Majora's Mask Review

hello ladies and gentlemen this is the second in a series of five reviews that I'm doing in the Legend of Zelda if you have watched any of these videos before then I recommend starting with my Ocarina of Time video instead in this video we'll be talking about Majora's Mask in depth so spoilers for the entire game will follow majora's mask was released in the year 2000 for the n64 and as the first direct sequel 20 Legend of Zelda game normally the break between major installments in the Zelda series spans years but Majora's Mask released just the year after Ocarina of Time it's also directly connected to its predecessor starring the same incarnation of Link and picking up where that game left off with the short development time and following in the footsteps of such a huge hit there's no denying that Majora's Mask seemed almost destined to be a trainwreck in comparison to cut a long story short however it's not a trainwreck and it's almost certainly the strangest sell the game of the series the game begins with link traveling through the forest on Epona it's implied that he's looking for a lost friend of his who was presumed to be Navi from ocarina of time as she's absent after being accosted by the school kid wearing Majora's Mask he gives chase and ends up falling down a dark hole after a nightmare like sequence where he's chased by Deku slink is transformed into an incredibly sad looking Deku scrub this time around tattle joins link instead of Navi which is probably the result of the negative reaction Navi received from the public after Ocarina of Time tattle is less inclined to interrupt the flow of the game and instead of going listen she has a nice little ringing noise instead she's also got more of a personality in ocarina of time Navi pretty much dealt in fact providing information whenever link needs it without any sort of tone or subtext to her dialogue in majora's mask telephone as remarks and comments to be made that painter is rude but ultimately helpful she's likely spiteful about the fact that she's helping link at all but by the end of the game she seems far more amicable than she was it to start it's not amazing character development but it is character development and the puts her ahead of navi in my book simply for that fact the happy mask salesman is introduced before the game properly starts and he's the quest giver here setting link off on a mission to retrieve his ocarina and majora's mask i don't think i need to tell anyone that he's creepy it's plainly evident the main way this is accomplished is by cutting from one animation to another with nothing in between it's a genius way to make the character unsettling and combined with his grinning face and strange demeanor you have the makings of a great mysterious character who only becomes more interesting by the end of the game but I'll get to that later Lync enters clock town and this is the real introduction to the game the first cycle of days has a limited amount on offer link can't leave to town as the guards won't allow - there are a few things I like in this initial cycle the first is the balloon that needs to be shot down to speak to the Bombers it's got Majora's Mask and it was just some sort of priming for later on when the player will need to shoot the Skull Kid with a bubble to get the ocarina back another interesting thing to note about the start of the game is that none of the cutscenes mentioned the moon plummeting to earth a lot of games make the plot entirely clear from the get-go or have some safe environment for the player to get to grips with before the plot actually begins Majora's Mask whoever drops the player directly under the moon and doesn't even tell them to look up I wonder if this was an intentional decision to put the player more in the shoes of Link who has no idea what he's walking into at the start of the game if it is I'd hesitate to say it was very effective but I do wish more games would take a lesson from this and allow players to discover vital plot information by themselves rather than doling it out in predetermined cutscenes are predetermined times after figuring out how to get up to the Clocktower it's time to face the Skull Kid again link crabs back his ocarina and Zelda makes her only brief appearance in Majora's Mask I'm glad that Zelda Ganon and Hyrule are all absent from Majora's Mask because after all korrina of time there was no need to revisit Hyrule and no story to be told there any direct sequel would need to be told somewhere else in order not to weaken the impact of the events in Ocarina after this flashback the song of time sends link hurtling back to the star of the three-day cycle the game essentially begins anew after showing the ocarina to the happy mask salesman link obtains Deku mask which allows him to return to the Deku forum at any time it's arguable whether Majora's Mask contains one twist or two when compared to other Zelda games you could say that the time limit and the resulting time travel are the biggest element introduced in the game you could also argue that the masks with their various transformations and effects are the largest new element instead either way it's great that both of these are introduced at once Majora's Mask seems to assume that the player has played ocarina of time because it's a complicated premise done with a minimal amount of hand-holding I'll talk about the masks later on but for now I'll talk about the time travel this is the great divider in Majora's Mask and a mechanic that most people will either love or hate the entire game runs on a timer with every second ticking down to 72 hours until the moon plummets again this doesn't pose much of a trap for link because you can continue to warp back in time again and again prefer a player it's an enormous concern missing the chance to complete several tasks in a single cycle can mean