One of my favorite things about Majora's Mask is that you literally can't help everyone. You can't do everything in a single three-day cycle- you can't defend the ranch, ride with Cremia, help reunite Anju and Kafei, return the Deku princess, shut the Goron elder's son up, save Lulu's eggs, let Keeta trust you with his final message, rescue Pamela's father, and let the king of Ikana and his soldiers rest, all in one go. At most, you can do a few of these things, but you'll never do all of them. And the kicker is, even finishing the game, killing Majora and returning the moon to the sky, doesn't undo Darmani's death or Romani's mental trauma at the hands of the Flatwoods-style aliens. All it does is give these people more time, let them go back to their trivial problems, the pressure of time now gone, and the freedom to waste it having returned. You create dozens of timelines over the course of the game, one where you return the Deku princess and save the monkey, one where you teach the Rosa sisters the dance they feel like they NEED to know, one where you heal Pamela's father, but every single one of those timelines, *except one,* ends with all of those people dying, terrified. Something I noticed during my most recent playthrough is that the people of Termina are somewhat aware of Hyrule. Listening to Granny's long story in the inn, she talks about how "the imp returned to the heavens", so there IS Terminian lore or myth of a world above them, and Link gets to Termina by falling from Hyrule. This also confirms that Skull Kid can travel between Hyrule and Termina at will, and it's possible other residents of either world have done the same.
I love Majora's Mask so much, specially how it rewards you knowing all the schedules and characters, the more you play, the more you plan things around all their schedule and gets more items in fewer loops. It's incredibly satisfying to play, every second of it
Here's why MM is my favourite Zelda game. I love MM because every characters are so memorable, because they each have their own "segment." Their own stories to explore. The theme of MM is sad and dark. The 3 race masks also gives so much story potential. It is so sad, that it was the only time they let us play as the 3 other races.
This is one of those games that I absolutely adore but rarely talk about because I have nothing to add that hasn't been said. But I would like to say that I think Majora's Mask captures the feeling of adventure and discovery way better than most Zeldas, OoT included. Since there's so much optional content and Termina is so rich, it feels like I'm really going on my own mini adventures in a fully realized new world when I enter the spider house or explore the graveyard at night. There are very few things like that if at all in previous games, and many games later.
I know it's been said to death but I love the Anju and Kafei side quest. As a matter of fact all the side quests are great, I've never beaten this game without beating all of them
The Majora's Mask doesn't actually houses a demon, it is the demon. It's a shinto reference where objects full of hatred becomes the hatred. There's a yokai like that. Majora is probably the name of the tribe that used it, it's inspired in the Marajoara tribe of natives from Brazil.
Another banger as usual. Love hearing your thoughts on all these games. I did hear you mention Mega Man in this one briefly, would be totally down for some Mega Man content one day as we keep moving through various series you enjoy.
This is one of those games that scare me and not in a common "spooky" sense of the word. It's scary how GREAT this game is, and as an artist it scares me even more thinking that there are works out there like this one that display such a level of pure, immeasurable creativity. However, there's one thing it does to me way more than scaring, and that's INSPIRING me, and if I wasn't such a braindead fool, I'd thank the lord or whoever or whatever for living in a time where I have experienced it, and continue to do so. Great video as always Pariah, loved to hear your thoughts on this one!
speaking of the hero of time al though that it's been confirmed by hyrule historia that he's hero shade from twilight princess with an evidence discovered by fans being the scaber of the sword whose 3d model is similar to that of adult link's master sword scaber , i think that there was many oppurtunities that they could have done with the hero of time like a game whose story center around the imprisoning war where link go back to hyrule and discover that ganon dorf had taken over hyrule again this time some how managing to enter the sacred realm , and some how also managing to take link's and zelda's triforces , then you embark on a journey to figure out how to defeat ganon who has the full triforce and meet with many NPCs that represent many soliders preparing to reclaim the king dom as you go through many side quests that make you bond with those soliders and understand how they feel regarding their king dom being taken over , with those knights fighting ganon eventually in a war and defeating him along with link powering up the master sword similar to how he did in a link to the past through side quests to help the sword being even stronger to fight ganon with the full triforce , with ou rising victorious defeating him and allowing the sages to seal him , with link reflecting on those soliders who sacrificed their lives to bring back hyrule and continuing his life , leaving that game as a prequel to a link to the past , but instead we got twilight princess , but what ever it was a good game
I was waiting for this review, Majora's Mask is my all time favourite Zelda game, I couldn't ever think of a better video essay. Phenomenal one bro, you even introduce me to this mod that fixes the 3DS version! I hope one day Nintendo does another remaster of this game for modern hardware along with OoT 3DS and improve the combat for both, even if its just BoTW levels which isn't very in-depth either but you know what I mean! I always dreamed of a 3rd Hero of Time game to end off his story with a trilogy but that does seem like a dream for now unless we get these games remastered. Looking forward to your future Zelda reviews, I'm enjoying the ride!
"No one can really agree on which the better one is" - My take here is that Ocarina of Time pioneered a lot of good features, and is a great game, but the game and everything in it are too short as a result. Like, easily 100% within a day short... But that kinda had to happen, and pretty much every 2D franchise I love's first 3D game felt way too short and disappointed me while still being an amazing game, simply because they were being compared to their best predecessors. (Super Mario 64, Sonic Adventure, Ocarina of Time, Etc... The only exception being Metroid Prime, but they skipped a generation and waited until they really knew what they were doing with 3D from other games before making it, and even then they still topped it with Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.) Majora's Mask improves on a lot of things, as you point out throughout the video. So as much as I love both, my preference is also for Majora's Mask over Ocarina of Time. A few similar opinions, but more summarized: Megaman 3 > Megaman 2, Super Mario Bros 3 > Super Mario World, Sonic Adventure 2 > Sonic Adventure 1, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles > Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but every single game I just gave my comparative opinion on is an absolute masterpiece. (Also, I've never played a Dead Space game, so I can't give provide my opinion on that.) "A bad Zelda item is one you use in two places..." - The spinner! (That's the one I immediately thought of (from Twilight Princess). It's so much fun for about 3 rooms, but otherwise just wastes inventory space... It's so disappointing because of how little its used.)
