actively intervenes in the plot and even fights him once before the final dungeon. The theories relating Veran to Gerudos or even the [[VideoGame/TheLegendofZeldaTwilightPrincess Twili]], also help as well.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Veran. Despite only appearing in one game, she's one of the most popular villains in the series. Aside from her [[EvilIsSexy attractiveness]], she doesn't just sit around [[OrcusOnHisThrone waiting for Link]] to pick up the Macguffins unlike most ''Zelda ''villains. She actively intervenes in the plot and even fights him once before the final dungeon. The theories relating Veran to Gerudos or even the [[VideoGame/TheLegendofZeldaTwilightPrincess Twili]], also help as well.

* AntiClimaxBoss: [[spoiler:Ganon]]. He's slow and predictable, and he doesn't have a second/third form like the two vanilla final bosses and the boss that comes before him. Some of it is justified by the fact [[spoiler:Twinrova couldn't offer the proper sacrifice for his mortal vessel, making him a mindless beast and likely less powerful than he ought to be]], but it's still a bit jarring for the [[spoiler:former King of Evil]].

** The first battle with Veran in ''Ages''. A gimmick fight, but a fun one nonetheless in which the player is forced to swap between three different items (Seed shooter, Switch hook, and the sword) to defeat her. What's more, it's even a FinalBossPreview since it's repeated in the first phase of the final battle... with some new tricks up her sleeve.

* BreatherBoss: Plasmarine, boss of Jabu-Jabu's Belly in ''Ages''. Really easy to dodge, has only two attacks, and one of them is incredibly slow-moving. Considering that level's [[ThatOneLevel reputation]] among the fandom, it also counts as a [[HardLevelsEasyBosses Hard Level, Easy Boss]].

** Onox's Castle in ''Oracle of Seasons'' is just a set of three rooms, each one requiring you to defeat the middling enemies inside before it will let you advance, and then a final antechamber before the FinalBoss fight. The closest thing to a "puzzle" it has is that there are side chambers that contain recovery along the way, but send you back to the entrance of the castle once you leave them.

* EvilIsSexy: [[https://zelda.gamepedia.com/File:Veran.png Veran.]] As you can clearly see, Veran reads like a scrolling laundry list of kinks, and then some. [[spoiler:Even two of her OneWingedAngel forms (her true appearance as a fairy and her beetle transformation) are {{Cute Monster Girl}}s, although they ''do'' veer a bit toward the creepy side.]]

* GoddamnedBats: Keeses are more obnoxious in this incarnation than in most others. Especially the flaming varieties.

** The second boss from ''Ages'', the Head Thwomp, is this if you don't know the trick. You must sit on slow moving platforms that rotate above his head so you can drop bombs into him, making him spin around. However, you have to make him stop on the ''red'' head to actually damage him, everything else gets an attack. There's a precise timing to it (throw the bomb when his face turns purple, and throw a bomb right after you had hit it), and you can eliminate a lot of guesswork by tossing bombs from the edge of the solid platforms up top, but it's still annoying.

* {{Padding}}: ''Oracle of Ages'' contains two major instances. The first is when Link is shipwrecked on Tokay Island, loses all of his items, and has to go back and forth across the island to get them back. The second is later on, when the player must complete an elaborate trading sequence in the Goron village, requiring many traversals through the mountains and crossing between time periods. Neither of these advance the plot or introduce any new gameplay mechanics; they're just there to fill up time between dungeons.

** [[spoiler:Veran's spider form]] can be frustrating. The only way to make it vulnerable is to detonate a bomb on it. There is a respawning bomb drop in the arena, which is a pretty big hint... but it also has an attack where it tries to catch you on silk and reel you in, making FeedItABomb a reasonable assumption. This will, of course, mean you will be detonating the bombs ''away'' from the boss, making it difficult to discover the weakness.