having to repeat them all again so time management is a serious concern I'm a fan of the fact that the game runs on the clock and I think it adds a lot to the game there's an aspect of strategy present in majora's mask which simply isn't there another Zelda games often whenever you're working towards a goal you also need to keep in mind what needs to be done next in order to save time or if there are any appointments in the Bombers notebook that need to be kept the Bombers notebook itself is an enormous ly helpful tool which is critical to the game if it had been left out Majora's Mask would turn into a near unplayable mess it allows link to track the residents of Clock Town and learn their routines in order to complete some of the game's many side quests I can certainly understand what a time limit might bother some people but such restraints have never been a problem for me and the idea that the game would place a clock over every single event that happens it's just too interesting to pass up because of its polarizing nature whoever and the difficulty it adds to the game I'd never recommend Majora's Mask to someone as the first celled again really I think this is a Zelda for people who have already played order Zelda games anyway the three-day limitation is what allows Clock Town to shine each character has his or her own routine which the player can track over the course of the three days and manipulate in order to complete side quests there's absolutely no way this could have been accomplished otherwise games have many different facets of them that allow rich worlds to be created and each of these components of the game takes time to be processed in other words the console spends a certain amount of its resources to do any given task and those resources have to be strictly controlled I can only speculate what goes on behind the scenes of Majora's Mask but if I had to guess I'd say the n64 spends at least 80% of its resources just doing the necessary calculations to get the graphics on the screen that leaves 20% for everything else when you factor in sounds inputs physics AI whatever else you have left you can see that AI is getting a very small slice of the pie there simply wasn't enough processing power back then to allow the AI and the characters to make decisions and react intelligently to the events going on around them even now the AI budget on most games is usually tiny compared to the graphics and other tasks that the game has to perform the three day limitation of Majora's Mask allows for all the events in an empty sieze life to be planned in advance since the characters and their interactions are strictly limited it doesn't need much processing power the game simply executes the characters routine according to the script the result is so effective that this day clock town and its residents actually feel more like real people than any other game I can think of and the interactions with them carry more weight than any other random villagers you're likely to find in other games the majority of the character models are ripped directly from Ocarina of Time which few if any changes made to them at all since termina is supposed to be an alternate version of Hyrule this makes some sense and I don't really have any problem with it you can see how when it comes to Majora's Mask some smart design decisions like the reuse of the character models in the three day time limit arose from the restrictions the team had and arguably made the game better as a result this focus on the characters is one of the ways that Majora's Mask breaks away from the traditional Zelda format there's a much greater emphasis on side quests and minigames this time around the end result will uh neva tably vary from person to person but I like how much freedom this provides the player many of the quests can be done from very early on in the game funnily enough the time travel element puts pressure on the player but takes pressure off the story it means that link can spend time on side quests without ignoring the main objective because time is going to be reset anyway spending some time at the shooting gallery is a lot more believable than it was an ocarina of time the side quests themselves vary but the objectives are never very complex the most common way to finish side quest is simply by talking to someone at the right time with a certain mask equipped the game rarely gives you so much information that it simply feels like a fetch quest from point A to B but it would have been a lot better if the characters in town had asked a bit more of Link and varied up the gameplay a bit I'd cite the ranch side quest as some of the better ones because at least they require link to use the bulk the side quests do at least effectively utilize the masks as puzzle elements and most of the time this works very well take the all-night mask as an example it's a mask which stops the player from falling asleep it sounds useless at first but it can be used to stop link from nodding off when hearing stories told by Angie's grandmother there's a nice sense of logic in place here that nearly every quest in majora's mask has sometimes it can be a little hard to see however until you've tried a few things out first for example it's tough to see how handling the postman a random letter on the last day will save his life it makes a sort of sense but only really in retrospect after you've tried it the NGO and Caffey quest is the longest in involved SciQuest nanny Zelda game and can take several attempts to complete the payoff is well worth it with a couple reuniting moments before the moon crashes into termina and it highlights just how much the characters in Majora's Mask are capable of being sympathetic and likeable this quest highlights one of the issues with the time travel however since a very specific set of tasks needs to be complete over the course of several