Well seasoned and well aged

[E-Man]

I loved both Oracles titles, but for me, Seasons beats Ages, though I feel that both are very superior to Link's Awakening. With Ages, I felt there were instances between some dungeons that felt more arbitrarily padded, giving me a few moments of OoA burnout:

ranty tl;dr-ness

e.g. Wanna get to the third dungeon, Moonlit Grotto? Fantastic! Admirable! That's the adventuring spirit!... but first you need to talk to Cheval, go to Yoll Graveyard in the present to get the Zora Flippers and the Cheval Rope from under his grave, go to the past, then give Rafton the Cheval Rope to make you a seaworthy raft, finally allowing you passage across the vast sea. OK, fair enough, now you're ready for the trials of Moonlit Grotto... But oops! You need an Island Chart* first to use your raft. So get your ass to the present, get help from Ricky to climb Tingle's cliff... AFTER finding his gloves for him. Where? Buried under a nondescript space on the shore, obviously! Anyways, when you get Ricky his gloves back, go talk to Tingle, and get a Island Chart. Next, go back to the past, get your raft and go to Crescent Island. Whew, what a hefty quest, but now you can tackle the dangers of the third dungeoh yeah btw you get caught in a storm instead. Link passes out ashore Crescent Island, and the thieving Tokays steal absolutely ALL your equipment, hindering you. So now you've gotta get your equipment back one item at a time, with the need to trade your Power Bracelet, Roc's Feather, and Shovel a few times in a shop. Then you need to win a Scent Seedling in a minigame, plant it, go to the present, harvest Scent Seeds, go to the past, buy back your Bracelet and Feather for good with Ember and Scent Seeds, go to the present, and you may, at last, enter Moonlit Grotto... which, considering the massive fuck-off miniquest put into your lap leading up to it, isn't that terrible of a dungeon. No, this doesn't count as one of OoA's "more puzzle-intensive" assets. It counts as a "dance, you fucking monkey" moment. Now, to be fair, some of the Subrosia segments in Seasons kinda blew as well, but IMO, not on this level.

*Holy crap, the Island Chart is the biggest issue I have with this whole miniquest. First off, why would you use a chart from four hundred goddamned years in the future after you need it? It is established and verifiable fact that the land (and sea, for that matter) of Labrynna changes over time, so even within the logic of this game's world, this makes no sense! Second, as far as I know, it doesn't even mark your destination on your map, making the Chart completely, wholly, entirely, absolutely unnecessary. I feel this objective was particularly pulled out of the devs' asses at the last minute for this quest.

Also, aside from Queen Ambi's Palace, the world of the past in Ages looks far too dull and monochromatic; Seasons looked excellent because the changing of seasons gave its locales variation. Most of Labrynna's present also consisted of a singular color scheme, but at least it's spring-ish and not terrible to look at. Finally, the concept of changing seasons felt more original to me than going back in time (which, despite it being time travel, is actually pretty much a rehash of the Light/Dark World concept from LttP).

That aside, storytime: when I had these games when they first came out, the concept of the exchangeable content between the two games was awesome, and whenever I'd visit my cousins once a week or so that summer, I would particularly look forward to those visits. I only had Seasons (at first) and my cousins only had Ages, and we'd sit there for hours finding and exchanging secrets. I really wish they made that third Oracle title. But alas, now my favorite original portable Zelda title is Phantom Hourglass (yes, that Phantom Hourglass).

EDIT: I'm almost done with Mermaid's Cave in my 3DS OoA playthrough, and I forgot how horribly Capcom cocked up the new swimming controls for the Mermaid Suit. A simple fix would be to allow Link to automatically swim about as fast as his walk. Just... rggh, constantly tapping a direction to swim is fucking terrible.

Yeah, those are good reasons as to why Seasons is better than Ages. Even though Seasons reused more sprites from Link's Awakening, it was still far more appealing then Ages for the reasons you stated. My reason would be that the Subrosians are far more appealing than a bunch of ignorant lizards.

Also, what's the deal with that mermaid suit? Why can't they work like the flippers?