An in-depth review of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask for the N64. This video contains spoilers for the entire game. Discussion of the game's atmosphere begins at 27:12.
Seems like anyone who knows what the Majora's Mask actually is seems to be retain the memories. Tatl does, Link does, the giants do, the Happy Mask Salesman does. They all know the true nature of the mask.
Watching "Dawn of... a new day " show up on my screen at the end of the game was possibly the single most rewarding moment I have ever experienced playing a video game.
This is a spot on review. Especially the bit about atmosphere was very well done. The impermanence of your actions and inevitability of failure is such a bold theme for a game let alone a Zelda one. The music, as you mentioned, illustrates the tone of each zone expertly as well. For example the music that plays in the Zora beach zone sounds so bleak and barren despite being a vacation spot for most of the population. It totally fits the incident of the princess losing her eggs.
+Criken2 Apologies for the delay, firstly you are 100% correct about the great quality of this review and reviewer. Secondly, regarding the music of the Zora beach zone; (to my memory) I believe it is same tune as the southern swamp, an area of the snowy Goron area and an area of Ikana, just with different instruments. Not that there is anything wrong with this. The music fits perfectly with the areas regardless. Apologies again if you already knew this information
+Criken2 he is also spot on when he says that the experience of playing the game cannot be described; I had watched this review several times before playing the re-release on the 3DS and the game is just exceptional. I then got annoyed when a friend of mine whinged because they couldn't understand what to do, and, after telling them that it really is a game where you need a guide on hand, they flat-out refused to use one. They eventually gave in
Majora's Mask is great because the mere fact that it exists is a miracle. All things considered this game should have ended up terrible. It was made within a year using assets from Ocarina of Time, but instead of just churning out some rehash Nintendo created a game that's completely distinct from the previous entry while retaining everything that made OoT good. This is truly a remarkable game and it will never happen ever again.
It also goes to show you that a Zelda game doesn't need Princess Zelda, Ganon, the Triforce or Master Sword. If the objective is a strong one, the world is full of vegetation and characters, items (or masks in this case), and the gameplay is fun, and rewarding, then it will still be an excellent Zelda game to many. Majora's Mask still remains my favourite game in the series - and as Zelda is my favourite series, that is saying a lot.
"Majora's Mask is great because the mere fact that it exists is a miracle." What does this even mean? Why is it a miracle? You're basically saying "Majora's Mask is great because it's so good." Which makes sense but sounds stupid.
Halo 2 is similar. 2 years into development they scrapped the entire game, and the final product was built in only 9 months, yet it's a lot of people's favorite entry in the series.
@Tom G He answered that literally in the following sentence. It was made in an incredibly short amount of time using assets that came entirely from a game that already came out. That's almost entirely unheard of, and if you saw anything else made like that now, it would be considered total garbage. Its saying that its great because it was made with such short notice with such limited access and was a totally complete and well polished package. Part of what makes it so great is not so much that it exists in general, but the circumstances in which it came to exist should have made it the worst game in history, not the best game of the series, hence it being a miracle.
More like, it goes to show if you have a great development team with a lot of experience (and experience with the engine/assets used for the previous game) AND give them only a year to make a game, well, honestly it's still a miracle this game is as good as it is
I actually think that they don't dwell too long on Link's successes is part of developing Link's character. Link isn't doing this to be considered a hero, he's just doing it because it's in his nature to save people. This is exemplified here even more than in OoT because Terminia isn't even his home. He has no ties to this place and yet he cannot just leave it to die. Also I liked the fact that he takes on the image of the dead when saving towns. This is another way he avoids taking credit for being the hero of this town. Instead the townsfolk all believe that their own (Gorron or Zora) hero was the one who came back and saved them. But one of the biggest reasons this game is special is because it had themes not of Good v Evil like 90% of game out there. The themes of this game were of death, the meaning of true friendship, the strength of forgiveness, and acceptance.
I think link saves termina because he feels sad about everything that happened and he isnt recognized as a hero and lost navy, because when he saved hyrule he traveled to the past, wich means that no one knows what link did, so link isnt anymore recognized as a hero because what he did dint happen and they dont know all the things that link had to overpass to achive his goal and he feels uncomplete without navy and his adventure
TheRepty818 To build on your last part - really late but still - it had a twisted sense of good and evil. Majora, or at least this mask that represents he/she/it, actually thinks that you’re the bad guy, as stated on the moon. It really puts into perspective the fact that evil people don’t usually realize they’re evil. This isn’t the only game that does this, but it was the first that I came across
flare Link left because he was searching for Navi who left with no explanation after OOT; he was searching the lost woods which was what resulted in getting robbed by skull kid
Actually one of the reasons the N64 was able to handle 3D so well back then was because it was able to offload most of the rendering from the CPU to the RCP, which was essentially an early GPU that supported the predecessor to OpenGL (and was extremely similar in the way it worked). If it had more texture memory and CD storage, the games could have been much more visually rich, especially towards the Majora's Mask era where a lot of the graphics code was really optimized (the earlier opcodes for the RCP, which games could reprogram if they so chose, were designed by SGI and were woefully inadequate, as they transferred polygonal data slowly between the CPU and RCP and made the display lists twice as large as they needed to be, which made draw time and the polygon limit worse than it needed to be). Majora's Mask actually did a lot of neat visual tricks because it had more texture memory to play with, which is why it had blur effects, richer textures, and larger textures. The main limitations with the N64 really were several factors: 1) storage, both on the cartridge and in RAM, were phenomenally cramped which made making an expansive 3-D game difficult at best, 2) the RCP/GPU did not have direct access to the cartridge and had to receive its data from the CPU, which put more work on the CPU than there needed to be, 3) the CPU still had to deal with audio rendering, AI, and game processing, and the AI in Zelda did a lot of clever tricks to keep its cycle counts low, and 4) the physical hardware added latencies that made it difficult to get the best possible optimizations, specifically the Rambus RAM and the main system bus which linked the CPU to the RCP. Despite all of this, overall the N64 was an impressive piece of hardware from 1996, especially compared to the Sega Saturn and PlayStation. The Sega Saturn lacked a dedicated GPU and instead utilized multiple CPU sockets, which were difficult to code and even harder to keep in sync, especially when they tried to work with the same regions of memory. The PlayStation had a weaker CPU and GPU-equivalent compared to the N64 and wasn't really optimized for 3-D rendering, especially in the texture department. Most games for the PlayStation had a hard time getting past Mario 64 level of quality on the polygonal side of things; the PlayStation's real saving grace was it's ability to combine pre-rendered content with polygonal content simultaneously. If the N64 had been equipped with a CD drive, it probably would have dominated that console generation.
+MNGoldenEagle Man, it's super rare to see a TH-cam comment of this quality. This is a really informative and interesting insight (if you aren't bullshitting, ha). Thanks for sharing.
***** Not at all! I got into reverse engineering Zelda games back in the day, which lead to reading about the CPU and GPU and eventually getting copies of the N64 Developer Documentation. It was a pretty awesome time.
SGI also provided a ucode called Turbo3D, which actually was very fast, but suffered from significant quality tradeoffs, so it was never used except in demos. As for the traces, you're completely right. I forgot about that; kind of a weird design decision, though it allowed the RCP to fast-load resources from the cartridge without relying on the CPU, so there's that.
Born in 86... and went through all the console before and after the 64...& it's STILL my favorite system of all time. It will never change. thank you for the facts you presented . that's awesome
RUBY DA CHERRY I hope you are joking. Majora is one of the best games out there. Also you do notice this guy has a picture of snake meaning he plays good games
Actually..... you can. In the final cycle that you choose to stop the skull kid, you can actively go help everyone. That's what I did as a kid when I realized that I was about to beat the game but that wouldn't save... the monkey, for example.
I believe you can make it to the Clock Tower after beating Anju and Kafei's quest. With the Bunny Hood, and taking the fastest route... I THINK you should be able to make it.
Hard to ignore the parallels of the time pressure for Link to save Termina, and Aonuma's team to finish this game in about a year. The steady march of time must have been a constant source of anxiety throughout its entire development.
Fittingly, the comedic aspects of Matthew's videos are always there, and quite a lot of them, but nowhere does he hold your hand and point you towards it. If you manage to find the jokes, it's rewarding, and it adds replay value to the content if you want to try and find them all.
umbaupause Which is so much more interesting nowadays than saying "pun intended" or "pun unintended" right after making a pun, obscure or not. A lot of people feel the need to point out some of their own jokes right after they've made them.
30:58 Since the ending sort of meshes all your victories into the ending, I like to imagine that when you complete the game, every copy of the three days merges into one, painting a full picture of a hero.
Since it was implied that the Skull Kid used Majora's Mask to inflict hardship on most of the people you meet, I like to believe destroying Majora undid most of his magic and the harm it did.
A couple of things I've noticed about this game. The Anju/Kafei sidequest is sort of the center of all the character-based sidequests. If you go through the Bomber's Notebook, you'll notice that a lot of the people listed there are closely related to the Anju/Kafei quest, and most of them are at least indirectly related. The Anju/Kafei sidequest is so central and involved that you could almost consider it to be Clock Town's temple, just in sidequest form. Also: considering how prominent the theme of death is in this game, it's interesting to note that there are _four_ dungeons. Japanese culture traditionally associates the number four with death, since the words sound similar in Japanese. Also, the game ends when you reach the _fourth_ day. I'm sure this was intentional, though I'm not sure what we're meant to take from it.
You may have a point there with the temples, but as far as the number of days, that might just be a coincidence. I believe the game's director said in an interview that they were originally planning for a whole week, but both implementing that and expecting a player to juggle it proved too daunting, so they reduced it to three.
@@michaelkemel9711 There is code in the game's files that shows the moon in different positions depending on the day. So, for example, Day 1 in game was more like Day 4-5 in the beta version.
@@Odinsday It is actually possible to see the original day 1 moon in game. By performing a glitch known as "Fourth day" by using the telescope in a specific way when the moon crashes down, you can see the moon is very far away, looking about as big as the moon does in real life.
33:35 - Try summoning the Giants when there are less than 4. That scene combined with Oath to Order in the background is EXTREMELY melancholy (they struggle but can't stop the Moon).
This review holds up phenomenally well - even 7 years later. The audio quality is still crisp, and the editing is incredibly solid. Your review felt very genuine, and everything you explained was very coherent.
Zeburaman2005 Its not just the challenge. At that time Nintendo was still trying to figure out the formula that would become the zelda we know today. The legend of zelda and the adventure of link are not legit zelda games when it comes to the gameplay. Story, yes, but they are more archaic.
Majora's Mask scared the shit out of me when i first played at the age of 7 or 8 (not sure any more). I played it for one evening, didn't really achieve anything apart from being scared off for good from the freaking Moon/Skullkid and the stress i felt from being put under a timelimit. Only later i replayed it and loved it. The Trauma stays though...
Funny enough, it was the other way around for me :) I played the first game at a very young age (4-5), following with the second game a bit later (6-7). Similar to what AtTheEdgeOfTime said, the creepy atmosphere of the second game went completely past me. I actually felt that the first game was much scarier at the time (not kidding, I just couldn't pass the marketplace as an adult, I would always ask siblings). I think it was the environments that did that for me. At such a young age, you don't really care about the characters yet, you don't care too much about emotions presented in the game and the issues people have. As a result, the environments and temples in OoT had a much more direct scary factor than the ones in Majora's Mask.
***** That makes complete sense. As an adult (29), even watching this video and hearing the music/third day sounds all evokes far deeper emotion than anything from Ocarina but to this day, that 'Bottom of the Well' and Dead Hand (pictured in this video I think, it is *not* the wall/floormasters..it's the abomination) are horrible to have to play through - not in that same existensial mortal fear, suffering and loss sense; just skin crawling scary. When I played it at the time, about age 14/15, I remember being engrossed in its atmosphere and finding it extremely unsettling to play late on the third day but it's really in adulthood that looking back at the game I fully appreciate the emotion.
Game creeped me out when I played it around age 9 or 10, but I felt genuine terror all throughout Ikana Canyon. Especially having to run through the well trading gibdos with the damn wallmasters. Best Zelda
Majora's Mask is a true masterpiece. It's shame no game since has created a world that feels as deep and alive as Termina. Even games like World of Warcraft and Skyrim, though they have a lot of lore and backstory to them, don't feel like there's anything to them beyond that you see. They feel like worlds inhabited by mannequins. You walk up to them, push a button, and they spit out a pre-recorded response. The characters in MM felt like characters and not just mindless automatons on a track. Even though that's really what they were.
A lot of that probably comes from the illusion created by the time loop, which is actually quite ingenious for that purpose. That setup makes it much easier to suspend your disbelief and just accept the fact that they act like on rails, since it's very plausible that they would really behave like that if you had to rewind time.
It's because the characters are relatable and more human than before that's what makes it good. You feel like you're in a real busy world full of people. It really is impressive.
This is a very small detail, but its another thing i've always adored in Majoras Mask, which is Young Link's growth. not only can he now carry equipment locked to his older self, but he can also hold his shield fully upright, and when jumping he shows a bit of confidence, flair, and maybe even a bit of playfulness by doing a flip or two.
