Okay, just beat Oracle of Ages for the first time. tl;dr: Game is interesting. Liked some of the things they threw in to change things up and feel like you made progress between the two games. Low point is gatekeeping through bad mini-games. Also Ages is better than Seasons imo.

Spoilers past this point. Also, sorry for rambling.

So, a lot of the things I said in Oracle of Season can pretty much apply to Oracle of Ages. The ring system is interesting way to modify your experience, tho some are pretty much useless and there for collectors but with no visual differences, there not much them for those useless rings. Story continues on with Link just going to another land for some reason and a lot of the characters you see in one game moves over to the other. The Oracle of Ages gets possessed in this instead of kidnapped (not much different but alright) and goes back in time and starts to change the events of the land. Queen in the past decides to build a Tower but stopping the passage of time so the sun never sets and the people never get to sleep/rest. Random people in the present disappear or get turned to stone, weird stuff happens all over the land. At some point, Link does rescue Naryu (Oracle of Ages) only to have the the Queen get possessed and continue the Tower. Zelda shows up, doesn't do much, and gets kidnapped at the very end of the game to be a sacrifice to revive Ganon. And my first issues with the plot come in. There didn't really need to be a Zelda and Ganon in this game. The main plot felt like a good enough motivation to help the people of both lands. Having the seasons out of wack, making people sick or stuck. Messing with the timeline so people are turned to stone or stop existing. Those feel like very good motivators. Having all this to try to stop a ritual to revive a Ganon that you partially fail to stop just feels like padding. This is an issue I had already with Twilight Princess when I first played that game. The main boss/enemy is already good enough. ESPECIALLY after the long boss fight I had at the end of the game. Don't need Zelda or Ganon. I will say, the true ending tying Link with Link to the Past and Link's Awakening was a very cool treat. Tho, we don't know why he left, so that could have been something they could have tried to explain in one of these two games. Weird but cool to see regardless.

Music is Ages is WAY BETTER than Seasons. I felt like I noticed the tracks more whenever I entered a dungeon and many times said "yeah this one is really good" or "oooooo". There are some reused tracks, as a Zelda do, but they sound really good on Gameboy hardware. Impressed here.

So... gameplay is a bit different between the two games. In both games, you get a lot of the items you first see in Link's Awakening (sword, shield, bracelet, bombs, seeds, shovel, feather.). What is interesting here is that both games have exclusive items you can only use in that game (seasons: magnet glove, Rod of Seasons, Roc's cape [Upgrade of Feather], Slingshot and it's upgrade, Boomerang and it's upgrade. Ages: Power glove [upgrade of bracelet], Switch Hook and it's upgrade, Harp of Ages, Cane of Someria) and some of these items are similar but different enough to make the puzzles feel different. Switch hook and magnet glove can be used to go across long distances but switch hook only lets you switch with an item (or enemy) it comes in contact with. Magnet glove can be used to move items, but it's mostly there to move link across a distance and if you're not fast enough, you can usually fall and lose a heart. Switch hook doesn't have that issue but you have to think a bit more with how you use it. Also, Ages has more emphasis on puzzles than boss battles. This is what pulled me more to liking Ages more, since I felt more satisfied with "solving" a dungeon. Still suffers from the problem of "you die to a boss and have to go to the beginning of the dungeon" that seasons had. And the final boss made it hurt more.

So, the link game systems are interesting. At the beginning of my Ages playthrough, I had a code I entered given to me when I beat Seasons. Also, I went and talked to a certain NPC to transfer the rings I collected in Season, so I didn't have to start from scratch in Ages. For most of the game, all I could tell was different was the continuation of helping a family raise their child, and dialog changing where people knew who I was already. It wasn't until I started finding "Secrets" (more codes but shorter) that I had to take BACK into Oracle of Seasons. These Secrets upgrade certain items like the sword, shield, ring box, bomb capacity, gave more rings, gave a heart piece. THEN for some items, like the upgrades, the NPC would give you a code to enter into Oracle of Ages so you could bring those over then. So it's very cool to be able to carry some of my progress over. BUT it was kinda lame that I went through most of the game before I decided to go back and enter codes into Season so I would have some benefits in Ages. This is partially my fault, I'll admit. Still, felt good to have more rings to work with per conflict/situation.

Now, my biggest issues with Ages that really killed my experience: in order to progress, there are a series of mini-games you have to play in succession to gain items to trade to progress. One of these mini-games is basically a Simon Says with only two button inputs and maaaaaaaan this is the worst fucking thing in the franchise. In Season, you only have to play this mini game once. In Ages, it makes you play the minigame twice BUT when I want to play for the second time, it wasn't clear that I had to have an item on hand in order to actually advance. So I had played the game too many times only to realize I wasn't actually progressing the plot. Decided to look up what was up and say that I was just playing for seeds and rings. Very frustrated to say the least at this point. Other mini-games I had to play to progress the plot: feed a bunch of lizards that stole you stuff, stop a mine cart from breaking an item you're trying to repair while enemies try to bump you off of a switch you have to stand on, surviving just having a bunch of bombs thrown at you, do the fixing mini game AGAIN for the Master Sword. Mini games are the weak point of both games, but Ages made you play more and it's worse for it.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with both games and this reinforces my desire to play through more Zelda games. Mini-games, harsh boss death penalties, Zelda and Ganon not being needed, and weirdness with link mechanics really pull you out of the experience. Still felt like Ages shined a bit brighter with it's smart dungeon puzzles and better music, making me like the game more DESPITE it's issues (that fucking Simon Says minigame!). Now, onto the next game. Wind Waker. This one is going to be a loooooong.