What a terrible 3 Day Cycle for a curse
From my experience, there are two types of Zelda players. Those who think Ocarina of Time is the best, or those who think Majora's Mask is the best. But, my scope of people I know personally who even play these games is relatively small. If anything, Majora's Mask is that one Zelda game that people who are fans of the series point to whenever someone criticizes the games for being samey.
"UGH! All these games are about saving some spoiled princess. I want something different!" - Some asshole, probably
"Well, why don't you play Majora's Mask?" - A Zelda Fan responds, out of the darkness.
And then maybe the asshole plays it and has a change of heart? I don't know, What I DO know is that Majora's Mask is definitely different, which is something I said I wanted when I first started playing Zelda games. Yes, I was that Some Asshole. I'm a Super Mario kind of guy, and lets be honest; that plumber has been places. He's been to space for Christ sake! Link, on the other hand has been to Hyrule and...Lowrule...and wherever Link's Awakening takes place. I just think that games should expand with it's sequels. A change of scenery and a change of pace.
And that is exactly what this game gave me. A different scenery. There is definitely no boring overworld here. Or a wood level. Or an ice level. Or a water level. Surely there is not.
Oh, there is? Well is there at least a Big World like in Super Mario Bros 3? No?
Welp...
At The Time/Background
Majora's Mask came out in 2000, so I guess my statement in the last review saying that by the time I had gotten my N64 all of the "famous" games were out was wrong. A quick Google search shows that that was absolute bullshit. Banjo-Tooie, Kirby 64, Paper Mario, Perfect Dark, and Conker's Bad Fur Day were all on the way. So, all these great games were coming out and I was playing WCW Backstage Assault, Hey You! Pikachu! and Croc 2. All of those games suck, by the way. I also got Pokemon Silver at some point, so not everything was bad, but the bad definitely outweighed the good.
I guess if I have to point out the moment I realized Zelda games existed, it would have been around this time. I used to see the box at my local video rental place. The mask on the cover looked really cool and tribal, and it definitely caught my eye more often then not. And like most interesting games at the time, it was always rented out. So, that small urge I could have had to play it was quickly dashed away. Plus, it was 2000, the year of Xtreme. So I was busy playing Tony Hawk games, flipping off of ladders onto trampolines like the Hardy Boyz, and wearing Chuck Taylor's.
This time in my life is really weird to try and pinpoint, because it was sort of a transition period. In my personal life, I had moved to a new town. And that came with a loss of some interests. I stopped caring about Power Rangers, tried to get into sports, and started focusing on school. Video games stopped appealing to me. Everything that was coming out at the time that catered to my interests was bad, and I complained about it. Can you guess what happens when a kid complains to their parents that their games suck? That's right, no more games.
This is also around the time that the local video stores stopped carrying older games, as in games for the SNES and Genesis games, which had more things I recognized and wanted to play. I tried to adapt to the changes, but the games just were not doing it for me. I distinctly remember renting the Digimon World game for PS1. I loved the show, so I thought "Duh! It's gonna be awesome!" I don't know what kind of game it was, but I do know that it wasn't for me. I don't think I ever figured out how to leave the first room.
My mom paid $5 for me to look at this screen for a week. Sorry Mom.
These kinds of experiences made me realize a couple of things. The first, which I'm sure is going to be an unpopular opinion, is that all of the controls for the PS1 and N64 games are terrible. There's not one that is good. Even games I love from the era, like Spyro The Dragon, Metal Gear Solid, and WWF No Mercy control like you're using a hot dog. And sure, there are some that control better than others, but just as a blanket, even the best suck. That's why I played this and Ocarina on the Zelda Collector's Edition that came out on the Gamecube.
The second is that my "types" of games were going away. The age of 2D action-platformers was over. Mega Man wasn't flashy enough for the new wooshy 3D graphics. At least not the Mega Man I know and love. None of the series I actually love survived the jump to 3D well aside from Mario. And to be honest, until Super Mario Galaxy came out, I thought the 3D Mario games sucked too.