Colonel Cubbage This video is far from perfect. matthew is way too overly fucking picky about shit and his voice is really bad for this type of video. idk why everyone treats him like a god he just does his fucking research so many gay fanboys honestly
wilson Considering he does an *in-depth* review on the games, he is allowed to be picky over someone giving a five minute review. His voice sounds nice to me, but that's completely subjective, so I won't try arguing that point. "idk why everyone treats him like a god he just does his fucking research" Doing your research is what makes a good presentation. Look at Ken Burns Documentaries.
@@wilson-ie3ce good critique will be picky sometimes, getting down into the minute details of how the critic feels about the game. The point isn't to reinforce everyones' thoughts about how good the game is.
For all the people who are saying "this is what happens when you put full confidence in your developers' vision" or something as absurd as "short development cycles create a great game" etc, you need to look up "survival bias". Not every game subject to those conditions is a remarkable achievement. Just because you know of one or two games that had those conditions, that doesn't mean you're not ignoring the hundreds that were subject to the same conditions that ended up sucking that we don't talk about because no one likes them. Correlation, no causation, ladies and gentlemen.
This is a very good point. The way I look at it, Majora's Mask is incredible *in spite of* the short development cycle, and not *because* of the short development cycle.
amazing video. i never thought of how majora's mask is not only a great game, but a great way of showing nintendo was not trying to make money on ocarina's success, but trying to do something different.
VictorFr0st Seriously, compared to how game companies work today the risk they took here was insane. I can't think of any big sequel risks like this on the top of my head.
Garrador I meant today. I'd say Wind Waker was pretty risky as well. Star fox adventures might have been called risky if were not just super lazy reskinning a game. The Wii U and Wii were pretty huge risks, with the Wii U still uncertain if it will pay off. Now that I think of it I'd say Demon Souls was a pretty significant risk as another example,
As a non zelda fan, Majora's Mask is one of those games which stands out the most in the series to me. Which is so ironic since every Zelda game has different art styles and mechanics and Majora's Mask in the end is still a continuation of Ocarina's art style and engine. Maybe it's like Matthew said, maybe its the atmosphere that makes it stand out and keeps it interesting and prime for speculation even after all these years. This along with Silent Hill 2 and MGS2 are one of my favorite games which I've never actually played and yet I keep thinking about them.
An interesting, unknown fact is that LoZ: MM borrows two songs from non-Zelda games. Sakon's Alarm in Sakon's Hideout is also the alarm in "Sector Z" of Star Fox 64/ Lylat Wars. The song "Farewell to the Gibdos" by Pamela's Father is also the "Merry-Go-Round Music" in the Haunted House of Super Mario 64.
Majora's Mask was actually my introduction to the Zelda series. I had never played OoT (and actually still haven't to this day, will rectify that when I get a 3DS), and my god was it the creepiest game I ever played as a kid, and I played a lot of weird games. It was also probably the darkest game I ever played up until a recent few years, with releases such as Dark Souls, Spec Ops: The Line, and The Walking Dead, so it really hung over me and molded me not just as a gamer but as a person. There's a lot I can say about the game, including things that weren't mentioned, probably most notably going into depth about how the game can be seen as a metaphor as to coming to terms with loss and sometimes being powerless. The whole Kafei and Anju quest, as specifically mentioned in the video, might be the most obvious of the matters though- you literally have one minute left - not enough time to complete the game, and you must reconcile the fact that you cannot reunite them. Its depressing as a child, and then I realized, there's still that monkey being imprisoned by the Dekus, the Gorons are freezing and starving to death, the Zora are hopeless and likely going to die out in depression and suicide. This applies to all of it - you can't help everyone. Not only that, Link never finds his friend in the end. I never played OoT, so I didn't know that it was Navi, so I always wondered who this mystery friend was, and I came to the conclusion eventually, as a child, that because of having to prevent the moon from dooming Termina, Link lost his only lead on finding his friend, and that the circumstances of life just left it outside of his hands. A lot of things like these were subtle, but somehow burrowed into my mind, aided by the game's uneasy atmosphere. The game is extremely uncomfortable to play - but it needed to be uncomfortable to impart its lessons. I feel that without Majora's Mask, I would've been far less prepared for a lot of the extremely negative things that followed shortly afterwards in my life. In other words, its the videogame equivalant of getting your kid a goldfish so the child can learn about death - but it does it in a way that is so much better and enriches their life. Because of this, I know that if I ever do become a guardian to a child, there is one game that above all others will be given to my ward to, and it will be this game.
37:09 This might be my favourite moment on this channel because it illustrates how MatthewMatosis is one of the most passionate and genuine game critics out there. I love how he really goes off here about how amazing this game is because it shows how much he cares. These games have really affected him and he's spent a long time deconstructing them so he can have a better understanding. I have nothing but total respect for his commentary and thoughts even though he's criminally under-viewed.
This is a review. It's a criticism and deconstruction of the game but somehow without fail, that part always manages to give me goosebumps in a way that actual movies and TV shows have a hard time doing. I think it's because Matt very seldomly expresses true adoration, focusing his best to try and let as little biases in, so that he can get a broader scope and perspective on the games he covers. It's 37 minutes of pure analysis that then coalesces into a profound, personal endorsement of the game's ability to make the player *Feel* something. I agree. This is also still my favourite moment across this entire channel because Matthew doesn't let the mask slip so to say very often, but he lets the audience know exactly how he feels because the story of Majora's Mask itself is filled to the brim with deeply personal and intimate moments. Most of the time I watch this whole video front to back just so that I can watch this moment in its full glory with the context of the game in mind.
I honestly like this game more than Ocarina of Time. More creativity, less generic objective, characters that I actually gave a shit about, it's an impressive game. The 3D version of the game is nice too.
I like Majora's Mask more than Ocarina of Time as well. Don't get me wrong. OoT is a good game, but I found it to be kinda overrated if u ask me. Majora's Mask is my personal favorite because it took what we like about OoT & created something differently & made it tremendously well.
One of the weirder things I noticed about the game is what one of the main themes is defining what it means to be an adult - which actually adds an extra layer of eeriness to the atmosphere when it's juxtaposed against symbolism of childishness: Skull kid lost his friends from being too childish and a lot of the misfortune befalling Termina the result of his tantrum, becoming more powerful by helping more people (gaining hearts/items/masks), the playrooms of the children in the moon and the final boss room resembling a crib (he even plays with tops and acts/sounds childish), the mask being a pushover if you gain the fierce deity mask, Kafei being returned to a child form, the bombers being some of the only ones left in town carelessly by the final night, and all the things involved in the Romani/Cremia quest. During all of this, Link is in a child form and unlike in most of Ocarina of Time it is his true form. Additionally, there are a ton of parent-child relationships going on in the game: Mayor Dotour/Madame Aroma and Kafei, Anju's mother and grandmother, the bomb shop owner and her child, the old man in the astral observatory probably looks after the bombers, Cremia is Romani's mother figure, The Deku King and the Princess, The Deku Butler and his dead son whose spirit is trapped in the mask, the Goron elder and his son, Lulu/Mikau's eggs, Pamela and her father are trapped in the house surrounded by the gidbos, Captain Keeta looks after his soldiers who are basically child skeletons, the guy on the ranch wanted to see his chicks grow up into adults as his last wish, and it's a little more vague but Gabora (the giant thing in the mountain smithshop) seems to have the mind of a child and is being exploited by the other guy. It's absolutely ridiculous how many parent/child relationships are in this game and it's too hard to ignore. I have no idea why there are so many of these relationships in the game but maybe it's to make all the characters seem more mortal and human, adding a heaviness to the impending doom?
I believe that the reason the owl statues only function as a single-use quicksave is to prevent players from trivializing the timer. If the saves could be loaded repeatedly, then a player could save-scum until they got what they wanted, whether it’s a minigame, part of a sidequest, or a temple. The impact of the timer would be absolutely shattered if a workaround like this existed. As they are, the statues allow a player to save once, put the game away, and pick up where they left off later once. No detrimental impact, just saving the game in the way that saving is supposed to be used.
If I recall, in the Japanese version of Majora's Mask you could only save when you played the Song of Time, so Owl Statues were absent. I think it was a concession for western audiences that Nintendo tossed in at the last minute, kind of like a 'Continue' feature. Albeit a horrendously explained and manipulable Continue feature.
The owl statues aren't complicated. They just explained it in a complicated way. Basically, it serves as a quicksave. While the normal save in the game makes you always begin in the beginning, the quicksave allows you to save at the same exact spot. The difference is that you can only turn the console off once after you quicksave. If you load your file again and then shut off your game without talking to another owl statue or playing the Song of Time, the game will only save up to the last time you played Song of Time. So it comes down to this: The player plays the Song of Time. The player returns to Clocktown on Day 1. The player obtains a Piece of Heart. The player saves at an owl statue. The player loads the game again. The player shuts the game off. This will cause the player to go all the way back to the second point without the piece of heart being collected at all.
To add to this, that system is there to act as a Save and Quit feature, and the way it is set up simply means you can't just try a certain part of the cycle over and over again, it's an anti-cheese measure. If you screw up, you're supposed to go all the way back to day 1 and redo your quest from there, like that heart piece bit illustrates. Another good example would be the last bit of the Kafei quest. If you fail to fetch the mask in the thief's hideout, you can't just load that owl save and try again, because that would destroy any stakes this quest has. You'll have to do a reset and go from there. Ultra late answers, yay...
Anti-save-scumming is a side-effect of the way the owl statue saves work, but I'm reasonably sure they're that way purely because of technical limitations. The cartridge doesn't have one place where it tracks current world state while you're playing and a second place where it save owl-save data. Instead, there's one location per save file where the current world-state for that file is stored and updated, whether you're actively playing (in which case it's constantly being updated as you do stuff) or whether the console's off and the cartridge is gathering dust on a shelf somewhere. There will also be a secondary location where permanent changes are stored (which items/masks/songs Link has, how much money is in the bank, etc - the things that stay when you reset time), which is only updated when you reset time with the Song of Time. So you have a small amount of data permanently saved, and a fairly large amount of data that updates as you play through each 3-day cycle. When you owl-save, that large chunk of data just gets left as-is, which owl statue you saved at gets noted, and the game shuts down. As soon as you load it up and start doing stuff, that owl-save no longer exists because it's not a separate snapshot of the world-state - it is the working world-state and has already been updated as you do stuff. At least that's my educated guess. As an additional data-point, the 3DS remake does saves differently - the Song of Time no longer saves, owl-saves are permanent, and there are additional save statues around (that don't function as warp beacons).
It's the misunderstanding of this element of the game that means I just can't enjoy Majora's Mask 3D on the same level as I do the original. Just having the ability to save scum (regardless of if I'd use it) ruins the whole atmosphere.
Wow, near the end when you're talking over the music that plays during the last six hours... That was intense. You articulated well my thoughts on this game. I always struggle with picking Majora or Wind Waker as my favourite Zelda game. It always ends up being Wind Waker due to its lovely cel shading and the humour. It's my kind of humour for sure (at least for a video game). In addition, the swordplay in WW is so much more satisfying than in any other Zelda game IMO. However, MM gave MUCH more impact overall. The serious, dark, and ambiguous tone has yet to be replicated at the same level for me from any other game that I've played. The game really sucks you in. When I first played MM, I was like 7 years old or something and I remember looking up into the sky to make sure there wasn't a face moon overhead. ...Not many things in life make children think about the apocalypse more than Majora's Mask.
The culmination of the dark themes and incredible music composition accentuate a melancholic mood . I'm blown away by Koji Kondo's vast imagination and creativity, he's prolific. His music is in tune with giving more immersion in these worlds than I've experienced recently in modern games and I assume that was more important 20 years ago due to visual limitations. This approach succeeded in giving this game a living organic feel if not in a weird parallel universe.
***** My idea would be Majora link as a sort of pokemon trainer. It's one character but you transform into deku, goron, or zora, and they each play differently. Final smash would be deity link for a short amount of time to wreck everyone.
Very well-made presentation, I appreciate the work you put into this. Thank you. This is my favorite game in the world, and it's awesome to hear other people's thoughts on it.
Andrew Nesterov okay not like it matters. kid you probably haven't even played atleast 5 zelda games and how can you say a zelda game sucks when you barely know the basis of a true zelda franchise? I own over 10 zelda games and have been playing them all since I have been way younger than you
I actually disagree about the item count in MM vs OOT, at least in practical use. Going through the dungeon items in OOT that aren't in MM we have: -The boomerang, which the Zora fins emulate. -The Megaton Hammer, which the Goron pound emulates. -The longshot, which is a lame item. -Iron/Hover boots. Iron boots underwater is emulated by the Zora mask, there is no equivalent to the Iron boots use for wind however. The Deku Mask can let Link cross liquid surfaces like the hover boots. I can't think of anything that helps Link like the hover boots over open air. The Goron Roll and the Bunny Hood do a bit of this. -The only remaining item I can think of are the gauntlets, which have very limited use.
"The longshot, which is a lame item" What? The hookshot is one of the most useful and viable items in the Zelda games. Nearly every dungeon after its pickup utilizes its use.
