The Future of 2D Zelda

We are going to get a remake of Ocarina of Time later this year, while a new 3D Zelda game is presumably in development at Nintendo EPD3. So, the Zelda fans who prefer the big adventures from a 3rd person perspective already have a lot coming on the Nintendo Switch 2. But if you also enjoy following Link's and Zelda's journeys from a top-down or side-scrolling perspective, then you will have to wait and see for now.

To be fair, the latest installment in the series is still Echoes of Wisdom, which isn't even two years old yet. But presuming that GREZZO is not the studio behind the Ocarina of Time remake, it's likely that they are already working on the next 2D Zelda game, whether that's another remake or a new title. So, let's talk about how this could look like... and what may lie beyond.

Majora's Mask HD and the Oracles?

Last week two curious entries appeared on IMDB, for unannounced Zelda remakes:

• The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask HD
• The Legend of Zelda: Oracles

They are featuring different voice actors for Link: Mitsuki Saiga, who has voiced Link in the more recent top-down Zelda games and Hyrule Warriors, as well as Nobuyuki Hiyama, whose voice was used for adult Link in the Nintendo 64 era. It also lists Hidemaro Fujibayashi (the current director of the Zelda series) as doing mocap for Din, which is hilarious and teaches you all you need to know about the credibility of this information. I can only imagine him performing all those gracious dance moves.

Of course, anyone with the necessary rights can edit IMDB and add whatever they want, so this shouldn't classify as a meaningful leak in any book, unlike a certain Metroid game that has appeared in the news earlier this month... It's still weird how no one has bothered with removing this yet, or with checking any sources. Still, I appreciate the idea of this hoax, because Majora's Mask and the Oracle games are the exact remakes that I would love to see happen next, after Ocarina of Time.

"Majora's Mask HD" is a strange title, however, because the HD suffix implies that this is not a remake like Ocarina of Time, but an HD remaster of either the Nintendo 64 original, Majora's Mask 3D, or a mix of both. Maybe even still coming to the Nintendo Switch, because on the Nintendo Switch 2 this should be called "Majora's Mask 4K".

And that's not what I would want. I would want Nintendo to follow up on the Ocarina of Time remake and take their time with this. The Nintendo 64 Zelda games are siblings and always deserve to receive the same treatment in the same quality. Also, Majora's Mask has re-used a lot of the assets from Ocarina of Time and it makes all the sense in the world for a remake to do the same.

It's the same reason why I still want remakes of Oracle of Ages & Seasons to happen. It simply makes too much sense to recreate them in the same style as Link's Awakening, because they have borrowed so much from the original. Period.

At least, the IMDB entry got the right idea in this case. I like the simplicity of the title "Oracles", where this would be the first time for a Zelda game to receive a one-word subtitle. But it implies that this is going to unite the two Game Boy Color games into one experience, which is how it should be and refreshing to see.

Often you just find pure pessimism or rejection amongst the Nintendo and Zelda community when it comes to this particular remake. Some believe that this will never happen, because they were originally made by Capcom. And if they were to happen still, then Nintendo would never release them as one, because they are too greedy.

But Nintendo owns all the scenario rights for the four Zelda games developed by Flagship. Only the music rights could pose a problem. It's the main reason why you can find Stickers and Spirits based on these games in the Super Smash Bros. series, but no music. However, the music shouldn't be a major hurdle, because they can just compose new tracks...

And splitting Oracle of Seasons and Ages into two games again would defeat the entire purpose of such a remake. Sure, you wouldn't need to use passwords any longer, because they could just read each other's save files, but you would still need to connect these save files manually, making things needlessly complicated, whereas this could and should become a completely seamless experience. (See my Oracle of Worlds article for how this would work in greater detail.)

Plus, when they are effectively offering two Zelda adventures as one, then the full price that Nintendo is definitely going to charge won't feel as unreasonable. At least to some people.

In any case, I personally hope that the "Oracles" is GREZZO's current project, where this might even get released next year. A proper Majora's Mask remake on the other hand may take a couple of years to appear.

Oracle of Ages & Seasons: 25 Years

Today is Pokémon Day. And 25 years ago, on February 27th 2001, Nintendo and Capcom released a different spin on the "Blue and Red" formula with The Legend of Zelda: The Mysterious Seeds, which got divided into two chapters released as two separate games. They would later be known as Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons to the west, and instead of being two different versions of the same game, they were two unique games in the same scope of their Game Boy Color predecessor, Link's Awakening DX, with the twist that you could connect their stories and worlds via passwords.

So, two new Zelda games came out on the same day and you had to decide which one to play first, where depending on this choice certain events in the games will play out differently. It was a fairly new concept, which adds a lot of replay value to both games, because you have to play each of them at least twice to experience all of the story and collect all of the items. (And at least four times to experience absolutely everything, due to some other choices you can make.)

It wasn't the only thing to let these games stand out within the Zelda series, even to this date, as their titles may indicate. Oracle of Ages brought the time traveling ideas from Ocarina of Time to the next level, where can swap between past and present on the spot with hundreds of years between, while small changes in the past may have big effects on the present. And Oracle of Seasons lets you alter the world's time of the year, where lakes freeze in winter and dry out in summer.

These games were quite ambitious for Game Boy titles and you can already experience them on the Nintendo Switch, via the Nintendo Switch Online offerings. However, the password system is far from intuitive, which is why this blog has been a strong advocate for a remake, ever since Link's Awakening was announced for the Nintendo Switch. You can read all about this idea in the Oracle of Worlds article from 2019, which I later renamed into Seeds of Courage, following the release of Echoes of Wisdom.

But the concept is quite simple: same engine and look as the new Link's Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom, one single game, no passwords. You start by choosing either "Holodrum" or "Labrynna" as the starting point of Link's adventure and everything unfolds naturally from there. After beating the first story chapter, you will then be transported into the other land, but the Maku Trees are now connected via a portal, so that you can easily travel back and forth both lands without switching between games.

That's the short version, but my ideas from 2019 have stayed mostly unchanged. After Echoes of Wisdom, however, it makes sense to revise the Magic Rings to work in the same way as the accessories, meaning that you should be able to equip multiple rings at once and carry them all around. This would make a number of rings a lot more useful in certain situations, which you otherwise probably would just ignore.

Now, this title would become a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive and there may even be a good technical reason for this. Switching between the ages and seasons isn't as simple as switching between screens in the original, because you would have to load a whole other world. And maybe on the Nintendo Switch 2 this can be achieved without major loading times.