days to finish this quest it can take a few attempts to complete it during these attempts much of the time is spent waiting for time to pass for example after posting the letter to Cathy the next event happens at 4 p.m. when the letter is delivered link can only skip forward in time using the song of double time to 6 a.m. or 6 p.m. on any given day this means the time from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. needs to be weighted out with no way to make it go any faster I can understand why there's no song to make the time go double speed because this would mean the NPC's would have to move much more quickly and basically it would have required a lot of changes to the world however there's no reason the player couldn't have been presented with an option to skip to 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock as well this would mean the maximum wait time the player would have to endure for any given task is tree in game hours a much more reasonable situation than Watson again currently there's also more minigames this time around in an ocarina of time for the most part they're good addition so I'm not going to go through them all but I do think the Goron racing is a particularly good one it feels more dynamic and fast-paced than the horse racing in either ocarina of time or Majora's Mask the horse racing in majora is improved as well though it features a proper track this time around with a variety of obstacles it's much better than just going around in circles on a playing track one of the most common fantasies about time travel out there is using it to exploit the lottery so it's a good thing then that Majora's Mask allows you to do just that you can head to the lottery place and learn to winner's numbers after that it can be exploited as many times as desired to give the player a purple rupee the postman's challenge is also fairly imaginative requiring the player to press the able to know exactly two 10-second mark the timer disappears after three seconds so the rest has to be timed in the players head you can cheat at this too by equipping the bunny hood it'll leave a timer on screen so the game becomes much easier I see both of these is the Majora's Mask equivalent of the treasure chest game from ocarina of time neither one is particularly deep and after playing them once you probably won't bother playing them again but it's fun find ways for link to cheat system the actual treasure chest game in majora's mask is much worse this time around it forms a maze around Lincoln it's impossible to predict the correct path there's no way you can cheat your way past the randomness this time around so it becomes a matter of luck about whether or not you'll make it to the end I'm not fond of look based minigames in general but I think I should point out that this is the only minigame in Majora's Mask which is completely based on luck without any measure of skill involved so at least it offers some variety the characters through all these side quests and minigames are as vibrant as they were in ocarina of time and they're made all the more relatable because many can be found worrying about the moon or outright carrying from it especially on day 3 as I said about Tattler earlier on none of the characters have particularly deep or complex development but there is character development here this wouldn't be very impressive as an isolated incident but it's the case for many of the characters in Clock Town and even some outside of it the game has the most higher pieces of unease alder game today with a massive 52 pieces of heart hidden around the world to find many of these are found in Clock Town but there is more hidden around the world as well there's also plenty of loader secrets hidden in the world like hard to find interactions with characters which flesh them out even further considering the number of masks the number of NPCs and the way their routines change over time you can see how it's incredibly difficult to find all the little hidden bits and pieces in this game so far I've mostly talked about the optional aspects of Majora's Mask so it's time to delve into the game proper outside clock town lies tournament a field where the traditional Zelda team tuned absent from ocarina of time is brought back I find its inclusion a bit odd since the bunny's elder game probably shouldn't have the main team in it it's majora's mask it feels to me like they realized they should have put it in ocarina of time and just put it in Majora's Mask to compensate the layout and termina field is a lot better than that of Hyrule Field and Ocarina of Time clock town sits at the center of everything with the various areas sitting in each compass direction unfortunately there's still not that much to do in termina field although at least the terrain is a little more varied the layout of the field is good though because it reduces the amount of time spent walking from one place to another compared to Ocarina of Time the town also has four entry points which makes it much easier to get back into travel time is also greatly improved by the various L statues there are war points all over ocarina of time too but each one has a separate song associated with it if you forgot the song you needed to go into the menu look it up and play it all the war points in majora's mask just require the ones to get to them which is a much better solution I like the different songs for the various temples in Ocarina but if they exist for the sake of convenience it's good that Majora's Mask makes them more convenient than before these L statues also offer a save feature you can save it a statue and then your save will start from there if you quit but then if you load that save up and don't don't play that save at your save will start from the last time you work back in time before using the l statue yeah anyway um I'm curious about what