***** That's exactly my point. It's an upgrade to an existing item rather than a new item. And unlike other upgrades like arrow types, it just extends the range. Why not just make the hookshot have the range of the longshot?
RhoadsLivesOn Because that ruins the point of a lot of puzzles. If the hookshot had the range of the longshot in the start, places like the Water Temple and Forest Temple would need to be changed completely in order to balance out. That's like saying "Why don't they give us the most powerful sword at the beginning?" Well, what's the point of playing the game then?
+Okana Adonis I literally started this video again today thinking that but honestly for me, it's therapeutic. Matt does a great job describing just what makes this one so special, and that's not easy to do.
It's definitely therapeutic! This video in particular has wonderful pacing and has an amazing ebb and flow to it that I think makes it stand out among his others. It's certainly the one I keep coming back to.
Majora's Mask is amazing for something that was presumably made in less than a year. It has my favorite Koji Kondo soundtrack by far and has a truly wonderful world and story. The visuals and animations are very impressive and stylized giving the game a bit more timelessness than OoT. It's unfortunate to see that the small dev time resulted in some of the game being rushed though. It's very clear that the entire Great Bay segment of the game is lacking in polish that one could assume would be evened out had the game been given a bit more time. Not to mention while the early game has lavish visuals, they can get really muddy and ugly in some places later in the game, with a bit too much brown being used, becoming hard to see sometimes. Some parts of the game were incoherent brown blotches. This may have been an issue with graphics later in the game being rushed. The pacing is a bit of a problem in Majora's Mask, and is in fact a pretty big problem in every major Zelda after Ocarina. I don't want to toot Ocarina's horn or anything, but out of all the 3D Zelda games, it was by far the one with the most concise and tight pacing, with you almost always aquiring a new item, going to a new location, and doing a new dungeon with relative brevity and little padding or runaround errands getting in the way. Majora forces you to do more work to get to the next part of the game with it coming off as blatant padding, and it only gets worse in subsequent Zelda games, with Wind Waker's infamous Triforce Hunt, Twilight Princess's bug hunting and wolf segments, and Skyward Sword's... everything. This is something I'm both surprised and not surprised that you didn't mention in the Ocarina of Time video. While I understand your want to keep the review centered on the game itself without comparing it to other entries, I feel this is a very important aspect of Ocarina of Time. The lack of dungeons is a big loss and makes it feel as though they neglected the main quest in order to flesh out the sidequests more, and honestly aside from Stone Tower I don't like the dungeons very much at all. I'm not trying to knock the sidequests or people who enjoy them, but the main quest is what HAS to be done to progress, it is the NECESSARY part of the game, and I feel it's sorely lacking in the polish and execution seen in Ocarina of Time. The Swamp Palace feels like a waste. In a game that was very much made with the mindset that anyone who played it was a veteran of the previous game, to the point of openly mocking you for not knowing about some enemies, having such a simple and easy tutorial dungeon feels like a waste of a slot. Now I understand the concept of a difficulty curve and I don't want them to make it insanely hard or anything, but the dungeon is very clearly a tutorial in a game that didn't need it and they could have amped it up a bit. While you enjoyed the central tower in Snohead, I found it a little tedious and perhaps requiring a little trial and error. Not to mention if you make a slip and fall or screw up the tower, you go all the way to the beginning of the dungeon, which is a MAJOR loss in a game with a time limit. Not to mention the music is a little grating. Great Bay Temple is one of my least favorite dungeons of the entire franchise, I despise it. Not only is getting into the dungeon itself a painfully awful chore but the music and visuals are really dull and I found the central mechanic and just overall design of it to be frustrating. Not to mention it has two of the hardest bosses of the series, Wart and Gyorg. Both of these are hard in the poorly designed way and not in the fair challenging way. Wart is a pure war of attrition where you need enough hearts/fairies and arrows to kill it. It's insanely brutal and requires more time and preparation than any other boss in the game. You had better have all your bottles filled with health items before even walking into his room. Again, this game has a time limit. If you don't make it to the end of the dungeon by the time it's over, you have to do a whole bunch of shit all over again. And Gyorg. With all the nitpicking you did about Ocarina of Time I am baffled that you didn't mention this poor (and infamous) boss. You are stuck on a tiny platform around a mass of water with an enemy circling you who you can barely see. "No problem" you think, there's a reason the lock-on mechanic exists. Too bad the lockon barely works in this fight and will either constantly break after locking or refuse to lock to the target at all. The idea behind the fight is simple, wait for him to jump, shoot arrow, lay into him. But with the broken lockon and the fact that you can BARELY see the boss, not to mention his insane speed, the fight quickly becomes unfair with you being knocked into the water, which is the boss's territory, and getting chewed up trying to get back on the platform. You're honestly better off getting infinite magic from the special milk or just having magic potions and just abusing the underwater Zora shield to cheese the fight, it's just as poorly designed as the Dark Link fight, requiring you to break the game mechanics to beat the enemy. Majora's Mask itself was also disappointing as a final boss. Granted, it's better to have it be too easy rather than unfairly difficult like Wart and Gyorg, but even without the Fierce Deity mask or infinite magic the fight is very easy as either standard Link or his Zora form. Now granted, I do love Majora's Mask, or at least the 3/4ths of it that aren't Great Bay, it is my second favorite 3D Zelda. Ocarina I felt was more cohesively designed and polished throughout than Majora whose quality varies greatly depending on the part of the game you're playing. However what Ocarina does not offer is the experience Majora provides, and this is where I would make the important distinction that though I believe Ocarina of Time is better as a game, Majora is certainly better as an experience. It's a much more interesting, if not a bit more flawed game, and that interesting part is what makes it so wonderful and worth playing. Majora definitely succeeds much more as a work of art than Ocarina at least. Both games are great and well worth playing, I just wanted to pitch in my two cents because these videos are presumably meant to encourage discussion.
One of the issues you pointed out was the pacing, but what makes Majora's Mask so great is it felt like one of the first games to let you decide the pacing of the narrative. If you felt like you wanted to explore more of the world the game creates you can do so at the expense of continuing the story's progression. This is why the opening segment is so crucial. It gives you a small taste of what the side quests of the game are like and allows you to decide if this is to your liking or not. True, it's hard to deny that the main narrative is rather short, but this I feel is missing the point. Majora's Mask takes the preconceived Zelda notions and ignores them, focusing less on the main hero and more about the world around him. It aims to evoke more emotion and brings about the most powerful moments in the series's history. Failure to explore the full world that's been created here truly detracts from the experience and makes Majora's Mask seem like a much lesser game than it actually is. To this day Majora's Mask seems to be the only Zelda game that really MEANS something, as the rest seem like simple hero on a journey games, and while they are not bad for what they are by any means, the stark contrast between the two styles is jarring when you step back. Honestly I'm surprised to hear you complain about the dungeons in the game as I thought they were incredibly well designed and challenging when compared to their OoT counterparts. While its true that OoT boasts more dungeons with varied settings, I'd also say that Majora's Mask has a much higher success rate in terms of dungeon design and enjoyment. I found myself being highly displeased with my repeat (and first in some cases) journeys through the Water Temple, Forest Temple, Dodongo's Cavern, and the Well. I found that the developers had more room to stretch their legs in the more limited number of dungeons and ultimately found their small number to be one of the major advantages to the game as they had more intricate puzzles, lacking modern hand-holding. In addition to this, their downright longer experiences than those in OoT. Personally, I've never fully understood the hatred for Gyorg as I never found him to be a challenging adversary, but to each his own I suppose in this standard. No doubt he's the weakest of the bosses in the game, but I still found his fight to be interesting enough with enough Zora swimming to make it seem more varied. I feel as he is dead on when discussing thematically what's different from OoT. This is clearly a more brutal and real look at the hero/journey formula and utilizes varying perspectives to fully realize a narrative that has not been matched to this day in the Zelda universe. By today's standards, sure it's not spectacular, but I think it would be remiss to exclude this from games that pioneered storytelling in video games. There are many moments that are not explicitly told to the character which are implied or left to interpretation. This greatly contrasts the typical Zelda nature with its relatively simple story structure. The tragic elements are subdued and really do feel more heavy as the moon, for lack of better phrasing, intrudes more heavily. To me OoT is a well made game that deserves praise for being one of the first really polished experiences in a 3D world, but it wasn't until Majora's Mask that a 3D world felt so alive to me. Majora's Mask is my favorite game of all time, for this and many other reasons, and I can understand how people may not like this game compared to the rest though. But I challenge people to truly compare the two games, not on a gameplay perspective necessarily, but on the basis of the narrative, and how more fleshed out it really is. Then I think more people would be approving of how truly incredible this game really is.
Osmund Saddler To me it just sounds like you don't like the dungeons. I personally loved them and am completely okay with there being only four in the game. MM has the mini dungeons too which offer up some additional gameplay to the main quest, but in a way that differs from the other dungeons in the game and lends a unique experience. And sure, you don't have to do any of the sidequests, but it would be ridiculous to say a person, unless they were specifically doing a no sidequest run of the game, would never find a sidequest and become interested in one of the many characters the game has to offer at some point. Majora's Mask is more sidequests than dungeons, and I mean that in more ways than the amount of time you will sink into either. If you're not valuing the importance of the sidequests more or less even with the dungeons in this game then I hesitate to say that you're looking at this game wrong, because the entire motivator of the main quest is to save the people themselves. Also yes, fuck Gyorg. I'm glad they improved the bosses in the 3DS remake. I respect your opinion by the way, just wanted to get mine out there.
That observatory hits me HARD with nostalgia. It feels like a little haven in a dark and scary world, but one cursed with the knowledge of the coming end.
@@butt317 That description is just...spot on. I've never been able to quite put into words the feelings that Astral Observatory makes me feel, but that's exactly it
This is the best Majora's Mask video I've ever seen. I've never heard anyone so perfectly explain why this game is incredible. Now I can live in peace knowing that someone else felt the same way about Majora's Mask as I did. Thanks Matthewmatosis
These days the saddest part about playing MM is just thinking about how sterile Nintendo is when they make Zelda games now. I'm hoping Breath of the Wild will bring the series away from this, but it seems like the Nintendo of today would never let a game like Majora's Mask happen.
I agree. I don't know if we will ever have another Zelda game that resembles MM. MM is uniquely strange in the Zelda series... but feels more as though it appeals to a cult following and the way Nintendo is now, we probably won't see another title like this in awhile. We have BoTW coming up. As each Zelda game comes out, new plots, characters, story lines etc are introduced and old concepts are no longer in touch. I do hope they make another strange Zelda game like this one though, where we have an emotional connection with the characters and also have that unsettling feel.
You're so on the money with this. They could never get away with a Majora's Mask in today's industry. There's just too much riding on each Zelda game and too much time spent trying to make it a refined experience instead of the model of annual releases like COD or Assassin's Creed. They might not always succeed but they always opt to spend more time with a Zelda game rather than meeting a deadline. It's been more than 5 years since Skyward Sword and a lot of the past games have had development times of almost half a decade so Nintendo isn't keen on taking big risks on their huge investments, everything rides on Zelda for them. Majora was made in only one year with reused assets and being a follow up to such a huge hit allowed a smaller team to really get creative and go crazy with it and it's one of the best games in the series for that. We can only hope that once BoTW is out, Nintendo realizes they can get more use out of the engine and assets by giving us another game within two years in the same vain as Majora's Mask.
MichaelIkomi Last time Nintendo tried to recreate the magic of a past game we got Twilight Princess. I think they realized that a great game is a great game and trying to follow up on something like Majora's Mask would most likely fall short of what the original had done
Majora's Mask is chilling in a way no other game I've played has been because it evokes core fears and presents them in a believable human way. Eternal Darkness was a brilliant psychological horror game but it felt like fantasy, which is fine; Majora's Mask, though, reflects how fear and suffering actually feel. I didn't spend much time on that third day, let's just say that. It's an amazing work of art and the industry is richer for it.
I'm a bit late, but they also fixed Zora Link by making him swim much more slowly unless you waste magic, and they fixed Goht by making him more of a typical Zelda boss who you have to stun and then damage.
the part about the atmosphere is probably my favorite thing that you have ever done. You put into words something i always knew i loved about this game but was never able to communicate to someone. I think a link to this video and especially the part from 27:12 is the best thing you can do when trying to get someone to play this masterpiece. MM is probably in my top 3 games of all time and this video is such a nice reminder why i absolutely fucking love that game. Great job, dude, you are my favorite youtuber btw.
I watched every second of this, Amazing review, you are very well-spoken, you don't act like a tryhard like other TH-camrs and your criticisms are justified. Well done
majoras mask was for me as a kid such a beautiful and mysterious game that i will never forget in a lifetime. i know every location, every corner of this game its like the game is my hometown itself. imo the best zelda game of all. may you never be forgotten.
Great review, very in depth and brought up some interesting points. I really appreciate how you actually just talk about a game rather than trying to force really bad humour down the viewers' throats much like many other YT reviewers
I just 100% completed this game back-to-back-to-back. I wish I could say it was speedrun practice or something, but it's not. I just don't get tired of it. Idk what it is about this game. It came to me at the right time in my childhood as a kid when my family was going through some shit. I'm 31 now and the game is still so wildly special.