The biggest issue with the spinner for me is that in the boss room it goes super fast, when it doesn't do that anywhere else in the game. Give it that speed at all times and it becomes a great speedy way to get around.
@@Pariah6950 Yeah, making it be a speed item (like the bunny hood) when there aren't tracks around for it would've made it WAY better, especially with how much open space there is in that game. Faster than the wolf form, but more momentum based because of what it is, so not as agile for sharp turns. I think the rationale in the boss arena is that it's a down-slope to reach the boss, but it would've just been better gameplay to be able to ride it around.
Still following this series of Zelda videos, it's going awesome, keep it up! Question though, do you have a citation for Majora's Mask having a demon inside of it? I'm having a hard time finding any reference to that.
The manga for Majora’s Mask goes into the backstory of the mask as well as the Fierce Deity Mask. Not many people realize this, but to my knowledge a lot of the Zelda manga tie-ins from the 1990s are considered at least partially canon.
@@SicMetalMaggot4lifeI own the Akira Himekawa manga but it's certainly not canon. In fact, the duo calls out the side story of the creation of the mask as being something they dreamed up and not connected to the story in any way. Thank you for the answer though. I'm hoping for something canon that they mentioned. Even something from the Dark horse releases would be useful.
Agreed. Majoras mask is my fav Zelda game. Its all about the ppl of Clock Town and the quests are all fulfilling as hell and the darker tone is something Zelda hasnt done before or after to this extent. The game actually had moments that made me cry. The dungeons while not many are all very good and all the areas are excellent. The mask transformations are unique and this game really is just the best
When people talk about this game, I think the main topics are often the dark atmosphere, the existential dread and the hopelessness that engulfs the world. And you just talk about it like it's the happiest game ever made. I mean, I agree with what you say, but for me, the takeaway is that people (in this case, me) prioritise things so differently that they easily look past other things that are just as important. Lesson learned, hopefully. 18:51 Somehow the reflection doesn't make sense here. I guess the game is generous. 19:43 That's the ballad of the windfish? Damn, I never knew.
I appreciate those things about the game as well, of course. But the discussions is always on that stuff, massively overshadowing how well done the game part of Majora's Mask is. This game is even better than most people give it credit for.
Now I’ll be perfectly honest, for whatever reason the 3D Zelda games have always been something I have struggled to get into. I played Link Between Worlds and loved it, I played BOTW/TOTK and loved it, I played Link’s Awakening and loved it, and I’ve even played the original Zelda for NES and loved it. But every single time I’ve tried to play Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, or Twilight Princess, I just have not been able to play those games for more than a few hours without dropping them forever. This is in spite of the fact that I DESPERATELY want to get into these games and love them, and always have. I played Skyward Sword HD last year after TOTK and I was loving it, but just somewhere in the middle I stopped playing and haven’t picked it back up yet (probably because I got a full time job and have had other games I wanna play). Anyways, back when these remakes were coming out, I had the plan of playing through them until I beat them and of course I failed to do that again. But I did have the exact same idea you had where they should have made a sequel game to Ocarina and Majora in the exact same engine for 3DS. It would have been such a great idea, and I still to this day don’t understand why they didn’t do that lol
I'll be honest, I've tried to play both the original and the 3DS versions of MM before and I just kinda bounced right off of it, it didn't really click with me. I've been able to respect the game, its legacy, its departures from what a Zelda game is expected to be, etc. but I couldn't really find the interest to play it. I think it's partially because I've seen countless words spent praising the game's atmosphere and story and while they're probably right, that mostly just made me want to watch someone else play it. This is the first vid in a while that's actually made the game look fun or interesting to play. Also I find the point of the crossover between item-based puzzle doors of Metroid-vanias and the logic-based puzzle doors of adventure games particularly fascinating!
If you like time loop puzzles you should give Ghost Trick a try. While the story itself is not set in a time loop, your character has the ability to create short time loops to prevent people from dying
This is definitely one of my favorites, but oddly enough I don't play it as much as Ocarina of Time and frankly, that comes down to what makes each game different at their cores. I play through all of Ocarina of Time once or twice every year, been doing this for a good few years now, and it usually only takes me a handful of days, one or two dungeons a session, then side-questing, then finish the run once I have all 20 hearts. While I definitely don't care too much for particularly the shooting range mini-games because I'm playing the Gamecube port and the control-stick sensitivity isn't properly adjusted for Ocarina of Time (though better than using an actual N64 controller because Nintendo cut corners on the US/EU models and EVERYTHING is slower on US N64 controllers), I find the overall game experience more relaxing and even meditative, thus overall easier to dive in on a whim for. Majora's Mask, I've only had a couple of playthroughs of in my entire life: I went through and finished the main story and several side-quests when I was twelve, fighting Majora the old-fashioned way Then I went through and did the main four dungeons and several side-quests once when I was 15 and again a year and a half ago (I'm currently 24). In a lot of ways Majora's Mask is definitely the more fun and engaging game to play, and the element of mystery still isn't lost on me for how few times I've played through it, but especially now I can't help myself in trying to plot out my schedule for every cycle, trying to figure out how best to full-clear all masks all hearts in as few cycles as possible, which takes a considerable amount more strategizing and overall brain work, which isn't a bad thing, just makes the game overall less approachable for me especially given having to do more or less the same thing in real life as I'm struggling to gain and maintain control of my own real future. I'm pretty impressed that there's a Restoration project for the 3DS remake, though not very surprised. Even if I personally still prefer the N64 graphics, I think it's fair to say that Majora's Mask is yet another game where the definitive experience was left up to the fans to create.