So yeah, before this section goes on forever, I had just become disenchanted with where games were going. More on how I got back into games in Part 5.
In The Beginning
The game opens with a little blurb about finding your..."friend", Navi. She ran away, I guess, when you got sent back in time after the events of Ocarina. On the way you run into a bunch of assholes, namely a guy named Skull Kid, which is a shitty name considering there's a whole race of these guys. I don't know if any of the other skull kids have names or if they're all just called Skull Kid. Regardless, this one has a mask on. He uses the powers of this mask to knock you off of your horse and turn you into a Deku Scrub. Skull Kid then runs away with his two faries, Tatl and Tael. Tatl get's left behind and tries to help you, calling Skull Kid a jerk. You run into the Happy Mask Salesman from the last game, who tells you about the mask Skull Kid is wearing. Basically, it's an ancient evil mask that this creep shouldn't have had in the first place and was stolen from him by Skull Kid. He says Skull Kid is gong to be overcome by the power, and that you, Link, need to get it back for him.
Then the bullshit begins.
You see, Majora's Mask has this really amazing, super cool, totally awesome mechanic where the world works under Groundhog Day rules. You repeat a three-day cycle, jumping through numerous hoops, in order to be prepared to fight Skull Kid and stop him from crashing the moon into the earth.
Swiggity Swooty
So you live out the initial three day cycle, meet Skull Kid at the top of the main clock tower in town, get your ocarina back, have a flashback where you relearn the Song of Time from Princess Zelda and turn back time. You meet with the Happy Mask Salesman again, and he breaks your curse and reminds you that you need to get that mask back. And so you begin.
The Quest
So you're in Clock Town, in a three day cycle, and you have four temples to beat in order to release some spirits who will...hold Skull Kid? It's not really clear what they'll do until the end. I think it might be mentioned once or twice, but I missed the reasoning past Tael telling you to go to place. You just do it. And from here it becomes pretty standard fare for a Zelda game, just with a time limit, which makes everything better. The catch this time is that, instead of just using your collected arsenal, you collect masks of fallen heroes and basically assume their identities. Each of the three main masks has it's own powers. And you use them in their respective dungeons and to solve puzzles in the over world.
And so now we defeat dungeons in a predetermined order to get the masks. And they go in the order you'd expect, Wooded/Grass temple, Ice/Earth temple, Water temple, and then the outlier Stone Temple. That's right, only four dungeons this time.
Woodfall Temple is neat enough. There's some fun platforming sections (something that's hard to pull off with the primitive 3D controls) involving the flower cannons with the Deku Mask. The puzzles are well done, and some of the sections are pretty memorable.
Snowfall Temple is...less memorable. It has some pillar puzzles, and rolling sections where you have to get to the top of this big pillar and get a rolling start to make it to the boss room, but it's more frustrating than it is enjoyable.
Great Bay Temple is actually not that bad, which could just be me coming to terms with water levels in Zelda games. Either that or I have some sort of twisted Stockholm Syndrome where I've read how terrible this is and it just didn't live up to that hype. It's thankfully much shorter than the original Water Temple, but the swimming physics and controls make it more of a pain in the ass than it needs to be. I will give it an edge over Ocarina's water temple, if only because it's a lot more straight forward. There's no switching boots and switching levels to get a thing to go to a place. You just get a thing, turn the water wheel, and go the other way. Easy peasy. Honestly, if it wasn't for the awkward swimming controls, I'd really like this one. Not great, but acceptable.
The Stone Temple is a very different dungeon, and the kind of thing that is right up my alley. Very puzzle heavy, lots of mini bosses and fun enemies to face, and a really, REALLY satisfying boss battle to finish it all off. The trip to get to the temple is pretty cool as well, which helped bring my mood up about this game. In fact, the whole section from Ikana Canyon to the finish of the Stone Temple is almost everything I would want from a Zelda game and truly is another great example of how the series builds up the games and saves the best Dungeons and sections for last.