I actually like Majora's Mask more than Ocarina. It's not better in every way: I'm not the biggest fan of time travel in video games (or any medium; plots get too convoluted) and I dislike having a time limit. But I do have overall fonder memories of this than Ocarina. That's no slight against Ocarina though, which is a fantastic experience in it's own right. 26:35 sums up why I have such fond memories of this game: the atmosphere is just so unique and incredible.
I totally agree with your summary towards the end. This game is unbelievably mysterious and atmospheric. I find Ikana, and even more so the Stone Tower and Stone Tower Temple to be the most mysterious in-game locations of any game ever. The N64 had a lot of games that had captivating mysterious locations.
Coming back to this review every once in a while. I enjoy the way you describe this game and what you thought was so great about it. This review comes from the heart.
I don't think there's a problem with the # of dungeons. Actually the whole 8 dungeon thing initially turned me off to playing more Zeldas after my first game, it just sounded so formulaic. I don't think a game, even a Zelda game, needs to be a certain length to be good, but what should matter is the quality of the content found in the available areas. If there are four dungeons and they are all piss easy or just bad then, yeah that's a problem, but on the other hand, if there are four quality dungeons that are really memorable and warrant high replay value then that's all the game needs.
Pretty much, Majora and Ocarina compliment each other as sequels, they are complete opposites of each other built well. What Ocarina doesnt have, Majora does, and vice versa.
I love that Matthew is able to review the Zelda games without coming off as a total fanboy. Zelda has some of the worst fanboys in existence and the way they go on about Zelda, especially OoT and Majora's Mask, always puts me off to them. Matthew is the first person to actually make me want to play this game, and also replay OoT.
Great review, what you said about the screen getting smaller and smaller as the next day approaches was spot on. It's so unsettling even when you know it's coming. And the music the plays in the last 6 hours of the last day is just sublime, there's so much about this game that is near impossible to define to anyone who hasn't played it, it's atmosphere and mood are just unreal. I've never played a game like it and it's easily my favourite game of all time.
Everybody I know used to shit on this game when it came out. In grade 7 everyone I knew thought this game was trash, mainly because of the timer. It's comforting to know I'm not the only that not only thinks it's a good game, but that it's better than OOT. Stuck in the echo chamber of my town circa 2000 was starting to make me think something was wrong with me for my unpopular opinion.
the first time I played MM, it completely destroyed OoT for me in terms of better game, everything about this game I loved, it is still my favorite game ever, hopefully BotW will be as awesome or even better than MM
Much like The Thing. People didn't realize at the time how amazing of a thing they came across was. I didn't like MM 16 years ago. I like it now though.
majoras mask does sound like a game that most kids would hate cause of all the time management and obscure stuff going on, so i dont think that sounds all that shocking. there are definately some games i love that i would've probably hated as a kid.
Swaggy Bickford I think OOT is the last Zelda people actually liked as soon as it came out, every one after that was hated at launch until people realized they were being idiots.
but you have to remember that in every 3 day cycle before your last one where you faced Majora, Anju would have evacuated with her family to meet her unavoidable fate and Kafei would have been hopelessly left to rot trapped in Sakon's hideout as the outside world around him is decimated completely. I'm fun at parties.
I have watched all of your Zelda retrospective reviews, and I have to say they are EXCELLENT. Much props for the intricacy and impeccable delivery of this videos. a+ bro PROPs
with many game reviews starting to average around 3 to 5 minutes and just going over basic game review concepts, it's really nice to see a very well thought out and in-depth review. great job!
YES YES YES! I agree with everything you said. And it was fascinating to hear your opinions on this game. This is absolutely one of my favorite games of all time and it means something very special and personal to me. This video was excellent.
I consider the Ikana well/castle its own dungeon, as well as Ganon's castle, the moon, and the Gerudo Pirates' Fortress. In this case, OoT would have 9 main dungeons and MM 6 - still a significant difference, but a much more optimistic one. Whether this is better or even true depends on your criteria for a "main dungeon," of which mine are vague size and enemy requirements. Likewise, because of the length and importance - both progressive and emotional importance - of the Zora Egg segments, I liked it as its own section of the game, and never even considered it as filler. The day 3 Clock Town music is also a lot faster, which just reminds me of people on tv who try to act nonchalant when they've done something wrong. They start humming while they do things, then when the thing they're done is pointed out, they hum louder and faster out of panic.
@25:03 I would argue that the exclusion of Tatl and Z-targeting for the Twinmold fight is not a case of "taking Tatl's inclusion too seriously", but instead it's a way to purposely gimp the player. By taking away Z-targeting you force the player to think about the battle in a different way (in a very similar fashion to the Dark Link fight in OoT) while simultaneously making the penultimate boss fight appropriately more difficult. One could argue taking a function away from the player that he/she has used the entire game is a cheap way to increase the difficulty, but it is effective and it's only done in this one fight so I give it a pass. Anyway, great review. Both this game and this review are favorites of mine. Keep up the good work, boyo.
So glad I found this video again. It was the first thing I ever saw that explained to me why I was always so drawn to Majora's Mask despite it depressing the hell out of me. You are absolutely right when you say it's one of a kind. From a design standpoint, it's far and away my favorite game of all time.
I'll never forget my first time completing majora's mask. I saved the lover's mask as my last mask to collect and had been messing up the last bit of the quest for quite a while (I think I had to retry it 3-4 times). By the time I finally finished the quest and waited out the wedding to receive the mask, I had to book it to the clock tower just to finish the game in time. I think that was the biggest time crunch I ever felt in that game lol.
Thank you for this man, I can not stress how well of a job you did of putting the vibe of Majora's Mask in words. The atmosphere is incredible, and something I cherished from my child hood. Keep it up man, you've got incredible taste and can't wait to see where you take the channel from here.
The way saving at the owl statues work is if you need to shut off the game you can without losing progress, but it cant be abused to instantly retry something like if you mess up the Couples mask side quest right at the end.
In the meta video Mathew said he tries to pass the experience of playing the game in his reviews. Only recently I realized that in this video he talks about the whole game and then goes back to the beginning to explain his point about the atmosphere just how like you go back in time in the game.
Ok to clarify once and for all how the save system Works. Whenever you start the game, you will play from the point when you last used the Song of Time. However, if you are not able to complete a task at once for whatever reason (Not everyone has the time to play three hours straight), you can go to an Owl Statue and save there. The game quits. When you then press A on your save file, you see at which time you stopped during the 3-day-cycle. When you open the file, you will start at the particular Owl where you saved at that given time. For Example: If you have to leave or quit before you can collect the last Zora Egg, you transport yourself back to the nearest Owl Statue and save there. Better than replaying the whole fortress-sequence over again. But Caution: If you re-open a file where you used an Owl, then continue playing and quit without either saving at an Owl or with the Song of Time, your progress will be deleted and you start again from the point you last played the Song of Time. You can save at an owl as many times as you like during one cycle, but please don't forget to save again after you opened a file, you used that option at. When a task is finished and you play the Song of Time it's then saved permanently again up to that point.
Your review of Majora's Mask is leagues ahead of any other review on TH-cam. The same could be said about all your reviews actually. I wish more youtubers were as thorough and well versed with their subject matter as you.
After watching the second time, I'm still fascinated by the later part exploring what makes up the atmosphere of the game. Your "generally trying to be impartial" style (or is it the level voice-over delivery?) gives way to straight up praise as you wrap up, and while I'm not sure how I'd feel if it wasn't my favourite video game, it is, and you were underpinning the big words for the entire time, saving them for the end, so I'd say you're justified. I'd like more of that (I assume The Wonderful 101 video does it as well but hell, I haven't played it yet). I just love when you let your care spill over. Also, I forget that screen effect every time, and it alone startles me a bit. Cool.
Wow, you are immediately one of my favorite game reviewers. You take the time to take the game apart and show it in depth, discussing the good and the bad in equal natural measure as they happen and would matter to the player.
Your writing is awesome. The arc spanning the whole video and resulting in this satisfying conclusion, fitting with the music - brilliant. DAMN! GOOD! WRITING!
Loved theses videos. You provide intelligent, fair criticism and praise for these games. Your commentary is a breathe of fresh air among the simplistic, reactionary reviews and comments that run rampant on TH-cam.
This is an amazing review, and really captures the game in a way I'm surprised is even possible. The only thing I can add is to emphasize how central the 20-Mask "sidequest" is - it convinces the player to fully experience the game's best quality (atmosphere) by truly trying to understand and interact with all the amazing characters and carefully experience the scripted-yet-living world. Additionally, the utter stomping the FDiety gives Majora is a satisfying capstone to the intricate quest
I think one of the creepiest things about the mask salesman is that he retains memories even after a reset
Well he's inside the clocktower which is like the magical transition from Hyrule to Termina so it really isn't that weird
Makes You Wonder, Does He Operate Outside of Time?
Seems like anyone who knows what the Majora's Mask actually is seems to be retain the memories. Tatl does, Link does, the giants do, the Happy Mask Salesman does. They all know the true nature of the mask.
Watching "Dawn of... a new day " show up on my screen at the end of the game was possibly the single most rewarding moment I have ever experienced playing a video game.
bro I got goosebumps reading that shit those moments in games are incredible
Game: But what if you woke up...and it was _tomorrow_ ?!
Us: this game is pure genius
@@SaltpeterTaffy there was no tomorrow before but now is
I was about to mention outer wilds, but then realized the situation is pretty much the same.
@@rat4992 I got goosebumps as well. Truly was an amazing game.
This is a spot on review. Especially the bit about atmosphere was very well done. The impermanence of your actions and inevitability of failure is such a bold theme for a game let alone a Zelda one. The music, as you mentioned, illustrates the tone of each zone expertly as well. For example the music that plays in the Zora beach zone sounds so bleak and barren despite being a vacation spot for most of the population. It totally fits the incident of the princess losing her eggs.
Criken, how's college going?
Criken2 I totally photosynthesize with you opinion.
+Criken2 Apologies for the delay, firstly you are 100% correct about the great quality of this review and reviewer.
Secondly, regarding the music of the Zora beach zone; (to my memory) I believe it is same tune as the southern swamp, an area of the snowy Goron area and an area of Ikana, just with different instruments. Not that there is anything wrong with this. The music fits perfectly with the areas regardless.
Apologies again if you already knew this information
+Criken2 he is also spot on when he says that the experience of playing the game cannot be described; I had watched this review several times before playing the re-release on the 3DS and the game is just exceptional. I then got annoyed when a friend of mine whinged because they couldn't understand what to do, and, after telling them that it really is a game where you need a guide on hand, they flat-out refused to use one.
They eventually gave in
Criken when commenting: 🤔🧠🧠🤔🤔🤯
Criken when playing games: *NYEÉĘUGH!!*
Majora's Mask is great because the mere fact that it exists is a miracle. All things considered this game should have ended up terrible. It was made within a year using assets from Ocarina of Time, but instead of just churning out some rehash Nintendo created a game that's completely distinct from the previous entry while retaining everything that made OoT good.
This is truly a remarkable game and it will never happen ever again.
It also goes to show you that a Zelda game doesn't need Princess Zelda, Ganon, the Triforce or Master Sword. If the objective is a strong one, the world is full of vegetation and characters, items (or masks in this case), and the gameplay is fun, and rewarding, then it will still be an excellent Zelda game to many. Majora's Mask still remains my favourite game in the series - and as Zelda is my favourite series, that is saying a lot.
"Majora's Mask is great because the mere fact that it exists is a miracle."
What does this even mean? Why is it a miracle? You're basically saying "Majora's Mask is great because it's so good." Which makes sense but sounds stupid.
Halo 2 is similar. 2 years into development they scrapped the entire game, and the final product was built in only 9 months, yet it's a lot of people's favorite entry in the series.
@Tom G He answered that literally in the following sentence. It was made in an incredibly short amount of time using assets that came entirely from a game that already came out. That's almost entirely unheard of, and if you saw anything else made like that now, it would be considered total garbage.
Its saying that its great because it was made with such short notice with such limited access and was a totally complete and well polished package. Part of what makes it so great is not so much that it exists in general, but the circumstances in which it came to exist should have made it the worst game in history, not the best game of the series, hence it being a miracle.
More like, it goes to show if you have a great development team with a lot of experience (and experience with the engine/assets used for the previous game) AND give them only a year to make a game, well, honestly it's still a miracle this game is as good as it is
I LOVE the astral obervatory music, it's beautiful and sounds a little sad as well as nice somehow.
I've always thought the exact same thing!
You should check out CSGuitar89's cover of it, if you haven't already. In my opinion, it's one of his best Zelda covers.
Thanks for the suggestion, that's a beautiful cover!
No fears.
Didn't super expect you here
I actually think that they don't dwell too long on Link's successes is part of developing Link's character. Link isn't doing this to be considered a hero, he's just doing it because it's in his nature to save people. This is exemplified here even more than in OoT because Terminia isn't even his home. He has no ties to this place and yet he cannot just leave it to die.
Also I liked the fact that he takes on the image of the dead when saving towns. This is another way he avoids taking credit for being the hero of this town. Instead the townsfolk all believe that their own (Gorron or Zora) hero was the one who came back and saved them.