There is a romhack of ocarina set between it and majora, called the missing link at least. Also, this is reminding me of the fact that I love deathloop, but it kind of fumbled it's timeloop by only having one way to kill everyone in a single loop
I have an odd love of the 3D version. Never tried the Restoration (I have no idea on modding like that), and it has been a while since I had played the N64 version (have the fancy Gamecube Zelda disc). The things that get harped on are things I found enjoyable, but... I know you say the bosses aren't great, and I can see that. But I think one thing I liked that the 3DS did was, evne though I get the gripes about the eye weak spot, is how they actually need you to take advantage of the form masks. Odolwa in the 3DS needs you to hit him from above with a Deku Nut first, Goht requiring the rolling challenge, and then Gyorg forces you into the water to fight (I don't recall if that was in the original). Are they still iffy? Yeah, but I liked that element, oddly enough.
Have you considered reviewing the Pac Man World games? I wonder how you think of them. Most fans think 2 is the best, but some disagree and say the first is the best
I dunno about better dungeons, OOT had a perfect introduction dungeon better as a introduction then the swamp dungeon and both have a annoying water dungeon but OOTs could be cool at times like using the boomerang in Jabu Jabus belly which is like a semi water dungeon, and the spirit temple is just pretty challenging and long too, really it having more dungeons too and better boss fights makes the OOT dungeons overall better if you ask me. Overall MM is better but not in every way and it was clearly rushed too.
I have to wonder, a lot of the design decisions for this game that people loved were added when Aonuma was under severe stress due to the deadlines placed on him. When it came to the 3ds version a lot of people had negative opinions of the adjustments he made now that he wasn't under such a severe crunch. Makes you wonder how true the adage of suffering for your art is. On the one hand we wouldn't of gotten Majora's Mask the way it was without those strict deadlines, on the other hand a lot of the bad design decisions and lack of quality in games like the Sonic series can be attributed to having small teams with tight deadlines.
Did you get that idea from Nerrel's video? I'm not sure a game turns out great just by a lucky accident. Have you ever done your homework or taken an exam under stress and it turned out to be amazing? I think I did, but it was the absolute exception. MM wasn't just developed by Aonuma. Maybe the team had lots of leftover ideas from OoT. And much time passed between the original and the remake. Maybe his views changed inbetween and he liked the original after it was finished.
Fun fact Demon Majora appears in a prequel manga. Where it is a dragon. The thing that always makes for the best bosses in the series, like Stallord in TP and Possessed Naydra in BOTW. Really pissed it never showed up in game.
Most people say the 3DS version ruined Twin Mold compared to the original because Giant's Mask forced Link to wrestle the worms very slowly and painfully as opposed to using his sword. I can't say for the Restoration version you played, but seems like you were dealing with the original versions of the bosses and not the 3DS rewrites. The 3DS boss rewrites are absolutely horribly due to how the bosses are changed and how most of the changes make bland but quick and easy bosses into downright slogs... which is not great for time management at all. The 3DS changes make all of the main four bosses require Link to stun them in some way to reveal a specific Eyeball weakpoint that wasn't in the originals, it just pops out of them and is more or less identical between all four. Probably the least offensive of them is Goht because the eyeball weakness is the only change to the boss, you fight Goht in mostly the same way except now you can't cheese him with arrow shots because you HAVE to hit the giant obvious eyeball to deal damage now. Gyorg and Twin Mold are effectively ruined by the initial 3DS changes because Gyorg now has a phase two that removes the platform, forcing you to fight him in Zora form, and you play a very time-wasting bullet hell game because he just clusters a ton of mines everywhere and I think you're forced to awkwardly wait for him to try to inhale you or something and make him swallow a mine before you can even attempt to damage him And then Twin Mold's rewrite is just... horribly clunky because again Giant's Mask forces you to wrestle the worms, and then forces you to swap back to slash the Giant Eyeball, and you can't shoot their faces or tails to ignore the mask transformation. I completely understand wanting more interesting bosses, especially a more interesting final boss because the time loop is no longer at play for that one, but I think it's actually a very good and nice thing that the main four bosses are quick, simple, and easy to cheese because unique to Majora's Mask, you can refight the bosses and sometimes have to if for any reason at all you need to do a side-quest that requires you to do something at a particular time in one of the regions when its in its "restored" state, and the 3DS versions of the bosses are absolutely not good for that. Still, from the footage provided, you were definitely fighting the original versions of the bosses. The redone bosses straight up force you to fight them in only one way and that way for each boss involves the transformation masks, in a very weird, gimmicky, time-wasting way.
The bosses are changed in in the restoration to be more similar to the originals, but some things are kept. You still have the second Gyorg phase and wrestling Twinmold, but without having to shrink back. I only played the vanilla 3DS version once, but I remember finding the bosses to be universally better than the originals. I'd rather have to stun Odolwa and have a real boss fight instead of a joke. And the original Twinmold fight was terrible. Just slashing at them until they die as they float around haphazardly. You do make a good point about how the original fights being short makes them better if you have to refight. But I think I'd rather redo a worthwhile fight instead of a non-fight.
Gyorg is not that bad or ruined as he was just made harder. Nah as bosses they should still be actual challenges. They are good for that but are also good challenges too. They are not all weird or that gimmicky or time wasting.