In any case, such a remake would be the perfect way to celebrate both the 25th Anniversary of the Oracle games, as well as the 40th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda in the year 2026. After all, Oracle of Seasons was half a remake of the NES classic. Maybe they could make use of that fact and feature the classic enemies and bosses in new ways that re-explore the original Zelda... Or maybe they will remake the first game first and then re-use those assets for the Oracles afterwards.

40th Anniversary of Zelda

On February 21st 1986, ゼルダの伝説 (The Legend of Zelda): THE HYRULE FANTASY was released for the Famicom Disk System in Japan. 40 years later the game has left a legacy like rarely any other, with a succession of 20 more titles, half of them remastered or remade, a rich variety of different art styles and gameplay ideas, and even an ongoing spin-off series with Hyrule Warriors.

The Legend of Zelda is the reason why this blog exists, though I was still in the making myself when the original came out. But Europe had to wait until November 1987 anyway to get their NES version.

When you first played the game you were presented with a choice: will you go left, right, up, or down into that cave? Well, you won't get very far if you don't go into the cave first, but that's a lesson for you to learn and it's really up to you. It is your adventure. And it's this level of freedom that later inspired Breath of the Wild to go in a bold new direction, where even the rocky walls aren't an obstacle any longer, bringing the series to a whole new level of popularity and success.

Despite that, Nintendo had decided to skip over celebrating the 35th Anniversary in 2021, save for a Game & Watch system. And to be fair, 35 years are an odd anniversary, where it doesn't necessarily scream for attention, but that's different in the case of four whole decades. Nintendo won't let this opportunity for marketing slip away, especially when they have a whole Legend of Zelda movie coming out next year (even though the series will be 41 years old by then).

But don't hold your breath just yet. They are still in the middle of advertising the 40th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros., where Mar10 day is coming up, the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Super Mario Bros. Wonder and of course the Super Mario Galaxy Movie on April 1st. We shouldn't expect to hear about the Zelda anniversary from its creators before that's all behind us. And this also has been true in the past, where they have waited until June to announce something for 25th and 35th Anniversaries and even until September in case of the 30th.

So, at this point we can only speculate and here it's easy to bring up a number of ideas from the past, like those for the 35th Anniversary that weren't meant to be at the time:

• A game collection
• Special-themed hardware
• A dungeon / shrine maker 

Giving us The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD in a collection is still on top of many fan wishlists, where similar to Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 this could run on both the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, offering something for the fans who have yet to migrate to the new system. However... it's probably more in Nintendo's interest for those people to move on and also to subscribe to the Expansion Pack of the Nintendo Switch Online service, which gives you access to GameCube games on the Switch 2, including The Wind Waker. They will certainly also add Twilight Princess at some point, maybe even this year, and an HD collection would only make such offerings less interesting.

By the way, it will also be the 20th Anniversary of Twilight Princess, sitting right in the middle of the franchise's history. There won't be any better timing to bring this game back, but this may come down to releasing Twilight Princess as part of the NSO GameCube library and finally adding its soundtrack to Nintendo Music. We can anticipate this to happen in the very least.

As for Special Editions of the latest hardware, that's a strong possibility, since the Nintendo Switch 2 doesn't have much to offer yet. Resident Evil Re9uiem will be the first game to come with a themed Pro Controller and that's really it. We could also see a Pro Controller for the 40th Anniversary, or some Joy-Cons, or maybe even a whole Nintendo Switch 2.

But Zelda-themed hardware usually launched alongside a new game, like Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom in the more recent years. It's a bit early for a brandnew Zelda game, though. If we're getting some release in 2026, then it will likely be a side project.

One such side project could be the equivalent to the Super Mario Maker, which became a thing during the 30th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros., more than ten years ago. And it's time that Zelda gets something of its own here. This could be a top-down dungeon maker experience, or a Shrine Maker based on Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Both could have realistically been in development at Nintendo / GREZZO for many years now, in parallel to the latest games.

Something simpler would be the Zelda World Championships, which is like the Nintendo World Championships, where you play short slices of the games and try to solve tasks as quickly as possible. But instead of different games from one system, this would be focused solely on the history of the Zelda series, featuring the two NES classics, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening DX, Ocarina of Time and more.

Alternatively, we could be looking at a remake. The internet is currently obsessed with the idea of remaking Ocarina of Time again, which will happen eventually, but it needs the right studio for the job. And GREZZO, the developers behind Ocarina of Time 3D, effectively became the top-down Zelda team over the last decade. Speaking of, a remake of Oracle of Ages & Seasons may actually be the more likely candidate.

Of course, it hasn't even been two years since the release of Echoes of Wisdom, so this is a bit too hopeful, but they can re-use a lot of assets from both the Link's Awakening remake and Echoes of Wisdom, which could have sped up the development significantly. They also wouldn't have to create new environments and scenarios, just recreate old ones and mash them together in a more satisfying package.

Well, such a remake doesn't necessarily have to do anything with the ongoing anniversary. In fact, they rarely ever do. Ocarina of Time 3D was tied into the 25th, but this happened retroactively. Meanwhile, both Twilight Princess HD and Skyward Sword HD came out in the year of an anniversary, but weren't marketed as such.

Yet, the Oracle games are in a more unique position, because their development started out as a remake itself – a remake of the very first Zelda game, the one we're all celebrating today. As a result, nearly all of the game's enemies and bosses can be encountered in the GBC classics, which are also seeing their own major anniversary in less than a week: it has been 25 years since their launch on February 27th, 2001.

If they were to remake Oracle of Ages & Seasons, then those assets could theoretically be even used for a remake of The Legend of Zelda. Nothing too crazy, just the original game in the Link's Awakening style, as it was once intended by Capcom. This would be a throwback to a throwback and the ultimate deal for the anniversary, which also could be released for both the Switch and the Switch 2. Maybe they will even have focused on such a project first, because it doesn't require as much development effort, before moving on to the Oracle games in the next step.

Otherwise, Nintendo could also repeat some of things they had done for past anniversaries:

• Start a new symphony orchestra tour
• Launch some more Zelda amiibo
• Release a new book 

The simplest option are amiibo, where they already have been some trustworthy rumors earlier this year that Nintendo will be breathing them in 2026. We're still waiting for the amiibo of Mineru's Construct, but that one will be entirely separate. (Or maybe it launches alongside that Shrine Maker?) For the 40th Anniversary they could just go over the entire series and fill some gaps: Zelda from Ocarina of Time and Echoes of Wisdom, or Din, Nayru and Farore as the Oracles, or Twili Midna, Fi, Linebeck, Ravio...