But one of the biggest reasons this game is special is because it had themes not of Good v Evil like 90% of game out there. The themes of this game were of death, the meaning of true friendship, the strength of forgiveness, and acceptance.
You make some good points!
TheRepty818 i
I think link saves termina because he feels sad about everything that happened and he isnt recognized as a hero and lost navy, because when he saved hyrule he traveled to the past, wich means that no one knows what link did, so link isnt anymore recognized as a hero because what he did dint happen and they dont know all the things that link had to overpass to achive his goal and he feels uncomplete without navy and his adventure
TheRepty818 To build on your last part - really late but still - it had a twisted sense of good and evil. Majora, or at least this mask that represents he/she/it, actually thinks that you’re the bad guy, as stated on the moon. It really puts into perspective the fact that evil people don’t usually realize they’re evil. This isn’t the only game that does this, but it was the first that I came across
flare Link left because he was searching for Navi who left with no explanation after OOT; he was searching the lost woods which was what resulted in getting robbed by skull kid
Actually one of the reasons the N64 was able to handle 3D so well back then was because it was able to offload most of the rendering from the CPU to the RCP, which was essentially an early GPU that supported the predecessor to OpenGL (and was extremely similar in the way it worked). If it had more texture memory and CD storage, the games could have been much more visually rich, especially towards the Majora's Mask era where a lot of the graphics code was really optimized (the earlier opcodes for the RCP, which games could reprogram if they so chose, were designed by SGI and were woefully inadequate, as they transferred polygonal data slowly between the CPU and RCP and made the display lists twice as large as they needed to be, which made draw time and the polygon limit worse than it needed to be). Majora's Mask actually did a lot of neat visual tricks because it had more texture memory to play with, which is why it had blur effects, richer textures, and larger textures.
The main limitations with the N64 really were several factors: 1) storage, both on the cartridge and in RAM, were phenomenally cramped which made making an expansive 3-D game difficult at best, 2) the RCP/GPU did not have direct access to the cartridge and had to receive its data from the CPU, which put more work on the CPU than there needed to be, 3) the CPU still had to deal with audio rendering, AI, and game processing, and the AI in Zelda did a lot of clever tricks to keep its cycle counts low, and 4) the physical hardware added latencies that made it difficult to get the best possible optimizations, specifically the Rambus RAM and the main system bus which linked the CPU to the RCP.
Despite all of this, overall the N64 was an impressive piece of hardware from 1996, especially compared to the Sega Saturn and PlayStation. The Sega Saturn lacked a dedicated GPU and instead utilized multiple CPU sockets, which were difficult to code and even harder to keep in sync, especially when they tried to work with the same regions of memory. The PlayStation had a weaker CPU and GPU-equivalent compared to the N64 and wasn't really optimized for 3-D rendering, especially in the texture department. Most games for the PlayStation had a hard time getting past Mario 64 level of quality on the polygonal side of things; the PlayStation's real saving grace was it's ability to combine pre-rendered content with polygonal content simultaneously. If the N64 had been equipped with a CD drive, it probably would have dominated that console generation.
+MNGoldenEagle Man, it's super rare to see a TH-cam comment of this quality. This is a really informative and interesting insight (if you aren't bullshitting, ha).
Thanks for sharing.
*****
Not at all! I got into reverse engineering Zelda games back in the day, which lead to reading about the CPU and GPU and eventually getting copies of the N64 Developer Documentation. It was a pretty awesome time.
SGI also provided a ucode called Turbo3D, which actually was very fast, but suffered from significant quality tradeoffs, so it was never used except in demos. As for the traces, you're completely right. I forgot about that; kind of a weird design decision, though it allowed the RCP to fast-load resources from the cartridge without relying on the CPU, so there's that.
Born in 86... and went through all the console before and after the 64...& it's STILL my favorite system of all time. It will never change. thank you for the facts you presented . that's awesome
Lol MNGoldenEagle, from the Zelda hacking site with the forum and IRC, I can't recall the name now
This is definitely one of the best games I have ever played.
+DWarrior My favorite game with OoT
Ya the weird factor added a lot.
RUBY DA CHERRY what your favorite game
RUBY DA CHERRY I hope you are joking. Majora is one of the best games out there. Also you do notice this guy has a picture of snake meaning he plays good games
Hylian Luke if he was not joking i will feel sad for him
Especially with that profile pic of his he sure have good tastes
The developers intentionally made the game in such a way that Link would not be able to help EVERYONE on the 3 day cycle.
...Sounds like real life...
Actually..... you can.
In the final cycle that you choose to stop the skull kid, you can actively go help everyone. That's what I did as a kid when I realized that I was about to beat the game but that wouldn't save... the monkey, for example.
I mean, technically no, because you can’t stop the woman from being robbed and beat the anju/kafei side quest
@@RBGolbat old lady not worth
I believe you can make it to the Clock Tower after beating Anju and Kafei's quest. With the Bunny Hood, and taking the fastest route... I THINK you should be able to make it.
MoonFusion No dude it’s scripted to reset after the cutscene
Hard to ignore the parallels of the time pressure for Link to save Termina, and Aonuma's team to finish this game in about a year. The steady march of time must have been a constant source of anxiety throughout its entire development.
24:16 - Iron Boots concept is fine, but the slow execution *drags it down*.
What you did there. I see it.
Fittingly, the comedic aspects of Matthew's videos are always there, and quite a lot of them, but nowhere does he hold your hand and point you towards it. If you manage to find the jokes, it's rewarding, and it adds replay value to the content if you want to try and find them all.
OoT Link's nose. You see that? Reasonable. This? Unreasonable. One of my favourite jokes of his.
umbaupause
Which is so much more interesting nowadays than saying "pun intended" or "pun unintended" right after making a pun, obscure or not.
A lot of people feel the need to point out some of their own jokes right after they've made them.
30:58
Since the ending sort of meshes all your victories into the ending, I like to imagine that when you complete the game, every copy of the three days merges into one, painting a full picture of a hero.
Since it was implied that the Skull Kid used Majora's Mask to inflict hardship on most of the people you meet, I like to believe destroying Majora undid most of his magic and the harm it did.
@@michaelkemel9711 except for the Deku Butler's Son sadly...
@@Name-uo3wo and Mikau/Darmani
A couple of things I've noticed about this game.
The Anju/Kafei sidequest is sort of the center of all the character-based sidequests. If you go through the Bomber's Notebook, you'll notice that a lot of the people listed there are closely related to the Anju/Kafei quest, and most of them are at least indirectly related. The Anju/Kafei sidequest is so central and involved that you could almost consider it to be Clock Town's temple, just in sidequest form.
Also: considering how prominent the theme of death is in this game, it's interesting to note that there are _four_ dungeons. Japanese culture traditionally associates the number four with death, since the words sound similar in Japanese. Also, the game ends when you reach the _fourth_ day. I'm sure this was intentional, though I'm not sure what we're meant to take from it.
You may have a point there with the temples, but as far as the number of days, that might just be a coincidence. I believe the game's director said in an interview that they were originally planning for a whole week, but both implementing that and expecting a player to juggle it proved too daunting, so they reduced it to three.
@@michaelkemel9711 There is code in the game's files that shows the moon in different positions depending on the day. So, for example, Day 1 in game was more like Day 4-5 in the beta version.
@@Odinsday It is actually possible to see the original day 1 moon in game. By performing a glitch known as "Fourth day" by using the telescope in a specific way when the moon crashes down, you can see the moon is very far away, looking about as big as the moon does in real life.
33:35 - Try summoning the Giants when there are less than 4. That scene combined with Oath to Order in the background is EXTREMELY melancholy (they struggle but can't stop the Moon).
Oh...I have played the game so many times but I have never thought to try that. Sounds utterly heartbreaking
Doing it with one giant.
This review holds up phenomenally well - even 7 years later.
The audio quality is still crisp, and the editing is incredibly solid. Your review felt very genuine, and everything you explained was very coherent.
Yeah for some seconds I thought I read "8 months ago" but its 8 years. It's well done for 2011
@@miserablepileofsecrets same
He's easily the best game critic on youtube, maybe the best overall.
It was much better than Schaffrilas's video on MM.
@@spooky0407 I find Matthew's brevity to be quite refreshing, at least I comparison to some reviewers who make 3 hour long videos
"Majora's Mask is the first direct sequel in the Zelda series"
Adventure of Link says Hello.
We don't speak of that game.
Tyler Daniels Adventure of Link is great!
The Zelda timeline is so messed up (although there is an "official" timeline out there) so who really cares.
Tyler Daniels That's what people who suck at Zelda 2 are used to say.
Zeburaman2005 Its not just the challenge. At that time Nintendo was still trying to figure out the formula that would become the zelda we know today. The legend of zelda and the adventure of link are not legit zelda games when it comes to the gameplay. Story, yes, but they are more archaic.
Majora's Mask scared the shit out of me when i first played at the age of 7 or 8 (not sure any more). I played it for one evening, didn't really achieve anything apart from being scared off for good from the freaking Moon/Skullkid and the stress i felt from being put under a timelimit. Only later i replayed it and loved it. The Trauma stays though...
Funny enough, it was the other way around for me :) I played the first game at a very young age (4-5), following with the second game a bit later (6-7). Similar to what AtTheEdgeOfTime said, the creepy atmosphere of the second game went completely past me. I actually felt that the first game was much scarier at the time (not kidding, I just couldn't pass the marketplace as an adult, I would always ask siblings). I think it was the environments that did that for me.
At such a young age, you don't really care about the characters yet, you don't care too much about emotions presented in the game and the issues people have. As a result, the environments and temples in OoT had a much more direct scary factor than the ones in Majora's Mask.
*****
That makes complete sense. As an adult (29), even watching this video and hearing the music/third day sounds all evokes far deeper emotion than anything from Ocarina but to this day, that 'Bottom of the Well' and Dead Hand (pictured in this video I think, it is *not* the wall/floormasters..it's the abomination) are horrible to have to play through - not in that same existensial mortal fear, suffering and loss sense; just skin crawling scary.
When I played it at the time, about age 14/15, I remember being engrossed in its atmosphere and finding it extremely unsettling to play late on the third day but it's really in adulthood that looking back at the game I fully appreciate the emotion.
Haha this happened to me with a lot of games back when I was a kid Majora's mask was one of them amd also Metroid prime.
My childhood experience with the game entirely. For some reason i dream about this game all the time even now.
Game creeped me out when I played it around age 9 or 10, but I felt genuine terror all throughout Ikana Canyon. Especially having to run through the well trading gibdos with the damn wallmasters. Best Zelda
Majora's Mask is a true masterpiece. It's shame no game since has created a world that feels as deep and alive as Termina. Even games like World of Warcraft and Skyrim, though they have a lot of lore and backstory to them, don't feel like there's anything to them beyond that you see. They feel like worlds inhabited by mannequins. You walk up to them, push a button, and they spit out a pre-recorded response. The characters in MM felt like characters and not just mindless automatons on a track. Even though that's really what they were.
A lot of that probably comes from the illusion created by the time loop, which is actually quite ingenious for that purpose. That setup makes it much easier to suspend your disbelief and just accept the fact that they act like on rails, since it's very plausible that they would really behave like that if you had to rewind time.
It's because the characters are relatable and more human than before that's what makes it good. You feel like you're in a real busy world full of people. It really is impressive.
You sound like someone who would really like Morrowind
Shenmue.
Majora's Mask and Half Life 2 are the only examples I can think of.
This is a very small detail, but its another thing i've always adored in Majoras Mask, which is Young Link's growth. not only can he now carry equipment locked to his older self, but he can also hold his shield fully upright, and when jumping he shows a bit of confidence, flair, and maybe even a bit of playfulness by doing a flip or two.
How one video can be this perfect is just beyond me
Colonel Cubbage This video is far from perfect. matthew is way too overly fucking picky about shit and his voice is really bad for this type of video. idk why everyone treats him like a god he just does his fucking research so many gay fanboys honestly
wilson Considering he does an *in-depth* review on the games, he is allowed to be picky over someone giving a five minute review. His voice sounds nice to me, but that's completely subjective, so I won't try arguing that point. "idk why everyone treats him like a god he just does his fucking research" Doing your research is what makes a good presentation. Look at Ken Burns Documentaries.
Because that is a difference between a great game and a masterpiece
10:03 he doesn't even know the inverted song of time exists.
@@wilson-ie3ce good critique will be picky sometimes, getting down into the minute details of how the critic feels about the game. The point isn't to reinforce everyones' thoughts about how good the game is.
For all the people who are saying "this is what happens when you put full confidence in your developers' vision" or something as absurd as "short development cycles create a great game" etc, you need to look up "survival bias". Not every game subject to those conditions is a remarkable achievement. Just because you know of one or two games that had those conditions, that doesn't mean you're not ignoring the hundreds that were subject to the same conditions that ended up sucking that we don't talk about because no one likes them.
Correlation, no causation, ladies and gentlemen.
That was a very long way of proving his point
gibbdude I 100% agree with you. I was swept away with the review of this video and the game itself, to be clear. It really is a remarkable achievement
This is a very good point. The way I look at it, Majora's Mask is incredible *in spite of* the short development cycle, and not *because* of the short development cycle.