Other than that last section though, there isn't a whole lot in the main quest to talk about. Honestly, it just breaks down to get a mask, go to the dungeon, beat the boss, reset time, and go to the next. That's not to say that this is ALL the game has to offer in the main quest, because there are sections linking the dungeons that are fun to play, such as the Canyon leading to the Stone Temple or the Pirate Cove leading to the Water Temple. But these sections are few and the dungeons aren't really long enough to supplement. But even if they were, nobody wants to play a dungeon for two hours because it feels like there is no progress made. It's really hard to find a happy medium with such little content.
With that said, the main quest of Majora's Mask is not what should get the most attention here; as anyone who enjoys the game will tell you. This game's biggest charm is in it's side quests, which I was reluctant to do at first. But if you don't, the game is harder and much more bare bones. The people of Clock Town are interesting and lead interesting lives. People disappear and you have to find them. People run out of toilet paper and you need to help them. Deku salesmen want a better place to operate businesses, so you find them deeds to different locations. It feels like a living world. It's one of the strongest aspects of the game, and makes it worth playing. The characters all have fun personalities, some have some witty lines, and a lot of them are off the wall. My favorite is probably the mailman, who you can find practicing counting to 10 in the post office. He says it's not as easy as it looks and challenges you to do it. And he's right, it's not easy. But it's ridiculous in a really charming way and is going to make me remember him long after I've forgotten the guy that takes over the ranch in Ocarina of Time (Melon or whoever he is, who cares).
With that said, the main quest of Majora's Mask is not what should get the most attention here; as anyone who enjoys the game will tell you. This game's biggest charm is in it's side quests, which I was reluctant to do at first. But if you don't, the game is harder and much more bare bones. The people of Clock Town are interesting and lead interesting lives. People disappear and you have to find them. People run out of toilet paper and you need to help them. Deku salesmen want a better place to operate businesses, so you find them deeds to different locations. It feels like a living world. It's one of the strongest aspects of the game, and makes it worth playing. The characters all have fun personalities, some have some witty lines, and a lot of them are off the wall. My favorite is probably the mailman, who you can find practicing counting to 10 in the post office. He says it's not as easy as it looks and challenges you to do it. And he's right, it's not easy. But it's ridiculous in a really charming way and is going to make me remember him long after I've forgotten the guy that takes over the ranch in Ocarina of Time (Melon or whoever he is, who cares).
Doing the side quests will bank you extra collectible masks that will eventually earn you the FIERCE DEITY MASK, one of the coolest designs in a video game ever. This mask was the incentive for me to try to complete as much of this game as possible. And believe me, as a person who hates jumping through hoops, this should paint how awesome this is. I'm not going to lie to you though, I did look up a guide to find all the masks. I know, sue me. But I wanted to move on. I still played the dungeons straight up, so I have no shame "cheating" to figure out where to find the invisible dancing ghost is that teaches the twins a dance.
HE LOOKS SO AWESOME!!!
The Bosses
They range from bland to pretty good, but there's not much middle ground. The first two suck and the second two are a lot of fun. None of them stick out like Bongo Bongo, that's for sure, and because of that I never took the time to learn their names. There's Tribal Stereotype, who uses a sword. There's Lightning Rhino-Thing, that you just sort of run into a lot with the Goron Roll attack. There's GYORG, the armored fish, who is actually the best boss in the game. He hits hard, is an actual challenge, and was just pretty fun to fight. Then there are the Giant Twin Worms. And they were cool, but not as cool as GYORG. The battle reminds me of what Shadow of The Colossus tried to go for, except (and here's a spoiler for a 17 year old game) you get a mask that lets you become gigantic for the fight yourself! Even if it really is just a cosmetic thing, it makes the fight feel way more awesome.
