Oracle of Ages was indeed a very good game. I suppose this thread would be about the ups and downs of Oracle of Ages and it's rank compared to the rest of the Zelda games? Well, that's what I'm going to take it as.
Oracle of Ages was a wonderful game. It focused not only on puzzles but on the enemies in the game as well. It was by no means easy, and by no means hard to the point that it is not enjoyable. Due to the whole time travel thing, and the land moving through present and past, there were a lot of puzzles made possible in the game. Throughout most of the game you found yourself traveling back and forth through time to trigger different events to make openings in the present. The enemies were awesome. There were a great balance of them, and none of them were particularly easy.
The dungeons all had their puzzles and difficulty to them. As I recall there really wasn't one dungeon that didn't have some sort of awesome puzzle in it. There were all kinds of items to help you solve puzzles as well. The ember seeds for example, were mainly based around solving puzzles and the like. There were also small puzzles where the scent seed came in handy and whatever else you can think of. Each boss was sort of like a puzzle itself, as well. Especially if you think of the one that had you using the cane to defeat it.
In all, I think that Oracle of Ages was a very wonderful game, and is definitely near the top of my list. Ocarina of Time is still my favorite, I just can't part with it. I don't quite know what draws me to it so much, but I just want to play it over and over again and I find it so enjoyable every time. Oracle of Ages is definitely rated for an A+ in the puzzles and enemies through the entire game, though. It's very far up there. Other games were lacking a little in some of the puzzles. When you were doing them, it wasn't always really obvious. You just felt like you were going through it, and not really taking time to sit back and solve a difficult puzzle through everything.
Not that all of the puzzles in OoA were difficult, though. They all required quite an amount of thinking, but I suppose somebody intelligent enough could make it through in a breeze without even noticing they were really doing a puzzle. Oracle of Ages was definitely a huge puzzle.