"Wouldn't reccomend this as a first Zelda"
Me at 9 years old: I GET TO PLAY MY FIRST ZELDA, MAJORA'S MASK
Same, massive oof
Yup. And I spent most of my time stuck in town as Deku Link lol.
@@deeta000 I did that over and over and OVER
@@deeta000 this as fuck
@@Alief.Prophet I legit hid in Deku playground LOL
amazing video. i never thought of how majora's mask is not only a great game, but a great way of showing nintendo was not trying to make money on ocarina's success, but trying to do something different.
Garrador I can count the amount of game companies that have balls on one hand. Nintendo is one of them.
VictorFr0st Seriously, compared to how game companies work today the risk they took here was insane. I can't think of any big sequel risks like this on the top of my head.
Yeah, and the development time was little more than a year. Very impressive.
lProN00bl i can think of a similar sequel risk: zelda 2 adventure of link
Garrador
I meant today. I'd say Wind Waker was pretty risky as well. Star fox adventures might have been called risky if were not just super lazy reskinning a game.
The Wii U and Wii were pretty huge risks, with the Wii U still uncertain if it will pay off.
Now that I think of it I'd say Demon Souls was a pretty significant risk as another example,
The atmosphere discussion at the end makes me wish Matt made a Silent Hill 2 review sometime.
Hello 16 year old Yahtzee.
I think MM is by far the best game in the series. Exellent analysis about this masterpiece
Santiago Benegas I think your profile pic makes that opinion obvious for you
but so does yours
o.O
Well your profile pic couldn’t be more fitting.
I agree. Majora's Mask is my absolute favorite 3D Zelda game. My favorite Zelda game period.
I like em all.
As a non zelda fan, Majora's Mask is one of those games which stands out the most in the series to me. Which is so ironic since every Zelda game has different art styles and mechanics and Majora's Mask in the end is still a continuation of Ocarina's art style and engine. Maybe it's like Matthew said, maybe its the atmosphere that makes it stand out and keeps it interesting and prime for speculation even after all these years. This along with Silent Hill 2 and MGS2 are one of my favorite games which I've never actually played and yet I keep thinking about them.
PLAY MGS2
JUST DO IT
Emanon you have played Majora's Mask by now right?
An interesting, unknown fact is that LoZ: MM borrows two songs from non-Zelda games.
Sakon's Alarm in Sakon's Hideout is also the alarm in "Sector Z" of Star Fox 64/ Lylat Wars.
The song "Farewell to the Gibdos" by Pamela's Father is also the "Merry-Go-Round Music" in the Haunted House of Super Mario 64.
Majora's Mask was actually my introduction to the Zelda series. I had never played OoT (and actually still haven't to this day, will rectify that when I get a 3DS), and my god was it the creepiest game I ever played as a kid, and I played a lot of weird games. It was also probably the darkest game I ever played up until a recent few years, with releases such as Dark Souls, Spec Ops: The Line, and The Walking Dead, so it really hung over me and molded me not just as a gamer but as a person.
There's a lot I can say about the game, including things that weren't mentioned, probably most notably going into depth about how the game can be seen as a metaphor as to coming to terms with loss and sometimes being powerless. The whole Kafei and Anju quest, as specifically mentioned in the video, might be the most obvious of the matters though- you literally have one minute left - not enough time to complete the game, and you must reconcile the fact that you cannot reunite them. Its depressing as a child, and then I realized, there's still that monkey being imprisoned by the Dekus, the Gorons are freezing and starving to death, the Zora are hopeless and likely going to die out in depression and suicide. This applies to all of it - you can't help everyone.
Not only that, Link never finds his friend in the end. I never played OoT, so I didn't know that it was Navi, so I always wondered who this mystery friend was, and I came to the conclusion eventually, as a child, that because of having to prevent the moon from dooming Termina, Link lost his only lead on finding his friend, and that the circumstances of life just left it outside of his hands. A lot of things like these were subtle, but somehow burrowed into my mind, aided by the game's uneasy atmosphere. The game is extremely uncomfortable to play - but it needed to be uncomfortable to impart its lessons. I feel that without Majora's Mask, I would've been far less prepared for a lot of the extremely negative things that followed shortly afterwards in my life. In other words, its the videogame equivalant of getting your kid a goldfish so the child can learn about death - but it does it in a way that is so much better and enriches their life. Because of this, I know that if I ever do become a guardian to a child, there is one game that above all others will be given to my ward to, and it will be this game.
Well? Did you?
Victor Lara omg I need to know
@@DrEcho I ain't got no kid it's only been six years and I'm infertile (not that I'd pass on my awful genes anyways) stop rushing me lol
37:09
This might be my favourite moment on this channel because it illustrates how MatthewMatosis is one of the most passionate and genuine game critics out there. I love how he really goes off here about how amazing this game is because it shows how much he cares. These games have really affected him and he's spent a long time deconstructing them so he can have a better understanding. I have nothing but total respect for his commentary and thoughts even though he's criminally under-viewed.
This is a review. It's a criticism and deconstruction of the game but somehow without fail, that part always manages to give me goosebumps in a way that actual movies and TV shows have a hard time doing.
I think it's because Matt very seldomly expresses true adoration, focusing his best to try and let as little biases in, so that he can get a broader scope and perspective on the games he covers. It's 37 minutes of pure analysis that then coalesces into a profound, personal endorsement of the game's ability to make the player *Feel* something. I agree. This is also still my favourite moment across this entire channel because Matthew doesn't let the mask slip so to say very often, but he lets the audience know exactly how he feels because the story of Majora's Mask itself is filled to the brim with deeply personal and intimate moments.
Most of the time I watch this whole video front to back just so that I can watch this moment in its full glory with the context of the game in mind.
I honestly like this game more than Ocarina of Time. More creativity, less generic objective, characters that I actually gave a shit about, it's an impressive game. The 3D version of the game is nice too.
+Willie Wonker I love this game as much as i love Ocarina of Time, and i think Majora's mask is as great as Ocarina of Time.
Opinion changed. I like Ocarina of Time more.
Lol what changed it, just curious.
mm for me
I like Majora's Mask more than Ocarina of Time as well. Don't get me wrong. OoT is a good game, but I found it to be kinda overrated if u ask me. Majora's Mask is my personal favorite because it took what we like about OoT & created something differently & made it tremendously well.
One of the weirder things I noticed about the game is what one of the main themes is defining what it means to be an adult - which actually adds an extra layer of eeriness to the atmosphere when it's juxtaposed against symbolism of childishness: Skull kid lost his friends from being too childish and a lot of the misfortune befalling Termina the result of his tantrum, becoming more powerful by helping more people (gaining hearts/items/masks), the playrooms of the children in the moon and the final boss room resembling a crib (he even plays with tops and acts/sounds childish), the mask being a pushover if you gain the fierce deity mask, Kafei being returned to a child form, the bombers being some of the only ones left in town carelessly by the final night, and all the things involved in the Romani/Cremia quest. During all of this, Link is in a child form and unlike in most of Ocarina of Time it is his true form.
Additionally, there are a ton of parent-child relationships going on in the game: Mayor Dotour/Madame Aroma and Kafei, Anju's mother and grandmother, the bomb shop owner and her child, the old man in the astral observatory probably looks after the bombers, Cremia is Romani's mother figure, The Deku King and the Princess, The Deku Butler and his dead son whose spirit is trapped in the mask, the Goron elder and his son, Lulu/Mikau's eggs, Pamela and her father are trapped in the house surrounded by the gidbos, Captain Keeta looks after his soldiers who are basically child skeletons, the guy on the ranch wanted to see his chicks grow up into adults as his last wish, and it's a little more vague but Gabora (the giant thing in the mountain smithshop) seems to have the mind of a child and is being exploited by the other guy. It's absolutely ridiculous how many parent/child relationships are in this game and it's too hard to ignore. I have no idea why there are so many of these relationships in the game but maybe it's to make all the characters seem more mortal and human, adding a heaviness to the impending doom?
I think both Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask are stories about growing up.
I believe that the reason the owl statues only function as a single-use quicksave is to prevent players from trivializing the timer. If the saves could be loaded repeatedly, then a player could save-scum until they got what they wanted, whether it’s a minigame, part of a sidequest, or a temple. The impact of the timer would be absolutely shattered if a workaround like this existed. As they are, the statues allow a player to save once, put the game away, and pick up where they left off later once. No detrimental impact, just saving the game in the way that saving is supposed to be used.
Wonder if he realizes you can block the damage from the blast mask with your shield lol
***** you're not lol.
Why is a review from 7 years ago 10x better, more soothing and wayyy better organized than review's today...
Just genuine passion. A lot of modern videos seem worse because people need to put out more vids to get more ad revenue and more views.
If I recall, in the Japanese version of Majora's Mask you could only save when you played the Song of Time, so Owl Statues were absent. I think it was a concession for western audiences that Nintendo tossed in at the last minute, kind of like a 'Continue' feature. Albeit a horrendously explained and manipulable Continue feature.
They were already in there for the teleportation song, you just couldn't save at them in the Japanese version.
Ah, alright. Didn't cross my mind. Thanks for the clarification.
No problem.
In Japan, Majora's Mask was called Zelda: Gaiden.
Excellent, I like that.
The music in this game is both haunting and beautiful.
The owl statues aren't complicated. They just explained it in a complicated way.
Basically, it serves as a quicksave. While the normal save in the game makes you always begin in the beginning, the quicksave allows you to save at the same exact spot. The difference is that you can only turn the console off once after you quicksave. If you load your file again and then shut off your game without talking to another owl statue or playing the Song of Time, the game will only save up to the last time you played Song of Time.
So it comes down to this:
The player plays the Song of Time.
The player returns to Clocktown on Day 1.
The player obtains a Piece of Heart.
The player saves at an owl statue.
The player loads the game again.
The player shuts the game off.
This will cause the player to go all the way back to the second point without the piece of heart being collected at all.
To add to this, that system is there to act as a Save and Quit feature, and the way it is set up simply means you can't just try a certain part of the cycle over and over again, it's an anti-cheese measure. If you screw up, you're supposed to go all the way back to day 1 and redo your quest from there, like that heart piece bit illustrates.
Another good example would be the last bit of the Kafei quest. If you fail to fetch the mask in the thief's hideout, you can't just load that owl save and try again, because that would destroy any stakes this quest has. You'll have to do a reset and go from there.
Ultra late answers, yay...
Anti-save-scumming is a side-effect of the way the owl statue saves work, but I'm reasonably sure they're that way purely because of technical limitations.
The cartridge doesn't have one place where it tracks current world state while you're playing and a second place where it save owl-save data. Instead, there's one location per save file where the current world-state for that file is stored and updated, whether you're actively playing (in which case it's constantly being updated as you do stuff) or whether the console's off and the cartridge is gathering dust on a shelf somewhere. There will also be a secondary location where permanent changes are stored (which items/masks/songs Link has, how much money is in the bank, etc - the things that stay when you reset time), which is only updated when you reset time with the Song of Time. So you have a small amount of data permanently saved, and a fairly large amount of data that updates as you play through each 3-day cycle. When you owl-save, that large chunk of data just gets left as-is, which owl statue you saved at gets noted, and the game shuts down. As soon as you load it up and start doing stuff, that owl-save no longer exists because it's not a separate snapshot of the world-state - it is the working world-state and has already been updated as you do stuff.
At least that's my educated guess.
As an additional data-point, the 3DS remake does saves differently - the Song of Time no longer saves, owl-saves are permanent, and there are additional save statues around (that don't function as warp beacons).
I don't like the permanent owl save statues. It lessens the tension of the games' atmosphere.
It's the misunderstanding of this element of the game that means I just can't enjoy Majora's Mask 3D on the same level as I do the original. Just having the ability to save scum (regardless of if I'd use it) ruins the whole atmosphere.
How so? It doesn't affect you in any way shape or form.
Wow, near the end when you're talking over the music that plays during the last six hours... That was intense. You articulated well my thoughts on this game.
I always struggle with picking Majora or Wind Waker as my favourite Zelda game. It always ends up being Wind Waker due to its lovely cel shading and the humour. It's my kind of humour for sure (at least for a video game). In addition, the swordplay in WW is so much more satisfying than in any other Zelda game IMO.
However, MM gave MUCH more impact overall. The serious, dark, and ambiguous tone has yet to be replicated at the same level for me from any other game that I've played. The game really sucks you in. When I first played MM, I was like 7 years old or something and I remember looking up into the sky to make sure there wasn't a face moon overhead.
...Not many things in life make children think about the apocalypse more than Majora's Mask.
The culmination of the dark themes and incredible music composition accentuate a melancholic mood . I'm blown away by Koji Kondo's vast imagination and creativity, he's prolific. His music is in tune with giving more immersion in these worlds than I've experienced recently in modern games and I assume that was more important 20 years ago due to visual limitations.
This approach succeeded in giving this game a living organic feel if not in a weird parallel universe.
To be fair, you can cheat at the pirate section by using the stone mask.
+SelfAwarePedant You got me. I think I've never done the pirate fortress without the stone mask.