The final boss is in a league of it's own within the confines of this game. It's an awesome three-part fight that I stupidly went into unprepared. But, thanks to my collecting and the FIERCE DEITY MASK, I defeated it in my first go. I don't want to give anything away, just in case someone reading is like me and hasn't had it spoiled for them, but the reveal of what Majora's Mask is and how the backstory to the carnival of time plays into the final fight is cool. It is admittedly not as good as the Ganon fight in Link to The Past or Ocarina, but it is the best of the game by far (go figure).
Despite them being 50/50 for entertainment value, at the end of the day the main fights leading up to the end don't have any weight to them. And that could just be because there's less of them. It could also be because the game took a different focus that left their defeat leaving less of an impact. Which is fine, it IS a game going in a different direction after all. In a game, you get gratification from defeating something. But that gratification diminishes when that enemy just comes back or respawns. It gets annoying and becomes a chore, but it's a design choice that in a game like Ninja Gaiden would add challenge. But when it's a boss that comes back to life after you beat it? Then it makes it feel cheap.
It is, however, cheap by design; the boss battles being undone with the reset of time is supposed to drive home how little impact you have if you don't stop the real danger. And because of that, I don't expect them to all have bosses as good as Link To The Past's. But just because the game is designed this way it doesn't stop me from feeling like I wasted my time when the bosses just come back. Not a total waste of time, mind you, but a waste none the less. It really starts feeling meaningless if you have to backtrack because you missed an item. Because if that item requires certain conditions be met that only happen AFTER you beat the bosses, then you get to fight them again! Yay! (This is sarcasm).
But hey, at least the game will just warp you to the boss if you have already beaten the dungeon, so that's a plus. And I only had to backtrack twice. Once for the sword upgrade and once because I didn't grab a mask after the first dungeon.
Don't get me wrong, the bosses are not bad by any means. It's just that they're barely a blip on the radar. And they just serve as an obstacle you have to get past to keep collecting. Because this game is not an action adventure RPG. It feels much more like a collectathon, at least that's how it feels to me.
The final boss is in a league of it's own within the confines of this game. It's an awesome three-part fight that I stupidly went into unprepared. But, thanks to my collecting and the FIERCE DEITY MASK, I defeated it in my first go. I don't want to give anything away, just in case someone reading is like me and hasn't had it spoiled for them, but the reveal of what Majora's Mask is and how the backstory to the carnival of time plays into the final fight is cool. It is admittedly not as good as the Ganon fight in Link to The Past or Ocarina, but it is the best of the game by far (go figure).
Despite them being 50/50 for entertainment value, at the end of the day the main fights leading up to the end don't have any weight to them. And that could just be because there's less of them. It could also be because the game took a different focus that left their defeat leaving less of an impact. Which is fine, it IS a game going in a different direction after all. In a game, you get gratification from defeating something. But that gratification diminishes when that enemy just comes back or respawns. It gets annoying and becomes a chore, but it's a design choice that in a game like Ninja Gaiden would add challenge. But when it's a boss that comes back to life after you beat it? Then it makes it feel cheap.
It is, however, cheap by design; the boss battles being undone with the reset of time is supposed to drive home how little impact you have if you don't stop the real danger. And because of that, I don't expect them to all have bosses as good as Link To The Past's. But just because the game is designed this way it doesn't stop me from feeling like I wasted my time when the bosses just come back. Not a total waste of time, mind you, but a waste none the less. It really starts feeling meaningless if you have to backtrack because you missed an item. Because if that item requires certain conditions be met that only happen AFTER you beat the bosses, then you get to fight them again! Yay! (This is sarcasm).
But hey, at least the game will just warp you to the boss if you have already beaten the dungeon, so that's a plus. And I only had to backtrack twice. Once for the sword upgrade and once because I didn't grab a mask after the first dungeon.
