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    The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

    Game » consists of 21 releases. Released Apr 27, 2000

    The follow-up to Ocarina of Time sees the series stalwart Link embark on a journey to save the land of Termina from being crushed by the moon in three days. To defeat the Skull Kid, Link has to live the same three days over and over again.

    What's Wrong with this game.

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    crithon

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    so it's been a year, and I am stuck on Snowhead Temple.

    I come off and on this game I have absolutely no desire to finish it. I kept the 3DS closed, and when I open up I'm confused and try to continue.

    I will open it and check to so as to WHY, at least just why I should continue. I actually Only know 2 people who beat this and one was a 16 year old boy who told me "SNOWHEAD IS THE WORST EVER!"

    So I opened up Link Between Worlds instead and started a whole new campaign on Hero. I'm getting my butt kick but I'm returning over and over again.

    What exactly is wrong with this game? Because I'm starting to wonder if this worst then the Water Temple in Ocarina? Was portable the worst idea for this game? Or is this really the most ever rated game of all time?

    the reality is, there's only a minority who have beaten this game and it's become message board legend. This game isn't like Dark Souls, when the reward comes in it's personal experience.

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    Rebel_Scum

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    Nothings wrong with it. Its a great game and I'd rate it as the best 3d Zelda. I remember getting almost to the end of snowhead only to run out of time during the boss fight. That was brutal but I love games that give you that sense of panic.

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    mithical

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    The Snowhead and Great Bay Temples are pretty complex and there are a couple of puzzles with solutions you might not immediately think are even possible. I wouldn't say it was too obscure or frustrating though, just difficult enough to give you some 'A ha!' moments. I think Majora's Mask is one of the weaker entries in the series, but I wouldn't say dungeon design is one of its flaws.

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    youeightit

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    I got really frustrated with this game when I played through it a few months ago, I didn't enjoy a lot of things about it and I stopped playing right where you are because I hated Goron rolling everywhere. I found that temple to be really tedious myself. However, I played first on the Wii with a GameCube controller and then switched to the 3DS version, and man...if you wanna see what a vast improvement the remake is, try doing that and you'll really appreciate what they did. That being said, they didn't do much to Snowhead.

    I hate it when people say a game doesn't get good until you're halfway through but in this case I'm saying I think you should stick with it because everything I did after Snowhead was vastly more interesting and fulfilling than everything I did before it. There's a very good and unique video game in there, I promise. When you finish it you'll be glad you did, even if you think it's not as goods Zelda game as some of the others.

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    TheWildCard

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    I don't like the game but Snowhead dungeon is probably the best one in the game. I remember the next two being noticeably tougher.

    I respect Majora for being different but I just don't like the time aspect, it clashes with what the series is good at, exploration and puzzle solving.

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    MezZa

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    #7  Edited By MezZa

    It's a pretty divisive game, but I've always been terrible at determining why because I'm one of those people who love it. It's a different experience I guess, and if you're wanting just the traditional Zelda experience then you probably shouldn't play Majora's for fun.

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    TheBlue

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    Nothing.

    You just don't like it.

    Isn't it fascinating how some people have different opinions on things?

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    CDUB901

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    Nothing is wrong with it. It's just not your tastes.

    It's not overrated because honestly the views on it are completely mixed. You either love it or hate it. Not overrated. Not underrated.

    Personally it's my favorite Zelda game. The atmosphere and characters were just mind blowing at the time. A lot of the NPCs are from Ocarina, but in this one they actually feel more alive and are given way more personality. They actually had schedules they stick to and jobs to do. It was a unique experience for N64 players at the time.

    The masks were great and added more to puzzle solving in addition to the normal items. Rolling around as a Goron and swimming super fast as a Zora was a great experience for Zelda players who always wondered what it'd be like to play as them. It also made their respective boss fights even more fun to play.

    The temple designs aren't as straight forward as in Ocarina. That's either a minus or a plus depending on the type of player.

    The time mechanic seems stressful at first, especially if you don't know the song that slows down time flow in half (which the game never specifically ever tells you unless you talk to a scarecrow in a shop)

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    Naoiko

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    Honestly I didn't like it. I tried for days to play it, and the time rewind thing just turned out to be to big of a deal breaker for me. Even with the time song that slows time down, I still had a hard time. Maybe I just suck, but this is most certainly tied for my least favorite zelda game.

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    The_Nubster

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    #11  Edited By The_Nubster

    Nothing wrong with it. Snowhead and Great Bay are, for my money, the two most difficult dungeons in the game. If you step away from Snowhead you might be better off turning the clock back and starting over again, there are some real twisty turns in there.

