The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

The Good
This game is a very different approach to making a Zelda game from what I can tell. There is no Zelda, Ganondorf, Triforce, or Master Sword, just a little guy who was thrown into a parallel world in order to save it-- and I absolutely love it. Seeing a Zelda game that is a side-quest to another game with the same Link is always nice to see, especially with Majora's Mask.

You enter this new world with no explanation. All you know is that something terrible will happen in three days, which is hardly any time at all. This is where the Ocarina of Time comes in. You use it to reset the three days and go back to the first day, reverting a good portion of your progress. I have seen several people complain about this time mechanic, but I, personally, like it. It adds a different kind of immersion to this adventure. It makes you have to plan out what you want to do in a matter of three days (luckily, there are two songs that slow down and speed up time, which makes it easier to get things done). Without this mechanic, almost every sidequest would NOT work, since a bunch of them rely on going back, going forward, and experimentation.

The story is very good. To not spoil anything, you are practically thrown the responsibility as the world's savior. The main villain is this mysterious, terrifying, and powerful being. There is just a moon with a face that nobody really pays any mind to. The land is full of mystery, quests and areas will leave the player with questions that may or may not be answered. The best part about the story is how dark it is. Characters die, grieve, and have problems that are worsened by the threat of world destruction. It's a game that is worth exploring and looking around.

A big part of the game is the mask collection. By doing side quests, main quests, and just exploring, you will find masks to add to your collection. Getting a new mask is always satisfying. It's a reward when you do something right.

The Bad
Most of the masks are useless. A lot of the time you use them once, sometimes they can be used to your advantage in combat/exploring, and sometimes they do pretty much nothing. I wish that some of the masks could at least evoke some reactions, or just be used in more ways, but no. I mean hey, it's at least satisfying having a full mask inventory!

Playing songs on the ocarina is really tedious. Every time you play, it plays an encore. This is especially annoying when you want to play the song that slows or speeds time, but you accidentally play the wrong one. It would be nice to have the option to skip or turn off the encore (especially on the Stone Tower).

The Bottom Line
Absolutely try it out. It's an adventure that is well worth your time. The story is really mysterious, which leaves room for speculation. This is a good, and surprisingly dark and creepy game.

The Good
I could start this off any one of a million ways, but I think I'll just get straight to the point and say that this is, in my opinion, not only the greatest Zelda game I have ever played, but the best game Nintendo has ever released, period.

Ocarina of Time was admittedly a tough act to follow, and while it still ranks very high on my list, Majora's Mask just outshines it in nearly every way. I could make countless comparisons as to why it's better than OoT, but instead I think I'll just say what Majora's Mask does right, regardless of how it compares to OoT.

The story is one of the game's strongest points, especially given that it is a Zelda game, and almost every game in the franchise up to this point has had a very similar, predictable, cliche story. Instead of the tired "defeat the evil king/lord/wizard and restore peace to the world" story arc that has plagued past iterations of the series (save Link's Awakening), in Majora's Mask you must save the land of Termina from being crushed by the moon. The catch is, you only have three days before the moon lands...luckily, you have the power to go back in time to the first day over and over as many times as it takes to save the world. This alone sets the game apart from any other in the series, but even this isn't the game's strongest point.

The single best part about this game is that it is a lush, living, breathing world. From the bustling Clock Town to the rustic Ikana Canyon and everything in between, the land of Termina is probably the most tangible world I have ever come across in gaming. Every single NPC in the game has their own schedule, and they follow it to a tee every single time you return to the first day. Every NPC has personality, everyone reacts differently to their impending doom. The swordsman in Clock Town, for example, puts on a brave face until the last minutes before the moon hits, when he is reduced to a frightened, cowering mess. The head carpenter in town, on the other hand, refuses to accept that the moon will actually fall, even when it's two minutes from hitting the ground. These are very real people, by far the most believable, sympathetic characters I've ever met in a video game. They make Termina so rich and full of life - some you only meet in passing, others you get to really know and care about. No game does a better job of making you actually feel something for the people you are trying to save. As you go along, you want to help these people, not because you'll get anything out of it, not even because you'll get satisfaction from beating the game, but because you really, truly don't want them to die. It's something I have yet to come across in any other video game.

As for the mechanics of the game itself, this is where you're going to hear a lot of different opinions. The game has a save system unlike any other Zelda game - in order to save your game, you must return to the first day and essentially "reset" everything. This means you lose all your items (i.e. you start off with zero Deku sticks, arrows, bombs, etc.) and Rupees (thankfully you can store these in a bank, which DOESN'T get reset). In addition to this, the temples are reset as well - fortunately, if you beat the boss once you can return to the temple and warp straight to the boss room and beat him again without having to go through the entire dungeon all over again. It's an odd system and it's likely to frustrate many, but once you get used to it it's really not all that bad. You're never really pressed for time, and either way there is a song that allows you to slow down time to half its speed. This effectively gives you almost three hours in real-time before you absolutely MUST reset the clock, and that should be more than enough time to finish any temple. I personally never found it to be an issue.

