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This week The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons are re-released on the 3DS (yours for a reduced price, limited time only, terms and conditions apply). This is terribly exciting for many reasons, mainly:
1. These games were an incredible team up between the power houses that are Capcom and Nintendo
2. We haven’t had an excuse to play them in yonks
3. Nerds have spent the last 12 years waging nerd war against each other about who has the greatest knowledge of the third game in the series, which was never released, as part of what was once dubbed ‘the triforce series’
Now we could go into the deep, dark history of the development of these games and talk about how a project which was meant to be a simple transfer of the original Zelda game to the Gameboy Color, became rather messy and blah blah blah. But hey, we wouldn’t want to put Wikipedia out of a job. Instead, to get you, me and everyone else excited about a new chance to play an old game we thought we would look at some pictures of hot fanboys dressed as Link! … or not.
In fact we here at Vada, well less we and more me, are going to get all sentimental on your asses and tell you what Zelda and the legend there of means to us.
I wish I could say I had a terribly traumatic upbringing, but I didn’t. Well, not until THE GREAT DIVORCE OF 1999, thanks Dad. Every summer, Mother and Father in their infinite wisdom would put me and my constantly feuding sister in an enclosed space for 6 or so hours and drive us from the freezing North East to the more tepid South West.
It was on one of these trips to Bournemouth that I found myself alone wandering around Woolworths and saw the gold packet of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening game. I had never seen game packaging like it. It was shiny, I knew it needed to be mine. I used the last of my birthday money to purchase this wonder and my God the parental units were pissed. ‘What are you going to use to buy things for the rest of the holiday?’ ‘What if you want to get another game?’. Silly parents – I knew they had wallets and I had the magic key to open them, tears. So I rushed back to the car, my little 6 year old hands impatient to play this new game, to enter the world of Zelda and find out what her legend was.
Not going to lie dudes, from the moment I switched that game on to the point I broke open the Yoshi egg and made a whale sing I had no fucking clue what was going on. There was no one called Zelda, there was a chain chomp in a garage, and a powder that seemed more than a little dodgy. Nonetheless, I was hooked. As we drove to The New Forest or along the coast, my mum would lean into me and say things like ‘David you are missing all these beautiful places outside why don’t you put down the Gameboy?’. Foolish, foolish woman. She had no idea of the adventure I was on, the battles I was facing against dragons and moblins, my journeys across mountains, through caves and along beaches. She had no idea how important it was that I traded that pineapple! These things needed to be done, and they needed to be done right now! Koholint Island needed me.
Pure escapism and wonder filled my little boy brain and it hasn’t left me. I cross bridges and raise a mental shield in case of a surprise Octorock attack. I can’t help but whisper ‘Hey! Listen!’ to myself whenever I go to read a sign. Through the absolute joy that Zelda brings me, I made friends. When Ocarina of Time came out I sat and played with my best friend and his Mum to a point that when I blinked all I could see was Epona running across Hyrule Fields. I went to the 25th anniversary concert for Zelda and cried, cried actual tears because the slightest Zelda chord delves deep into my very core, into a well of imagination and youth that only great stories can.
This is why I’m excited about the re-release of Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages and maybe why you should give them a go too.