happens if you use the L statue twice in a row you know honestly I didn't even test it I generally stay away from using these things because it makes it sound like the save file exists in some case of semi permanence which just doesn't make me feel confident about using it I'm not sure why these statues work the way they do maybe it had to do with technical limitations if so fair enough but if not then they're just needlessly complicated the transformation masks are one of the largest additions this time around and they work quite well over the course of the game link gains the ability to transform into a Deku scrub at Goran Ana's aura these are the three most prominent non-human races from ocarina of time so it's nice to see that the masks allow for more meaningful interactions with them beyond this the mask also have several other benefits the multi-purpose items which fulfill many roles this is good because of the way the Zelda inventory works with three items being assigned to the buttons if an item is capable of performing multiple actions then it probably needs to be switched out less often which means less menu opening and those less interruptions for the action the best example of this is Zora link which removes the need for the iron boots entirely if you need to drop down to the bottom of some water you equip this aura mask and then you can float up and down as much as you like it also allows from some extremely mobile swimming maneuvers so the player gets the benefit of all that rolled into one item personally I have a hard time getting into games which have more than one protagonist that the player controls variety is a nice thing to have in a game so I can see what designers might want to make players use several characters over the course of the game for me though this usually means being forced to play as less interesting or fun characters and waiting for the moment when I can play the one I like the most whichever one that may be it also makes it hard to relate to a character purchase in their shoes because they're swapping it for someone else who may have a totally different personality our goals the way the masks work in majora's mask delivered the best of both worlds here the entire game is played as link apart from a very short section as Caffey during that side quest the masks give link all the benefit and variety of data races but don't force the game to pursue different story arcs or spend time setting up new characters links goals are always the primary concern of the game which is for the best in the years since the release of Majora's Mask some developers have been trying more and more to imitate film as a medium and ensemble casques and work quite well in that format games however are different beasts entirely they usually work best when focusing on a single character and allowing the player to place themselves in their shoes really this is one of the greatest strengths that computer games have as a medium they allow for the player to more accurately experience exactly what the protagonist goes through over the course of the story I'm glad then that Majora's Mask doesn't sacrifice this benefit for the sake of variety since the masks can also be swapped in and out of the moment's notice it also means that gameplay is rarely disrupted with long chunks of playing as a single version of link if you're not fond of playing one of the forum's that's okay because you're rarely subjected to it for more than a couple of minutes at a time the first mask is the Deku mask which is used in the swamp area the swamp and woodfall temple serve as an introduction to the game it's a much more harsh one in ocarina of time but it's not that difficult when compared to other areas of the game and both the swamp and the dungeon are solid but fairly unremarkable aspects of the game I do like the Deku link masks whoever and I think it's a shame that it's used falls off towards the end of the game Deku link probably could have done with a bit more utility because the bubbles are replaced by the ball and the ability to skip on water is mostly made useless by the introduction of Zora link the most noteworthy thing about woodfall temple is the inclusion of stray fairies there are 15 in each dungeon and collecting them all will yield a reward from the nearby fairy fountain this encourages thorough exploration of the dungeon as the fairies can be found anywhere and everywhere inside enemies and hidden in little corners where players are unlikely to look it's kind of excessive to expect players to find 15 different well-hidden objects in a dungeon just to get one reward but as long as the rewards are optional I suppose it's alright things pick up more at Snowhead where the Goron mask is acquired the rolling in particular is a great addition to the game and has a one full sense of velocity behind it it's strange to me that goron link ISM which use a combat I'd say he's easily outclassed by human Lincoln's aura link I'm not sure what they could have done to make it any better but these slow punching moves tend not to do very well against the enemies in Majora's Mask they've got a lot of weight behind them but they're hard to hit with and just too slow to be much good you'd think that a Gorem would be better at dealing with enemies Snowhead is a much more challenging and intricate dungeon than would fall particularly I like the central column in the dungeon as it adds a lot more challenge to the proceedings you need to find an alternate way up to the pillar and then you need to knock the sections out of it in a particular order this requires more critical thinking than most puzzles in Zelda games which let's face it are usually pretty simple having a central mechanic unique to each dungeon is a good way to make them more challenging three of the temples in majora's mask dudas there's a central pillar and snow head the swirling