If you are a gaming enthusiast like me than games will make you feel all kinds of emotions. A game can make you happy, sad, or often in my case hopelessly frustrated. However, games rarely ever get you to ponder life's big questions. They are usually a pleasant diversion. Whenever I play Majora's Mask, however, I can not help but ponder the meaning of existence. If you are starting to play this one get ready for some depressing and philosophical gaming that has Link living the same three days over and over again, which also happen to be the last three days before the moon crashes into the planet and kills everybody.
This is a really dark topic for any game, let alone a Zelda game. Despite how seriously people take the series, before this game it was fairly lighthearted. They always had bright colors and goofy characters and worlds where you spent time fighting off Gannon or waking up giant psychedelic fish. The kingdoms Link were entrusted to save were usually heavy on spiders and low on people. The stakes never seemed that high. I mean, what would Gannon get really if he took over Hyrule, a bunch of old guys living under trees?
Majora's Mask finally gives you a world that actually feels like it needs saved. There are interesting people to meet everywhere in this one who actually seem to be living full lives. It is very interesting that their stories and emotions progress over the three days. As the moon gets closer and closer they get ready for oblivion in different ways. Some of them try to hide from it while others pretend that it's not even happening. The theme of loss is so strong in this game the the five major areas are all based on the five stages of grief. In addition to that Link's main source of power is the faces of recently dead people. When he wears these masks everyone thinks he is the deceased person. That is incredibly dark, especially for a franchise that used to be a Saturday morning cartoon! I could never imagine this in a Duck Tales video game.
I haven't touched on the gameplay yet, but of course if you've played any Zelda games before you know what you are going to get. There is one thing that will probably annoy everybody but me. This game only has four dungeons. It is much more about puzzle solving and story. The only items you get in the dungeons in this one are arrow upgrades. This is a little disappointing, but at least they are all things that you will still use after moving on farther in the game. This game also marks the first appearance of Tingle. In case you forgot, he is that character that everyone hates even though he's never in the games very long and is actually useful. Why do people hate him so much? Is it because his parody of faries makes people wonder if Link is actually cool? I suspect so.
This game was extremely polarizing back when it came out and remains so today. Everyone was still gushing about Ocarina of Time and were hoping for something along those same lines. They weren't expecting all that time skipping and backtracking. Hopefully enough time has passed so that people will just see it for what it is and not what it isn't. Sadly people rarely think like this and get way too wrapped up in the franchise. Don't be a jerk. Appreciate creative games!
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