Okay, so...my comment got removed for whatever reason. So, I'm just gonna try to recreate it because I don't think it was removed intentionally. Wouldn't make much sense in my opinion... Just as I expected this video is far more interesting in comparison to the Ocarina of Time video. It's not because the video itself is better or worse, no. It's just as good, as I would usually expect from this channel. It's because the game itself is FAR more interesting to talk about in comparison to Ocarina of Time. Ocarina of Time is just a really plain boring game in comparison to any other 3D Zelda game afterwards. If we compare all of the 3D Zelda games with each other, most of these games are very similar to Ocarina of Time. People often complain about Twilight Princess being to similar to Ocarina of Time in terms of structure, but if we look at it EVERY single 3D Zelda game is similar to Ocarina of Time. That's the thing: Ocarina of Time established a baseline which the whole rest of the series followed in some way or another. But that results in Ocarina of Time looking really plain in comparison. Don't get me wrong, I still think the game is great and all. But I completely agree with this video here: Majoras Mask just towers over Ocarina of Time in so many aspects. At the end of the day, it is subjective, but...I think there are some things in MM which are clear objective improvements over Ocarina. For example: Condensing multiple items into 1 (the transformation masks) results in a lot less menu navigation. The existence of the bunny hood in itself is an objective improvement. Also, I think the accessibility of Termina Field is an objective improvement. You can reach any destination you want in just a few minutes without having to stroll around Hyrule Field for 5 minutes. And the most obvious one: Making fast travel available from the get-go is the most objectively good gameplay mechanic/improvement I have ever seen. There is no reason to handle it the way Ocarina of Time did...which is why most games take the Majoras Mask approach in regards to fast travel. Personally, I have to say Majoras Mask is one of my favorite Zelda games, especially because of how much it improves on Ocarina of Time. But I don't actually think Ocarina of Time is the worst 3D Zelda game. I personally like it more than Skyward Sword and Wind Waker, just for the simple reason of being a far less flawed game. Sure, it's far more plain and lifeless in comparison to Skyward Sword and Wind Waker, but...both of these games have a few issues which just drag them down for me personally. For example: I really really don't like the sailing in Wind Waker. I think it's one of the worst decisions Nintendo ever made for a Zelda game just because of how boring it is in execution. Finally, to round up my long comment just a reminder that this game was made under huge time contrains. Majoras Mask is not an amazing 3D Zelda game despite it's constrained development. It's an amazing game BECAUSE of it's time contraints. And gonna edit this in here really fast because I forgot to mention it: This was a really fast follow-up video without losing anything in quality! Great work as always!
Yeah. Sorry about that. I saw your comment, but was busy so didn't have time to read it. When I checked again it was gone. That's been happening randomly to some comments on my videos for a while and I have no idea why. I'm fine with OoT being fairly plain. It was still the early days of Zelda, and there was lots of tech innovations happening that made that exciting time and time again. OoT is plain because it's 3D LttP, which is plain because it's the upgraded Zelda 1. I see a clear attempt to refine and perfect that pure idea of Zelda during these early games. But after those things are achieved at the current tech level, that's when we get the more creative, out-there games like LA and MM. TP was another attempt to do that pure Zelda game. I think that's the real issue. Trying to iterate the same game over and over, rather than making a new game. Which is why the Zeldas that are a little further from the vanilla are more interesting. I'll probably talk about this in more detail in a future video.
@@Pariah6950 Really weird thing with the comments...And yeah, I agree with everything you said here. I personally am really looking forward to your Wind Waker opinions, because that game is...weird. And with ,,weird" I mean weird gameplay decisions. In my opinion it's an extremely flawed game, but at the same time really appealing and fun.
This game might be good if you've played it before but everyone's first playthrough is gonna be dreadful. Everything is gonna take too many cycles to figure out, it starts to feel like a chore, dungeons are good but you never wanna do them because of how much time they take, and if you're in the middle of a side quest or multiple side quests and you run out of time you lose too much progress. Learning the game is just the opposite of fun
also YOU REALLY NEED TO SEE MAJOR LINK'S FAN MADE SERIES " legend of zelda hero's purpose" MAN IT IS SUCH A VERY GOOD FAN MADE 3d ANIMATION THAT TAKE PLACE AFTER MAJORA'S MASK AND BEFORE TWILIGHT PRINCESS THAT DOES A FANTASTIC JOB PORTRAYING THE HERO OF TIME AND EVEN HUMANIZING GANON , THERE ARE 5 EPISODES RELEASED FROM IT FOR NOW , WITH MORE COMING IN THE FUTUR , i hope you take a look at it
I'm starting to think Pariah may be really the fastest thing alive. Did not expect to see another video so soon. Absolutely not complaining tho
it makes you faster when you don't have burnout probably
That and the fact his videos are not scripted
Just so you know, I didn't just beat the game. I've had the footage for both these games for weeks.
One of my favorite things about Majora's Mask is that you literally can't help everyone. You can't do everything in a single three-day cycle- you can't defend the ranch, ride with Cremia, help reunite Anju and Kafei, return the Deku princess, shut the Goron elder's son up, save Lulu's eggs, let Keeta trust you with his final message, rescue Pamela's father, and let the king of Ikana and his soldiers rest, all in one go. At most, you can do a few of these things, but you'll never do all of them. And the kicker is, even finishing the game, killing Majora and returning the moon to the sky, doesn't undo Darmani's death or Romani's mental trauma at the hands of the Flatwoods-style aliens. All it does is give these people more time, let them go back to their trivial problems, the pressure of time now gone, and the freedom to waste it having returned.
You create dozens of timelines over the course of the game, one where you return the Deku princess and save the monkey, one where you teach the Rosa sisters the dance they feel like they NEED to know, one where you heal Pamela's father, but every single one of those timelines, *except one,* ends with all of those people dying, terrified.
Something I noticed during my most recent playthrough is that the people of Termina are somewhat aware of Hyrule. Listening to Granny's long story in the inn, she talks about how "the imp returned to the heavens", so there IS Terminian lore or myth of a world above them, and Link gets to Termina by falling from Hyrule. This also confirms that Skull Kid can travel between Hyrule and Termina at will, and it's possible other residents of either world have done the same.
The credits scenes to me seem to imply that through weirdo timeloop magic somehow everything you do to help everyone all occurs in the end timeline.
