Zelda: Oracle of Seasons

Two very unique games came out May 14, 2001, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages. These two closely linked games were the seventh and eighth games released in The Legend of Zelda series. Released for the Game Boy Color on the same day, either game can be played first, but by using passcodes and the Game Link Cable, there are many things that can be transferred to either game causing different scenarios, quests, and a few other differences than if you were playing both games individually without linking them or using the codes. This allows for hours of play and a great linking story, making for a lot of new adventurous quests.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons

Link, the legendary hero of Hyrule, from The Legend of Zelda series, arrives in Holodrum and so do the evil forces. After watching a beautiful woman dance, Onix, the General of Darkness appears and kidnaps her. But, she was not just some beautiful woman; she was Din, the Oracle of Seasons. Onix's plan is to use her power to throw Holodrum into chaos by controlling the seasons and messing up the natural order of things. Onix imprisons Din in a crystal and places her in the Temple of Seasons. As the Holodrum begins to fall apart, it is up to Link to save the day!

Din's attendant, Impa, informs Link to speak to the Maku Tree in Horon Village. There, he is told that he must collect the eight Essences of Nature and gain the power to control the seasons. Link's quest is to travel across the land of Holodrum with the Rod of Seasons, altering the land as he needs to, to complete his quest. The Maku Tree is very helpful and Link must converse with him often to find out where to go next. Along the way, Link meets a vast array of characters that help him on his quest and give him many side quests to complete. Most notable are: Ricky, the boxing kangaroo; Moosh, the blue polar bear with itty bitty wings; and Dimitri, the misunderstood Dodongo (type of enemy that is a dinosaur). With their help, Link can cross water, fly over un-jumpable gaps in the land, and jump atop the highest hills.

There are hours of game play involved in any Legend of Zelda game and this one is no exception. This action-adventure has eight dungeons with their own puzzles and dizzying maps, plus the fact that the dungeons are mostly hidden makes for some frustrating questing and some series thought to be put into the game. There are two maps to explore in the Oracle of Seasons. The hidden land of the Subrosian race has their own problems and they want Link to help solve them. They allow for some fun time though, which is needed after some of the frustration that comes with trying to figure out some of the quests.

Because The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages were released on the Game Boy Color, the graphics are quite stunning. Even when Link hops up on the stumps and swings his Rod of Seasons to change the Season, Holodrum changes beautifully and Link still looks vibrant.

Hours of more fun wait by linking the game and codes with The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages. I recommend playing Oracle of Seasons first. The game is slightly less difficult and like most players, once you beat something on the first difficulty, why not step it up to the next level? If that's how you are, then play Seasons and then continue Link's story by playing Ages.

One of the characters that is essential to linking the games is Farore, the Oracle of Secrets. She keeps your codes and secrets, so that when you need to remember them, they are there. She makes linking the two games much simplier than just writting them down in a notebook and then forgetting where you put that notebook and then when you do find it, finding which code you need. Although, sometimes its easier to just write them down, because Farore is not always at your disposal when you need her, making the good idea seem a little less good. But, for the most part it was a good idea by the designers.

Overall, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons is an excellent game.

I give the game a 9 out of 10.

Final Project

For my final project, I was thinking of doing one of a few of my ideas. I haven’t quite figured out what I want to do yet. My ideas are: make a set of plushies from a specific video game (something that has meaning to me like Zelda or Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles or Chocobo’s Dungeon, something along those lines), make some tote bag with characters from a game on it (like again, Zelda or Mario or something), or just stick with a very detailed and much longer New Games Journalism piece. I think that it will all come down to money and how much it will cost to do one of my ideas. If it is inexpensive, I would definitely try to do one of the more creative pieces, probably the tote bag, or if that isn’t enough, a couple of tote bags. I think it would be neat to make them. But, if it is way too expensive, I will just stick to my NGJ piece and use Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.

So, this chapter confused me on what I wanted to do for my final project, and so does the power point thing. I felt like the chapter was focused on giving ideas for critical papers and tell us the best way to write a research paper. Which is nice for those who don't know the best way to write a research paper, since this is a writing class and most people end up writing A TON of research papers in college.

Outside from the chapter in IGS, the Pecha Kucha power point sounds... complicated. I feel like I will be trying to make a sales pitch about my research, which just makes my head spin. I have never done well with timed presentations and having an exact time is going to be really hard for me since I get really nervous talking in front of people and either start pausing a lot or I ramble on too fast. This concerns me.

I still don't know what kind of project I should do, because I wanted to do a creative one.

MMOs

I have recently started playing Dragonica Online, an MMORPG. I don't think that I am addicted to the game, but then again, I started playing it so that I could review it for class. I enjoy playing it casually which is great, because it isn't like EVE or WoW, were things are in realtime. I think the thing I like best isn't the community of players, I have never really been into forums and the like, but that it is really casual for being an MMO. I used to play Asheron's Call with my friend when we were 13 and that was rediculous, because there were all kinds of daily things and there were pets and you could purchase houses, and all of these needed to be maintained and it took a lot of time and energy. Her parents would stay up till 3 A.M. on weekends playing and now, since Asheron's Call has been long since gone, they stay up playing Facebook games, many of which are realtime. They (and my friend, their daughter), set special alarms in the middle of the night to make sure that they can get up and make sure that their Castle Age dragons are winning battles and their pet society houses and pets are taken care of. That is addicting, but they don't let it get in the way of their jobs or school, just sleep.

I greatly disturbs me when people take video games seriously. Especially if their is life threatening involved. Its one thing to yell at the moniter while playing an MMO, but to actually message someone and threaten them, that is seriously disturbing. The things that I get mad about are like spending time trying to level up and you don't get the experience, becuase someone else comes up and takes your kill. That makes me angry. But reading about City of Heroes/Villains, I felt like yea Twixt was being annoying as all Hell, but he was just doing what is allowed in the game.

I think that if I had more time, I would spend it more on video games, especially on Dragonica or Pokemon (which is now realtime based and you can only catch certain Pokemon at night or at dawn, etc), but I work fulltime, go to school fulltime, and I try to stay healthy, which obviously isn't working out too well since it is 3:30 A.M. and I took a 7 hour nap from lack of sleep. Not because of video games, but because of homework and work.