In this review, we find ourselves transforming into altered forms in the N64 game Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. We find out how well this action adventure game plays.
This game was released in 2000.
We have a lot of familiarity with this franchise already. Previously, we tried the original Legend of Zelda game for the NES. That game wound up being a very solid game. From there, we tried Zelda II – The Adventure of Link. That game got a great score.
After that, we tried The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on the SNES. That game too got a great score. After that, we tried The Legend of Zelda – Ocarina of Time. That game wound up with a nearly perfect score. So, it is with great interest that we continue trying games in this series by, well, playing the very next game in the series.
The story is that you have left the lands of Hyrule in search of a friend. Riding on your horse, Epona, you have travelled a great distance. While travelling through some woods, the Skull Kid, wearing Majora’s Mask, sends in his fairies to spook Epona. After getting tossed, you temporarily lose consciousness. Seizing an opportunity, Skull Kid moves in and searches you for anything interesting. He eventually finds your Ocarina of Time. He then plays with the Ocarina while the two fairies fight over who gets to play next. While Skull Kid is distracted, you come to.
After a failed attempt to recover the Ocarina, Skull Kid jumps on your horse and tries to ride off. You desperately grab a hold of the side of Epona and you are dragged along the dirt. Eventually, you are once again thrown as Skull Kid rides off. Undeterred, you chase after him, eventually making it to a cave. You eventually fall into a large pit with Skull Kid waiting. Skull Kid then puts a spell on you, turning you into a Deku Scrub. After being horrified at your curse, you try to give chase only to be stopped by one of the fairies.
After the fairy gets separated from the others, that fairy decides to work with you. Eventually, you meet a mask man who explains that he has three days to get Majora’s Mask back. In exchange for recovering the Ocarina, he offers to teach you a song to reverse the curse. The price, of this exchange is that you recover the Majora’s Mask the skull kid apparently stole from him. With a tight deadline, you begin work on recovering your Ocarina and recovering Majora’s Mask.
This game does play a lot like Ocarina of Time. Of course, it’s not easy to tell at first in your Deku Scrub form. You have a simple spin attack and your jumping capabilities are very limited. Still, you do have some unique abilities in this form such as the ability to fly through the air using Deku flowers. This enables you to access areas otherwise unreachable.
In addition to this, you have your standard item system via the pause menu. You can equip up to three items at a time. Accessing them after is easy thanks to the C left, C down, and C right buttons. Items that can be used include Deku Sticks, bombs, jars, and, of course, masks.
For those who’ve played Ocarina of Time, masks are something that does make a return. However, unlike the previous game, masks go far beyond a simple trading side-quests and ultimately become a crucial part of your main quest. They even become rewards for a host of the many side-quests offered in this game as well.
While it is easy enough to collect items and rupees in this game, a huge factor in your playing capabilities revolves around time. More specifically, you have three in-game days. This may sound like a lot of time to play through, this winds up actually not being a whole lot of time. This is especially so when you first start the game thanks to an inability to slow time down. In fact, in normal speed, most players merely have enough time to complete the minor quests within Clocktown that sets you up for accessing the tower. If you are quick enough or know the game well enough, you can also complete a number of other optional side-quests as well.
If you successfully recover your Ocarina, then you’ll be able to turn back the hands of time, slow time down, or advance a half a day. Going back to day 1 will reset completed quests and give you another chance to complete as many parts of the game as possible. A major downside is that not only will a number of completed quests be reset, but also your item count and rupees will drop to zero. You can save our rupees at the bank, but the items are basically a loss once you warp back.
Not a whole lot is saved when resetting time. You will get to keep your masks as well as slots to carry those items (i.e. bomb bag or bottles). You’ll also keep heart container pieces and heart containers. Beyond that, you won’t get to keep much. Still, you do get to save your game.
In your normal form, you have access to your sword and shield. Both of these can eventually be upgraded (and you get to keep those upgrades!). You can also access all the standard attacks, get basic jumping, run, swim, and ride Epona once you access that form. Additionally, most of the items can only be used in your normal form.