I love Majora's Mask so much, specially how it rewards you knowing all the schedules and characters, the more you play, the more you plan things around all their schedule and gets more items in fewer loops.
It's incredibly satisfying to play, every second of it
You will not be forgiven for skipping the cdi games
This game has gotta be my favorite zelda game. The atmostphere and the characters were so memorable.
Here's why MM is my favourite Zelda game.
I love MM because every characters are so memorable, because they each have their own "segment." Their own stories to explore. The theme of MM is sad and dark.
The 3 race masks also gives so much story potential. It is so sad, that it was the only time they let us play as the 3 other races.
This is one of those games that I absolutely adore but rarely talk about because I have nothing to add that hasn't been said. But I would like to say that I think Majora's Mask captures the feeling of adventure and discovery way better than most Zeldas, OoT included.
Since there's so much optional content and Termina is so rich, it feels like I'm really going on my own mini adventures in a fully realized new world when I enter the spider house or explore the graveyard at night. There are very few things like that if at all in previous games, and many games later.
I know it's been said to death but I love the Anju and Kafei side quest. As a matter of fact all the side quests are great, I've never beaten this game without beating all of them
The Majora's Mask doesn't actually houses a demon, it is the demon. It's a shinto reference where objects full of hatred becomes the hatred. There's a yokai like that. Majora is probably the name of the tribe that used it, it's inspired in the Marajoara tribe of natives from Brazil.
Another banger as usual. Love hearing your thoughts on all these games. I did hear you mention Mega Man in this one briefly, would be totally down for some Mega Man content one day as we keep moving through various series you enjoy.
I second this especially with his interesting thoughts on action games
This is one of those games that scare me and not in a common "spooky" sense of the word. It's scary how GREAT this game is, and as an artist it scares me even more thinking that there are works out there like this one that display such a level of pure, immeasurable creativity. However, there's one thing it does to me way more than scaring, and that's INSPIRING me, and if I wasn't such a braindead fool, I'd thank the lord or whoever or whatever for living in a time where I have experienced it, and continue to do so.
Great video as always Pariah, loved to hear your thoughts on this one!
Great video. I hope the next retrospective is Castlevania. I would love to see his ideas on that series.
11:00 Funny how Shenmue got so much praise for this, but MM did it in addition to being an actually fun game to play.
speaking of the hero of time al though that it's been confirmed by hyrule historia that he's hero shade from twilight princess with an evidence discovered by fans being the scaber of the sword whose 3d model is similar to that of adult link's master sword scaber , i think that there was many oppurtunities that they could have done with the hero of time like a game whose story center around the imprisoning war where link go back to hyrule and discover that ganon dorf had taken over hyrule again this time some how managing to enter the sacred realm , and some how also managing to take link's and zelda's triforces , then you embark on a journey to figure out how to defeat ganon who has the full triforce and meet with many NPCs that represent many soliders preparing to reclaim the king dom as you go through many side quests that make you bond with those soliders and understand how they feel regarding their king dom being taken over , with those knights fighting ganon eventually in a war and defeating him along with link powering up the master sword similar to how he did in a link to the past through side quests to help the sword being even stronger to fight ganon with the full triforce , with ou rising victorious defeating him and allowing the sages to seal him , with link reflecting on those soliders who sacrificed their lives to bring back hyrule and continuing his life , leaving that game as a prequel to a link to the past , but instead we got twilight princess , but what ever it was a good game
I was waiting for this review, Majora's Mask is my all time favourite Zelda game, I couldn't ever think of a better video essay. Phenomenal one bro, you even introduce me to this mod that fixes the 3DS version! I hope one day Nintendo does another remaster of this game for modern hardware along with OoT 3DS and improve the combat for both, even if its just BoTW levels which isn't very in-depth either but you know what I mean! I always dreamed of a 3rd Hero of Time game to end off his story with a trilogy but that does seem like a dream for now unless we get these games remastered.
Looking forward to your future Zelda reviews, I'm enjoying the ride!
"No one can really agree on which the better one is" - My take here is that Ocarina of Time pioneered a lot of good features, and is a great game, but the game and everything in it are too short as a result. Like, easily 100% within a day short... But that kinda had to happen, and pretty much every 2D franchise I love's first 3D game felt way too short and disappointed me while still being an amazing game, simply because they were being compared to their best predecessors. (Super Mario 64, Sonic Adventure, Ocarina of Time, Etc... The only exception being Metroid Prime, but they skipped a generation and waited until they really knew what they were doing with 3D from other games before making it, and even then they still topped it with Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.) Majora's Mask improves on a lot of things, as you point out throughout the video. So as much as I love both, my preference is also for Majora's Mask over Ocarina of Time.
A few similar opinions, but more summarized: Megaman 3 > Megaman 2, Super Mario Bros 3 > Super Mario World, Sonic Adventure 2 > Sonic Adventure 1, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles > Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but every single game I just gave my comparative opinion on is an absolute masterpiece. (Also, I've never played a Dead Space game, so I can't give provide my opinion on that.)
"A bad Zelda item is one you use in two places..." - The spinner! (That's the one I immediately thought of (from Twilight Princess). It's so much fun for about 3 rooms, but otherwise just wastes inventory space... It's so disappointing because of how little its used.)
The biggest issue with the spinner for me is that in the boss room it goes super fast, when it doesn't do that anywhere else in the game. Give it that speed at all times and it becomes a great speedy way to get around.
@@Pariah6950 Yeah, making it be a speed item (like the bunny hood) when there aren't tracks around for it would've made it WAY better, especially with how much open space there is in that game. Faster than the wolf form, but more momentum based because of what it is, so not as agile for sharp turns. I think the rationale in the boss arena is that it's a down-slope to reach the boss, but it would've just been better gameplay to be able to ride it around.
Watching pariah videos make me feel smart
Haha, congratulations on being the only person who likes the 3ds Twinmold fight.