The other major addition to this game is the use of masks. This game focuses HEAVILY on collecting masks. There are four transformation masks that turn you into another creature - for example, one mask you find turns you into a Zora, and as a Zora you get new abilities like swimming underwater and using your fins as boomerangs. Each transformation has its place in the game and as you go through it you'll find yourself switching forms quite often to solve puzzles or reach new areas. It's an innovative concept that works really well as a gameplay mechanic and makes the game much more fun. These masks also have many practical uses, such as using the Goron mask to roll around Termina field and get places much quicker than you would on foot.

Besides the transformation masks, you'll also find yourself collecting a lot of other masks that have their own uses. For example, the Bunny Hood lets you run faster and the Stone Mask makes you invisible to certain enemies.

This kind of leads to my next point, which is that in order to get these masks, you have to do a lot of sidequests. This game is made up primarily of sidequests and minigames. The bulk of your time will not be spent solving puzzles and fighting enemies in dungeons like in past Zelda games, but instead you'll find yourself helping the citizens of Termina, usually in return for masks or, occasionally, Pieces of Heart. This is usually a lot more fun than it may sound, and there's tons of variety in what you have to do to get these rewards. One or two (maybe more) of the quests even span the entire three-day cycle, where you have to do certain things at specific times during a specific day. A lot of the quests can only be received and/or completed at certain times of day depending on people's schedules, and keeping up with this is made much easier by a notebook you get that will keep track of every important character's schedule, so you know where to find them or what to do.

Graphically, this game is absolutely outstanding. This is the best example of what the N64 was capable of, and to this day it stands as one of the richest visual experiences I've ever experienced in any game, next-gen or not. It rains occasionally, it turns from night to day (obviously), it snows in Snowhead and it's a visual feast at Great Bay. Even though today most people probably wouldn't think much of the graphics, I personally love how well they go with the theme and direction of the game itself. It all blends together so well. Most games today can't match up with this game's graphical/gameplay harmony.

Sound is also top-notch. Familiar tunes along with some new ones abound in the game, and what makes this aspect of the game so fantastic is the subtle ways the music changes as time advances. On the first day, the music is slow, laid-back, and calm - peaceful, almost. But on the third day, the pace has increased noticeably, and there's a twinge in the music, as if whoever's playing it is doing so so fast he's occasionally making mistakes. It's almost creepy, and there's a definite sense of urgency in the air by this point. In the last five minutes of the game, no matter where you are, there's a forlorn, hopeless tune that floats in the background, and you feel the weight of the moon crushing down on you. It's one of the game's most important aspects, and the music honestly contributes a huge amount to the atmosphere this game evokes. It's spectacular.

The Bad
Finding bad things to say about this game is difficult. Probably the worst thing about it is that a lot of the game comes down to taste. You'll either love it or not care for it at all. The game depends heavily on whether or not you enjoy dungeon-crawling more, or if you enjoy sidequests/minigames more. The bulk of the game is spent outside of temples (there are only four of them in the entire game), and if you think this will be a problem...well, the game may disappoint you.

The temples themselves are also not the high points of the game. Most of them are well-designed, but the puzzles tend to be frustrating, obscure, or just forgettable. I always hated actually doing the temples, because I knew that all the fun was in the rest of Termina. Replaying the bosses can also get to be on the annoying side, though it was an unavoidable consequence of the time system Nintendo decided to integrate into the game.

The time system itself is also a matter of taste. I personally like it because it makes for a really interesting and unique story, and I'm willing to make a small sacrifice for the sake of an awesome story. It does have some downsides though, and you'll find yourself doing the same things over and over so you can get Pieces of Heart or masks.

The Bottom Line
If you're someone who cares less about story and more about actual gameplay, this may not be the game for you. The gameplay isn't bad as a whole, not at all, but there are some aspects about it which will frustrate the less patient gamers to the point where they may just put the game down. If you find yourself fitting that description, all I can say is beware.

For the rest of you, you will find that this game constantly rewards you with its beauty and personality. The NPCs become a part of your life, they're not just a part of the game. You'll want to save them. You'll care about them. You'll love some of them, hate others. But you'll always enjoy the interaction, and watching them live their lives as they go about their schedules. This is a game that's so easy to get lost in, a world that you'll honestly miss during your gaming down-times. This is gaming at its most personal, and if you love gaming at all, you will walk away from this game with different expectations than from when you first fired it up.

