The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Nintendo 64) Second Opinion Review

Link, for the first time in his adventurous life, does nothing at all - and why should he? The townspeople are working on the preparations for the annual Carnival of Time, which will take place in front of a big clock tower. The music is cheerful, and no one seems to be in a bad or anxious mood… then the camera begins to ascend, showing a weird masked creature on top of the tower, who gazes upon a scene that is as frightening as it is ridiculous: the moon is a few hundred feet above the town, and it has a very threatening look on its, almost skeletal, face. This heavenly body, however, isn't there just for show; this will actually be Link's rival for the following three days, at the end of which it will fall down and destroy everything.

The intro is, undoubtedly, a taste of things to come, with The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask being the darkest of all Zelda games so far. In fact, many of the small sub-plots that this young hero will get involved in throughout this quest will actually have a pretty gloomy mood, which, coupled with the imminent catastrophe, creates a pretty foreboding atmosphere. Luckily, being the courageous hero that he is, Link grabs his sword, and sets of to clear the four available dungeons that surround Clock Town, the hub-area of Termina (nice name giving *irony*), and stop the moon from descending… If he can make it on time, that is, because the clock is constantly ticking.

Wait, though. A time limit in a series where half the pleasure stems from being given infinite time to explore? The answer is pretty simple: time never stops, but, through the wondrous Ocarina of Time, it can be bent, which means that whenever Link chooses to, he can just play a few notes, and BOOM! all back to day one. This concept is certainly quite original, but is it enjoyable gameplay-wise? Initially, everything screams Ocarina of Time; the controls, the look, the basic goal of finding items, doing side-quests, playing mini-games, and completing dungeons - it's all here… but, things aren't as wonderful as they seem to be.

For starters, the whole structure of this adventure leans, strangely enough, heavily towards the side-quests, when in previous titles these only acted as brief intervals between the various sections of the core game. Of course, Clock Town is just that - a town; therefore its inhabitants are just a bunch of simple folk with simple needs. Now, while a small area, there are tons of things to do and, depending on the current day and hour, the various characters do different things in frequently different places.

What about these quests, though; are they fun? To be honest, despite being just a bunch of unimpressive errands, they can be entertaining at times - especially when the reward involves being shoved in the ample bosom of a grateful, beautiful young lady. Unfortunately, the time-rewinding mechanic ruins everything. Why? Mainly because a lot of trial and error is needed to finish these quests, since many require doing certain things at very specific moments, with fails being equal to going back to zero, and being forced to watch the same mini-plots develop again, and again, and again.

If this part is so annoying, though, why not focus on the main thing? First of all, most items can only be acquired by doing these tedious chores. Second, Majora's Mask is surprisingly tougher than most Zelda titles, and since the few dungeons available provide only a few heart pieces, side-quests become a must. Finally, reaching all four dungeons means needing to meet certain prerequisites first, with a single misstep translating to doing things all over again - and never forget that the clock never stops doing its thing.

Note that since this revolves around the titular Majora's Mask, there's a great focus in finding such items, which turn out to be the most unique pieces of equipment in here. These can make Link faster or invisible, or even transform him into a weak, but agile, Deku Scrub, a hulking Goron, or a swimming Zora. Sadly, this mechanic wasn't exploited to its full potential, with most masks being simple quest items, which means that they become obsolete the moment they serve their purpose.

Generally, there's a feeling of inconsistency here. Despite its size, Termina is a world bustling with life, yet it's easy to get sick of experiencing it more than once. The graphic quality is awesome, with cleaner textures, better lighting, and a slightly smoother frame rate, but too many things have been recycled from Ocarina of Time. The music is great, but not up to par to the grandiose soundtracks of the franchise. Finally, the dungeons are, once again, fantastic, but the actual steps that are needed to reach them can become extremely irritating, especially when having to repeat certain portions of the game all over again.