I had never played Majora's Mask until now, and I had always seen it as a large hole in my gaming repertoire. Needless to say I was ecstatic when I saw that it had been released on the Wii Virtual Console. So, how does it compare to its predecessor, Ocarina of Time? It has more collection, less substance, and in short it's the perfect epilogue to one of the best games ever.
Majora's Mask has us playing as young Link once again. But, unlike Ocarina of Time, there's no adult Link to serve as the counterpart to young link. Instead, Link is able, through the use of masks, to change into other forms: Goron, Zoran, and Deku. Each form has its own powers and abilities. The abilities of each form complement the traditional aspects of a Zelda game quite well, and I appreciated the variety that they gave to the game. For instance, instead of getting underwater armor for Link, we can use Zoran Link to swim and breathe underwater. Zoran Link also has a weapon that can be thrown that takes the place of the boomerang. Goron Link can survive while walking through lava, and can smash down objects, taking the place of the hammer. Deku Link can float on air, bounce on the surface of water, and spin attack. These different forms of Link are a welcome addition to the game, and I really enjoyed using each's abilities.
Aside from those masks, you can collect other masks that don't transform you, but instead they give you special abilities, powers, or access to certain areas in the game. For instance, the bunny hood allows Link to run faster. The Mask of Truth allows Link to talk to animals. The Romani mask gives you access to the Milk Club. And the Gibdo mask allows you to talk to ReDeads and Mummies. Collecting and using these masks is very fun, especially for the kids.
Speaking of collecting, there are plenty of other things to collect besides masks. There are heart pieces, empty bottles, equipment, stray fairies, and more. I played through the game the first time, found about half of these things, and then got thoroughly defeated by the end boss. I'm confident that I could have defeated the boss if I had faced him again. But, instead, I decided to start over from scratch because the game was so fun. I grabbed a walkthrough from GameFAQs and began playing from the beginning. In the end of my second playthrough I was 1 piece of heart away from 100% completion in the game. Majora's Mask is fun either way; whether you want to obsessively collect everything and experience everything that the game has to offer, or if you'd rather just find what you can, and explore the world on your own. Both are great.
There's a point of contention in the game that seems to divide people. The game is set up so that you play the same three days (the three days before the world ends) over and over again until you've defeated the four major bosses and enlisted their help. For some this seems to destroy the classic Zelda format enough that they don't like the game. It didn't bother me. It seems a small trade off for being able to save anywhere and any time. Sure you lose your money, arrows, bombs and the like, but it's easy to get more; it's trivially easy as the game progresses to refill your supplies. To me it seemed like a small issue, but for other's it has really destroyed the game. I don't get it.
Conclusion: When compared to Ocarina of Time, I'd have to say that I liked Ocarina of Time better. Still, Majora's Mask keept the feel and joy of Ocarina of Time, but changed just enough about how the game works to keep me interested.
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