I\'m more of a \"Breath of the Wild fan\" than a \"Zelda fan\". I played Oo T 3 D once, MM 3 D once, Wind Waker twice (once on Gamecube once on Wii U), I cannot stand Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword, and I played Breath of the Wild 5 whole times. That being said, Majora\'s Mask stands out to me as the least samey of the traditional 3D Zelda games. Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword all just rehash the same story beats that Ocarina of Time had but does it worse. You start as a simple country boy in an isolated village completely sheltered from the goings on of wider Hyrule. Then the bad guy forces you to leave your home in search of a set of Mac Guffins which will inevitably involve dungeon crawling to obtain. Then once you have collected all of the first set of Mac Guffins, you\'re met with an unforeseen outcome which involves the bad guy getting one step closer to achieving his goal. This results in you being sent out to do even more dungeon crawling in search of a brand new set of Mac Guffins. Then once you have that set of Mac Guffins you\'re ready to face Ganon/Demise which may or may not involve collecting a third set of Mac Guffins to reach him. Majora\'s Mask was the only 3d Zelda before Breath of the Wild that was like \"Ocarina of Time was great. But let\'s do something different.\"
Conversely, as someone said that the tremendous success of the game I liked but didn’t love almost certainly insures I’ll never get another Zelda game I love in my lifetime, I fall on the “ambitious but demands too much from the player“ end of the spectrum.
That said, as someone who had to buy the strategy guide as a young man and never did get any of the dungeon fairy treasures, I do appreciate that they are not necessary to complete the game? It’s not necessarily the easiest thing in the world, but you can get by on the base magic meter.
Why does everyone seemingly forget that those story beats and the series' blueprint were established by A Link to the Past?
I wouldn't mind failure so much, if I didn't fail so much.
^ I didn\'t forget. I just felt that while the plot of alttp is similar to that of the 3D Zelda games, it had enough setting itself apart for me not to mention it, such as Link being the nephew of a Hylian Soldier and living basically right next to Hyrule Castle as opposed to growing up in a completely isolated village. It\'s also undeniably true that while oot borrowed heavily from alttp\'s story beats, it was the massive success of oot that informed Nintendo\'s decision to rehash the story for Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword.
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A flawed jewel that begs for a crown
Majora's Mask was fated to be weird. It's a sequel to arguably the most acclaimed game of all time and had a development cycle of about a year. Its creation is well-documented by anecdotes and interviews with developers, who made no bones about the fact that making this game was a nightmarish endeavor (sometimes literally). It should come as no surprise, then, that this game feels like Link had a fever dream fueled by some bad milk and a Bill Murray movie marathon.
The obvious draw is the darker tone and the three-day cycle, with a ceaselessly-ticking clock and a frightful lunar body constantly reminding you that Termina has a fast-approaching expiration date. You'll soon realize that the impending doomsday is really just the latest in a long string of problems, and you can either play the hero role in a straight line or try to help everybody you can. You'll be rewarded for your efforts with emotionally evocative scenes and be drawn into a world that feels like it is filled with people rather than characters. Most Zelda games contain puzzles; this game is a puzzle. Discovering how to save a dying world is a carrot of a different color that can serve as its own motivator, built on the foundation of the 90's favorite 3D sword-slinger.
But loving Majora's Mask means accepting it for what it is. The handful of dungeons are made with your time constraints in mind and may not impress the way Ocarina's did. Constantly working under the clock can be stressful, and not everybody finds stress fun. You will assuredly be forced to roll back the clock at least once, and the feeling of loss will either urge you on or drive you off. All said and done, this game can be an acquired taste, but finally slaying that boss or checking off that sidequest will give a genuine sense of satisfaction. The power to reset is always in your hands and you go into your next attempt with what your failures taught you. Not until Dark Souls and Pathologic had I ever seen such an intimate relationship between narrative and gameplay.
Majora's Mask was released in an era where we were simultaneously excited for the future and frightened of the end. It picks up where a beloved coming-of-age story leaves off and expects you to have done some growing up of your own. It's the product of individuals who were so pressured by the burden of success and the threat of failure that they inadvertently created a diamond. Majora's Mask is absolutely a great game, if a flawed one, but it was a thematically perfect storm that I feel is a slightly different - if still impactful - experience in 2023 than it was in 2000. Play Ocarina of Time first, and if you love it, play this next. Turn off the lights and put yourself into the head of a kid with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Fill out that notebook before you watch the credits roll. Good luck.