But it wouldn't be Nintendo if they didn't come up with something special, something that no one is expecting or even talking about. It could be a new cooperation with another video game franchise, some unique merchandise or events, or introducing Rupees as an actual currency in Japan. Let's wait and find out, though the Nintendo of late has been playing it quite safe and by the numbers. However, after the two lackluster anniversaries in 2016 and 2021, which paled in comparison to their Super Mario counterparts, it would be nice to see some more attention on our favorite franchise.

 

Happy 40th Anniversary, The Legend of Zelda! 

Echoes of Wisdom ~ Parallels to Oracle of Ages

A Link Between Worlds isn't the only Zelda game that has a lot in common with the most recent addition to the series. While playing through Echoes of Wisdom, one particular top-down title came to my mind a number of times: Oracle of Ages. It even made me believe that GREZZO was possibly looking into remaking the Oracles at some point during development. In the very least, these two games have been a big source of inspiration.

Most importantly, the Magic Rings were used a basis for the new accessory system, as already discussed. But there are more throwbacks, most of them particularly to Oracle of Ages, so let's take another look.

 

~ Story Bits ~

This may not be the most obvious part, but you can draw some parallels between the rifts and Veran. When Veran takes control of Nayru and changes the past, this erases entire beings from existence, just like how the rifts let larger parts of Hyrule disappear. In one case a boy even gets petrified to stone, which is what happens to people inside in the Still World.

The rifts also create these dark doppelgangers of people, including the King of Hyrule. And this is reminiscent of Veran possessing first Nayru and later Queen Ambi, where the latter provides a similar threat. The guards of the castle will be onto you under the command of the imposter.

A much more direct throwback to the story of both Oracle of Ages and Seasons games happens much later in Echoes of Wisdom:

The Ancient Ruins bear a great resemblance with the place where Link approaches the Triforce in the intro sequence of the Oracles. You have three-tile-wide pathway leading to the pedestal with the Triforce and a row of three torches on each side. And there is no chance that this is a mere coincidence.

~ The Zora ~

There used to be different types of Zora throughout the Zelda series. They started out as feral enemies in the original The Legend of Zelda and became a noble tribe in Ocarina of Time, where these couldn't have been any more different from each other. In Oracle of Ages they have tried to include both variants, where the hostile ones got called "River Zora" and the friendly ones became the "Sea Zora". (One of the latter also appears in a Linked Game of Oracle of Seasons.)

This distinction didn't really establish itself afterwards. The 3D Zelda games mainly evolved the Zora as we saw them in Ocarina of Time, but who predominantly live in rivers. And the 2D Zelda games kept using the Zora as enemies, with a few friendly ones in A Link Between Worlds. That is until now... Echoes of Wisdom finally brings back the idea of River and Sea Zora, where this time both are peaceful tribes, who live in coexistence.

They both worship Lord Jabu-Jabu as their guardian deity, which is yet another connection to the Game Boy Color classic. Oracle of Ages and Echoes of Wisdom are the only two top-down Zelda games featuring the favorite whale from Ocarina of Time.

 

~ The Return of Smog ~

In Echoes of Wisdom you will encounter various bosses from past Zelda games, like Gohma or the Lanmola, where this even marks the return of Volvagia. But there is one peculiar resurgence among them, probably to the surprise to many fans:

It's Smog from the Crown Dungeon in Oracle of Ages. You even get to fight him twice, once in the top-down perspective and later in a side-scrolling view, where this is one of few bosses to do this in the game. And this puts a lot of attention on this particular boss.

While this may seem quite strange at first, it does make a lot of sense considering that Smog was originally designed as a puzzle boss for the Cane of Somaria. And the Cane of Somaria is essentially the Tri Rod in its most basic form: you can summon a single block with it. We have come quite far since then, but the boss battle still works in the same fashion.

Echoes of Wisdom ~ Magic Rings to Accessories

In Echoes of Wisdom there is a total of 28 different accessories for you to find and equip, which give you a variety of smaller buffs. And while this might be similar to the outfits and armor items from previous titles, it's primarily a translation of the Magic Rings from Oracle of Ages & Seasons.

It's more than that, because it improves on the system in every possible aspect. You can carry all accessories with you, instead of being limited to five. And you can now equip up to five of them at once, instead of just one. Each accessory also has an effect, no downsides, and a designated spot to obtain it. Grezzo essentially took the Magic Rings and removed many points of criticism that you may have had about them... And made them look more unique on top, because it's not just rings this time, but also anklets, pins, brooches, footwear, belts, and more.

Source

You can still see how the Magic Rings were the foundation here, however, mainly because a good number of the perks are basically identical... And some of them are uncommon in the series, like the protection from quicksands, where the only other game to feature similar ones was Tri Force Heroes with its outfits. Here is a list of what rings were turned into accessories:

• Swimmer's Ring → Zora's Flippers (Swim Speed Up)
• Zora Ring → Zora Scale (Dive Time Up)
• Quicksand Ring → Gerudo Sandals (Quicksand-Proof)
• Snowshoe Ring → Ice Spikes (Slip Reduction)
• Steadfast Ring → Stone Anklet (Knockback Reduced)
• Discovery Ring → Might Bell (Might Crystal Detection)
  
• Blue Joy Ring → Heart Pin/Barrette (Heart Appearance Up)
• Red Joy Ring → Silver/Gold Brooch (Rupee Appearance Up)
• Blue Ring → Ancient/Curious Charm (Damage Reduction)
  

That may not be a whole lot, but when you look at the list of Magic Rings, then you will realize that there isn't much left that would have made sense in this game. There is no need for something like the Bombproof Ring, for example, because you're already not taking damage from your own bombs or the bombs of your echoes. Or there is no gain from letting you transform into monsters when you can summon all of them. And many of the rings don't have any effect to begin with, since they purely act as trophies.

However, there are some rings left where they could have turned their effects into an accessory. The following ones probably make the most sense:

• Red Ring / Rang Ring L-1/L-2 / Blast Ring (Damage up)
  
• Light Ring L-1/L-2 (Shoot beams at -2/-3 hearts)
• Green Holy Ring (No damage from electricity)
• Roc's Ring (Cracked floors don't crumble)
  

There could have been an accessory that increases the damage of your echoes in general, which would be the equivalent to the Red Ring, Blast Ring, and so on. Another accessory could have made it so that you always can fire sword beams in your Swordfighter form, not just at full hearts, which would be similar to the Light Rings.