Don't get me wrong, the bosses are not bad by any means. It's just that they're barely a blip on the radar. And they just serve as an obstacle you have to get past to keep collecting. Because this game is not an action adventure RPG. It feels much more like a collectathon, at least that's how it feels to me.
And guess what?
The Criticism
I. DON'T. LIKE. COLLECTATHONS.
There's a lot about this game that I don't like. Charm can only get you so far. It just has very little to offer ME. I don't like side quests. I'm not a completionist. And that makes collecting everything a chore. And the boss battles, my favorite part of video games, just don't do it for me in this one. I will admit that as I went on, I enjoyed the game a lot more. But I had too many issues to say that I truly enjoyed it. The total package just is not as good as the previous games in the series I've played.
So why do people like this game so much? It has to be the charm of the characters, because there isn't much else here to offer aside from the REAL threat of the world ending, which is only a threat in theory; or unless you actively let the time run out.
And speaking of time, the time mechanic is so revolutionary and popular that the Zelda series, known for carrying over the best parts of previous games, NEVER BROUGHT IT BACK AGAIN. I'm not sure if people praise it because it adds imaginary challenge, or if the thought of a ticking clock makes people anxious and that adds interest, or what. But I do know that it makes the game into time management simulator. Which is fine and dandy; I mean, I love games like Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon. But in a Zelda game it only serves to be tedious. Because, dear reader, if you miss an event on day two at 2 AM, you can't just rewind time a bit. You have to play the Song of Time to rewind to the first day. But, hey, you can just play the Song of Double Time to skip right to the second day, right? Yeah, unless the quest your on requires you to do shit on the other days. And even if you DON'T have any extra stuff and you just have to go to 2 AM on day two, you have to play the Song of Double Time THREE TIMES and STILL wait for the time to hit 2 AM.
And you know what? That's fine, some people are into that sort of thing. As Yatzee Croshaw of "Zero Punctuation" puts it, the world doesn't revolve around you anymore. Nothing is waiting for you. That's great. But if the whole idea is just undercut because you can control time itself, then who cares? All of your items carry over if you reset time, so you lose nothing going back unless you forget to bank your rupees. So really, you can just plan your timelines around it and unless you ROYALLY screw something up, the mechanic is just in the background. The time mechanic only got in my way once, during the first temple, when I ran out of time shooting an arrow through fire to hit a torch from a spinning platform. So I was forced to reset time and do the whole temple over again. And you know what? That sucks. But hey, immediately after that, I found out about the Reverse Song of Time that slows down the time flow. Which made the timer even less relevant when not doing side quests. So, yeah...I just see it as pointless.
It just seems so tedious. It's like the whole game is the Water Temple from Ocarina, but it's timed. And even though you have a rewind feature, it just comes across as pointless to me. Again, I see the appeal of it. I like the idea even, because in theory it builds tension. But at the same time it's like watching a movie with your friends, but that one friend we all have is talking over an important scene in the third act. And you miss something that's crucial to understanding what's going on with the plot. So you have to rewind it. But when you rewind, it takes you back to the beginning of the movie. And you can fast forward, but only to six predetermined spots in the movie and then go from there. Wouldn't that be completely awful? Wouldn't you just think it's a gigantic waste of time? Side note here; apparently it WAS such a gigantic waste of time that Nintendo changed how the the Song of Double Time functions in the (relatively) recent 3DS remaster of Majora's Mask by letting you pick where you move time to. Which, itself, continues to undercut the challenge and ominous dread of the game because now time is literally in your hands. So yeah, the time mechanic is broken either way. Damned if you do, damned if you don't I guess.
And that's how I feel about most of Majora's Mask. That's why it took me so long to finish this game and write this review. At first, I thought it was just because I had played three other Zelda games back to back prior to this one. Then I thought maybe it was because it was so different from Ocarina that I was just having trouble adjusting. But now, finishing up, it's because it felt like a chore for 3/4th of it's runtime.