water pool in the Great Bay temple and the stone tower temple gets flipped upside down this approach is similar to that of the water temple from ocarina of time where a single element of the dungeon can affect many rooms and the path the player needs to take in order to get things done when you add on the in a time limit in Majora's Mask you have someone loves challenging but ultimately satisfying dungeons the Zelda series has ever produced the Snowhead temple contains possibly the best boss fight in the game taking full advantage of the Goron roll maneuver it's fought in an entirely different way to any Zelda boss before it it's a fight that can go on for quite a while but it remains enjoyable throughout once again this goron section of the game highlights how link helps the people of the world around him he clears out poisoning the swamp for a start and at Snowhead he ends in a naturally long winter on freezing the Goron people in the process the best thing about this is how smoothly it all ties together links goals always coincide with helping those people and the game never dwells long in the victory which would pretty much just be wasted time the next section of the game is the great bay here link acquires the Zora mask on the beach here is the oceanside spider house the second spider house in the game these are basically the replacement of the Skulltula sidequest from Ocarina the key difference being in Majora's Mask the spiders are localized entirely in these houses it's arguable about whether the ocarina or majora version of this quest is better they both have advantages the ocarina one being completed slowly over the course of the game and the majora one being doable and single three day cycle can be honest I like both versions so I'm glad they changed it from Majora's Mask it's better than just repeating the same concept without any changes the Great Bay section of the game requires link to collect seven Zora eggs before the temple opens up this is the most infamous section of the game because it can get quite tedious it requires infiltrating the pirate fortress in a section reminiscent of the Giroud of fortress from ocarina of time thankfully the game seems to have learned from its predecessors mistakes the guards here are in the wide open outer areas and not on any of the cramped indoor spaces this prevents the pirates fortress from becoming a trial-and-error ordeal that - Jeru doh fortress was unfortunately the player might need to make several trips here depending on how many bottles they have and even once they've completed this there's three eggs remaining out on the reef the egg hunt here is never very frustrating but it's a lengthy process and it can get dull very quickly it feels very much like filler and when you consider that a player might need to repeat it if they run out of time then it becomes a terrifying amount of filler the Great Bay temple requires much use of desire form and is immensely more streamlined compared to the water temple in ocarina of time thanks to the removal of the iron boots introduced in this dungeon early ice arrows which is pretty disappointing because the previous dungeon contained the fire arrows and the one before that simply granted link the bow every dungeon in majora's mask just grants link a different form of arrow halfway through there are some items to be found outside dungeons chiefly the lens of truth and the hookshot but the item count is significantly lowered from ocarina of time this is likely so the game could focus on the transformation masks which to be fair probably do offer more utility than the missing items from Ocarina but it's a shame there isn't more to play around with the Majora's Mask the large number of other masks is both a blessing and a curse it's nice that there's plenty of puzzles to be solved with them and a couple of them are from or utilities link but it effectively doubles the item count for not that much benefit this increases the amount of men usage in majora's mask by an unfortunate amount while i'm mentioning ocarina of time I'd like to address two of my complaints from the ocarina review partly because they were so small I feel a bit guilty for even including them so I think it's only fair that I mention when they're fixed the hookshot is a bit easier to aim in majora and seems to have had its sensitivity tuned a bit it's still less than ideal but it's nice that some effort was made there also the time travel element of Majora's Mask is much more consistent than Ocarina of Time it's totally incompatible with the time travel concepts from Ocarina but taken on its own it treats time travel far more realistically than ocarina does which is a good thing in my box after the Great Bay only I can evaluate sadly this is the biggest flaw with Majora's Mask it contains the fewest number of dungeons and Inez Ella games Ocarina of Time featured 8 main dungeons where's majora's mask only has 4 there are some extra bits like the iconic castle section which is an enjoyable sort of mini dungeon but ocarina of time had the bottom of the well which is equally good if not better Icona valley has its own well which is where a link finds the mirror shield but it's a tedious series of fetch quests for the give those residing there as they ask link to bring them various things to progress further into the well this whole section can last about half an hour and adds almost nothing to the game its filler of the worst kind as an optional section of the game it might have been a kind of interesting diversion but forcing every player through it is a bit ridiculous stone tower temple itself is a good temple which unfortunately requires a lot of use of the elegy of emptiness a song which creates copies of link used for holding down buttons the concept is a very good one and has a lot of potential for puzzles but the ocarina proves to be a hassle to use