Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons were originally more challenging

I bet Link would have been up to the challenge

01 February 2023
by rawmeatcowboy 1
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The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Seasons are two wonderful Zelda games that don’t get too much love nowadays. If there’s any mainline Zelda titles that are often left out of franchise conversations, these are the two. That’s a real shame, as both games have held up incredibly well over the years and do an excellent job of offering up a classic Zelda experience.

In a newly-translated interview from Zelda Universe concerning Oracle of Ages/Seasons, Nintendo’s Yoichi Yamada spoke about the development of these titles. As you may know, Nintendo worked with Capcom on these games, with Capcom doing the heavy lifting. That doesn’t mean Nintendo didn’t have input, and when it comes to Yamada, he had a very specific area he wanted addressed.

According to Yamada, Oracle of Ages/Season were a bit too difficult at first. He put in a request to Capcom to lessen the challenge, which resulted in the games that launched over two decades ago.

…The thing is, Capcom had already been developing Oracle for several months at that point, which meant that their staff was used to the difficulty and kind of numb to it. That happens to us at Nintendo a lot, too. Miyamoto used to warn us about that danger, and actually, when I saw it happening here, remembering Miyamoto’s words is what prompted me to make the same suggestion.

[Nintendo's Yoichi Yamada]

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Comments (1)

kuribo

1y ago

They were definitely more difficult than Links Awakening at release. Hoping we get remakes on Switch.