You’ll also get access to a Goron form. Goron’s are unable to swim. However, you can roll around and hit ramps utilizing the Goron Jump. Additionally, the spikes not only make your somewhat invulnerable, but also allows you to take out many enemies along the way. Finally, you have access to the ground pound ability necessary to activate certain things. Those are a large number of abilities you go get.
The final form you can take is the Zora form. Zora’s are unbeatable when it comes to swimming. You have your static shock attack, normal attacks, and even a sort of duel boomerang attack (there’s no boomerang otherwise in this game) with your detachable fins. Throwing your fins also can allow you to reach far away items by retrieving them. You can jump around in reasonable fashion and your running capabilities aren’t bad either. Just know that your ability to fly around is pretty much non-existent in this form.
There are four main dungeons in this game. Each dungeon is located in every compass direction. While that may sound like a huge setback to the nearly dozen main dungeon’s in the previous game, players actually need to take on a separate dungeon just to access the main dungeon. The last dungeon actually requires you to explore two separate dungeon’s on top of it all. This bumps the total number of mandatory dungeon’s to at least 9. With time constraints, this game winds up being a rather large game for its genre.
Another interesting aspect is the number of optional side-quests that is available (depending on what abilities you have of course). Many optional side-quests give you heart container parts. Some, however, give you masks. Others give you empty bottles. In this game, there is a whopping 6 bottles you can obtain.
Aiding you in managing your side-quests is a Bombers notebook. This can be used to keep track of promises you’ve made as well as what time characters are available. If you make a promise and miss a deadline, you can always reset time, go back, and regroup.
In the main dungeons themselves, there are a lot of familiar elements that players who played Ocarina of Time will recognize. There is a map that allows you to see what rooms are present in that main dungeon. Additionally, there is a compass that not only tells you which way you are facing, but also where chests are and current location. Finally, there is a boss key that unlocks the door to where the dungeon boss lurks.
A new feature in these main dungeons is stray fairies. You are introduced to this aspect in Clocktown with the one stray fairy being required to collect. You can go to the great fairy fountain and reassemble the great fairies that Skull Kid broke apart. In each main dungeon, however, there are 15 stray fairies. You can attract them with your great fairy mask. If a fairy is in the room, at minimum, you’ll see that mask shimmer with pink particles.
Some stray fairies are just freely floating around. Most, however, are locked away in chests, trapped in bubbles that need to be broken, or even stuffed in small hornets nests. Get all 15 and return them to their respective great fairy fountain and you’ll get rewarded for your trouble (a reward you keep even when you reset time!). With the Great Fairy in Clocktown, there are 5 Great Fairy Fountains to locate and save.
The great owl makes a return in this game. He gives you the ability to teleport into different areas. All you need to do is strike an owl statue with your sword to unlock it. Once you unlock a location, you can play the song of soaring to warp between locations or temporarily save your game. Warping is ultimately critical to your success because it helps you save time getting to locations you’ve already been to. Chances are, you’ll be needing to revisit several locations for things you might have missed or second attempts at a dungeon. Either way, you’ll eventually be very grateful that such statues exist in the first place.
One side-quest worth noting is the spider houses. There are two spider houses in this game. If you remember the golden skulltula spiders from Ocarina of Time, then you’ll immediately recognize how this works. Kill the spider and collect the icon. In this game, the Skulltula’s are isolated in the two houses. Clear the house and get a reward.
Some enemies make a return in this game. This includes the Deku enemies, sand enemies, and even an Iron Knuckle. However, there is a host of new enemies found in the game. This includes the jelly enemies that store items like hearts, magic bottles, and even arrows. Bomb rats are also present in this game.
We really could go on and on with all the different features of this game, but that should give you a good idea of what is present here.
The obvious thing that is new is the limitation of time. For me, this sounds like one of those concepts that sounds interesting on paper, but upon implementation, it is not the worlds greatest concept. I get that this helps give the player a sense of urgency, but it also artificially inflates the time playing this game. At best, you can tackle one dungeon at a time before being forced to reset. If you are successful, you get a few shortcuts and the main prize. If you fail, then you have to redo large portions of those dungeons again.