it's fine to have to use the ocarina to warp around or change the flow of time but when you have to pull the thing out and play the song every time you want to make a copy of yourself it becomes a chore I'd like in this - the situation of the iron boots in ocarina of time where the concept is fine but the slow execution drags it down by this point in the game the player will have fire arrows ice arrows light arrows and the eye of truth all of which require magic to use additionally the Goron rolling form needs magic and the Zora form needs magic to attack on the water the boss fight in this dungeon also requires use of the Giants mask which trains magic as well there's a bit of an over Alliance on the magic meter in majora's mask and it can be annoying to have to hunt down magic pots just to use a crucial skill I don't think the magic should all to regenerate because that would be a bit too simple but the blast mask is a good example of a compromise it allows link to sacrifice some life for a bomb blast so it makes a great back-up plan in case the player runs out of bombs a magic equivalent which drains life and increases the magic meter would have been a nice inclusion the twin mold fight also lacks the ability for a link to lock on when he turns into a giant I think this is a case of the game taking its lock on mechanics a bit too seriously tattle doesn't grow along with link and since use the in-game excuse for the lock on mechanics the game ditches them for this fight it serves to make the fight more awkward and difficult than it should be don't get me wrong it's nice that the game tries to treat Isles inclusion seriously it's the kind of attention to detail that can elevate a game to greatness but not when it gets in the way of the core mechanics the end of the game takes place inside the moon and includes a great reward for any completionists out there by giving up some of the less important masks the player can enter into four mini dungeons it's very much like Ganon's castle at the end of ocarina of time because it echoes earlier parts of the game and puts the mask to use again it also includes a multitude of sheikah stones which explain who holds onto every mask it's a nice way of helping out anyone who lacks a couple of masks naturally majora is the emboss and it's as imposing and difficult as anyone would hope I do wish it had some more imaginative designs however as it seems we have planned to have the mask grow of limbs for a game filled with such unorthodox designs everywhere you'd think they could have found a more interesting way to make majora a creepy fight if you complete all the mini dungeons in the Moon you're awarded with the fierce deity mask which is an extremely satisfying reward what makes the boss buy too much of a pushover this marks the end of the game with majora's mask dispatched and terminus safe it's a surprisingly heartwarming ending as the Skull Kid realizes the Giants will remain his friends even though they're apart and the game closes on the carving of link and the Skull Kid together having reconciled if I had to say what Majora's masks greatest asset is I would say atmosphere the problem with saying atmosphere is that by itself it doesn't really mean anything when you're talking about a game we all kind of know what I'm talking about but it's not something you can point to and identify what makes it tick atmosphere is made up of all the same elements that make up the rest of the game it's made up of graphics sounds story everything I could never describe entirely accurately what it feels like to play majora's mask the only real way to do that is to play it but I'm going to attempt to go back over the game now and identify as best I can what makes the atmosphere in this game work so well it all begins right at the start of the game when link is entering termina firstly he falls down a massive pit the screen is then bombarded with strange symbols which represent things that are going to appear in termina shortly after this link walks down this corridor into the clock tower Majora's Mask is not a game that lacks subtlety so you can bet that these two strange events linked falling down the hole and then walking through this corridor are intentionally overt these two things help to separate Hyrule from terminan the player no longer has any idea where termina might be in relation to Hyrule I mean link is deep underground and upside down yet emerges into a perfectly normal-looking town the start also serves to subvert expectations with regards to gameplay link is only briefly playable in human form before being turned into a Deku the game then proceeds for the entire first cycle with link now in a twisted and almost unrecognizable form the Deku form has a noticeably sad expression permanently marked on its face which means even before the threat of the moon and many of the other darker elements of Majora's Mask come into play the game is already highlighting the plight of link the masks themselves had painful transformations which make you question just how much link is going through every time he swaps them out the masks have an element of creepiness to them as well as they're simply hollowed out faces it's ironic because faces are used by Nintendo in the Mario series to make things look more friendly but they seem to have done the opposite in Majora's Mask both majora and the moon have dead looking eyes which never move are blink and the moon features a bizarre expression which straddles the line between several different emotions you could argue it looks like it's in pain or it looks angry or anything in between as human beings it's naturally a little unsettling for us when we look at a face that's not a face the mirror shield is a good example of this what was once a regular looking shield in Ocarina of Time has been replaced by a face with a pained expression of it since link