As for protection from elemental effects, you do have the smoothies for that, but they also could have offered accessories or clothing to achieve the same. But at least smoothies aren't entirely obsolete this way.

Finally, the Roc's Ring might not seem as useful on first glance, because there are only very few cracked floors in the game. However, they could have extended this to clouds, so that they don't dissolve when you stand on them, which would make this very useful. And the more useful accessories there are, the better, because it makes the choice of what to equip all the more interesting.

With that in mind, the Pegasus Boots also should have been an accessory that make you walk faster – maybe not as crazily fast as the Cheetah Costume from Tri Force Heroes, but a small buff. And it makes sense to have, since there is something to increase your swimming and climbing speeds, but not your walking speed for some reason.

Seeds of Courage

"The Legend of Zelda: Seeds of Courage"

This is what I would call a remake of Oracle of Ages & Seasons at this point, mirroring Echoes of Wisdom in title. As explained in my Oracle of Worlds concept, which I wrote five years ago after the release of Link's Awakening for the Nintendo Switch, I would combine both of the Oracle games into one experience, where you travel between Holodrum and Labrynna via a portal inside the Maku Trees.

With such a combined experience, the game will need a new title, however. In Japanese this completely straightforward, because both games had the same subtitle, but they were divided into chapters. Oracle of Seasons is called "The Legend of Zelda: The Mysterious Seeds - Chapter of Earth", while Oracle of Ages is called "The Legend of Zelda: The Mysterious Seeds - Chapter of Space Time". So, if Nintendo were to remake both games into one, it probably would just be The Mysterious Seeds, without the chapter annotations.

Sadly, this isn't as simple for the rest of the world. You could name such a game "Oracles of Ages & Seasons", but then the title would get much longer and be a bit of a mouthful, while the triple plural isn't exactly nice either. Hence my proposal to call it differently.

And the title "Seeds of Courage" would do a number of things, all in one. As already mentioned, it would mirror Echoes of Wisdom, where wisdom stands for Zelda and the echoes are the main mechanic. While the main mechanics are different for the two Oracle games, they do share the importance of seeds. The Maku Seeds are the end goal, you plant Gasha Seeds all over the world, and then there is the Seed Satchel as one of the most important items. (Which I'd love to see expanded with Frost, Razor and Armor Seeds.)

"Courage" stands for Link, of course, highlighting that this would be his game again, for all those who may not have been happy with a playable Zelda. But it also stands for Farore, who would get a more important role in the remake, connecting the lands of Holodrum and Labrynna.

Finally, this is also a throwback to the unreleased third Oracle games, "Mystical Seed of Courage", where the other two games used to be called "Mystical Seed of Power" and "Mystical Seed of Wisdom", representing the Triforce. So, this should get some fans excited, though technically this won't come with a third Oracle game.

PS: When I first saw the trailer for Echoes of Wisdom with the scene where Link fights Ganon, I even thought for a second that they are going to make a third Oracle game, which takes place after the events of the first two games. "Oracle of Echoes".

U-King-O and Edward

There were some interesting rumors from last month that I have yet to discuss and those revolve around recent codenames of Nintendo projects. Nintendo uses internal codenames for all their games and hardware, where in case of Zelda this has looked like the following on Nintendo 3DS and Switch:

• Knife: Four Swords Anniversary Edition
  
• Queen: Ocarina of Time 3D
• Joker: Majora's Mask 3D
• Jack: A Link Between Worlds
  
• Alice: Tri Force Heroes
  
• U-King: Breath of the Wild
• EX-King: Tears of the Kingdom
• Richard: Link's Awakening
• Shoebill: Skyward Sword HD
  

Source: The Cutting Room Floor

Yes, the codename of Tears of the Kingdom very blatantly labels the project as an expansion for Breath of the Wild, but that's not the point here. A leaker named Midori has recently shared some more project names from Nintendo and this is where it gets interesting. There is a bit of drama around this account right now, but overall it seems to be credible.

Anyway, the two codenames that I'm interested in are U-King-O and Edward. Project names with an additional letter at the end are often for remasters and ports, where the first one is seemingly a remaster of Breath of the Wild for the upcoming Nintendo Switch successor, codenamed "Ounce".

Apparently, Nintendo has demoed an enhanced version of Breath of the Wild at last year's Gamescom for select developers to show off the capabilities of their next system (source). This would be a similar story to Ocarina of Time 3D, which started as a tech demo for the Nintendo 3DS as well, before it became a dedicated project.

Since the next Nintendo system will likely be backwards compatible, I personally didn't expect to see a remaster of Breath of the Wild so soon, but after playing Tears of the Kingdom the game already feels a bit antiquated, because the "EX-King" came with so many improvements that all would be nice to have in the original game as well (more on that later).

As for "Edward", this could be a follow-up to Richard, where I'm really hoping to see a remake of Oracle of Ages & Seasons as well, maybe already in the upcoming June Nintendo Direct. Of course this doesn't necessarily have to be, but Richard and Edward seem to be somewhat related. Well, Richard is also a character from Link's Awakening and The Frog For Whom the Bell Tolls, while there is no Edward in the Zelda series, but it's more likely that these are just supposed to be the names of British kings.

In the past most Zelda games were just codenamed as "king" in some form, e.g. DSking and wiiKing2 for Phantom Hourglass and Skyward Sword, which is even still true for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. But otherwise this seems to have evolved somewhat.

The most common suggestion I keep seeing is either The Wind Waker HD or Twilight Princess HD, mainly the latter, but if we still were to get them now for Nintendo Switch, they would be released as ports and their codenames would probably reflect this, e.g. "ckingS" for The Wind Waker HD on Switch. They could also go for both games in one, but I would expect this to be named "S-kings" or so. Of course there is no real science here and Nintendo will pick whatever they feel like, so I'm not claiming that "Edward" can't be Twilight Princess for Switch. I just don't think it's likely.

Alternatively, it could also be the codename of a brandnew top-down Zelda game, but I wouldn't expect this to be released on the Nintendo Switch still. I am currently predicting such a title for the upcoming Nintendo system, however, for reasons explained in January, and "Edward" could also be that game's codename. I would be quite sad if they completely skipped over the Oracle games, however...

Update: It's very likely that "Edward" is Echoes of Wisdom, the newly announced Zelda game in the style of Link's Awakening.