    If you don't like it, you don't like it, that's all.

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    Zeik

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    #12  Edited By Zeik

    I beat it as a kid without significant trouble. Hell, I even got every mask on my first playthrough.

    It's not my favorite Zelda game, but I have still played through it more than once. I still haven't found the desire to go back and finish A Link Between Worlds.

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    ArbitraryWater

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    I beat Majora's Mask for the first time fairly recently and I found the dungeons (ostensibly THE point to any given Zelda game) to be one of its weaker aspects. They're all fine, middle-of-the-road Zelda dungeons, but it's pretty obvious the game's focus was elsewhere.

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    katpottz

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    When I first played majora I would challenge myself to try to get through the game on my own. That said if I got stuck on something to the point of frustration I would give myself a day or two then I would take a peek at a walkthrough, this helped me both progress through the game and enjoy myself. So if your interested in what the rest of the game has to offer give this approach a try.

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    BisonHero

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    @arbitrarywater said:

    I beat Majora's Mask for the first time fairly recently and I found the dungeons (ostensibly THE point to any given Zelda game) to be one of its weaker aspects. They're all fine, middle-of-the-road Zelda dungeons, but it's pretty obvious the game's focus was elsewhere.

    Weaker in what way? I don't think they do anything super memorable other than the flipping in the 4th dungeon, but overall, they're reasonably well designed and might actually be some of the toughest 3D Zelda dungeons, at least compared to how hand-holdy this-is-the-obvious-direction-forward the last couple 3D Zeldas have been. They seem fairly well designed, though I think the initial swamp dungeon kinda lacks a defining feature other than having to glide a bunch as the Deku.

    Granted, I bet a lot of development time was spent scripting all the weird NPC questlines, and they only had a long enough dev cycle to make 4 dungeons, so there's that to consider.

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    Levio

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    The game doesn't tell you this, but the Snowhead Temple is the only temple of the 4 temples where you have to use the Lens of Truth to find invisible things and see through fake walls.

    It's a little weird that the game never tells you that, since it's really important to know (maybe the remake tells you?).

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    GnosisLord

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    I haven't played the 3DS version, but I didn't have much trouble with any of the dungeons in the N64 version. Majora's Mask is one of the better Zeldas. The time mechanic made me nervous as a kid until I realized that it's actually a really lenient time limit. You can get a ton of stuff done before you have to rewind.

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    crithon

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    wow, thank you everyone. For a second there..... I thought I was alone.

    My problem might be mostly, I played it, closed the 3DS, hope that like a fresh start would feel less frustrating..... but that went on for a year. So, now I'm looking at videos of people playing through it and going "no wait where am I? the pillar, the jump, no am I?" I may start from scratch, I do believe everything before Snowhead works well. I really want to check off this game off my bucket list, there is a lot to like about this game.

    Right now, I'm replaying A Link Between Worlds on Hero mode and it's clicking better with me. The impression I'm getting is that, no one hates Majora's Mask, but yet not everyone wants to beat it. There's the vocal minority who just put atop as the best Zelda game just for doing something different. I do think that sounds a wee bit like when Demon Souls first started out, but now everyone and their mother has enjoyed a Souls game.

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    ArbitraryWater

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    #19  Edited By ArbitraryWater
    @bisonhero said:

    @arbitrarywater said:

    I beat Majora's Mask for the first time fairly recently and I found the dungeons (ostensibly THE point to any given Zelda game) to be one of its weaker aspects. They're all fine, middle-of-the-road Zelda dungeons, but it's pretty obvious the game's focus was elsewhere.

    Weaker in what way? I don't think they do anything super memorable other than the flipping in the 4th dungeon, but overall, they're reasonably well designed and might actually be some of the toughest 3D Zelda dungeons, at least compared to how hand-holdy this-is-the-obvious-direction-forward the last couple 3D Zeldas have been. They seem fairly well designed, though I think the initial swamp dungeon kinda lacks a defining feature other than having to glide a bunch as the Deku.

    Granted, I bet a lot of development time was spent scripting all the weird NPC questlines, and they only had a long enough dev cycle to make 4 dungeons, so there's that to consider.

    I meant "weaker" in the sense that the things I liked about Majora's Mask had very little to do with it actually being a Zelda game. The strengths of that game have a lot to do with it being weird as hell and super experimental and the dungeons are pretty stock and standard by comparison. I'm not going to totally agree with the Jeff Gerstmann argument that Majora's Mask is somehow a "side game" and therefore should be ignored (similar to the Dan Ryckert argument that Super Mario 3D World is somehow a "side game" because something something not like Galaxy), but it's probably as un-Zelda as a Zelda game can be while still being a Zelda game.

