For people like us: The genre's in their nice little boxes enjoyers, my god Zelda is a pain in the arse thing to conceptualise lmao
Trying to comprehend the nature of Zelda games themselves in the overall patheon of games is already difficult, but then you get things that are inspired by them and it's an entire new problem. I put whatever games I do in these collages based on a really subjective answer to the question of "What exactly did this feed" when we play them. Lucky for our Plural asses we have literal goobers who can raise their hands and go "It was me, I was fed"
So for Time on frog island a very Link's Awakening-ass game, I look at it like this: Yes it's a game that's literally all quests, quests to complete a Big Quest, but the complexity of said quests is really down to exploration, but said exploration doesn't empower our protagonists nor does a sense of progression comes from our protagonist. Which means as an Adventure game or a RPG it is doing nothing for me, but as a game about a Little Guy Doing Some Things it is immaculate. Yet calling this a Platformer seems ridiculous, there is one instance of any platforming in the entire thing. But y'know that's why I don't call them that, and call them Games that contain Scrimblo, as the Scrimb and controlling said Scrimb is the entire appeal for me. Which is why for me there's no issue with putting this alongside the company of Jonathan Mario and Alexander the Hog like it's all feeding the same thing... So that's my piece about that!!
The game itself is very cute, a short thing about running around in a dense environment like a little island is the kind of detox I need after a year, one that is currently still going, of back to back RPG releases. I enjoyed the vibes, very much feeling like a playable slice of Plastic Beach era Gorillaz. I very much needed this, thank you Time On Frog Island!