And how many games can truly boast that?

The Good
In 1998 Nintendo released upon the world a Nintendo 64 game so epic, so stunningly beautiful and so carefully crafted it wowed gamers across the globe and gained tremendous praise from gamers and critics alike.

This game was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. For its time it was revolutionary. With its large, stunning and open ended 3D world, its loveable characters and the innovative lock-on system Shigeru Miyamoto and his team proved they could translate their awesome Zelda series into 3D without sacrificing anything that made previous titles in the series such a delight to play.

To live up to the expectations made by that game Nintendo had to come up with something very interesting for a new sequel. The result was a game that both succeeded in doing so tremendously well while it also had some frustrating and annoying elements. It's kind of a divisive game among Zelda fans and they hold an ongoing debate whether it or Ocarina of Time is the better game. I am off course talking about one of the most unique and quirky Zelda games: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

Released in 2000 it was a game that hit the Nintendo 64 late on in its life cycle. It came out around the same time when Sony released its wildly successful and much wanted PlayStation 2. Some people may have missed it because of this. A shame, really, as it is an incredibly clever and well thought out game, though not without flaws.

It starts only a few months after Ocarina of Time. Protagonist Link is looking for his old fairy buddy Navi when he stumbles upon the mysterious Skull Kid who lures him into a trap and uses the powers of a strange mask, the titular Majora's Mask, to transform Link into a Deku Scrub, a plant-like creature that first appeared in Ocarina of Time. Not only does Link need to find a way to become human again, he also needs to find his way back home as he has been sucked into the mysterious new land of Termina, robbed of his Ocarina of Time.

While walking around as a tiny Deku Scrub in Termina's main town, Clock Town, Link meets the Happy Mask Salesman, a character from the previous game, who urges him to get back Majora's Mask from Skull Kid to prevent its evil powers to spread across the world. He soon discovers there is some serious trouble going on in Termina. The moon, as in: an evil-looking moon with red eyes, is about to crash into Termina within three days, wiping it of the map and all its living creatures with it.

This is all because of the dark powers of the Mask, in which the ancient demon Majora resides. Link soon finds his Ocarina in the hands of the Skull Kid. After playing his healing song to become human again, Link will have to use the Ocarina's time travel capabilities to return to the first day he arrived in Termina to save himself from being crushed by the moon. This is totally different from the usual save-the-princess story seen so many times before and it allows for an unusually dark Zelda game with the constant sense of impending doom looming over everything Link does. Majora is by far the most story-driven Zelda game.

Time travel, that's basically what this game is all about. You play the Song of Time and you go back to day one. This way you can save yourself over and over. Don't have enough time left to beat that dungeon? Just go back in time to restore your time and use warp points to get back to where you ended quickly. You can also play the Song of Time differently to greatly slow down the flow of time or to travel to the future. The downside of this is that your actions never happened if you go back so most of the game will be reset, although you usually can get an item to solve problems in an easier way the next time around.

At first you will be totally confused and not really sure what to do. But after a bit of exploration your main objectives become clear. To get the mask back you will need to awaken four giants in each of the winds four directions.

Across the plains of Termina Field are four regions, each inhabited by a different race. There is a swamp where Deku Scrubs live, a high mountain where the Gorons, the rock people, live, a bay with the Fish-like Zora tribe and finally a dusty canyon where all kinds of undead creatures such as ghosts and zombies reside. At the end of each of these four regions, there is a dungeon. Beat the four dungeons to awaken all four giants.

While four dungeons may seem like nothing compared to Ocarina's nine different dungeons, Majora compensates this by relying much more on side-quests. In this game you have to carefully observe the living patterns of the people living in Termina. The postman's round, the artists rehearsing in Clock Town's back alleys, it all seems completely unimportant until you delve deeper into the game and you find how unique this idea truly is. For example, there is a Goron staying at an inn also called Link. You can travel back in time to use information from the future to your advantage and use your own name to get the key from the reservation counter so you get into the room he was supposed to stay in. Many characters have equivalents in Ocarina and it is especially fun to see the lovable characters from that game as sometimes completely different people. Take Navi the fairy for example. She was rather annoying in Ocarina of Time with her high pitched yelps like "Hey!" and "Look!". She's now replaced by Tatl who's an improvement for sure. There are a few new characters as well, including the very first appearance of Tingle the wannabe-fairy. I like how Termina is both completely different from Hyrule yet eerily similar at the same time.

The NPC quest system also makes the player much more aware of his or her moral dilemmas, and touches upon an emotional level. You can never really save anyone because you will choose to complete different sidequests each time you go back in time. This allows for a rather dark and moody game in the series that surprised gamers back in 2000. Thankfully Link gets a notebook that keeps track of these kind of tasks early on in the game so you can see if you already saved someone in a different timeline.