Oracle of Ages & Seasons @ Nintendo Switch Online

As a small surprise today, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons became part of the Nintendo Switch Online Game Boy library. So, anyone with the basic subscription can play these Zelda classics now on their Nintendo Switch.

This may bode ill for a potential remake, but only for a moment. And we just got Tears of the Kingdom anyway, so there won't be any other Zelda releases in the near future, probably not before 2024, which gives a remake enough time to be of interest.

For those who have already played the original games, the Nintendo Switch Online version won't make much of a difference and they might want a remake for the novelties it brings alone. And those who are giving them a try for the first time now might find the password system to be too archaic to truly get into the whole mechanic of linking both games.

Something tells me that my ring guides will get a lot of visits soon... and I'm happy to answer the same questions for the hundredth time, where this will always remain a convoluted topic.

A remake would certainly help with that and make the whole experience a lot more accessible. So, the Nintendo Switch Online release can be seen as an appetizer for the real deal. Not everyone will bite afterwards, since getting into the emulated Game Boy Color classics will certainly be good enough for some and a remake will be sold at full price, as usually, but the Nintendo Switch Online release won't make it obsolete or undesirable by any means.

Also, like on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console, you are unable to enter the Game Boy Advance exclusive shops. You can still get the rings in there via password manipulation, though, which is also covered by my guides. But this is another thing where a remake will certainly shine, because some features simply are not accessible on the emulated versions and a remake can come up with new things to replace them.

Unlike on the Nintendo 3DS, however, you can still talk to the Blue Snake and you can also select the Game Link option when creating a new file, but both will give you an error. It might be that you can get Ring Fortunes via online play somehow, but I doubt it and I won't have the time to investigate stuff like this myself, sadly.

Of Charms and Magic Rings

Playing Hollow Knight really made me appreciate its Charm system, which is somewhat similar to the Magic Rings from Oracle of Ages & Seasons. And if these two Zelda games were ever to be remade, then they would profit from a few adjustments to the ring system, where the developers could learn a thing or two from the Charms in Hollow Knight.

The main difference between the Charms and the Magic Rings is that you can equip multiple Charms based on a number of notches. In Oracle of Ages & Seasons your "notches" came with the Ring Box, where the L-3 Ring Box could store up to five Magic Rings. However, you could only ever equip one ring at a time, which could be changed on the fly.

This had quite a negative effect on the gameplay, because there is an incentive to go into the menu and change your equipped Magic Ring based on the situation. Attacking some foes? Equip the Red Ring. Dodging some traps? Equip the Blue Ring. Going for a dive? Equip the Zora Ring.

An extreme example could be a difficult boss fight, where you might want to switch from the Blue to the Red Ring whenever you're about to strike and then back to the Blue Ring when you have to dodge some attacks. I actually did this when I first fought Onox in his second phase and the fight turned out too difficult for me at the time.

But this leads to constant interruptions of the gameplay, because you keep going into the menu. One of the major improvements that came with the Link's Awakening remake was that you didn't have to constantly open the menu to switch your items any longer, since most of the important items got their dedicated button. The Oracle games will profit from the same thing, but the Magic Rings were yet another reason to go into the menu more often than necessary if you wanted to make the most out of them.

A simple solution would be to follow the example of Hollow Knight and let you equip multiple Magic Rings at the same time, as many as there are slots in your Ring Box. This even makes sense, since Link has more than just one finger to put a ring on.

This idea may seem somewhat broken at first, especially when you could get the benefits of the Red, Blue, and Green Ring all at the same time, so you could increase both your attack power and defense simultaneously. But keep in mind that you had to play through most of both Oracle games in order to even obtain these rings. If they were to turn the Hero's Secret into a Hero Mode with the usual shenanigans, such as increased damage and no hearts, then having a new advantage will be good. Plus, you still will need to find those larger Ring Boxes in a New Game+, so you're not overpowered from the get-go.

Some rings might cancel each other out, though, where it will have to automatically remove the conflicting rings, with the most obvious example for this being the different transformation rings. So, there will be some limits to all of this, but it would still be much more interesting than in the original.

The main problem with the Magic Rings in Oracle of Ages & Seasons was that some rings were simply too good, first and foremost the aforementioned Red, Blue, and Green Ring, and with that there was little to no reason to try (m)any of the other rings. Some were useful, no doubt, but just not useful enough to remove the bigger advantages. But if you could equip multiple rings at the same time, then this would make some of those perks suddenly a lot more interesting, e.g. the Red Joy Ring, which lets you find more Rupees, or the Swimmer's Ring.

In addition, now it would even make sense that the game lets you keep inferior versions of certain rings, like the Heart Ring L-1 or the Rang Ring L-1. If you could use them together with their upgraded counterparts, their effects would stack. If you equip the Light Ring L-1 and L-2, for example, which let you still shoot sword beams after taking two and three hearts of damage respectively, then you will be able to shoot beams after a deficit of five hearts now.

Hollow Knight actually does something similar, where some Charms are stronger versions of others, though the system there works even better thanks to the Charm Notches, where more powerful Charms use up more notches. They also could do something similar with the rings, but it wouldn't make much sense, because it's not like one ring would be larger than the others and then waste more space in your Ring Box. And it's best to keep it simple, where the system shouldn't change too much.

One other effect of a few Charms in Hollow Knight is changing interactions with certain characters, similar to the masks in Majora's Mask. And that's even something you would expect from a variety of the Magic Rings, e.g. the Friendship Ring, or basically any ring that acts as a trophy. Imagine Impa being very confident about you in the beginning of a New Game+, because you are wearing the Victory Ring. This doesn't have to be anything major, but some altered dialogues here and there depending on your rings could be interesting.

Mysplaced Copying Link's Awakening

Mysplaced has been all the rage on social media today, which is an indie title presented in IGN's Rogue Jam. You can watch a small preview on Youtube and by doing so you will immediately notice how the game has simply copied the art style and core gameplay of the Link's Awakening remake, while it's non-linear and comes with some mechanics of its own.

It's like they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And this looks so beautiful that it makes me want to play Link's Awakening on the Nintendo Switch again. More importantly, this makes me want to play remakes of the Oracle games in the same art style sooner than later. If GREZZO is not up for the job, then maybe Nintendo should just hire the two indie developers behind this project, who call themselves Clear Sky Games, because they pretty much nailed it...

Looking at this footage really made me fantasize about how the Oracle games could look in the same style. Take for example this windmill:

There was a windmill next to Horon Village, at the Eastern Suburbs, in Oracle of Seasons, where you meet Guru-guru. This one:

This really could be taken to the next level in a remake, imagine the whole upper area as one giant windmill structure. It could look absolutely fantastic.