has his back to the camera most of the time this means that once the mirror shield is acquired there's a horrible looking face plastered on screen constantly clock town features NPCs with models ripped directly from Ocarina of Time as I've mentioned many of the characters in the game are just alternate versions of people from Hyrule which again is a case of the game taking something familiar and making it so we don't recognize it which is innately uncomfortable in majora's mask the apocalypse is impending a massive looming threat hanging over the whole game the majority of game narratives follow a traditional story arc where the hero is called to action has a darkest hour and eventually defeats their enemy returning to the life they once knew when it comes to majora's mask the darkest hour part of the story is left on loop and is where most of the game takes place in the end it still plays out the way you would expect but this unique pacing lends a lot of weight to the events in the game the condition for failure in the average game is death which results in the player having to redo a section of the game over again even though we know we can replay a section of a game and eventually overcome the obstacle presented to us that initial failure is still very real the same could be said for link in Majora's Mask I imagine an average player will probably need to use the time travel about 20 times over the course of the game probably a lot more if they want to full completion we expect link to be able to save the world but in reality he fails to save it over and over again this makes the moon more intimidating than it would be otherwise it casts a shadow of hopelessness over the whole game as if that wasn't bad enough this also forces many of the victories link does have in the game to be undone often after completing a dungeon and those helping to rid an area of evil there will be very little time left before the moon crashes into terminal this means players are very likely to have to rewind time shortly after completing a dungeon all the events in that area are then undone as soon as time is rewound everyone is suffering again nowhere is this more evident than in the NGO and Kaffee side quest which only ends one minute before time needs to be reset the couple have an emotional and satisfying reunion then a moment later the player is forced to reset time and the two are back the way they were it almost feels as though it was for nothing death pervades the entire game as well the transformation masks that link wear are actually from the deceased link meets the Goron hero da Romani and heals his soul getting his mask in the process link then goes to the Goron town and basically masquerades as the dead hero the gorons are all relieved to discover that da Romani isn't dead after all the game seems to play tis for Laughs more than anything else that's a little disturbing when you think about it I mean imagine if there had been a human in Clock Town which turned out to be a Zora wearing a human mask to fit in that's exactly what link is doing to the gorons he also does it to the Deku and Azure as well the zora mask is obtained when one dies right in front of link and the deku mask is implied to be from this presumably dead stump nowhere is death the bigger theme than an eye can a valley an area of the game which has only two living NPCs is crawling with zombies and is ruled over by a skeleton in one of the most shocking sequences in the game link can wait until this girl leaves the house to check on the well while she's out her house is open after going into the house this happens this is the girl's father who she had locked up because he was turning into a redead you can heal his soul but once again all of this will be undone as soon as link goes back in time the young girl will be terrified in her house with her zombified father the gorons will still be freezing the Zora eggs will still be missing the ranch will have its cattle stolen speaking of which I don't even know where to begin on this utterly bizarre sequence where ghosts that resemble aliens attempt to steal the cows it's surprisingly unsettling thanks in large part to the music the music is read as a star of the show when it comes to the atmosphere Majora's Mask and I think that koji kondo deserves some serious praise for it he's the man behind many of the iconic Zelda and Mario tunes which are usually quite a beat but on Majora's Mask he goes all-out on creating a depressing vibe to cast over the entire game the astral Observatory music is a great case of the game sad undertone undercutting some otherwise upbeat music you the oath the order is the song used to call the Giants and stop the moon by all rights it should be a triumphant moment in the game but instead the music still sounds melancholic you the music in Clock Town on day three reflects the denial of some of the people in the town and shows that the moon has gotten to the point where it can no longer be ignored and then there's a song which plays when only six hours remain it will actually play over most of the tracks in the game meaning it takes precedence over everything else the visuals also have a couple of new effects on them to contribute to the atmosphere most notable the liberal use of motion blur during certain cutscenes to increase the surreal and dreamlike nature of the setting this however is my favorite graphical effect in majora's mask and probably my favorite effect in any game ever the screens slowly moving away from the player with each term of the bell invokes the feeling that time is living away it's then perfectly punctuated where the iconic acts popping up on screen alerting you to just how much time is left it seems like such a strange thing to do in a game making the screen smaller and smaller but it works so perfectly that it blows my mind every time I see it happen the graphics