Many of these side-quests will earn you special masks, while others are obtained by playing through the main quest. These masks play a much more important role than in the previous game. While some just enhance the game in simple ways such as the ability to run faster, others transform link into a Deku Scrub, a Goron or a Zora, each with their own abilities much like in Super Mario games. Many masks, particularly the transformation masks, are vital in progressing through the game and in solving puzzles. Need to be able to dive? Put on the Zora Mask. Need to glide across short chasms? Just whip out the Deku Mask. There are more than 20 in all and while not all are compulsory to beat the game, its fun to collect them all. These masks are very cool and truly enhance the Zelda formula.

The dungeons though, are still where this game truly shines. Particularly the Stone Tower Temple is one of the series' absolute gems. I will not spoil why but play the game and you'll get it. It's just a shame there is so few of them.

The heavy reliance on side-quests also makes this a much more replayable Zelda game. Finding all the weapon upgrades, masks and hearts is going to take a while.

While gameplay is solid, it also looks really good. Graphics are Expansion Pak enhanced and make an already stunning engine even better. There are better looking textures than in Ocarina of Time. Link just looks much better with more polygons and more detailed textures. One of the most visually impressive N64 titles. Even today it holds up pretty well.

The music is a solid mix from tunes from earlier Zelda games as well as new ones. Still as strong as ever! Nice classic effects, such as the puzzle solve sound and the item fanfare are here.

Other than that, everything that made Ocarina of Time such a great game is in here such as ocarina songs, cool weapons, horse riding, mini-games and so on.

The Bad
While this game is probably the most clever Zelda game ever, the bold choices Nintendo made also have some major downsides.

Let's start of with traveling back in time. You lose all consumables such as potions, money, arrows and bombs when traveling back to day one. This is very, very annoying. You can save money on your bank account (that apparently transcends spatiotemporal boundaries) but doing so all the time is cumbersome and should not be a necessity.

But the most annoying thing is the fact that all of the game is practically reset after going back to the first day. Sure, it's a terrific idea at one point making you think about your actions, but it can also frustrate you to death. Usually, newly found items, masks or ocarina tunes let you skip entire parts of the game. However, there are some tasks that need to be done over and over in order to figure everything out and you don't always know whether or not there is an item you should be getting first, let alone how, where or when. You may sometimes make a little mistake and you have to do a lot of work all over again.

The most important example is in the quest with Anju and Kafei, a sort of love tragedy revolving around a young couple about to marry at the festival at the end of the third day. It's a classic Zelda trading sequence, which is cool, but make one little mistake here and you can do it all over again... and again... and again. This frustrated me to no end.

Another thing that I found annoying was the saving system. The game saves your progress if you go back in time, putting you back in Clock Town. You can also save at other locations using owl statues, the warp points of the game. However, the game will take you to the title screen and you can only boot it up once. If you turn of the game after opening an owl statue save file, you get sent back to the last time you saved by going back to day one. I am not sure what they were thinking when they came up with this system.

And then there is the time limit. Sure, it keeps that sense of urgency alive and you can always go back in time. There isn't much trouble with it. That is, until you enter the dungeons. Sure, you can slow down time but even then it is frustrating if you want to figure out how to beat that nasty puzzle while time is steadily running out. And you'll want to collect all the fairies hidden in each temple in one run-through as well so you can get all the important weapon upgrades because if you don't and go back in time, yep!, you lose all of them and the whole dungeon will be reset so getting them all again isn't easy either, even with new dungeon items.

As said, heavy reliance on side-quests goes at the cost of having fewer dungeons. Some may not like the many side-quests.

The Nintendo 64 version requires the purchase of the Expansion Pak. I suggest you just spend your ten bucks on the Virtual Console version instead.

The Bottom Line
That being said Majora's Mask is all in all a fantastic game. It's unique, it's clever, it's pretty and it has a terrific way of telling a story but most importantly; it's fun!

The designers made some bold decisions in this game that work out very well while also come at a high cost, mostly when it comes to the accessibility of the game. This is the reason I still think that in the end, Ocarina of Time is simply the better game. If you never played both games I suggest you play that game first, it will make Majora's Mask more fun to play, anyway.

When all is said and done, Majora's Mask may be a game that's not for everyone, but fans of the series owe it to themselves to at least give this game a try. If you can look past its flaws you will discover what may very well be the most original and clever Zelda game made to this day.

The Good
Majora’s Mask is the follow up to the immensely successful Ocarina of Time and it does a pretty good job picking up where the original left off. In this rendition of the Legend of Zelda our hero Link is riding Epona through the woods when his Ocarina is stolen by a mysterious masked Skullkid. Link is transformed into a deku scrub and from that moment he embarks on a quest to thwart the destruction of Clock Town and stop the insidious Skullkid from doing whatever is he is aiming to do while possessed by the mask he is wearing.