Mysplaced also has winter themed areas, where seeing the different seasons in Oracle of Seasons in this art style would be a dream. Just imagine these little, snowy dioramas. Though, it makes me wonder how they are going to pull off the switching seasons between the areas in a remake, since you should also have the continuous scrolling and not some screen borders.

I suppose, it could work similarly to going into the foggy Mysterious Forest, where you can see from the outside that the area is different and then it morphs the visual style once you enter it. They could even use such a remake to properly showcase the madness of having all these shifting seasons right next to each other in ways that simply weren't possible on the GameBoy Color...

Anyway, since Twilight Princess HD is seemingly out of the picture for this year, I keep seeing mentions of the potential Oracle remakes for 2022. And while I would absolutely love to be wrong here, I feel like it's a bit too early for those, especially since GREZZO was hiring for some other project just last year. The timing would be absolutely fantastic, though.

Oracle of Worlds – Remaking Oracle of Ages & Seasons

After the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for Nintendo Switch, it's only natural to assume that GREZZO will continue to work on the other GameBoy Color Zelda games: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. While those were originally made by Capcom, let's assume for the sake of this article that this won't be an issue. And Nintendo does have all the rights for the scenarios and its characters, only the music might become an issue.

In any case, the Oracle games would really profit from such a remake if it were to happen. There are many things that could be improved with these games, where this post will offer a complete concept for a remake in the same style as Link's Awakening.

 

A Tale of Two Lands

The main idea behind this remake is that there won't be two separate games any longer and there also won't be any passwords, the so called "secrets". That's all history. There will be only one game, where there won't be Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, but only "Holodrum" and "Labrynna". It will be one adventure with two big chapters, spanning the two different lands, as it was originally envisioned.

Similar to Link's Awakening, there will be three save slots and one auto save. You start with a single save file and in the beginning you can choose whether the Triforce should send Link to Holodrum or Labrynna. Depending on your choice the adventure will unfold in that land.

After beating Onox or Veran respectively, the second chapter will begin and you will arrive in the second world. So, if you've started in Holodrum, you will now go to Labrynna and vice versa. In the second land you will always have the opportunity to return to the first world via a portal. You can't bring any items or additional hearts through the portal, however, so you can only use items in the second land if you also acquired them there. The exception are the Magic Rings, which are always transported between the lands via your ring collection at Vasu's shop.

There are also the special side quests that span both worlds, where you can get certain item upgrades, Magic Rings, as well an additional Heart Container. Here you will be able to get these items in the second world as well, so it's worth it to return to the first world and attend these quests. Originally, you needed to tell certain people "secrets" for this, now all you need to do is talking to the right persons to initiate the quests. Since these messages are delivered vocally by you, you can actually bring them with you through the portal, unlike items.

Hero Mode

After beating the real final boss you will now have the possibility to start Hero Mode, a New Game+, where your entire Magic Ring collection will carry over, but you will also take double damage and more enemies will appear. This will effectively replace the "Hero's Secret", while combining it with the typical Hero Mode feature as a balance for keeping all your (strong) Magic Rings.

Again, you will have the choice whether you want to go to Holodrum or Labrynna first. If you do the opposite now, you will be able to experience different scenarios in the second chapter, as well as new world-spanning quests with some exclusive rewards, where in the end you might get a complete ring collection for the first time. If you start another Hero Mode from that file, you will eventually be able to start a new adventure where you have all rings in your possession right from the get-go.

This system has the disadvantage that you won't be able to carry over your rings to your older save files. So, those save files will always stay incomplete, but in a way this was also true on the GameBoy Color with the one missing Heart Container. The big advantage is that this system will be much easier to understand and that it's highly compatible with the save file system from Link's Awakening.

In a way all of this is very similar to the old linked game system, but instead of passwords you have one big, shared save game, in which you can switch between Holodrum and Labrynna at any time. How will this happen? Well, meet the new star of the remake...

 

Farore, the Oracle of Worlds

On the GameBoy Color the third of the Oracles had a relatively minor role. She was known as the "Oracle of Secrets" and was responsible for managing the passwords, which let you link both Oracle of Ages and Oracle Seasons and get some special items. In the remake her role will be similar, but also more important.

There will now be a portal inside both Maku Trees, which links both Holodrum and Labrynna, but only after you've already visited both lands. Maybe it's opened by one of the Maku Seeds. Farore, who is now known as the "Oracle of Worlds", is the gatekeeper of this portal and will explain the whole thing to you. Remember that you can't bring any items through this portal, so your current equipment is tied to the land that you're in.

If you now go on world-spanning quests, she will also be the one to reward you afterwards. So, if the Great Fairy in Holodrum asks you to visit Tingle in Labrynna to tell him that he's not actually a fairy, he will reward you with a bigger Seed Satchel for this intelligent insight. If you now return to Holodrum, Farore will give you this Seed Satchel upgrade there as well and a pat on the back.

"Wait a minute! This isn't much different from what Farore did on the GameBoy Color... How is she any more important in the remake now?"

Excellent question! This is where the following comes in...

 

World Seeds

Whenever the Maku Tree grows after you've completed a dungeon in either Holodrum or Labrynna, you will be able to pick "World Seeds" from its top. This will be a new item in the remake and the big new feature, essentially this game's version of the Chamber Dungeon, where Farore will be its host, like Dampé in Link's Awakening.

Farore can use these world seeds to create small new worlds inside the Maku Tree, which you can go explore through a portal. Her new item, replacing the Book of Secrets, may even reflect that, where she could have a magical watering can for example, like a gardener of worlds. Or maybe she still has a book and you will have to collect pages for her "Book of Worlds".

These worlds will be randomly generated and always consist of a small overworld area and at least one dungeon. Defeating all dungeon bosses will clear the world, where Farore will reward you with new Magic Rings, Pieces of Heart, additional World Seeds, or a new Heart Container.

Every World Seed will be based on your finished adventures. So, if you've beaten the Spirit's Grave, you will get access to a Halloween-themed graveyard world and a tomb dungeon, where you can fight against Pumpkin Head again. If you've beaten the Moonlit Grotto, you will be able to visit an island world. And beating the Ancient Tomb lets you play a dangerous fortress world full of Darknuts and Lynels... You can also combine multiple seeds to get a larger world that mixes the different themes, like a desert next to a graveyard.