+Ivanotus same here, of course I tried it once, but went back after 2 minutes and got the stone mask t_T
Yeah but it sucks in the 3ds version, You don't get the stone mask until halfway through the dungeon.
Random: I wish Skull Kid was included as a playable character in Smash Bros.
Or in Hyrule Warriors!
***** I meant Skull Kid wearing Majora's Mask.
***** Final smash?
***** My idea would be Majora link as a sort of pokemon trainer. It's one character but you transform into deku, goron, or zora, and they each play differently. Final smash would be deity link for a short amount of time to wreck everyone.
***** Dude gets taken down by a bubble. Why bother?
Very well-made presentation, I appreciate the work you put into this. Thank you. This is my favorite game in the world, and it's awesome to hear other people's thoughts on it.
Andrew Nesterov nigga you fuckin suck. you probably don't even wash your hands
I'm completely lost
Andrew Nesterov okay not like it matters. kid you probably haven't even played atleast 5 zelda games and how can you say a zelda game sucks when you barely know the basis of a true zelda franchise? I own over 10 zelda games and have been playing them all since I have been way younger than you
Andrew Nesterov wow cool you said it sucks but you haven't even played it. case closed checkmate
'TIME TO TIP THE SCALES!'
I actually disagree about the item count in MM vs OOT, at least in practical use. Going through the dungeon items in OOT that aren't in MM we have:
-The boomerang, which the Zora fins emulate.
-The Megaton Hammer, which the Goron pound emulates.
-The longshot, which is a lame item.
-Iron/Hover boots. Iron boots underwater is emulated by the Zora mask, there is no equivalent to the Iron boots use for wind however. The Deku Mask can let Link cross liquid surfaces like the hover boots. I can't think of anything that helps Link like the hover boots over open air. The Goron Roll and the Bunny Hood do a bit of this.
-The only remaining item I can think of are the gauntlets, which have very limited use.
"The longshot, which is a lame item"
What? The hookshot is one of the most useful and viable items in the Zelda games. Nearly every dungeon after its pickup utilizes its use.
***** I didn't say the hookshot. I said the longshot.
RhoadsLivesOn The Longshot is an upgrade to the Hookshot. It's a straight upgrade. It's still a hookshot.
***** That's exactly my point. It's an upgrade to an existing item rather than a new item. And unlike other upgrades like arrow types, it just extends the range. Why not just make the hookshot have the range of the longshot?
RhoadsLivesOn Because that ruins the point of a lot of puzzles. If the hookshot had the range of the longshot in the start, places like the Water Temple and Forest Temple would need to be changed completely in order to balance out.
That's like saying "Why don't they give us the most powerful sword at the beginning?" Well, what's the point of playing the game then?
“Years to come”
Very happy to hear that.
I have watched this video far too many times.
Same
+Okana Adonis No. You need to watch it again
+Okana Adonis same
+Okana Adonis I literally started this video again today thinking that but honestly for me, it's therapeutic. Matt does a great job describing just what makes this one so special, and that's not easy to do.
It's definitely therapeutic! This video in particular has wonderful pacing and has an amazing ebb and flow to it that I think makes it stand out among his others. It's certainly the one I keep coming back to.
Majora's Mask is amazing for something that was presumably made in less than a year. It has my favorite Koji Kondo soundtrack by far and has a truly wonderful world and story. The visuals and animations are very impressive and stylized giving the game a bit more timelessness than OoT.
It's unfortunate to see that the small dev time resulted in some of the game being rushed though. It's very clear that the entire Great Bay segment of the game is lacking in polish that one could assume would be evened out had the game been given a bit more time. Not to mention while the early game has lavish visuals, they can get really muddy and ugly in some places later in the game, with a bit too much brown being used, becoming hard to see sometimes. Some parts of the game were incoherent brown blotches. This may have been an issue with graphics later in the game being rushed.
The pacing is a bit of a problem in Majora's Mask, and is in fact a pretty big problem in every major Zelda after Ocarina. I don't want to toot Ocarina's horn or anything, but out of all the 3D Zelda games, it was by far the one with the most concise and tight pacing, with you almost always aquiring a new item, going to a new location, and doing a new dungeon with relative brevity and little padding or runaround errands getting in the way. Majora forces you to do more work to get to the next part of the game with it coming off as blatant padding, and it only gets worse in subsequent Zelda games, with Wind Waker's infamous Triforce Hunt, Twilight Princess's bug hunting and wolf segments, and Skyward Sword's... everything. This is something I'm both surprised and not surprised that you didn't mention in the Ocarina of Time video. While I understand your want to keep the review centered on the game itself without comparing it to other entries, I feel this is a very important aspect of Ocarina of Time.
The lack of dungeons is a big loss and makes it feel as though they neglected the main quest in order to flesh out the sidequests more, and honestly aside from Stone Tower I don't like the dungeons very much at all. I'm not trying to knock the sidequests or people who enjoy them, but the main quest is what HAS to be done to progress, it is the NECESSARY part of the game, and I feel it's sorely lacking in the polish and execution seen in Ocarina of Time.
The Swamp Palace feels like a waste. In a game that was very much made with the mindset that anyone who played it was a veteran of the previous game, to the point of openly mocking you for not knowing about some enemies, having such a simple and easy tutorial dungeon feels like a waste of a slot. Now I understand the concept of a difficulty curve and I don't want them to make it insanely hard or anything, but the dungeon is very clearly a tutorial in a game that didn't need it and they could have amped it up a bit.
While you enjoyed the central tower in Snohead, I found it a little tedious and perhaps requiring a little trial and error. Not to mention if you make a slip and fall or screw up the tower, you go all the way to the beginning of the dungeon, which is a MAJOR loss in a game with a time limit. Not to mention the music is a little grating.
Great Bay Temple is one of my least favorite dungeons of the entire franchise, I despise it. Not only is getting into the dungeon itself a painfully awful chore but the music and visuals are really dull and I found the central mechanic and just overall design of it to be frustrating. Not to mention it has two of the hardest bosses of the series, Wart and Gyorg. Both of these are hard in the poorly designed way and not in the fair challenging way. Wart is a pure war of attrition where you need enough hearts/fairies and arrows to kill it. It's insanely brutal and requires more time and preparation than any other boss in the game. You had better have all your bottles filled with health items before even walking into his room. Again, this game has a time limit. If you don't make it to the end of the dungeon by the time it's over, you have to do a whole bunch of shit all over again.
And Gyorg. With all the nitpicking you did about Ocarina of Time I am baffled that you didn't mention this poor (and infamous) boss. You are stuck on a tiny platform around a mass of water with an enemy circling you who you can barely see. "No problem" you think, there's a reason the lock-on mechanic exists. Too bad the lockon barely works in this fight and will either constantly break after locking or refuse to lock to the target at all. The idea behind the fight is simple, wait for him to jump, shoot arrow, lay into him. But with the broken lockon and the fact that you can BARELY see the boss, not to mention his insane speed, the fight quickly becomes unfair with you being knocked into the water, which is the boss's territory, and getting chewed up trying to get back on the platform. You're honestly better off getting infinite magic from the special milk or just having magic potions and just abusing the underwater Zora shield to cheese the fight, it's just as poorly designed as the Dark Link fight, requiring you to break the game mechanics to beat the enemy.
Majora's Mask itself was also disappointing as a final boss. Granted, it's better to have it be too easy rather than unfairly difficult like Wart and Gyorg, but even without the Fierce Deity mask or infinite magic the fight is very easy as either standard Link or his Zora form.
Now granted, I do love Majora's Mask, or at least the 3/4ths of it that aren't Great Bay, it is my second favorite 3D Zelda. Ocarina I felt was more cohesively designed and polished throughout than Majora whose quality varies greatly depending on the part of the game you're playing. However what Ocarina does not offer is the experience Majora provides, and this is where I would make the important distinction that though I believe Ocarina of Time is better as a game, Majora is certainly better as an experience. It's a much more interesting, if not a bit more flawed game, and that interesting part is what makes it so wonderful and worth playing. Majora definitely succeeds much more as a work of art than Ocarina at least. Both games are great and well worth playing, I just wanted to pitch in my two cents because these videos are presumably meant to encourage discussion.
I thought you were dead
One of the issues you pointed out was the pacing, but what makes Majora's Mask so great is it felt like one of the first games to let you decide the pacing of the narrative. If you felt like you wanted to explore more of the world the game creates you can do so at the expense of continuing the story's progression. This is why the opening segment is so crucial. It gives you a small taste of what the side quests of the game are like and allows you to decide if this is to your liking or not. True, it's hard to deny that the main narrative is rather short, but this I feel is missing the point. Majora's Mask takes the preconceived Zelda notions and ignores them, focusing less on the main hero and more about the world around him. It aims to evoke more emotion and brings about the most powerful moments in the series's history. Failure to explore the full world that's been created here truly detracts from the experience and makes Majora's Mask seem like a much lesser game than it actually is. To this day Majora's Mask seems to be the only Zelda game that really MEANS something, as the rest seem like simple hero on a journey games, and while they are not bad for what they are by any means, the stark contrast between the two styles is jarring when you step back.
Honestly I'm surprised to hear you complain about the dungeons in the game as I thought they were incredibly well designed and challenging when compared to their OoT counterparts. While its true that OoT boasts more dungeons with varied settings, I'd also say that Majora's Mask has a much higher success rate in terms of dungeon design and enjoyment. I found myself being highly displeased with my repeat (and first in some cases) journeys through the Water Temple, Forest Temple, Dodongo's Cavern, and the Well. I found that the developers had more room to stretch their legs in the more limited number of dungeons and ultimately found their small number to be one of the major advantages to the game as they had more intricate puzzles, lacking modern hand-holding. In addition to this, their downright longer experiences than those in OoT.
Personally, I've never fully understood the hatred for Gyorg as I never found him to be a challenging adversary, but to each his own I suppose in this standard. No doubt he's the weakest of the bosses in the game, but I still found his fight to be interesting enough with enough Zora swimming to make it seem more varied.
I feel as he is dead on when discussing thematically what's different from OoT. This is clearly a more brutal and real look at the hero/journey formula and utilizes varying perspectives to fully realize a narrative that has not been matched to this day in the Zelda universe. By today's standards, sure it's not spectacular, but I think it would be remiss to exclude this from games that pioneered storytelling in video games. There are many moments that are not explicitly told to the character which are implied or left to interpretation. This greatly contrasts the typical Zelda nature with its relatively simple story structure. The tragic elements are subdued and really do feel more heavy as the moon, for lack of better phrasing, intrudes more heavily. To me OoT is a well made game that deserves praise for being one of the first really polished experiences in a 3D world, but it wasn't until Majora's Mask that a 3D world felt so alive to me.
Majora's Mask is my favorite game of all time, for this and many other reasons, and I can understand how people may not like this game compared to the rest though. But I challenge people to truly compare the two games, not on a gameplay perspective necessarily, but on the basis of the narrative, and how more fleshed out it really is. Then I think more people would be approving of how truly incredible this game really is.
Osmund Saddler To me it just sounds like you don't like the dungeons. I personally loved them and am completely okay with there being only four in the game. MM has the mini dungeons too which offer up some additional gameplay to the main quest, but in a way that differs from the other dungeons in the game and lends a unique experience.
And sure, you don't have to do any of the sidequests, but it would be ridiculous to say a person, unless they were specifically doing a no sidequest run of the game, would never find a sidequest and become interested in one of the many characters the game has to offer at some point. Majora's Mask is more sidequests than dungeons, and I mean that in more ways than the amount of time you will sink into either. If you're not valuing the importance of the sidequests more or less even with the dungeons in this game then I hesitate to say that you're looking at this game wrong, because the entire motivator of the main quest is to save the people themselves.
Also yes, fuck Gyorg. I'm glad they improved the bosses in the 3DS remake.
I respect your opinion by the way, just wanted to get mine out there.
oddly enough, the observatory music makes me want to cry more than any other music in the game.
The whole game is just so beautifully put together
+Mark Richardson The milk bar is the one that gets me.
That observatory hits me HARD with nostalgia. It feels like a little haven in a dark and scary world, but one cursed with the knowledge of the coming end.
@@butt317 That description is just...spot on. I've never been able to quite put into words the feelings that Astral Observatory makes me feel, but that's exactly it
This is the best Majora's Mask video I've ever seen.
I've never heard anyone so perfectly explain why this game is incredible. Now I can live in peace knowing that someone else felt the same way about Majora's Mask as I did.
Thanks Matthewmatosis
guitaromania1345 well. there are lots of mm fans acctually
I know! He articulates his thoughts so well!
These days the saddest part about playing MM is just thinking about how sterile Nintendo is when they make Zelda games now. I'm hoping Breath of the Wild will bring the series away from this, but it seems like the Nintendo of today would never let a game like Majora's Mask happen.
the hopes are high with BotW
the hopes are high with BotW
I agree. I don't know if we will ever have another Zelda game that resembles MM. MM is uniquely strange in the Zelda series... but feels more as though it appeals to a cult following and the way Nintendo is now, we probably won't see another title like this in awhile. We have BoTW coming up. As each Zelda game comes out, new plots, characters, story lines etc are introduced and old concepts are no longer in touch. I do hope they make another strange Zelda game like this one though, where we have an emotional connection with the characters and also have that unsettling feel.