The flow of the game is very different to Ocarina of Time. You’re kind of expected to know what to do at all times, bar the helpful introductory tutorial when you begin the game. There is a three day clock and the way time flows affects the game in many different ways. People’s schedules adhere to the clock, things might appear at certain times and places might only be accessible on certain days. You need to memorize all of these things and work out the patterns to finish side quests are further the primary one. After three days have been exhausted Clock Town is destroyed, however you can rewind time whenever you want to the beginning of the first day and it isn’t as game breaking as you would first assume. It’s very easy to pick up where you left off, bar some particular occasions that I will get to soon. The two quest elements; primary and side quest, kind of bleed into each other occasionally and it’s very easy to lose yourself in the sidequests. On the whole, they’re pretty well designed and quite engrossing. Lots of little stories are playing out in Termina and you’re only a very small part of the grand design, even if you are the protagonist.

In addition to the regular Zelda style questing (solving problems thusly opening a dungeon, identifying the next problem and so on...) there are neat gameplay mechanics that have been introduced to differentiate Majora’s Mask from Ocarina. To begin with the emphasis in MM is on mask collecting. Each mask does something different, imbuing Link with a myriad of different special powers. There are also four transformation masks that turn Link into a Goron, Deku scrub or Zora guitarist. There is also another transformation mask that does something very, very cool. But I won’t tell you what it is. Each form has a set of distinct strengths and weaknesses and even when you’ve moved on from the area that requires the mask you’ll have to keep putting it on to solve other problems as they arise. It’s brilliant and keeps the game really refreshing.

The core gameplay dynamics beyond the mask collection and time system are essentially the same. Majora’s Mask is very samey, with many things recycled from the first game. It’s not essentially a bad thing. Ocarina of Time played like a dream and Majora’s Mask feels a lot smoother thanks to the RAM expansion and refined control scheme. Link feels lighter on his feet and performs some (entirely cosmetic) cool flips when he jumps now.

The good graphical elements of Ocarina of Time have been improved with slightly increased texture resolution (it is noticeable, especially in areas like the spring time Mountain Village and Great Bay), slightly improved polygon counts and a slightly increased level of graphical tricks like motion blur and lens flare. You can tell Majora’s Mask looks better than Ocarina of Time, but it takes a little while to notice the improvements. Probably the most telling improvement in the game is the sheer scale of things. The extra RAM is put to good use to render huge caverns, mountains and expansive bays with very minimal pop-up. It’s very, very impressive. The two most impressive looking parts of the games though have to be the rotating dungeon in Ikana Canyon and the beautiful Moon area. The moon is stunning and rendered beautifully.

The Bad
Majora’s Mask is a good game. However, it has its fair share of foibles.

To begin with, A LOT of elements from Ocarina of Time have been recycled here. Not just sound and textures, basically every single (minor) character model from Ocarina of Time has been magically teleported to Clock Town and given a new vocation. It’s all well and good having nice little references to a prior game but recycling nearly every single supporting player so you don’t have to render new ones is a little lazy.
It doesn’t matter what mythology they want to spin to make this move seem less lazy, but from a game design perspective it’s just weak. There are maybe six new characters in Clock Town.

On the topic of recycling Nintendo picked some of the worst moments of Ocarina of Time to put back into Majora’s Mask. The sneaking sections from Gerudo Fortress and Hyrule Castle are in there, as is the “go the wrong way and it’s back to the start” exploration section from the desert. There’s even the Lost Woods with monkeys. Nearly every single enemy from Ocarina of Time is present in Majora’s Mask to the point that it’s actually a surprise to see something new. I mean, to make pirates do you think they rendered people that looked vaguely like pirates?. No, they took the fortress guard character models from Ocarina of Time and called them pirates.

In terms of resources used in the game for every new element there is something that has been recycled and repurposed for use in a different environment. The level of recycling is just silly.

Most of the time Majora’s Mask plays quite well, however I’ve been left scratching my head on several occasions in terms of not knowing what the hell I was supposed to be doing. One particularly frustrating occasion left me having to repeat the same course of action 3 times before I finally figured out I had gone about the entire quest line wrong and I had to go looking for something new. This wasn’t a case of me being ignorant, it was just purposefully vague. It was making me rely on trial and error to progress through the game. In any other Action/Adventure/RPG this wouldn’t have been a problem but because of the way the time system works where everything resets after 3 days it meant I had to constantly repeat the same actions over and over again until I got the sequence right. By that point, tedium and frustration had well and truly set in and I had begun to get sick of the game. Perseverance won the day and I continued, however it should never have gotten to that point. I just don’t appreciate trial and error gameplay. In it, you have to do everything slowly and methodically. In Ocarina of Time each event kind of flowed into the others very elegantly, while there is this constant jarring jump from sequence to sequence in Majora’s Mask as you rigidly adhere to the vague trading sequences.

