"Great Game... but no. Just no."
by Stuart Newsom

I might be the King of Controversy on this one. I will stand with the crowd in saying that Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time may very likely be one of the greatest games ever designed. Every bit of it seems polished and designed to a T, the music still gets stuck in my head from time to time, and though the Goron Big Knife is a big bowl of stupid, everything flows pretty seamlessly into a true gem of storytelling and gameplay. In all ways, a modern classic. But, I cannot hold that same title, or even that same league, for its N64 sequel, Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. I am aware that some people gush over it, and yes, it’s in the top five N64 games on Metacritic, but ever since I first played it, I never got the appeal.

Part of the problem, I’m guessing, was living up to expectations. Following what many people consider to be the best game on any console is no easy feat. I still remember the hype leading up to this game. It was like every Halo 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, and Bioshock 2 combined, and then add in that it’s an ‘effing Zelda game. Lines round the block, fanboys spontaneously combusting due to excitement, seas boiling, forty years of darkness, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! I was apart of that, even going so far as to get the Collector’s Edition of the game, which was just a  “hologram” label on the front of the cartage. I got my game, put it in my N64, and began playing…

Lo and behold, it’s pretty much exactly the same as Ocarina of Time. Then Link gets turned into a Duku scrub – some character that, before, Link would just beat the living tar out of with a stick and be done with it. Oooook. I will say, the different mechanics are interesting and it’s the closest thing we’ve ever had to Link having a gun (aside from Link’s Crossbow Training). Also, we get the obligatory flying fuzzball of a fairy, this time, Tael. Here’s where the game starts to lose me. Tael, at first, seemed to be interesting, having a bit of a smart-ass attitude with everything. Then, as the game waned on, I realized that Tael was of no use at all. To the point that, gasp, I began to miss Navi. Yes, Navi was a pain in the ass with her “hey listen hey listen listen HEY LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN HEY HEY HEY” constantly, but when you actually used her, she had good advice. Tael, if memory serves, more often than not said the effect of “I dunno. You figure it out, dummy.” Now, that’s a nice change of pace, but when the heat is on and Octorocs are breathing down my neck, I’d rather have someone constantly give me suggestions on what to do other than someone just yelling, “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!”

Well, after you go around and finally figure out a way to turn yourself back into Link using your magical songs, you find the other crux of this game: the moon is plummeting to Earth and you only have three days to save it. Now, not three days in real time, three days in game time, which is just under an hour. Craaaaaaaaaaaaap.

Here’s what pissed me off and agitated me more than anything in this game. Seeing that little moon meter on the bottom of the screen is one of the most stressful things ever devised in gaming. Say you’re on one of the many quests and you have to traverse across the map. Well, you could don your Goron mask, if you have it, roll into a ball, and zoom to your destination as quickly as you can. BUT you gotta keep your eye on the clock because if you don’t get to your place in time, you have to play one of your magical songs and time travel back three days and start pretty much all over again. Many credited that a groundbreaking play mechanic. I credit it as a cheap game extender. The quests were difficult enough as it was; you didn’t need a timer on everything to make it any harder. Because of this and my rampant frustration of being on the wrong side of the timer and having to start all over again, and again and again, I never got the gumption to beat the game. Not even the moon crashing to the ground could save us from the evil that this game brought.

Tingle. I hate him. In his dumb green tunic, stupid clock stuck on 4 o’clock, and his dumb ass catchphrase. Since this game, this character, that has the personality of fingers down a chalkboard, has amazingly, become popular. To the point that fat 34-year-old cosplayer guys are dressing up like him at cons, while he himself is essentially a fat 34-year-old cosplayer of fairies. Without Majora’s Mask, we wouldn’t have Tingle. Damn you, Majora’s Mask.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 10