Nintendo Switch Online Subscribers Get 2 Game Boy Color Zelda Games to Play

Subscribers to Nintendo’s Switch Online service have two new classic Zelda titles to play today, which were originally developed for the Game Boy Color (GBC).

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons were released back in 2001 and developed by Flagship(Opens in a new window), a subsidiary of Capcom, which also worked on Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, and Kirby games before it closed in 2007. 3DS owners may remember being able to play both games through the Virtual Console.

Gameplay in these action-adventure games is from an overhead perspective and similar to that seen in the 1993 Game Boy title Link’s Awakening. Nintendo encouraged GBC owners to purchase both Ages and Seasons by only revealing the main plot once both games had been completed. It’s a tactic that clearly worked, with both titles selling just shy of 4 million copies.

As Wikipedia explains(Opens in a new window), Flagship originally set out to develop three interconnected Zelda games that could be played in any order. However, the complexity proved to be too much and one of the three was canceled.

Now both games are available to play on modern hardware, and Nintendo has confirmed(Opens in a new window) the linked ending is available using the original password system—using the password generated on completion of the first game when starting the second will “unlock certain items, spur certain characters to remember past actions, and expand some story elements.” The order in which you play the two games doesn’t matter.

Nintendo’s Switch Online service costs $3.99 per month or $19.99 per year. There’s also a family membership available for $34.99 per year. If you want the Expansion Pack, then the price increases to $49.99 per year, or $79.99 for the family membership. With the addition of these Zelda games, the service now offers 15 Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles, and over 100 classics if you include SNES and NES games, too.