Also, Goron racing sucks.

The Bottom Line
Majora’s Mask plays well most of the time. It’s a fairly smooth ride with a really interesting time based quest that requires a lot of thinking to progress through in a timely (see what I did there?) manner. The myriad of little story lines at play are really engrossing and the multitude of side quests are real time sinks. The game plays like a really refined Ocarina of Time and design of dungeons and bosses is beyond reproach. I absolutely adore the mask transformation mechanic and collecting all of the other masks is really addictive. In general, Termina is beautiful and rendered very competently. Each compass direction holds its own distinct beauty and mystery with detail crammed into every corner.

It’s just a shame Nintendo spent so much time working out how the time system would work that they forgot to include more new things in the game. Nearly every single NPC model from Ocarina of Time has been repurposed for Majora’s Mask. Nearly every enemy from the original is present in the game, every piece of incidental music, every texture, every item model (bar some noticeable exceptions). Why does Termina have dodongo’s? Why are the pirates dressed identically to the Gerudo Fortress guards from Ocarina of Time?. Even gameplay elements from Ocarina of Time got recycled for use in Majora’s Mask. The game also loses its way now and then, forcing you to constantly refresh the time line to get a simple item collection sequence completed.

With all of my criticism, it makes it seem like a I didn’t like playing Majora’s Mask. That couldn’t be further from the truth. If that was the case, why did I keep turning my Nintendo 64 back on?. As much as I might have liked it to be perfect, this is not a perfect game.

As a sequel to Ocarina of Time though, it doesn’t feel like a sequel. It feels like an extension of the game. It’s just way too samey. Is that a bad thing? Not neccessarily, because you know you’re going to have a good time. That is what is important when playing a game; to have a good time, and that is what you get with Majora’s Mask.

The Good
I know you are probably sick of this, I know that I am most certainly sick of this and yet here we are again. Majora's Mask, one game that people can't stop bothering me about. Whenever I review this game a whole load of friends and people argue that I am wrong and when I replay it again I notice that they are right. It's an endless circle, but finally I believe we have broken free from it. All these years I didn't have the patience for Majora's Mask, playing only a part of it before shutting it off and reviewing it, unprofessional I know, but now that is remedied. I played Majora's Mask completely this time around and I must say that my experiences were much different from any I had in earlier attempts. To keep this final review interesting I'll take Majora as an example to counter some common criticism towards Zelda games as a whole. In the negative part of this review I'll however argue against some of the most common praise that Zelda games receive. Let's do it!

Zelda games are kiddy!

Zelda games tend to be all over the place when it comes to their content, but one thing that is almost always present are horror or mature elements. Majora's Mask may be the only one of these games to truly focus on creating an eerie atmosphere, but it's most certainly not the only one who has them. Even games as "kiddy" as Wind Waker tend to have scenes that genuinely stick out, such as a level set in a tomb or the reversed Triforces (similar to an anti-Christ cross). Majora's Mask really lets itself go though and the result is a game that actually managed to scare me without using jump-scares. The atmosphere can however also be used to support the story, without wishing to spoil anything, just go to Romani Ranch on the last night and speak with the two sisters, put the pieces together afterwards. Just the thought of what is happening over there on the final day is very depressing.

Zelda games have too much reading

If you really like action games, skip all the cut-scenes and are just generally disinterested in the context of what you are doing in a game, then there is little I can do to change that for you. If you are interested in context, but simply think Zelda games have too much of it, then that is also okay, but there are redeeming factors. Much of Majora's Mask is based around going on side-quests and exploring the various areas of the game. Talking with characters is still crucial, but there is also a lot you don't have to do if you don't want to and a lot you will experience without even having to approach characters. The best example is the main mechanic itself, the three-day cycle. As you re-experience the same days over and over again you see characters going through the cycle of their daily lives, this allows you learn about them through repeated observation. One time I was chilling around the Stock Pot Inn when I ran into the owner talking to her elderly grandmother. The grandmother refused to eat the food, making excuses I knew to be false and clearly showing signs of dementia while doing so. Thus I learned that the relation between these two characters is troubled and all I did was stand there.

