Ocarina of Time is widely regarded as one of the best made video games of all time, scoring perfect 10s in nearly all of its reviews. It's certainly the most well known Zelda game of my generation, owing both to its greatness and to the fact that it came out in 1998, just as we were moving to more adult games (while still being on the kid-friendly side for the most part).
Its sequel, though, Majora's Mask, is not nearly as well regarded. Most people I know have never played it all the way through, and it's generally regarded as a love-it-or-hate-it game. It's certainly a lot darker than Ocarina - and possibly all the other Zelda games as well - and sidequests, while an ever-present part of Zelda gaming, were a major part of the game, almost to the point of being a misnomer; it's arguable that the "sidequests" are the main point of the game and the actual plot is just a McGuffin to give those sidequests some context. A lot of people also disliked the time travel aspect of the game, for varying reasons.
Personally, I've never had much an opinion about the game, but recently I realized that that was probably because I played the whole game with a strategy guide (which is definitely NOT the way one should play Zelda; guides are an absolute last resort). Furthermore, I hadn't played the game in a decade, so my memories were fuzzy at best. With this in mind, I decided to replay the game, sans guide, and see if my opinion of it changed. And, of course, I decided to chronicle the whole thing.
Day 1: Beginning
The game is certainly dark. Right off the bat, the game starts with Link looking for his fairy, Navi, who has gone missing. He meets a new pair of fairies, Tatl and Tael, and a Skull Kid, who's wearing a weird mask. The Skull Kid kidnaps Link's horse, Epona, and turns Link into a Deku scrub. He also kidnaps Tael, so to speak, which forces Tatl to team up with Link so she can find her brother.
Link finds himself in an alternate universe called Termina, which is three days from being destroyed by the Moon falling. So, yeah, his only two friends get taken from him and he finds himself in a place he knows nothing about. Heavy stuff. The Moon, by the way, looks like this:
See? Creepy.
Oh, and I forgot to tell you: the Deku scrub that Link turned into? He used to be alive, but is now dead. There are three people Link turns into in this game, and they're all dead. At first, I wasn't sure that the Deku scrub was actually a real person, but no; the deceased scrub is actually the first denizen of Termina that you meet (you pass a Deku-shaped tree and Tatl says something like "this tree looks like a Deku scrub? How weird, I wonder what happened?" The Skull Kid killed him, that's what.)
As for gameplay, I was surprised at how old-school Majora's Mask was in terms of plot advancing. When you first enter Termina, you're told to find the Great Fairy and she'll help you turn back into your good old Hylian self. But you aren't told where the Great Fairy is or how to get her to help you or anything. You're just thrust into this town and have to figure everything out on your own. It can be frustrating at times, but I think it's a lot better than the "go here, go here, go here" design of some other Zelda games.
One last thing: the Happy Mask Salesman (who asks you to get Majora's Mask back for him, because the Skull Kid stole it from him) is effing crazy. He's purposefully not animated smoothly, so his movements are very jumpy - very unsettling. And when he finds out you DIDN'T get the mask back, he freaks the fuck out. Watch (with the sound off):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnzrm1NKgnA (And it continues in that vein for a while, with him getting increasingly manic.)
Day 2: Bombers' Notebook
Today, all I did was go around and try to find everyone in the Bombers' Notebook. The Bombers' Notebook is this thing where you keep track of people and their schedules, with the goal of helping them all in some way. This is that whole sidequests-being-the-main-part-of-the-game thing I talked about in the last section.
The Bombers' Notebook is also one of the greatest things about the game. These twenty characters are all having problems of different sorts, which means they all have to have lives to have problems in. This creates the need for a world where the plot is happening to every character in the game and not just Link. The citizens of Clock Town aren't just window dressing. Each of them are leading their own lives, and you can even follow them over the three day period to see all the stuff they do. They don't just show up wherever they need to be, they actually walk from place to place just like Link has to do. This allows for a more realistic world, and, coupled with the good deeds you have to do, creates a world that you actually WANT to save, not because it's the goal of the game but because such interesting people live in it.
Despite just going around and meeting people today, more darkness was encountered: the best example would probably be Romani (a little girl) being left catatonic after aliens invade Romani Ranch. Why is she catatonic? I don't know, because at the moment I can only get to the ranch for the aftermath on the Third Day (boulders are blocking the path on the first two days).
There are also storylines that, while not being dark, per se, are more mature than Zelda tends to deal with. One of the major subplots is the called-off engagement of Anju and Kafei; there are rumors all over town, but the only thing anyone knows for sure is that Kafei is missing and nobody knows why. Another story is the fight between the Carpenters and the Town Guards over whether they should still have their annual festival despite the fact that the Moon is literally just a few miles over Clock Town (and moving ever closer).
I'm about five or six hours into the game so far and have not gotten anywhere NEAR the first dungeon, completely by choice. And I like that the game lets me do that.
Coming up: Part 2 (which I assume will be published on Wednesday) will cover Woodfall and Woodfall Temple, among other things.
Verdict so far: I'm impressed.
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