It can be very frustrating to collect a whole bunch of minor items only to see them all slip away because you need to reset the infernal clock. Some people might say that this adds a unique challenge to the game, but for me, it’s extremely annoying after a while.
Another aspect that is surprising to me is the difficulty. Ocarina of Time gave you really solid clues on where you needed to travel to next. In this game, all you’re more or less told is which compass direction you need to head into next. Getting to the main dungeon, well, that’s an entirely different story. You pretty much need to figure out all the steps you need to take to get to the end goal. Often, those steps can be hard to find as you run aimlessly around trying to figure out what you need to trigger next.
For the difficulty perspective, it’s like the developers figured that players already played Ocarina of Time and need an even bigger puzzle challenge. If you’re new to the franchise, I would hesitate to recommend this game primarily thanks to the difficulty.
Now, having said all of that, there is a lot of great gameplay to be had underneath these two flaws. The controls such as the Z targeting and fast access to items are very tight and easy to use. The dungeon’s themselves force you to think, but rarely frustrate the players (some may argue the water dungeon is an exception to that, but I personally didn’t mind it).
The stray fairy system is a nice new concept thrown in the game. It’s implementation is top notch. What’s more is if players can’t find that last fairy and have to quit, no big deal. Everything after Clocktower is technically optional. While it gives players a nice added challenge, the rewards are very worth trying to complete these side-quests. I really like the implementation of the Great Fairy mask because it doesn’t just dump you into the dungeon and expect you to know everything. You get some small hints along the way thanks to the shimmering hair which is nice.
There’s a host of small mini-games throughout. Again, a lot of these are optional, but there can be some great rewards for completing them. I really like the variety this gives the players. You get a nice break from the main quest and get a lot of variety throughout the game. Even when you are locked inside Clocktower at the beginning, there is a lot you can do on the optional side of things. This is definitely well implemented.
On top of that, I really like the gradual progression of items. You can get a huge board of items by the time you are done playing. However, this game gives you a few items at a time. With the special item ladder, you find yourself mastering the items you have before getting more throughout the game. This stops players from getting overwhelmed and confused part way through. This is nicely done.
Boss fights have a lot of interesting quirks. Some games may force you to just refine a few small set of moves to defeat bosses. In this game, however, you need to rely on a host of different lines of attack. One mini-boss, for instance, forces you to shoot out of Deku Flowers at just the right time. Other boss fights demand that you use a special arrow. Some simply require you to exercise a forms special ability for success. There’s really only a minor form of repetition, but strategies are generally easy to devise – especially thanks to your fairies hints.
Generally speaking, there is a lot to enjoy in this game. Great item progression, the countless sidequests, and that overall sense of immersion is quite strong in this game. My only real complaints is trying to navigate at times and the limitations of time that artificially inflates game time. Still, in spite of these aspects, it’s a very worthwhile game to play and is recommended.
Graphically, this game manages to impress yet again. Being one of the few games that requires the expansion pack, you can really notice a difference. The draw distance is much longer (save for enemies of course). While some art is re-used from the previous game, there is a lot of new stuff to be found here as well. As was the case with the last game, the special effects are very nicely done. Lighting effects work extremely well too. There’s some new effects such as the ghosting effect as well as things being frozen over. For a game of it’s time, this really is top of the line quality here.
Audio once again is impressive. Some classic tracks such as the Lost Woods theme as well as horse racing music make a return here, but there’s a load of new tracks to enjoy as well. The Deku Palace and Woodfall Temple are great examples of these. Packed with this are the nicely done sound effects and small speech samples thrown into the mix. This game manages to do a great job here as well.
Overall, this is a great game worth playing. While the time concept thrown in as well as the disconnect of hints to where you need to go do hamper gameplay somewhat, there is still a lot to enjoy. There’s the ladder of items that is well-realized. That stray fairy system works quite well. Who can forget the huge number of sidequests that are buried in this game as well? Graphics are certainly top notch and the audio is great as well. So, a great game definitely worth playing overall.
Overall
Furthest point in game: Beat the game (not 100%, but did get a number of side quests complete).
General gameplay: 21/25
Replay value: 9/10
Graphics: 9/10
Audio: 4/5
Overall rating: 86%
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