Zelda games are too long

I know what these people are going through and I myself grow very tired of a game that passed the forty-hour mark too. I have however always found Zelda games in particular to be a very clear exception, as more and more gameplay elements are introduced as you play. Zelda games also generally show that your character grows stronger and stronger as gameplay progresses and sections in-between levels have characters reacting on this or at least show the world or story change due to the actions of the protagonist. It's a case of giving the player the proper incentive to keep playing, the game would indeed be boring if it was just 40-hours of swinging a sword around, but receiving a spell like the "elegy of emptiness" at the very end of the game suddenly opens up a whole lot of puzzle-opportunities and gives the player something new to master, without discarding all the content that came before.

Majora's Mask however succeeds on the other side of the spectrum. The game only features four dungeons and you can literally skip right to the final boss afterwards, no cheating involved. This might change the argument to "this game is too short", but that would be wrong. The game CAN be finished in ten hours, but why would you want to? As stated before there is a lot of content on the side and the game gives you plenty of reasons to see it all. The most prominent features are the masks in the game, you can obtain a total of 24 of them (not counting boss-masks) and only a handful of them are obtained naturally throughout the story. All these masks have special abilities that open up new stories to explore or give you an easier time in certain sections of the game (such as the Stone Mask making enemies ignore you). Since the characters are quite endearing it's also very hard to just leave them to their fate and even if everything has to be reversed again at the end of the day, it's still worth it to at least once fight off the monsters invading the ranch or helping Anju find her missing boyfriend before her wedding. For the explorers among us there is also plenty to see and discover in Termina, including various secrets that may lead to hidden items. All in all, Majora's Mask easily packs up to fifty hours of content and all of it enjoying in one way or another.

Puzzle-games are boring

It's worth remembering that The Legend of Zelda is more of an action/adventure type of game that has plenty of puzzle-elements. If you don't like puzzles, then this series contains plenty of opportunity to battle opponents instead. Fighting enemies, especially in the two Nintendo 64 games, is also made a lot more enjoyable than in most other fantasy games due to the challenge they pose. At the start of the game you only have three lives and enemies are quite weak, but later on enemies and their placement grow more and more challenging. Boss-fights especially require a combination of skill, equipment and attention. Even basic enemies however have at least some strategy to them: one of the first enemies you meet is a Skulltula spider that hangs from the ceiling, if you mindlessly hit it with sticks it will deflect everything and kill your ass in mere seconds. You need to know the enemies, their attacks, their patterns, and strike when they open up for you.

I won't claim puzzles are optional though and you will have to go through them almost as many times as you will have to fight. However, I felt that Majora's Mask was a fairly fair game and if you take your time for it (pro tip: use the song that slows the in-game clock) you can complete the puzzles by merely looking around the environment and using what items you have to solve the puzzle at hand. There are no puzzles that demand knowledge from you outside of what the game teaches you (Notpron...), there are no puzzles that go in against logic (Braid...) and there are no puzzles that ask you to figure out entire mazes worth of areas. The key goes in the door, the crate goes on the switch, the arrow goes into the enemy. That logic will get you very far in Zelda games as a whole.

Zelda games are all the same

At the surface this is a correct statement, but dig slightly deeper and you are already seeing faults in this reasoning. Yes, most Zelda games are about a guy in green clothes and pointy ears going on an adventure to save a princess from some evil entity, but each Zelda game messes around with the formula and mechanics a lot. If you were to show up at my doorstep and argue that A Link to the Past is the same as Twilight Princess, then I'd just shut the door right there and leave you standing in the rain. Zelda games are under constant criticism that they don't change enough, but at the same time change too much, critics simply don't know what to do with a series almost all of them enjoy.

A Link to the past revolutionized how we expect puzzles and action to function in games, Ocarina of Time brought that formula into 3D while Link's Awakening brought it to portable devices. Majora's Mask experiments with the timed narrative, Wind Waker has cell-shaded graphics, Twilight Princess uses cinematic action and other tricks to bring the series to the new youth. The list simply goes on and naming only one innovation per game (like I just did) is only scraping the top of the iceberg. Arguing that Zelda games are all the same or stagnating is a lazy argument, it shows that the reviewer merely looks at the summary featured on the game's box and never delves into the actual mechanics or just sits through the entire game with the sole reason of hating it.

The Bad
Zelda games have very good stories

While Majora's Mask certainly stands out in this regard, due to its focus on atmosphere and characters, most other Zelda games are certainly not the pinnacle of fantasy writing. In fact, the fascinating races that go beyond elves, dwarves and hobbits is perhaps the only amazing part of the story.

Zelda games follow a very basic three-act structure. In the first act we get to know the hero and his surroundings, we experience his daily life and learn who his friends are. Though this is missing in this installment, it follows up from Ocarina of Time, so that game's opening (Kokiri Forest) serves as the first act for this game too. The second act starts directly after the hero's life is thrown into disarray, in this title when he learns that Majora is trying to destroy Termina. In the second act the hero has to obtain the means to fight the enemy, in this case the masks and whatever bonuses the player wants to bring with him. The third act is the finale and what happens with the protagonist after he has overcome his obstacles and reached his goal.

