I've just experienced the Crown Dungeon which is the fifth level in Oracle of Ages and wow... what a truly abysmal dungeon. It is not my first time with it as I have beaten the Oracle games a few times before, but upon revisiting them I am beginning to understand why my playthroughs of those games tend to be separated by many years. I generally have a favorable view of most dungeons in the Zelda games I have played, with the worst I can say about some of them is that they are simply uninteresting. But the Crown Dungeon, my gosh is it grating.
Somehow I knew upon entering it that I was going to hate it, and the horrendous tune for it probably gave that away. It becomes clear quickly that this dungeon emphasizes one major aspect about the Oracle games I am quite critical of, that being pointlessly large scrolling rooms that are mostly barren. It makes traversal long and tedious while also adding a lot of monotonous meandering around making sure you haven't missed anything off screen. Crown Dungeon particularly never seems to go beyond this and all it has to offer are rudimentary switch raising puzzles as well as continuing the Oracle games' bizarre obsession with block puzzles. Aesthetically the dungeon is so dull and drab to the point where many rooms look samey, which is very bad because it is also easy to get lost. The item it gives, the Cane of Somaria, is largely mundane in that all it is used for is holding down switches, augmenting prior mentioned block puzzles or to painstakingly push across an invisible path so you can safely cross it. Supposedly the boss fight is also infamously disliked, though I just found it tedious rather than frustrating. All I can say about this dungeon is that it doesn't spam mine cart and turn dial sections like many Oracle dungeons like to do, but that really isn't saying anything at all because every single dungeon that had those were all far more enjoyable than this one.
Making matters so much worse is that the awful Graceful Goron minigame immediately follows this slog of a dungeon. I think it might be awhile before I pick the game up again if I do at all. The pacing of Oracle of Ages is something I have been questioning regularly. For the first two dungeons it was very well done, but after the second dungeon the game starts dragging you around the map to do mundane things like finding a chart, a rope, flippers that are invalidated by the ocean waters you can't swim in, a sea chart, helping Moosh, helping Ricky find his gloves, etc. It all culminates in one of the worst sections of the game in Crescent Island where you have to deal with Tokays stealing all of your things. Remember that every sequence in the game is practically doubled in length too because you have to interact with areas in both the present and past time periods. In spite of that dungeon 3 was worth the wait. The lead up to dungeon 4 was its own layer of tedium, where you find yourself unable to progress ahead until you are forced to go back to the woods and rescue your animal buddy. It is not that bad, but learning the new harp song proved to be a small annoyance as well considering how long it takes to play the song and warp back into the present. It is far less fluid than the Magic Mirror of LTTP, to make that comparison. Still, dungeon 4 also proved to be a strong one. Up to this point the dungeons had been highly enjoyable so to have dungeon 5 nosedive in quality is utterly tragic. Making you do the Graceful Goron thing right afterwards just feels cruel, as if they are kicking you while you are down. What an embarrassment.