Still following this series of Zelda videos, it's going awesome, keep it up! Question though, do you have a citation for Majora's Mask having a demon inside of it? I'm having a hard time finding any reference to that.
The manga for Majora’s Mask goes into the backstory of the mask as well as the Fierce Deity Mask. Not many people realize this, but to my knowledge a lot of the Zelda manga tie-ins from the 1990s are considered at least partially canon.
@@SicMetalMaggot4lifeI own the Akira Himekawa manga but it's certainly not canon. In fact, the duo calls out the side story of the creation of the mask as being something they dreamed up and not connected to the story in any way. Thank you for the answer though. I'm hoping for something canon that they mentioned. Even something from the Dark horse releases would be useful.
Agreed. Majoras mask is my fav Zelda game. Its all about the ppl of Clock Town and the quests are all fulfilling as hell and the darker tone is something Zelda hasnt done before or after to this extent. The game actually had moments that made me cry. The dungeons while not many are all very good and all the areas are excellent. The mask transformations are unique and this game really is just the best
I really like watching your videos and hearing your opinions. Please keep up the good work!
When people talk about this game, I think the main topics are often the dark atmosphere, the existential dread and the hopelessness that engulfs the world. And you just talk about it like it's the happiest game ever made. I mean, I agree with what you say, but for me, the takeaway is that people (in this case, me) prioritise things so differently that they easily look past other things that are just as important. Lesson learned, hopefully.
18:51 Somehow the reflection doesn't make sense here. I guess the game is generous.
19:43 That's the ballad of the windfish? Damn, I never knew.
I appreciate those things about the game as well, of course. But the discussions is always on that stuff, massively overshadowing how well done the game part of Majora's Mask is. This game is even better than most people give it credit for.
Now I’ll be perfectly honest, for whatever reason the 3D Zelda games have always been something I have struggled to get into. I played Link Between Worlds and loved it, I played BOTW/TOTK and loved it, I played Link’s Awakening and loved it, and I’ve even played the original Zelda for NES and loved it. But every single time I’ve tried to play Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, or Twilight Princess, I just have not been able to play those games for more than a few hours without dropping them forever. This is in spite of the fact that I DESPERATELY want to get into these games and love them, and always have. I played Skyward Sword HD last year after TOTK and I was loving it, but just somewhere in the middle I stopped playing and haven’t picked it back up yet (probably because I got a full time job and have had other games I wanna play).
Anyways, back when these remakes were coming out, I had the plan of playing through them until I beat them and of course I failed to do that again. But I did have the exact same idea you had where they should have made a sequel game to Ocarina and Majora in the exact same engine for 3DS. It would have been such a great idea, and I still to this day don’t understand why they didn’t do that lol
I'll be honest, I've tried to play both the original and the 3DS versions of MM before and I just kinda bounced right off of it, it didn't really click with me.
I've been able to respect the game, its legacy, its departures from what a Zelda game is expected to be, etc. but I couldn't really find the interest to play it. I think it's partially because I've seen countless words spent praising the game's atmosphere and story and while they're probably right, that mostly just made me want to watch someone else play it.
This is the first vid in a while that's actually made the game look fun or interesting to play.
Also I find the point of the crossover between item-based puzzle doors of Metroid-vanias and the logic-based puzzle doors of adventure games particularly fascinating!
If you like time loop puzzles you should give Ghost Trick a try. While the story itself is not set in a time loop, your character has the ability to create short time loops to prevent people from dying
I tried Ghost Trick. Very neat game, but it didn't hold my attention for whatever reason. Might give it another go one day.
@@Pariah6950 The Forgotten City is another good one.
This is easily my favorite Zelda game by a huge margin. I like or even love other Zelda games, but I LOOOOOOVE Majora's Mask.
Damn im so glad you used the restoration patch
Majora's Mask was my meds before I started taking meds
This is definitely one of my favorites, but oddly enough I don't play it as much as Ocarina of Time
and frankly, that comes down to what makes each game different at their cores.
I play through all of Ocarina of Time once or twice every year, been doing this for a good few years now, and it usually only takes me a handful of days, one or two dungeons a session, then side-questing, then finish the run once I have all 20 hearts.
While I definitely don't care too much for particularly the shooting range mini-games because I'm playing the Gamecube port and the control-stick sensitivity isn't properly adjusted for Ocarina of Time (though better than using an actual N64 controller because Nintendo cut corners on the US/EU models and EVERYTHING is slower on US N64 controllers), I find the overall game experience more relaxing and even meditative, thus overall easier to dive in on a whim for.
Majora's Mask, I've only had a couple of playthroughs of in my entire life:
I went through and finished the main story and several side-quests when I was twelve, fighting Majora the old-fashioned way
Then I went through and did the main four dungeons and several side-quests once when I was 15 and again a year and a half ago (I'm currently 24).
In a lot of ways Majora's Mask is definitely the more fun and engaging game to play, and the element of mystery still isn't lost on me for how few times I've played through it, but especially now I can't help myself in trying to plot out my schedule for every cycle, trying to figure out how best to full-clear all masks all hearts in as few cycles as possible, which takes a considerable amount more strategizing and overall brain work, which isn't a bad thing, just makes the game overall less approachable for me especially given having to do more or less the same thing in real life as I'm struggling to gain and maintain control of my own real future.
I'm pretty impressed that there's a Restoration project for the 3DS remake, though not very surprised.
Even if I personally still prefer the N64 graphics, I think it's fair to say that Majora's Mask is yet another game where the definitive experience was left up to the fans to create.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks this game is way better than ocarina
You keep putting out videos with the title of 'title' was always good, and I was wondering who ever thought these games were bad to begin with? 😂
There is a romhack of ocarina set between it and majora, called the missing link at least. Also, this is reminding me of the fact that I love deathloop, but it kind of fumbled it's timeloop by only having one way to kill everyone in a single loop
In case you're curious, people beat the game without even looping once. They never get the song time.