Zelda games follow this formula perfectly and rarely does something to rise above it, they are comfortable in this position and I don't blame them. Zelda games have an amazing atmosphere instead and the characters, while not amazing, are endearing in their simplicity.

The world in Zelda games look amazing

Many argue that Zelda games have brilliant world design and while they certainly have a degree of atmosphere to them, I still prefer individual areas. Locations such as the observatory or Stone Tower Temple simply resonate clever design & atmosphere and there is a huge variety of them. The world as a whole though, no matter what Zelda game we are talking about, is kind of hallow in comparison.

Zelda games always miss in this field in one of two ways, either the world is too small and simplistic or the world is too open and empty. Twilight Princess for example had a very large world, but walking around it was a chore. The world had not much to offer in terms of content: enemies were scattered scarcely around, a handful of collectibles here and there and done. The closest we have ever come to success was Hyrule Field from Ocarina of Time, but only because somebody was smart enough to put a major areas in the middle of it. You need interesting locations or scenery to fill up an open world, if you don't it will just be pointless space taking up room on the disc that could have been used to make a better game.

Termina on the other hand is too small and while it feels more populated and the space we have is well-used, it still makes you wonder why we bothered buying an Expansion Pack for this. The world is also kind of simple, in fact, why don't you just sing along: The beginning area is in a grassy field and from there we explore a forest-area, ice-area, water-area and desert-area. All we need is a volcano and the entire list is complete.

Transformation or dual-world gameplay

Ever since A Link to the Past, Zelda games have been very big on dual-world gameplay and transformations, but frankly I have never been very impressed. Having two worlds, each of which have a different set of rules, is the most simple way to design puzzles. A situation in which a door is locked, but if you press a button and go into a different reality where it isn't, then that is certainly a nice little puzzle, but not worth talking about in great lengths. The only way to make it really work is if the two worlds both have an interesting story behind them, as is the case in Twilight Princess, though that game makes more use of the second mechanic I named.

Transformations also fall in the same category: they both simplify puzzles and they are both more useful to the story than the gameplay. If you can transform into a guy that breaks rocks, then the rock blocking a path is not a puzzle, but just a progression/exploration-halter until you have the right tools. Majora's Mask boasts four transformations, but they aren't really well implemented. If you want to transform, you'll have to equip a mask in an item slot (which mounts it to a C-button). This might not seem like a problem, but for as long as you wear the mask, you'll have to make do with only two item slots. Switching between transformations should have been a button combination or something else that resolved the amount of menu-travelling you'll have to do.

Zelda games have lots of collectibles

Zelda games indeed have plenty of collectibles and I praised this fact earlier in this review. However, unlike Ocarina of Time, I couldn't force myself to get all of them. In almost every Zelda game there are dozens of mini-games that test your accuracy in trade for upgrades and heart pieces. It doesn't sound too bad, but they demand such insane skill that the game becomes frustrating. Majora's Mask has like four or five shooting galleries and it also features everybody's favorite "timed jumping from platform to platform with awkward camera positioning" game, which wins the prize for been the most uninspired "side-quest" ever.

Games likes the "bombchu bowling" may seem like clever novelties, but the stiff turning makes it nearly impossible, as are the shooting galleries that have you using the lacking aiming that came with the Nintendo 64's limitations. Also obnoxious are the fetch-quests where you need to find X-amount of spiders or something along those lines.It only serves to make the games longer and they don't even have the decency to mark objectives you already found.

The Bottom Line
I am sure there are some arguments and points of criticism I have not addressed here, but these are the few I wanted to go over. After numerous attempts I have finally formed my opinion on this game and that is... above-average.

The game has amazing atmosphere and story, the 3-day mechanic is well used and to me this game stands out as one of the creepier games out there. However, it also has quite a few flaws to stop it from been truly good. A loyal fan of the Zelda franchise will get the game they want from this and the haters can continue to hate as always.

The Good
Although I never finished the game, I thought that the three day clock was one of the most innovative features of this or any game. It was fun trying to help the characters; I spent most of my time helping people. From what I saw of the dungeons, I thought they were challenging but not too difficult. There were many new enemies. The fighting system remained the same as "Ocarina of Time" which is a good thing.

The Bad
Although some call it "darker", I didn't think it was. The minor characters would say the same thing after you returned to the first day. I hate that I never finished the game.

The Bottom Line
I could't describe the whole game to you since I never completed the game. However, of what I played, I thought it looked a lot like "Ocarina of Time" with a different story.