All of that said, I did enjoy aspects of Majora's Mask. I was really fixing to hate this game completely, but there is enough variety and excitement to keep me on a somewhat positive spectum. The different game mechanics that come with the masks are all fun to use. I thought it was cool that the masks give you different instruments when you play your ocarina. The side quests are all interesting, the characters in them are all unique and memorable, and it does fill me with a bit of jolly feelings finishing their quest and getting that little ribbon by their name in your notebook. The menus look a lot better with the gold aesthetic compared to Ocarina's multicolored mess menus. I like the new animations for platforming, where Link jumps and does flippy shit instead of just leaping forward. And the ominous tone is definitely welcome to me after my criticism of the tone in the last game. The moon is legit creepy, as is the mirror shield, and the "Hollow Soldiers" that you get before the Stone Temple
The story of the game has just the right amount of darkness and humor to tickle my fancy. One of the characters sings you his backstory with his dying breath, which was an unexpected moment that made a friend and I laugh and smile. The music in this game, like in all Zelda games, is pretty good. Some of the music is a lot darker and ambient, while others are a lot more lively. My favorites are probably the Song of Healing and the Clock Town theme, which both show the contrast in musical tone the game has to offer. And it's also pretty neat to get the origin of my absolute favorite Zelda song, the Song of Storms.
He just gives me the heeby jeebys
The story of the game has just the right amount of darkness and humor to tickle my fancy. One of the characters sings you his backstory with his dying breath, which was an unexpected moment that made a friend and I laugh and smile. The music in this game, like in all Zelda games, is pretty good. Some of the music is a lot darker and ambient, while others are a lot more lively. My favorites are probably the Song of Healing and the Clock Town theme, which both show the contrast in musical tone the game has to offer. And it's also pretty neat to get the origin of my absolute favorite Zelda song, the Song of Storms.
The game really picks up after the water temple (a trend that I've seen in these last two games), as that's where the puzzles start to become harder and the game's interesting ideas start rearing their head. From the final confrontation with Skull Kid to the ending stretch before the final fight, I was completely engaged and engrossed by the story. It became philosophical in tone and added a really ominous feel to what was already an ominous game. And seeing everything unfold made me glad I did some of the side quests, because without one in particular I would have had no idea what the end of this game was supposed to mean.
In the end though, Majora's Mask just was not my cup of tea; at least not most of it. Mechanically, there is nothing wrong with the game. It plays the same as Ocarina of Time, it looks basically the same, save for some updated animations and better menus, and your opinion on the time mechanic is going to determine if you think it aged better or worse. To me, it just feels like a chore to make it through the main game.
In the end though, Majora's Mask just was not my cup of tea; at least not most of it. Mechanically, there is nothing wrong with the game. It plays the same as Ocarina of Time, it looks basically the same, save for some updated animations and better menus, and your opinion on the time mechanic is going to determine if you think it aged better or worse. To me, it just feels like a chore to make it through the main game.
Fondly enough, the side quests make it feel like an actual adventure and that combined with the final act is enough to keep me from completely hating this game. Despite it feeling like a chore to make it though the entire thing, there were glimmers of a great game in here. I know it sounds like I'm beating a dead horse with that statement, but it is the truth. It took me forever to beat, I had to take several breaks, but I'm still going to give it a 6 out of 10. It is an experimental game that just isn't for me. Much like with Ocarina, I do understand why people like this game, but unlike Ocarina, it's just not for me. I know people that consider this game the best Zelda game, but at the same time I know people who think Skyward Sword is the best one, so yeah. Opinions are tricky
I, on the other hand, like the game that I'm going to be playing next MUCH better. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it's my favorite Zelda game. But I have never finished it! So the journey continues as we move on to the next quest. And surprisingly, after all the bitching I do about it, it's a game about sailing. And you know what that means.
Water,
Lots and lots of water.
Be ready
Water,
Lots and lots of water.
Be ready
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