Hogan Reviews

The next Zelda manga adaptation is, unsurprisingly, the Oracle of Ages, following on from Seasons last time (though the games could be played in either order, for the record). After a magic seasons-changing rod and some talking animals gave Seasons a unique feel Ages feels more in-line with your standard LoZ affair, including time travel and even a battle with Ganon at the end (though again that would happen at the end of Seasons if you played the games the other way around…) So let’s get to it!

As Link takes part in a fighting tournament in the land of Labrynna the Twinrova are still angry at their defeat from last time and recruit a female mage called Veran to take out Link and assist in their plans to resurrect Ganon. Veran has the ability to possess people and jumps from a little flower girl to Impa, Zelda’s aide who had approached Link with a mission to find Nayru, the Oracle of Ages. Travelling through a forest with our hero the two come across Nayru, who claims to know Link’s future and of Impa, or Veran’s, motive and end but refuses to say. Veran then leaps from Impa to Nayru, gaining her powers over time and claiming that she’ll travel to the past and erase Link from existence. A kid named Ralph appears and claims to be Nayru’s friend and after chewing Link’s ear off for having failed his idol Impa lets them know about Veran’s ability, while Ralph sees the “Harp of Ages” has been left behind, though it’s Link who soon uses it to travel to the past, not Ralph. There he sees the people enslaved and forced to build a “Black Tower” for the local Queen Ambi, who used to be a lot kinder, tipping off Link that Veran is most likely behind the events, though his pleading falls on deaf ears.

Link discovers his second female Oracle in a distant land in just a few days. They’re like buses!

A familiar-looking knight called Sir Raven soon arrives and knocks Link unconscious and brings him to the castle dungeons but it shocked that the Oracle of Ages, who has the ear of the Queen, demands the kid be executed, which the Queen agrees. Link escapes anyway and decides to follow Raven back to a nearby village where the knight confronts him again but the two come to terms when they agree about the Queen being manipulated. Link tells Raven and the people of a hidden village about Veran possessing Nayru and they decide to tackle the mage together. Its at this point Link realises that Raven in his ancestor and therefore if he dies he’ll vanish as well but regardless of the risks the two head to the castle and Link even confronts Veran 1-on-1 but she merely summons some demons instead, which Link takes on handily but is stopped when Ralph appears, having found the Harp of Ages in a pawn shop in his time after Link lost it earlier in the past (time travel!). The two are surrounded so Link strums the Harp and the two suddenly arrive in an island in the middle of nowhere.

Link and Raven, it’s like the two versions of Link from Ocarina meeting each other!

Here we get a side story involving a good old fashioned skeletal pirate group cursed to sail the seas forever, though the ghostly Captain does tell Link Veran’s weakness (which is “Mystery Seeds”) in exchange for him to tell his lover he still thinks of her, the picture he hands Link being Queen Ambi. Sadly as Link and Ralph reunite with Sir Raven Veran leaves Nayru’s body and possesses Ralph, and during this steals Raven’s Mystery Seeds and burns them before sending the monster called Ramrock to destroy them. It’s swiftly defeated but eventually Raven is surrounded so he tells Link to flee, which he does but soon rallies the people against the Queen and manages to storm the castle just in time to stop Raven’s execution. To top things off hearing of her lover’s fate snaps Queen Ambi out of her influence and she declares work on the Tower should stop, causing Veran to abandon Nayru and possess the Queen directly so work can continue…

It’s a fun time-twisty tale with some good original characters and a bit off a different threat to the usual affair (well, ignoring the usual affair that happens at the end of the story…) and once again not only is the art great but the original character based on Link’s lineage is really fun and undeniably “cool”, just like the one he invented for the Majora’s Mask flashback.

Overall Thoughts:

Veran being very pleased with herself.

“Oracle of Ages” was a really fun story, full of shifts in time as well as tone, in true Zelda fashion, being both fun and serious when needed. I’ll admit one or two chapters felt a bit like “filler” (or side quest adaptations, I guess) and the ending felt a bit rushed, but overall it was one of the better stories in this series…

Nayru manages to teleport herself, Link, Ralph and Raven to the future, then back to the past to collect more Mystery Seeds before heading to  the castle, but by this time Ralph has ran to face Veran himself, but Nayru reveals that Queen Ambi is HIS ancestor and if he kills her he’ll also cease to exist. Link manages to catch up and shoot a Seed at the Queen (great sentence) just in time to save Ralph, who was about to run her through. The Seed forces Veran out of the Queen’s body and she transforms into her true spider-like form to attack Link. After a battle Link manages to kill Veran but the creature tries to take him down with her, but Raven appears and the two destroy it together. This causes the Twinrova to appear and sacrifice not just Veran but their own souls to resurrect Ganon himself.

Sadly I couldn’t find any pictures from the final chapter to grab a shot of Ganon, so here’s another shot of Raven… Hooray!

As Ganon goes on a rampage Princess Zelda appears out of nowhere and reveals the Twinrova’s ritual was incomplete and that this Ganon is nothing but a mindless beast. Using the full power of the Triforce Link attacks Ganon and with the aide of Ralph, Raven and the rest of the locals Ganon is soon swiftly destroyed (seriously, this felt so tacked on…) Nayru, Ralph and Link soon head back to their own time, though not before Raven thanks the latter and says he’s proud to have a descendant like him. As Zelda, Nayru and Ralph have tea at Zelda’s castle and feel lucky that Ganon’s resurrection wasn’t complete Link finally returns to his farm from the start of the Seasons manga, reuniting with his grandparents.