Majora's Mask

[Moodmon]

With the imminent bonus disk containing this game on it, I was wondering what everyone's opinion is on this particular game in the Zelda series. Here's mine. Brace yourself...

The dungeons are the best 3D dungeons in the Zelda series. The setting is very dark, with an interesting twist in the world will end in 3 days thing. Clock Town is huge, with tons of people to annoy. There is even a reappearance of the overworld music. The ice arrows are now really useful, and the default shield looks ace. Any game which has you guarding a stable from aliens has to be good...

Yet one thing threw the game for me. The 3 day limit stays for dungeons. You only have a set amount of time to complete them. Fail, and the dungeon resets, no small keys, all enemies and puzzles reset, the works. If you have picked up an item in there, you keep it, but that's it. You even have to bank your rupees.

I hated the game for it at the time. But the more I think about, the more good points come to mind. Getting the transforming masks were quite poignant (my vote goes to the Zora), the couple's mask is an excellent way to end the 3 days, and you can become uber Link by getting all the masks.

The masks themselves are also ace. The bunny hood looks cute and is frankly essential without Epona. I love swimming Zora Link, and even Deku Link has charm.

And then...the new jump animation looks good, but how can you back somersault over an edge then grab onto the other side. You start off as crappy Deku Link for goodness sake ft:

The uber-sword is now controlled through the C buttons (why, for the love of god why?)

So, to sum up, I think it is flawed. But what about all you right-thinking people. What do I know, I prefer Link's Awakening to any other Zelda.

[Ady]

I think it's the best Zelda game so far. The story was great, the dark twist and 3 day cycle were excellent innovations to the standard Zelda forumula. Almost makes Wind Waker seem like a step back.

For the first time in a Zelda game, the game world was 'alive'. It really was something special to know that things were happening throughout the game world without you being there and I liked how you sometimes had to follow people and observe their actions to solve some of the puzzles.

It was also very open-ended and afforded you with freedom to pretty much do what you wanted.

I can't understand why you had a problem with the dungeons resetting, though. For a start they're very short compared to other Zelda games and even if all the puzzles reset, as long as you have the main dungeon item, you can take 'shortcuts' to get to where you needed to be.

And money wasn't hard to come by, so having to bank it wasn't really a big deal.

The only gripe I had was the optional Goron dungeon on the moon where you had to bounce of the chests and cross chasms. It was a matter of luck and was the only serious flaw in an otherwise excellent game. I eventually gave up and went on to fight the boss sans Fierce Deity mask.

Oh, and the final boss is one of the best Zelda bosses ever. Especially the second form.

[Moodmon]

I can't understand why you had a problem with the dungeons resetting, though. For a start they're very short compared to other Zelda games and even if all the puzzles reset, as long as you have the main dungeon item, you can take 'shortcuts' to get to where you needed to be.

And money wasn't hard to come by, so having to bank it wasn't really a big deal.

The only gripe I had was the optional Goron dungeon on the moon where you had to bounce of the chests and cross chasms. It was a matter of luck and was the only serious flaw in an otherwise excellent game. I eventually gave up and went on to fight the boss sans Fierce Deity mask.

Oh, and the final boss is one of the best Zelda bosses ever. Especially the second form.

I understand all your points. What can I say, I just found the money limiting arbituary (even more so removing all your arrows and bombs) and I could see no reason to let me take as much time as I wanted on the dungeons. If I'm slow when it comes to puzzles, should I be punished?

And as for the last paragraph you wrote. You what? A mask with tentacles? Rubbish. Nearly as bad as the odd shadow morphing thing at the end of Awakening. Give me Ganon(ndorf) is either OoT or WW flavours.

I'm sure there was a tactic to the Goron dungeon. Well, I never found it random. Then again, I enjoy ZOE and Robotech, so what do I know.

[Ady]

I can't understand why you had a problem with the dungeons resetting, though. For a start they're very short compared to other Zelda games and even if all the puzzles reset, as long as you have the main dungeon item, you can take 'shortcuts' to get to where you needed to be.

And money wasn't hard to come by, so having to bank it wasn't really a big deal.

The only gripe I had was the optional Goron dungeon on the moon where you had to bounce of the chests and cross chasms. It was a matter of luck and was the only serious flaw in an otherwise excellent game. I eventually gave up and went on to fight the boss sans Fierce Deity mask.

Oh, and the final boss is one of the best Zelda bosses ever. Especially the second form.

I understand all your points. What can I say, I just found the money limiting arbituary (even more so removing all your arrows and bombs) and I could see no reason to let me take as much time as I wanted on the dungeons. If I'm slow when it comes to puzzles, should I be punished?

It didn't take long to get back cash or consumables at all. I had to restart 3 of the dungeons, but having already acquired the main item meant that all I had to do was locate the boss.

And as for the last paragraph you wrote. You what? A mask with tentacles? Rubbish. Nearly as bad as the odd shadow morphing thing at the end of Awakening. Give me Ganon(ndorf) is either OoT or WW flavours.

I said the second form.

I take it you ::did:: complete the game...

[Moodmon]

I said the second form.

I take it you ::did:: complete the game...