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    fram

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    Majora's Mask goes out of its way to make you feel uncomfortable, in almost every aspect. The music has a generally sullen and mournful tone, becoming more and more twisted as the deadline looms. A lot of the characters you recognize from Ocarina of Time are there, but they have new names and different personalities. The countdown timer means there's constant pressure to get things done, and the frequent resets take away a lot of the feeling of accomplishment and empowerment that are usually associated with progressing through an Zelda game. Hell even getting the masks (which give you cool new abilities) first present you with a PAINFUL transformation scene.

    It really is a commitment to go back in and beat that game. And for me - the story, the tone, the mood - it all adds up to make a wholly unique Zelda game that's up there with my favourites.

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    crithon

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    @fram: actually that part I do find appealing. Aside from learning about outcome through videos online because it's difficult to discover as a normal human, there's David Lynch vibe to it's presentation.

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    Sinusoidal

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    Majora's Mask has a sense of urgency (and outright terror) other Zelda titles don't really have. The moon is constantly looming over and glaring at you with it's creepy face while time slowly ticks down to failure. Like many others I'm sure, I come to Zelda games for leisurely combat, exploration and puzzle solving. There's nothing leisurely about Majora's Mask.

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    sammo21

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    What's Wrong with this game.

    Nothing.

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    Novis

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    Dude, you gave the game a fair shot. Take it out of the 3DS and never play it again. You're not enjoying yourself with it. Don't hang yourself out over it. I have give you credit for making it THAT far into the game while not enjoying it. You did good.

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    fnrslvr

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    Intended route through Snowhead Temple (~10mins, though the whole run is interesting)

    On a more serious note, I echo the "people have different opinions on things" thing. We've had this debate over MM several times before, check the MM board to see how those went. It's a divisive game, no doubt. For my part, MM is probably my favourite game of all time.

    fwiw, I also think aLttP is an underwhelming game. Again, opinions.

    There are a few odd ends I think are worth commenting on, though:

    @crithon said:

    the reality is, there's only a minority who have beaten this game and it's become message board legend. This game isn't like Dark Souls, when the reward comes in it's personal experience.

    Uh? If you dig up the Iwata asks on MM3D, you'll find Aonuma et al remarking that this was meant to be the "challenging Zelda" for OoT veterans. But I don't think it's such an arduous ordeal that the typical gaming enthusiast couldn't get through it. I remember beating it handily when I was 12 years old when it first came out, and I struggled with OoT 2 years beforehand.

    I respect Majora for being different but I just don't like the time aspect, it clashes with what the series is good at, exploration and puzzle solving.

    I kinda think of Zelda puzzles as intellectual junk food. I tend to binge on Zelda games for 50 hours straight at launch and none of them tend to stunt my progress for long, and afterward I have this sort of empty feeling inside because whilst it was all very enjoyable, there's no satisfaction in cracking a problem that you can't not crack. So if anything, I think the time pressure aspect helps the puzzles by giving them some teeth. (I think a similar thing applies to what a sense of "time is of the essence" does to exploration, but that argument is harder to make cleanly.)

    I beat Majora's Mask for the first time fairly recently and I found the dungeons (ostensibly THE point to any given Zelda game) to be one of its weaker aspects. They're all fine, middle-of-the-road Zelda dungeons, but it's pretty obvious the game's focus was elsewhere.

    But what Zelda game has consistently amazing dungeons? Twilight Princess, maybe?

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    crithon

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    @fnrslvr: Actually, what got me to come back was watching Twitch speed run videos. HAHA, actually, when LTTP was released, I had a friend who was obsessed with speed running, so he ruined that game through competition.

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    atomicpineapple

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    It's been a LONG time since I played Majora's, but I seem to recall getting stuck big time in that game's water temple right after having a fairly ok time with the Goron spot. The game gets a lot harder after the point you're at, so if you're having a terrible time with it you might just want to forget about it, cause I don't think you're going to start enjoying it.

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    AlmostSwedish

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    I don't know how much work they did on the temples for the remakes, but (and I say this as someone who thinks Majora's Mask is the second best Zelda Game) the first two temples in that game are probably the worst in the series. It gets better though. The third temple is decent, and the final temple is really good. But if you find that the good stuff about MM (the sidequests, the atmosphere) isn't enough to balance the scales for you, you might just want to pass on it.

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    Underscore_Underscore

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    Having trouble at snowhead? You're in for a treat with the next two

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