So you just get the ocarina and wait until the moon crashes into the earth? Damn.
Is the restoration mod playable on the 3ds?
I'm not sure if you're still looking for an answer, but yes, the Restoration Mod works on a real homebrewed 3DS!
@@observer_vr Awesome! Thank you!
The hd mod for n64 with a 60 fps mod is realy good
I have an odd love of the 3D version. Never tried the Restoration (I have no idea on modding like that), and it has been a while since I had played the N64 version (have the fancy Gamecube Zelda disc). The things that get harped on are things I found enjoyable, but...
I know you say the bosses aren't great, and I can see that. But I think one thing I liked that the 3DS did was, evne though I get the gripes about the eye weak spot, is how they actually need you to take advantage of the form masks. Odolwa in the 3DS needs you to hit him from above with a Deku Nut first, Goht requiring the rolling challenge, and then Gyorg forces you into the water to fight (I don't recall if that was in the original). Are they still iffy? Yeah, but I liked that element, oddly enough.
Have you considered reviewing the Pac Man World games? I wonder how you think of them.
Most fans think 2 is the best, but some disagree and say the first is the best
Tried the first 2. Pretty average and generic platformers to me. Didn't finish either. Maybe I'll give them another go one day.
@@Pariah6950 aawwwww damn. I figured as much 😅
some of my favourite childhood games, but that's probably with nostalgia glasses
4 videos over two weeks?!??!?!?!
I dunno about better dungeons, OOT had a perfect introduction dungeon better as a introduction then the swamp dungeon and both have a annoying water dungeon but OOTs could be cool at times like using the boomerang in Jabu Jabus belly which is like a semi water dungeon, and the spirit temple is just pretty challenging and long too, really it having more dungeons too and better boss fights makes the OOT dungeons overall better if you ask me. Overall MM is better but not in every way and it was clearly rushed too.
I have to wonder, a lot of the design decisions for this game that people loved were added when Aonuma was under severe stress due to the deadlines placed on him. When it came to the 3ds version a lot of people had negative opinions of the adjustments he made now that he wasn't under such a severe crunch. Makes you wonder how true the adage of suffering for your art is. On the one hand we wouldn't of gotten Majora's Mask the way it was without those strict deadlines, on the other hand a lot of the bad design decisions and lack of quality in games like the Sonic series can be attributed to having small teams with tight deadlines.
The line between drive and delusion can be muddy sometimes
Did you get that idea from Nerrel's video? I'm not sure a game turns out great just by a lucky accident. Have you ever done your homework or taken an exam under stress and it turned out to be amazing? I think I did, but it was the absolute exception. MM wasn't just developed by Aonuma. Maybe the team had lots of leftover ideas from OoT. And much time passed between the original and the remake. Maybe his views changed inbetween and he liked the original after it was finished.
That's what romhacks are for, if you want a 3rd game
This is now my favourite Majora's Mask video that doesn't feature a Return of the Jedi CGI abomination thumbnail.
I'm culturally uneducated, but I'm pretty sure you mean Nerrel's video.
Amazing game. Favorite of all time
THE FATHER
Fun fact
Demon Majora appears in a prequel manga.
Where it is a dragon.
The thing that always makes for the best bosses in the series, like Stallord in TP and Possessed Naydra in BOTW.
Really pissed it never showed up in game.
Most people say the 3DS version ruined Twin Mold compared to the original because Giant's Mask forced Link to wrestle the worms very slowly and painfully as opposed to using his sword.
I can't say for the Restoration version you played, but seems like you were dealing with the original versions of the bosses and not the 3DS rewrites.
The 3DS boss rewrites are absolutely horribly due to how the bosses are changed and how most of the changes make bland but quick and easy bosses into downright slogs... which is not great for time management at all.
The 3DS changes make all of the main four bosses require Link to stun them in some way to reveal a specific Eyeball weakpoint that wasn't in the originals, it just pops out of them and is more or less identical between all four.
Probably the least offensive of them is Goht because the eyeball weakness is the only change to the boss, you fight Goht in mostly the same way except now you can't cheese him with arrow shots because you HAVE to hit the giant obvious eyeball to deal damage now.
Gyorg and Twin Mold are effectively ruined by the initial 3DS changes because Gyorg now has a phase two that removes the platform, forcing you to fight him in Zora form, and you play a very time-wasting bullet hell game because he just clusters a ton of mines everywhere and I think you're forced to awkwardly wait for him to try to inhale you or something and make him swallow a mine before you can even attempt to damage him
And then Twin Mold's rewrite is just... horribly clunky because again Giant's Mask forces you to wrestle the worms, and then forces you to swap back to slash the Giant Eyeball, and you can't shoot their faces or tails to ignore the mask transformation.
I completely understand wanting more interesting bosses, especially a more interesting final boss because the time loop is no longer at play for that one, but I think it's actually a very good and nice thing that the main four bosses are quick, simple, and easy to cheese because unique to Majora's Mask, you can refight the bosses and sometimes have to if for any reason at all you need to do a side-quest that requires you to do something at a particular time in one of the regions when its in its "restored" state, and the 3DS versions of the bosses are absolutely not good for that.
Still, from the footage provided, you were definitely fighting the original versions of the bosses.
The redone bosses straight up force you to fight them in only one way and that way for each boss involves the transformation masks, in a very weird, gimmicky, time-wasting way.
The bosses are changed in in the restoration to be more similar to the originals, but some things are kept. You still have the second Gyorg phase and wrestling Twinmold, but without having to shrink back.
I only played the vanilla 3DS version once, but I remember finding the bosses to be universally better than the originals. I'd rather have to stun Odolwa and have a real boss fight instead of a joke. And the original Twinmold fight was terrible. Just slashing at them until they die as they float around haphazardly.
You do make a good point about how the original fights being short makes them better if you have to refight. But I think I'd rather redo a worthwhile fight instead of a non-fight.