in the game have aged about as much as the ones in Ocarina of Time it does look slightly better but only very slightly in a weird way though I think that Majora's Mask graphics have actually improved with age obviously they look bad by modern standards but it lends a sort of quality to them that you wouldn't get otherwise the best way I can describe it is that it's like the computer game equivalent of watching a film on a fuzzy video tape I think this is a case of being used to the graphical fidelity of more modern games to the point where it's harder than it used to be to use my imagination to fill in the gaps making things a lot less defined than they should be the ending to the game highlights just how unknowable all the mysteries of majora's mask car when link is pulled inside the moon a pristine field with a single tree is what exists inside there are several children playing here with masks representing the various bosses in the game and the Majora's Mask child sits alone unable to play with the other children interestingly although you can't see their faces the children in here all seem to resemble the happy mask salesman based on their hair anyway Majora's Mask the happy mask salesman the interior of the moon and many of the other things in the game are complete mysteries with no definite histories our answer is given about them over the course of the game there's mysteries upon mysteries piled up in Majora's Mask and if this were a lesser game would be the first one to argue that was all nothing but a pretentious circle-jerk I'm not going to argue that though because Majora's Mask is not a lesser game it's a magnificent game and its atmosphere is unmatched by anything I've ever played the mystique of various elements in the game is a necessary part of maintaining the atmosphere because the game simply wouldn't be as interesting without them I think it's important that these elements were crafted without specific answers in mind because it allows for speculation and keeps people guessing all of this would be for nothing if the game did not provide closure in its experience but it does so neatly Majora's Mask dispatched and terminus saved these are the important elements to expand upon and not the origin of Majora's Mask or the happy mask salesman as soon as these things were explained they become boring Majora's Mask is certainly an unorthodox sequel to the most critically acclaimed game of all time and I think Nintendo should be praised for not just doing the same thing twice in order to cash in an ocarina success you can argue all day about which one of these two games is better ocarina or majora for me it's definitely majora but I think the most important thing to recognize is not which is better but just how good a sequel Majora's Mask actually is to ocarina of time computer game sequels have been traditionally said to be much better than those of books or films but I'm not convinced I agree with this this is largely because of the time constraints placed on developers it's not uncommon to hear that a sequel allows them to do many of the things they wish they had the time to do in the first game I'm sure the team behind ocarina of time had some ideas they wish had made it into the final version maybe some of those ideas made their way into Majora's Mask but there's no denying that ocarina feels like a complete experience it took the Zelda formula laid down in a Link to the Past brought it into the 3d realm executed it well and expanded upon it with new items it was a lengthy game too and it told the quintessential Zelda story in a more than competent fashion it didn't need a sequel at least not in the traditional sense where a developer pumps out the same formula with a few superficial enhancements Majora's Mask takes the ocarina of time engine along with its basic gameplay and runs in a totally different direction it's familiar but it's also different and the end result is beneficial for both games majora is more interesting than it would be otherwise an ocarina stands by itself rather than feeling like a watered down version of its own sequel a stranger game as it is it's for these reasons that I actually think Majora's Mask represents one of the best examples of a sequel in gaming history I said before the atmosphere is majoras great assassin but I've tried to get some of that across in this video but it would never come all the way true you can't experience this game by listening to someone talk about it or watching someone play it has to be played to be understood if for whatever reason you've decided to watch this whole video even though you've never played Majora's Mask then trust me when I say it's still a game worth playing even though I've told you practically everything about it the sum of all these parts come together in a way that I could never describe and make something totally unique it's well worth experiencing just don't play it as your first Selda game you'll be a bit overwhelmed in the next video we'll be looking at the controversial eacute Wind Waker so I hope you join me then thanks for watching

Channel: Matthewmatosis

Views: 737,748

Rating: 4.938446 out of 5

Keywords: Majora's Mask, Review, N64, Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, Zelda

Id: iO1ckmGe-do

Length: 40min 29sec (2429 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 09 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/TheCowboySpider]

Great breakdown of why Majora's Mask is my favorite Zelda game. It's so different, weird, and unsettling, while still being a fantastic adventure game.

[u/GoddamnFred]

I prefer MM on a whole, but him shitting on the way OoT sets the tone of the world and the fantastical opening movie for that time really shows a lack of insight and historical relevance for cinematics on consoles.

[u/takt1kal]

TLDW?

[u/RidleyOReilly]

26:35 is about OoT's Water Temple.