places the map very late into a dungeon
I've been playing the game fairly recently, and don't ever recall getting the map late. Usually it's fairly near the start
More to the point, while the Oracle games cleared a number of nuisances, I found them to be noticeably worse in terms of basic game design
The oracle games were more fun for me to play, but I also remember that Oracle of Ages also had a bug that made me unable to continue my game (at Jabu Jabu's Belly). As a result, I think they fixed many problems but also had their own.
illegitematus non carborundum est
Hylarn, could you elaborate how Ages and Seasons were "worse in terms of basic game design"? I'd like to hear your opinion.
A admit Ages has an extreme case of Nostalgia Filter for me seeing as it was my first Zelda game. Many people seem to have the same nostalgia over this game, I just wanted to point out that it does have a few flaws.
I never encountered any bugs in Oracle of Ages. Jubu Jubu's Belly was a pain in general though, definately the game's That One Level.
While I replayed LA recently, it's been a while since I played Ages >_>
I did play them originally around the same time, though, and recall finding Ages kind of disappointing. Aside from just not enjoying it as much as the previous game, I definitely recall the seeds mechanic being annoying and the larger rooms in dungeons not being handled well. And I vaguely recall something about rings being confusing and dungeons too long
You do realize the Oracle games were made 8 years after Awakening, right? I\'m not saying they aren\'t better games, but you might be acting just a wee bit unfair towards it here.
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Playing Ages first ruined it for me...
Okay, I'll go on record and say this game was amazing at the time it came out. If I'd played it during my childhood, I probably would have loved it... But unfortunately, Oracle of Ages was my first Zelda game. And going from that game to this was... kind of jarring.
Again, this game is not BAD, by any means. But it has a lot of glaring flaws that are far more noticable if you play one of the later Game Boy Zeldas first.
Firstly, the dungeon map system. You know how in other Zeldas, you can only see rooms you've been to until you find the map, which shows you the whole thing? Well in this game, you don't get any mercy. The map interface is always completley blank until you find the map item... and the game knows this, and often places the map very late into a dungeon. (The Item Get text is even "At last, you got a map!") This adds a lot of Fake Difficulty to dungeons.
Speaking of Item Get text, another major flaw: this game has a lot of Viewers Are Goldfish in tutorials. The Compass, for example, reminds you that it has a "new feature", it'll beep in rooms with a Key. Very useful, admittedly, but... the game feels the need to remind you of this "new feature" every time you get a compass. And it takes about 3 text boxes to explain this, every time. But the worst case of this is simple pots. Touching one without the Power Bracelet will give you a "wow! This is really heavy!" message. A good hint you need a new item, but here's the problem: even after you get the Power Bracelet, this message does NOT go away. As long as you don't have the item currently equipped, so much as accidently nudging a pot will produce that message. And it's not just pots: every obstacle that requires an item to move or break has text like this that will plague you whenever you don't have said item equipped.
Speking of items, you have the Ocarina. Every time you move the cursor over it in the inventory, it brings up the song selection. This also gets annoying fast.
As was mentioned below, Saving is extremely clunky too.
All this may sound like nitpicking, but every single one of these flaws was fixed in the Oracle games. From a gameplay standpoint, those are the superior games these days. Still recommend this game for the Zelda history though.