So, after A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, I proceed to the next step in my journey: Majora's Mask.
A lot of people were excited about me playing this one, and it appears to be a bit of a fan favorite. I can certainly see why: Majora's Mask is totally unlike any other Zelda game I have played. Actually, it's totally unlike any other Nintendo game I have played. To be honest, it might be unlike any other video game, period, I have played. There are good and bad sides to this.
First I'm going to talk about the good stuff: let's start with the obvious, which is the atmosphere. The atmosphere is incredible. I was playing on a 2DS XL, and the screen is super small there, but it was still amazing how effective the game's atmosphere was. The slow palpable dread that it builds up is fantastic.
Also great: the writing, sense of place, and characters. Clocktown might be one of the liveliest in game cities I have ever seen, and this is from an almost 20 year old game. It's a place that it feels like exists independent of your involvement or engagement with it, and I actually confirmed this by spending a few cycles doing nothing but observing the NPCs and their surprisingly fleshed out routines and interactions passively.
Those NPCs are the stars of the show, really: they give Clocktown its character, and their stories and quests are what give Majora's Mask its flavor. There are so many surprisingly dark, twisted, and just plain odd stories here, and every single one of them is framed against the backdrop of impending and inescapable doom. Majora's Mask hits really hard: the storytelling in this game works on a level few other games manage, because of how inextricably it ties it all into its in game mechanics. Reuniting two lovers elicited an emotional response to begin with, but then knowing that it would not last, and that the whole thing would need to be reset anyway, hurt even harder.
The NPCs and the writing lead to what I feel might be some of the best side content I have ever seen in a game. Actually, calling it side content almost feels like cheating, since so much of Majora's Mask is this side content- Majora's mask exists and thrives in these smaller moments.
The sense of eerie displacement in this game is further amplified because of its reuse of Ocarina of Time assets. Majora's Mask is famously an asset flip, but it uses that development limitation to further its central objective of furthering a sense of unease and discomfort for the player.
But I did actually have moments of frustration in Majora's Mask, and this is the first time I remember myself actually having major criticism for a Zelda game. But as much as I appreciate what Majora's Mask does, a lot of the time, it feels very tiresome to play. This is exacerbated by generally weak dungeon design (the first two dungeons lack any complexity, while the third dungeon, Great Bay, is my single least favorite Zelda dungeon yet), the constraint imposed by the constant time limit (though you get various tools to deal with it eventually), a smaller (though denser) world, which to me runs antithetical to the spirit of exploration and adventure I most associate Zelda with, and the repetition inherent to the game.
Majora's Mask also marks the only time I almost gave up on a Zelda game entirely- Great Bay was so bad, I just about gave up, and figured I'd stop playing, but I returned to it the next day and just grit my teeth and went through it. It's a good thing I did, because Stone Tower is conversely my favorite Zelda dungeon yet (it takes central gimmick from the excellent Forest Temple from OOT, and literally flips it on its head), and the ending is spectacular, and so well earned.
In the end, I'm glad I stuck with Majora's Mask, and I definitely see why it has such a fervent fan following. I wish I could say I enjoyed it as much as so many people obviously do, but a lot of it stuck out the wrong way for me. It's still a great game, and I liked it a lot, but it's my least favorite of the ones I have played so far (BOTW>LTTP>OOT>MM), and wore thin on me a fair few times. Still, in so many ways, it's still far beyond anything any other game manages even today, 20 years later- I give it credit for that, and I fully understand why it is so beloved.
BONUS: For my next Zelda game, I can either play A Link Between Worlds (I own a copy of the game, and I have a 2DS XL), or I can play The Wind Waker, which technically comes next, but which I do not own a copy or system for. Do you think it's advisabe for me to continue playing these "in order" (me having played BOTW first notwithstanding), or should I just break the order and play ALBW?
A lot of people were excited about me playing this one, and it appears to be a bit of a fan favorite. I can certainly see why: Majora's Mask is totally unlike any other Zelda game I have played. Actually, it's totally unlike any other Nintendo game I have played. To be honest, it might be unlike any other video game, period, I have played. There are good and bad sides to this.
First I'm going to talk about the good stuff: let's start with the obvious, which is the atmosphere. The atmosphere is incredible. I was playing on a 2DS XL, and the screen is super small there, but it was still amazing how effective the game's atmosphere was. The slow palpable dread that it builds up is fantastic.
Also great: the writing, sense of place, and characters. Clocktown might be one of the liveliest in game cities I have ever seen, and this is from an almost 20 year old game. It's a place that it feels like exists independent of your involvement or engagement with it, and I actually confirmed this by spending a few cycles doing nothing but observing the NPCs and their surprisingly fleshed out routines and interactions passively.
Those NPCs are the stars of the show, really: they give Clocktown its character, and their stories and quests are what give Majora's Mask its flavor. There are so many surprisingly dark, twisted, and just plain odd stories here, and every single one of them is framed against the backdrop of impending and inescapable doom. Majora's Mask hits really hard: the storytelling in this game works on a level few other games manage, because of how inextricably it ties it all into its in game mechanics. Reuniting two lovers elicited an emotional response to begin with, but then knowing that it would not last, and that the whole thing would need to be reset anyway, hurt even harder.
The NPCs and the writing lead to what I feel might be some of the best side content I have ever seen in a game. Actually, calling it side content almost feels like cheating, since so much of Majora's Mask is this side content- Majora's mask exists and thrives in these smaller moments.
The sense of eerie displacement in this game is further amplified because of its reuse of Ocarina of Time assets. Majora's Mask is famously an asset flip, but it uses that development limitation to further its central objective of furthering a sense of unease and discomfort for the player.
But I did actually have moments of frustration in Majora's Mask, and this is the first time I remember myself actually having major criticism for a Zelda game. But as much as I appreciate what Majora's Mask does, a lot of the time, it feels very tiresome to play. This is exacerbated by generally weak dungeon design (the first two dungeons lack any complexity, while the third dungeon, Great Bay, is my single least favorite Zelda dungeon yet), the constraint imposed by the constant time limit (though you get various tools to deal with it eventually), a smaller (though denser) world, which to me runs antithetical to the spirit of exploration and adventure I most associate Zelda with, and the repetition inherent to the game.
Majora's Mask also marks the only time I almost gave up on a Zelda game entirely- Great Bay was so bad, I just about gave up, and figured I'd stop playing, but I returned to it the next day and just grit my teeth and went through it. It's a good thing I did, because Stone Tower is conversely my favorite Zelda dungeon yet (it takes central gimmick from the excellent Forest Temple from OOT, and literally flips it on its head), and the ending is spectacular, and so well earned.
In the end, I'm glad I stuck with Majora's Mask, and I definitely see why it has such a fervent fan following. I wish I could say I enjoyed it as much as so many people obviously do, but a lot of it stuck out the wrong way for me. It's still a great game, and I liked it a lot, but it's my least favorite of the ones I have played so far (BOTW>LTTP>OOT>MM), and wore thin on me a fair few times. Still, in so many ways, it's still far beyond anything any other game manages even today, 20 years later- I give it credit for that, and I fully understand why it is so beloved.
BONUS: For my next Zelda game, I can either play A Link Between Worlds (I own a copy of the game, and I have a 2DS XL), or I can play The Wind Waker, which technically comes next, but which I do not own a copy or system for. Do you think it's advisabe for me to continue playing these "in order" (me having played BOTW first notwithstanding), or should I just break the order and play ALBW?