But all of it can look very different for every player, where both the overworld and the dungeons get procedurally generated via certain patterns and templates. You can always abort your adventure and ask Farore to re-plant the World Seeds if you didn't like the outcome. But if you like the current world, you can also save it to an amiibo, so you can play it in other savegames or share it with friends.

So, in many ways this will be like the Chamber Dungeon, just that instead of building something that you need to beat afterwards, you will always go explore something new and unknown. And instead of collecting chambers for a dungeon, you collect different themes for the worlds based on the adventures in Holodrum and Labrynna, where you can even mix the two. You will be able to replay bosses this way, but also face new challenges.

You start with zero equipment and the items that you'll get are based on the selected seeds, e.g. you will get the Magnetic Gloves in a world that has the Unicorn Dungeon theme. In a way it will be like playing your own small Zelda game.

Other than the World Seeds that you get from the Maku Trees, there will also be additional ones that you can get from Farore, shops, mini-games and maybe even your amiibo. These will either add new worlds or enhance existing ones. There might something like the "plus effects" from the Chamber Dungeon to make the worlds more challenging or more forgiving.

All in all, there will be many similarities to the Chamber Dungeon here, just without the baggage of the limited dungeon builder and with focus on an almost "roguelike" experience with procedurally generated levels.

 

Seed Satchel & Mystical Seeds

The Mystical Seeds are some of Link's most important items in the Oracle games, where the Seed Satchel was basically the Magic Powder on steroids. It was quite inconvenient to switch between the different seeds, however, because similar to the Ocarina in Link's Awakening you had to go back into the inventory, re-assign the Seed Satchel to a button and select the Mystical Seed you need in a small pop-up menu.

In the remake this will be much easier. With the Pegasus Boots gone (which got replaced by the Pegasus Seeds), the Seed Satchel will take its place on the L-button, so you can always quickly use your currently selected seeds, which are shown in the bottom right of the screen with their amount. Using the right analog stick will now activate a small ring menu with all the different Mystical Seeds in them. If you remember their positions, you can easily switch between seeds with a single flick of your R-stick.

If you have the Seed Shooter or the Slingshot equipped to the X or Y button, then those will also make use of your currently selected seeds. This will make certain fights, where you constantly have to switch between different seeds, much easier.

Well, with such a ring menu it could easily support up to eight different seeds instead of just the five from the original. And since it only takes a couple of seconds to come up with three new Mystical Seeds, these get added to the remake as new items:

• Razor Seeds
• Armor Seeds
• Frost Seeds

The Razor Seeds and Armor Seeds should sound familiar, because those already were a thing in Four Swords on the GameBoy Advance, made by the same development team as the Oracle games. In the remake they will function like the Piece of Power and the Guardian Acorn from Link's Awakening, where you get an attack or defense boost for 30 seconds.

To balance this properly, you will only be able to use one at a time and there will be a cool-down for both of these seeds afterwards. Unlike all the other Mystical Seeds you will also only be able to hold a few of them, 5 in the beginning, 20 in the end.

The Frost Seeds are basically the opposite to the Ember Seeds and let you freeze enemies and extinguish torches. You will only be getting them near the end of the game and they will be very helpful when fighting Frypolar or Twinrova, since you now can damage both their fire and ice forms with the respective seeds. (As for Frypolar, using his own ice pillars against him will still deal massive damage, unlike the seeds.)

With these new types of seeds, there will also be Razor Trees, Armor Trees, and Frost Trees present in both Holodrum and Labrynna for additional warp points. Those will be in areas that need them the most, like North Horon, Mt. Cucco, and the Temple Remains in Holodrum. You will also be able to warp directly to the Maku Trees now.

 

The Other Items

The inventory itself will have 16 slots, just like in the GameBoy Color games. Sword, Shield, Power Bracelet, Power Glove, and the Seed Satchel are permanently assigned to certain buttons, where they will be replaced with four Fairy Bottles. This leaves the following items on the remaining twelve slots:

• Rod of Seasons / Harp of Ages
• Flute
  
• Roc's Feather / Roc's Cape
• Shovel
  
• Boomerang / Magical Boomerang
• Switch Hook / Long Hook
• Magnetic Gloves / Cane of Somaria
  
• (Hyper) Slingshot / Seed Shooter
• Bombs
• Bombchus
• Biggoron's Sword

That's eleven items in total for Labrynna and ten items for Holodrum. But the Biggoron's Sword will take two slots now, both in the menu and on your X and Y buttons. This might even be a good reason to keep the Roc's Feather as a normal item and not have a dedicated button for it as well, because the Biggoron's Sword will come with the tradeoff that you won't be able to jump using it.

Anyway, we're still one item short in Holodrum, since you can't get the Switch Hook there. So, there will be a new optional item instead to make things more even: the Whip. It lets you fight enemies and grab items from a certain distance, like a quick alternative to the normal Boomerang.

The Rod of Seasons will also be now more convenient to use by swinging it in a certain direction for a specific season. Up will summon winter, right will summon summer and so on.

Also, with having a dedicated action button (A) and a dedicated sword button (B), the swimming with the Mermaid Suit can just function normally now, since you can swim and use your sword at the same time.

 

Magic Rings

In the original games you were able to collect up to 64 Magic Rings and of course the remake will add to this count for a total of 100 Magic Rings to collect.

All of them will have unique effects, where the remake will focus much more strongly on rings with transformation abilities. On the GameBoy Color you could become NES Link, a Moblin, a Like Like, an Octorok or a Subrosian. The remake will add the following:

• Stalfos
• Darknut
• Armos
• Gibdo
• Lynel
• Guard
• Zora
• Goron
• Tokey
• Tingle
• Shadow Link

Basically anything interesting that can walk. With some of these transformations you will even be able to use sword and shield, while others might give you unique attacks or abilities. Using the Guard Ring for example lets you freely walk around Ambi's Castle undetected.

The First Gen Ring now will work similar to the Timeless Tunic in Tri Force Heroes, so it turns Link into a voxel being and the music will turn into the 8-Bit soundtrack of the GameBoy Color originals. The GBA Time and Nature Rings will have to be replaced with something as well, since it won't make sense to have any GameBoy Advance-exclusive rewards in the remake.

Other than transformations there will be new abilities as well. Here are a few ideas:

• Piece of Power Ring: Lengthens the Razor Seed effect
• Guardian Acorn Ring: Lengthens the Armor Seed effect
• Spiked Ring: enemies will take damage if they run into you
• Whip Ring: increases Whip damage
• ...