Gyorg is not that bad or ruined as he was just made harder.
Nah as bosses they should still be actual challenges. They are good for that but are also good challenges too.
They are not all weird or that gimmicky or time wasting.
@@Pariah6950The implication being that 3DS Odolwa is not a joke?
The boss and Zora swimming changes are the most egregious things that they remake did
Can’t wait till you get to Skyward Sword, my opinion changed on that game for the better.
One of my personnal favorite !
Yes, peak 3D Zelda
I just love the atmosphere of Majora’s mask, but I don’t like the dungeons and a lot of the gameplay
Okay, so...my comment got removed for whatever reason. So, I'm just gonna try to recreate it because I don't think it was removed intentionally. Wouldn't make much sense in my opinion...
Just as I expected this video is far more interesting in comparison to the Ocarina of Time video. It's not because the video itself is better or worse, no. It's just as good, as I would usually expect from this channel. It's because the game itself is FAR more interesting to talk about in comparison to Ocarina of Time.
Ocarina of Time is just a really plain boring game in comparison to any other 3D Zelda game afterwards.
If we compare all of the 3D Zelda games with each other, most of these games are very similar to Ocarina of Time. People often complain about Twilight Princess being to similar to Ocarina of Time in terms of structure, but if we look at it EVERY single 3D Zelda game is similar to Ocarina of Time.
That's the thing: Ocarina of Time established a baseline which the whole rest of the series followed in some way or another. But that results in Ocarina of Time looking really plain in comparison. Don't get me wrong, I still think the game is great and all.
But I completely agree with this video here: Majoras Mask just towers over Ocarina of Time in so many aspects. At the end of the day, it is subjective, but...I think there are some things in MM which are clear objective improvements over Ocarina.
For example: Condensing multiple items into 1 (the transformation masks) results in a lot less menu navigation. The existence of the bunny hood in itself is an objective improvement. Also, I think the accessibility of Termina Field is an objective improvement. You can reach any destination you want in just a few minutes without having to stroll around Hyrule Field for 5 minutes.
And the most obvious one: Making fast travel available from the get-go is the most objectively good gameplay mechanic/improvement I have ever seen.
There is no reason to handle it the way Ocarina of Time did...which is why most games take the Majoras Mask approach in regards to fast travel.
Personally, I have to say Majoras Mask is one of my favorite Zelda games, especially because of how much it improves on Ocarina of Time.
But I don't actually think Ocarina of Time is the worst 3D Zelda game. I personally like it more than Skyward Sword and Wind Waker, just for the simple reason of being a far less flawed game.
Sure, it's far more plain and lifeless in comparison to Skyward Sword and Wind Waker, but...both of these games have a few issues which just drag them down for me personally.
For example: I really really don't like the sailing in Wind Waker. I think it's one of the worst decisions Nintendo ever made for a Zelda game just because of how boring it is in execution.
Finally, to round up my long comment just a reminder that this game was made under huge time contrains.
Majoras Mask is not an amazing 3D Zelda game despite it's constrained development. It's an amazing game BECAUSE of it's time contraints.
And gonna edit this in here really fast because I forgot to mention it:
This was a really fast follow-up video without losing anything in quality! Great work as always!
Yeah. Sorry about that. I saw your comment, but was busy so didn't have time to read it. When I checked again it was gone. That's been happening randomly to some comments on my videos for a while and I have no idea why.
I'm fine with OoT being fairly plain. It was still the early days of Zelda, and there was lots of tech innovations happening that made that exciting time and time again. OoT is plain because it's 3D LttP, which is plain because it's the upgraded Zelda 1. I see a clear attempt to refine and perfect that pure idea of Zelda during these early games. But after those things are achieved at the current tech level, that's when we get the more creative, out-there games like LA and MM. TP was another attempt to do that pure Zelda game.
I think that's the real issue. Trying to iterate the same game over and over, rather than making a new game. Which is why the Zeldas that are a little further from the vanilla are more interesting. I'll probably talk about this in more detail in a future video.
@@Pariah6950 Really weird thing with the comments...And yeah, I agree with everything you said here.
I personally am really looking forward to your Wind Waker opinions, because that game is...weird.
And with ,,weird" I mean weird gameplay decisions. In my opinion it's an extremely flawed game, but at the same time really appealing and fun.
god damn it dude did you listen to nerrel AT ALL
EDIT: uhhh nevermind
Between the time loops and the way the story plays out, I've always felt this game feels like a complete waste of time.
I guess Nerrel said everything that had to be said about it, but mood and artstyle was lost from n64 to 3ds.
Ura Zelda? More like _Hurray_ Zelda, amirite?
Naw link to the past is da best of all time
This game might be good if you've played it before but everyone's first playthrough is gonna be dreadful. Everything is gonna take too many cycles to figure out, it starts to feel like a chore, dungeons are good but you never wanna do them because of how much time they take, and if you're in the middle of a side quest or multiple side quests and you run out of time you lose too much progress. Learning the game is just the opposite of fun
also YOU REALLY NEED TO SEE MAJOR LINK'S FAN MADE SERIES " legend of zelda hero's purpose" MAN IT IS SUCH A VERY GOOD FAN MADE 3d
ANIMATION THAT TAKE PLACE AFTER MAJORA'S MASK AND BEFORE TWILIGHT PRINCESS THAT DOES A FANTASTIC JOB PORTRAYING THE HERO OF TIME AND EVEN HUMANIZING GANON , THERE ARE 5 EPISODES RELEASED FROM IT FOR NOW , WITH MORE COMING IN THE FUTUR , i hope you take a look at it
I actually think this is the worst Zelda game ever only because the 3 day system.
That alone makes me despise it lol.
I think the boss is in Majora's. Mask are pretty good but the 3DS ruin them
Majoras Mask is far inferior to Ocarina of time. There is no discussion to be had.