[Sigh] I have an urge to complete all good Zelda games twice, once under my own name, the second under Link. So yes, I'd say I've completed the game

I can't even remember the second form, it was that rubbish. Now those huge moaning god things, they were memorable.

Nope, even after looking at gamefaqs I can't remember the blighter. Was he the one that danced like an idiot?

[Crispin]

The final boss just pissed me off. Nowhere near as good as the one in OOT. But the final boss (or rather the method employed to beat him in WW) really pissed me off. Great boss, just a really annoying way to beat him.......

I hated the three day limit. It meant that the dungeons were much more simplistic. Also it was a bit depressing to beat a dungeon only to find when you next played the song of time it reset itself.

The mask thing - great, but to find certain ones, well it was entirely random. And I never was able to get a happy sticker by everyone in my journal, despite getting all the masks, oh well.

And yes, the goron moon mask level was just luck. So was the Zora one, but not as bad.

The lack of a save feature on the moon really was bad. If you had to stop playing, when you next picked up the game, you either had to go through the whole three days again and then all the cinematics again, or use the second file as a backup, meaning no one else could play it.

And the constant losing of items every 3 days, it really annoyed me.

Oh and the fact that Link was stuck in the universe ever since, thus leading to the events of Wind Waker, when the dark shadow returns.

So, some great design, clock town was brill, but the forced repetition exposed everything to close scrutiny, which it could not bear. Stuff felt like chores sometimes. The time limit meant you couldn't really ever want to play with the frogs. The sense of urgency made it not as fun as OOT (especially in kid mode) where you could just relax and watch day and night cycle by.

I think MM is better than LTTP on GBA, that really has a messed up feature and is far too hard. I like my Zelda games to be relaxing, so that when the drama finally kicks in towards the end, it really means something.

Clock town on the final night was amazing. Especially after midnight. Brooding music, race against time, sense of hopelessness.

[bulroarer]

Not a fan at all of this game but I think that's because it was quite different compared to Ocarina of Time. I found the change of dungeon style disappointing and the 3 day time limit extremely frustrating. Also, doing all those chores for the town in habitants really got on my tits.

I think my problem was that I was expecting something similar to OoT (a la Wind Waker) and was annoyed when it wasn't. I managed to get to the final boss but never bothered to entirely finish the game as I'd completely had enough by then.

Mind you, after saying all that, I do think it's a game that one day I'll return to and play through from scratch. This time, with different expectations, I'll probably appreciate it on a different level.

[Moodmon]

Good Stuff(tm)

Yep. All good. Maybe you are a tad too harsh on it (I know I was at first). Take, for example:

Completing Snowfall and watching the snow clear. The Goron racing. The funky Zora band.

[Ady]

I said the second form.

I take it you ::did:: complete the game...

[Sigh] I have an urge to complete all good Zelda games twice, once under my own name, the second under Link. So yes, I'd say I've completed the game

I can't even remember the second form, it was that rubbish. Now those huge moaning god things, they were memorable.

Nope, even after looking at gamefaqs I can't remember the blighter. Was he the one that danced like an idiot?

Yes, that would be the second form.

I wasn't being funny, but you can hardly blame me for asking if you completed it or not when you managed to confuse the first form with the second.

[Moodmon]

Ahem The boss was a mask! How much worse do you want it to get?

It's only an opinion anyway. You obviously loved the boss, and that's fair enough. I though it was a bit dodgy, never mind.

[EDIT-feeble attempt at humour]Still, at least I can do this...

[puts on Fierce Deity Mask]
[Opens can of whoop-ass on Ady][EDIT-/feeble attempt at humour]

[Ady]

Ahem The boss was a mask! How much worse do you want it to get?

The first form of the boss was a mask. This is stupid.

[puts on Fierce Deity Mask]
[Opens can of whoop-ass on Ady]

Grow up.

[Moodmon]

No problem. Just MM bugs me a bit. Well, a lot. Time to edit the offending post...

[martTM]

Honest opinion? I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Although I played through the Jap version, which had the original 'not being able to save whenever you like through the owl thing', rather than the new function that the UK version offered. Personally, I thought that rather took a lot of the skill (and some of the point of being up against the clock) out of the game.

Oh, and getting all the masks and Happy stickers wasn't random - it took a whole load of timing and patience. I should know... I wrote the damn guide for it. 8)

[Mayhem]

I too loved MM a lot. Took a lot of effort to figure everything out between my brother and I, we were always swapping taunts and hints about what we'd found or achieved along the way. I managed to get everything at the end, I think my brother almost did apart from the Goron rolling bit, so he didn't get the uber-Link mask. Very clever, very dark, very tricky to figure stuff out along the way...

[iloveannie]

Majora's Mask? Bloody odd diversion for Zelda I thought. I had no idea what, or how, to do anything. Perseverance would probably have showed the game's magic but unfortunately I just couldn't get to grips with it. So I have a copy that sits with about 6 or 7 hours play on it.

Then again WW sits unfinished too. Can I really be arsed to go back and forth so bloody much? No. But I do have the Jap version......

MP (off Zelda topic) was never completed either. It's the 2 week breaks that occur when I'm busy working that ruin these games for me. I can never remember where I was or what I was aiming for. Anyone else get these problems?

alan m