The most important change to the Magic Rings, however, is that getting them all won't be left to chance any longer, which means there won't be any randomization behind finding the rings. You will still be able to obtain duplicates, but each and every ring will have its dedicated way of obtaining them, whether it's a certain treasure chest, shop item or mini-game score. You will also now find them more often in the environment, similar to Secret Seashells.

Gasha Trees will now all have one primary reward, which you will get after growing the tree for the first time. This will either be a Piece of Heart or a specific ring. Afterwards the trees will give either Rupees, Magic Potions, Hearts or Fairies. This will be an incentive to find absolutely all Gasha Spots in the world and to plant at least one tree on every spot. The trees will even stay there after you've grown them for the first time, so you will know immediately whether you've already planted a Gasha Seed there or not. This also means that Gasha Seeds will become a strictly limited collectible, where there's one to find for every Gasha Spot.

Also, Maple will now always drop both Maple's Ring and her Piece of Heart until you got them both. Afterwards she will keep changing to new rewards, like other rings, but it will always be a specific ring that you can get next. Like the Trendy Game in Link's Awakening, she will add new rewards after every dungeon.

 

Pieces of Heart

Like with Link's Awakening, the total amount of hearts will be increased to 20. The fourth Heart Container that you get from starting a game with a password will now be gone and instead replaced with a Heart Container you can get from Farore for exploring World Seeds. Otherwise there will be 16 new Pieces of Heart in both Holodrum and Labrynna for you to find.

In the original both game worlds did have their empty spots, where adding Pieces of Heart (as well as new Magic Rings) will make exploring every nook of Labrynna, Holodrum and Subrosia will be worth your time.

As already mentioned before, both Gasha Trees and Maple won't handle their Pieces of Heart at random any longer. There will be specific Gasha Trees that give you Pieces of Heart with their first Gasha Nut, while Maple will always drop her Piece of Heart until you get it.

 

Mini-Games

GREZZO did a great job at updating all the mini-games in Link's Awakening with new mechanics and rewards. However, there were only three mini-games on Koholint and they were already quite good on the GameBoy.

With the Oracle of Seasons and especially Oracle of Ages GREZZO will have to go wild here, since there are about a dozen mini-games in the worlds of the Oracles, including some of the most-hated mini-games of all time, like the atrocious Goron Dance. Making this more fun to play would already be a huge win for everyone.

This number also includes some of the one-time mini-games that you face, mainly in some of the quests that bring you back to Holodrum, like the diving mini-game or the Old Man's combat test. Those could even be expanded to proper mini-games, which you can keep playing for additional rewards, like some of the new Magic Rings.

 

The Animal Buddies

Ricky, Moosh and Dimitri – those are your trusted companions during your travels in Holodrum and Labrynna. Well, on the GameBoy Color one of them was, because you only ever could get one flute per playthrough. This even affected one entire environment, where depending on your flute a part of Holodrum and Labrynna will look completely different (more information here).

The remake won't have any of this. Instead you will be able to get three different songs for the flute, similar to the Ocarina in Link's Awakening, one for each animal buddy. And the Natzu and Nuun areas will now be unified with paths for all three animals.

The latter will even be a necessity for the remake if it keeps the seamless overworld scrolling of Link's Awakening, because then you would get something like the following, where you can take a good look at the Nuun Highlands from Lynna City right at the beginning of the game:

Normally, this area won't be determined until after the third dungeon, which is where you were able to obtain the flute for the first time. But if you can already look past Bipin's and Blossom's house, this wouldn't work any longer and there needs to be something fixed here from the beginning. (Or they would have to put the Nuun Highlands so high up that you can't see them early on.)

In Labrynna this change will even be very straight-forward. You will meet and help the three animal buddies around the quest to Crescent Island, exactly like in the original, and when you have to gather all three carpenters in the Nuun Highlands, you will notice that you need all the animal buddies for the job, one for each worker. This brings you back to the Fairies' Woods, where you now have to search for them all and where at the end you get the flute with all three songs.

In Holodrum you will be able to meet and help either Ricky or Dimitri on your way to the Spool Swamp, which will earn you one of their songs. You will also get Moosh's song in the Spool Swamp after rescuing him from monsters. The "Natzu Crossing" will now offer three different paths to the Moblin's Keep and the Sunken City, one for each animal buddy, where you can choose which one you prefer.

Once you've arrived at the Sunken City you will be able to recruit Dimitri, if you haven't already, while you can recruit Ricky at any time by bringing him the boxing gloves from Blaino. And at Mt. Cucco you will need to collect the Bananas for Moosh in any case or else he won't help you. This way all the special animal buddy events will still be in the game.

In the end you will be able to summon all three of the animal companions in both Labrynna and Holodrum for your convenience. There might even be certain Magic Rings, Gasha Seeds, and Pieces of Hearts that can only be gotten with a certain animal friend.

You will also be able to summon while exploring Farore's World Seeds, where some of the worlds might require the usage of either Ricky, Moosh or Dimitri.

 

Bipin's and Blossom's Many Sons

Other than the animal buddies, there was another thing that could end up being very different on your playthrough on the GameBoy Color: the offspring of Bipin and Blossom. Depending on what answers and help you gave the family, he could grow up to become a hero, an arborist, a musician or a slacker.

The remake will add some new outcomes, but there will also be a new mechanic, where you can get the son to leave and start his own life elsewhere in the world. In this case Bipin and Blossom will quickly make a new child, which then you can influence again and again to experience all different outcomes in a single save file. There might even be some exclusive rings that you can only get if their son turns out a certain way.

 

Dungeon Scrolling

The dungeons in the Oracle games have larger "chambers" than in Link's Awakening, where as a result it would constantly scroll on the GameBoy Color, because the chambers wouldn't fit on a single screen. This won't be the case in the remake, where it only scrolls, if there are multiple connected rooms, exactly like in the remake of Link's Awakening.

Conclusion

If GREZZO ever were to remake Oracle of Ages & Seasons in the same style as Link's Awakening, there would be lots of things that they could add and improve. No passwords, new Hero Mode, easier to use items, more Magic Rings and Pieces of Hearts, updated mini-games and the ability to get all three animal buddies for the first time would all be good reasons for such a remake.

On top they could add a complete new feature, similar to the Chamber Dungeon, where in this example Farore lets you explore many new small worlds, which get procedurally generated. But of course GREZZO could also go for a more sophisticated version of the Chamber Dungeon or something else entirely.