** The Goron dancing minigame in ''Ages'', because it's so easy to screw up the timing. What makes it worse is that it's mandatory to complete the game. Not only that, but doing the dancing minigame in the Past before the appropriate time will not give you [[spoiler:the key to the Mermaid's Cave in the Past]], and you'll need to do it again when the time actually comes.

** The Ancient Ruins from ''Seasons'' is almost hilariously dickish in its obvious antagonism toward the player and willingness to break ''Zelda'' conventions. It's an already large level which contains multiple pointless rooms full of enemies and hazards. There's a hallway trap unique to the entire series that will send Link to an instant game over unless the player can speed through an obstacle course with almost perfect timing. One puzzle involves two randomized switches; one allows further progress while the other drops snakes on Link's head. The experience concludes with a particularly annoying boss. The fact that it immediately follows [[Awesome/VideoGameLevels the run through Tarm Ruins and the Lost Woods]] doesn't help.

** The Hero's Cave in a linked game. In an unlinked game, it's just a short dungeon in ''Seasons'' that you go through to first get your sword, and it doesn't even exist in ''Ages'', but in the linked games, it's 21 rooms long in ''Seasons'' and 15 in ''Ages'', and in both cases you need to have the equipment from the 7th dungeon in order to clear it.
** The second-to-last puzzle in ''Seasons'' is hair-pullingly hard, because you need to perform a very precise boomerang throw to hit a switch. And the boomerang is FAST, which mean you need a hell lot of reflexes to pull it off. However, you can circumvent that puzzle by using Pegasus seeds to control the return path of the boomerang in such a way that it goes through the blocks and hits the switch on the way back. Bombchus work too.

** A few of the linked game mini-games can be this. With ''Seasons'' being the first game you beat, cutting grass with the Magic Boomerang in just 3 throws. With ''Ages'' as the first, the one that stands out is doing the sword batting cage mini game ''with the Biggoron Sword''.

* CompleteMonster: See [[Monster/TheLegendOfZelda here]].

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Veran. Despite only appearing in one game, she's one of the most popular villains in the series. Aside from her attractiveness, she doesn't just sit around [[OrcusOnHisThrone waiting for Link]] to pick up the Macguffins unlike most ''Zelda ''villains. She actively intervenes in the plot and even fights him once before the final dungeon. The theories relating Veran to Gerudos or even the [[VideoGame/TheLegendofZeldaTwilightPrincess Twili]], also help as well.

* CompleteMonster: [[EvilSorceress Veran]], [[BossSubtitles described]] as the "[[CardCarryingVillain Sorceress of Shadows]]", is [[TheHeavy the main antagonist]] of ''Oracle of Ages''. A particularly sadistic minion of [[BigBadDuumvirate Twinrova]], Veran is tasked with spreading suffering through the land of Labrynna, and chooses to do so by [[DemonicPossession possessing]] Nayru, the Oracle of Ages, and going 400 years back in time. After worming her way into the court of Queen Ambi, Veran uses her position as her advisor to convert a well-intentioned construction project into a symbol of oppression by having the healthy, able-bodied men of Labrynna forcibly conscripted into performing nonstop back-breaking labor to create the gargantuan Black Tower. While she helps oversee construction, Veran causes chaos around the kingdom with effects that can be felt in the present day, such as [[TakenForGranite turning people to stone]] or eliminating them entirely; killing the friendly, sapient Maku Tree as a helpless sapling; destroying Symmetry City and its inhabitants with a volcanic eruption; and threatening the lives of all ocean-dwelling beings by poisoning the sea. Both times Link confronts her, Veran is more than happy to use the bodies of those she possesses as {{human shield}}s and cheerfully taunts him with the knowledge that killing her will kill her hosts as well.

* {{Padding}}: ''Oracle of Ages'' contains two major instances. The first is when Link is shipwrecked on Tokay Island, loses all of his items, and has to go back and forth across the island to get them back. The second is later on, when the plaer must complete an elaborate trading sequence in the Goron village, requiring many traversals through the mountains and crossing between time periods.