You're so on the money with this. They could never get away with a Majora's Mask in today's industry. There's just too much riding on each Zelda game and too much time spent trying to make it a refined experience instead of the model of annual releases like COD or Assassin's Creed. They might not always succeed but they always opt to spend more time with a Zelda game rather than meeting a deadline. It's been more than 5 years since Skyward Sword and a lot of the past games have had development times of almost half a decade so Nintendo isn't keen on taking big risks on their huge investments, everything rides on Zelda for them. Majora was made in only one year with reused assets and being a follow up to such a huge hit allowed a smaller team to really get creative and go crazy with it and it's one of the best games in the series for that. We can only hope that once BoTW is out, Nintendo realizes they can get more use out of the engine and assets by giving us another game within two years in the same vain as Majora's Mask.
MichaelIkomi Last time Nintendo tried to recreate the magic of a past game we got Twilight Princess. I think they realized that a great game is a great game and trying to follow up on something like Majora's Mask would most likely fall short of what the original had done
It says something about the quality of your videos and how well structured your reviews are when I want to watch these for fun. Amazing review series.
Majora's Mask is chilling in a way no other game I've played has been because it evokes core fears and presents them in a believable human way. Eternal Darkness was a brilliant psychological horror game but it felt like fantasy, which is fine; Majora's Mask, though, reflects how fear and suffering actually feel. I didn't spend much time on that third day, let's just say that.
It's an amazing work of art and the industry is richer for it.
Ome of your best videos without a doubt. The bit about atmosphere sells chills down my spine everytime
10:25 I think nintendo watched this video when they were making MM on the 3DS
+Sam Shiiv what'd they do in the remake to accommodate that? (havnt played the remake)
+Alex Bayless the song of double time in the 3D version lets you skip to any hour you want within that day.
+SolidSnake684 Also the hookshot is more accurate and the items are more accessible (among other things I'm forgetting)
I'm a bit late, but they also fixed Zora Link by making him swim much more slowly unless you waste magic, and they fixed Goht by making him more of a typical Zelda boss who you have to stun and then damage.
@@KiraBBYamato "fixed" huh? I guess that is one way of saying you neutered something.
the part about the atmosphere is probably my favorite thing that you have ever done. You put into words something i always knew i loved about this game but was never able to communicate to someone. I think a link to this video and especially the part from 27:12 is the best thing you can do when trying to get someone to play this masterpiece. MM is probably in my top 3 games of all time and this video is such a nice reminder why i absolutely fucking love that game. Great job, dude, you are my favorite youtuber btw.
I watched every second of this, Amazing review, you are very well-spoken, you don't act like a tryhard like other TH-camrs and your criticisms are justified. Well done
OH. MY. GOD. What you said about the three children looking like the happy mask sailsman. Just. Oh my god.......
Ivan Rodriguez To fanfiction! *darts off*
majoras mask was for me as a kid such a beautiful and mysterious game that i will never forget in a lifetime.
i know every location, every corner of this game its like the game is my hometown itself.
imo the best zelda game of all. may you never be forgotten.
Great review, very in depth and brought up some interesting points. I really appreciate how you actually just talk about a game rather than trying to force really bad humour down the viewers' throats much like many other YT reviewers
I just 100% completed this game back-to-back-to-back. I wish I could say it was speedrun practice or something, but it's not. I just don't get tired of it. Idk what it is about this game. It came to me at the right time in my childhood as a kid when my family was going through some shit. I'm 31 now and the game is still so wildly special.
this video is 10 years old today and remains one of my favorite game reviews. Cheers Matt!
I actually like Majora's Mask more than Ocarina. It's not better in every way: I'm not the biggest fan of time travel in video games (or any medium; plots get too convoluted) and I dislike having a time limit. But I do have overall fonder memories of this than Ocarina. That's no slight against Ocarina though, which is a fantastic experience in it's own right.
26:35 sums up why I have such fond memories of this game: the atmosphere is just so unique and incredible.
I totally agree with your summary towards the end. This game is unbelievably mysterious and atmospheric. I find Ikana, and even more so the Stone Tower and Stone Tower Temple to be the most mysterious in-game locations of any game ever. The N64 had a lot of games that had captivating mysterious locations.
Really well written, produced, coherent and extensive reviews man. It's a real treat that you made these. Ten thumbs up out of 5 stars!
Coming back to this review every once in a while. I enjoy the way you describe this game and what you thought was so great about it. This review comes from the heart.
I don't think there's a problem with the # of dungeons. Actually the whole 8 dungeon thing initially turned me off to playing more Zeldas after my first game, it just sounded so formulaic.
I don't think a game, even a Zelda game, needs to be a certain length to be good, but what should matter is the quality of the content found in the available areas.
If there are four dungeons and they are all piss easy or just bad then, yeah that's a problem, but on the other hand, if there are four quality dungeons that are really memorable and warrant high replay value then that's all the game needs.
The first and only Zelda game that I wanted to play to completion. Amazing story
Pretty much, Majora and Ocarina compliment each other as sequels, they are complete opposites of each other built well. What Ocarina doesnt have, Majora does, and vice versa.
I love that Matthew is able to review the Zelda games without coming off as a total fanboy. Zelda has some of the worst fanboys in existence and the way they go on about Zelda, especially OoT and Majora's Mask, always puts me off to them. Matthew is the first person to actually make me want to play this game, and also replay OoT.
Superman13195 *sniff sniff* What smells like a big, steaming pile of Egoraptor?
Superman13195 So?
Superman13195 But _how_ was it bullshit?
Superman13195 Wait, whom are you talking about, Mathew or Arin? Because I didn't even mention Arin in the original post.
Superman13195 Egoraptor. That's his name. Egoraptor's name is Arin.
5:34
Me: "Oh, I never used the bombers notebook once..."
Yeah I didn't even knew that existed.
Great review, what you said about the screen getting smaller and smaller as the next day approaches was spot on. It's so unsettling even when you know it's coming. And the music the plays in the last 6 hours of the last day is just sublime, there's so much about this game that is near impossible to define to anyone who hasn't played it, it's atmosphere and mood are just unreal.
I've never played a game like it and it's easily my favourite game of all time.
Everybody I know used to shit on this game when it came out. In grade 7 everyone I knew thought this game was trash, mainly because of the timer. It's comforting to know I'm not the only that not only thinks it's a good game, but that it's better than OOT. Stuck in the echo chamber of my town circa 2000 was starting to make me think something was wrong with me for my unpopular opinion.
the first time I played MM, it completely destroyed OoT for me in terms of better game, everything about this game I loved, it is still my favorite game ever, hopefully BotW will be as awesome or even better than MM
Much like The Thing. People didn't realize at the time how amazing of a thing they came across was. I didn't like MM 16 years ago. I like it now though.
majoras mask does sound like a game that most kids would hate cause of all the time management and obscure stuff going on, so i dont think that sounds all that shocking. there are definately some games i love that i would've probably hated as a kid.
Swaggy Bickford I think OOT is the last Zelda people actually liked as soon as it came out, every one after that was hated at launch until people realized they were being idiots.
Nathan Eskin
That may be the opposite for Breath of the Wind. I predict the positivity surrounding BotW to decrease in the coming months.
30:50, Ha! I made sure I got the Couples Mask last so I could save Anju and Kafei!
Why can't the Prince of all Saiyajins just destroy the moon with Final Flash...?
Gogoku7 Considering I'm playing a game, I don't think that would be possible.
but you have to remember that in every 3 day cycle before your last one where you faced Majora, Anju would have evacuated with her family to meet her unavoidable fate and Kafei would have been hopelessly left to rot trapped in Sakon's hideout as the outside world around him is decimated completely. I'm fun at parties.
ThePrinceOfSaiyajins Just Vegeta the game into submission.
Good work, Vegeta.
Back when I was first playing them, I found the water temple in MM to be more difficult than the water temple in OoT just from the time limit.
I have watched all of your Zelda retrospective reviews, and I have to say they are EXCELLENT. Much props for the intricacy and impeccable delivery of this videos. a+ bro PROPs
with many game reviews starting to average around 3 to 5 minutes and just going over basic game review concepts, it's really nice to see a very well thought out and in-depth review. great job!
YES YES YES! I agree with everything you said. And it was fascinating to hear your opinions on this game. This is absolutely one of my favorite games of all time and it means something very special and personal to me. This video was excellent.
I consider the Ikana well/castle its own dungeon, as well as Ganon's castle, the moon, and the Gerudo Pirates' Fortress. In this case, OoT would have 9 main dungeons and MM 6 - still a significant difference, but a much more optimistic one. Whether this is better or even true depends on your criteria for a "main dungeon," of which mine are vague size and enemy requirements. Likewise, because of the length and importance - both progressive and emotional importance - of the Zora Egg segments, I liked it as its own section of the game, and never even considered it as filler.
The day 3 Clock Town music is also a lot faster, which just reminds me of people on tv who try to act nonchalant when they've done something wrong. They start humming while they do things, then when the thing they're done is pointed out, they hum louder and faster out of panic.
Awesome comprehensive review! Wish more people put in the time and effort you do.
This is my fav vid game ever!
+ZAK MATOM Me too
+Da Legend Of Zak Me too
Mine would be Mario 64 due to nostalgia but yeah this is great.
@25:03 I would argue that the exclusion of Tatl and Z-targeting for the Twinmold fight is not a case of "taking Tatl's inclusion too seriously", but instead it's a way to purposely gimp the player. By taking away Z-targeting you force the player to think about the battle in a different way (in a very similar fashion to the Dark Link fight in OoT) while simultaneously making the penultimate boss fight appropriately more difficult. One could argue taking a function away from the player that he/she has used the entire game is a cheap way to increase the difficulty, but it is effective and it's only done in this one fight so I give it a pass.
Anyway, great review. Both this game and this review are favorites of mine. Keep up the good work, boyo.
I love how you kept the Last Six Hours theme playing in the background in the last ~6 minutes of the video.
So glad I found this video again. It was the first thing I ever saw that explained to me why I was always so drawn to Majora's Mask despite it depressing the hell out of me. You are absolutely right when you say it's one of a kind. From a design standpoint, it's far and away my favorite game of all time.
This game was always so spooky but I also loved how slice of life it is. Wish tingle would finally get a fairy of his own
The Oath to Order gives me chills every time...
I'll never forget my first time completing majora's mask. I saved the lover's mask as my last mask to collect and had been messing up the last bit of the quest for quite a while (I think I had to retry it 3-4 times). By the time I finally finished the quest and waited out the wedding to receive the mask, I had to book it to the clock tower just to finish the game in time. I think that was the biggest time crunch I ever felt in that game lol.
Thank you for this man, I can not stress how well of a job you did of putting the vibe of Majora's Mask in words. The atmosphere is incredible, and something I cherished from my child hood. Keep it up man, you've got incredible taste and can't wait to see where you take the channel from here.
And that guys, is what a 1 year development game could do
A great sequel and masterpiece that used the full potential of the N64
The way saving at the owl statues work is if you need to shut off the game you can without losing progress, but it cant be abused to instantly retry something like if you mess up the Couples mask side quest right at the end.
It's faster to say it's a "Suspend Game" feature rather than an actual save.
Save or no save everyone's gotta sleep sometime.
Would you ever consider doing a 2-d/handheld Zelda retrospective series? I’d love to see your view of Minish Cap and the other games in that category.
In the meta video Mathew said he tries to pass the experience of playing the game in his reviews. Only recently I realized that in this video he talks about the whole game and then goes back to the beginning to explain his point about the atmosphere just how like you go back in time in the game.
and the last portion of the video plays the final hours track, overriding any other music
Ok to clarify once and for all how the save system Works. Whenever you start the game, you will play from the point when you last used the Song of Time. However, if you are not able to complete a task at once for whatever reason (Not everyone has the time to play three hours straight), you can go to an Owl Statue and save there. The game quits. When you then press A on your save file, you see at which time you stopped during the 3-day-cycle. When you open the file, you will start at the particular Owl where you saved at that given time. For Example: If you have to leave or quit before you can collect the last Zora Egg, you transport yourself back to the nearest Owl Statue and save there. Better than replaying the whole fortress-sequence over again.
But Caution: If you re-open a file where you used an Owl, then continue playing and quit without either saving at an Owl or with the Song of Time, your progress will be deleted and you start again from the point you last played the Song of Time. You can save at an owl as many times as you like during one cycle, but please don't forget to save again after you opened a file, you used that option at. When a task is finished and you play the Song of Time it's then saved permanently again up to that point.
Your review of Majora's Mask is leagues ahead of any other review on TH-cam. The same could be said about all your reviews actually. I wish more youtubers were as thorough and well versed with their subject matter as you.
After watching the second time, I'm still fascinated by the later part exploring what makes up the atmosphere of the game. Your "generally trying to be impartial" style (or is it the level voice-over delivery?) gives way to straight up praise as you wrap up, and while I'm not sure how I'd feel if it wasn't my favourite video game, it is, and you were underpinning the big words for the entire time, saving them for the end, so I'd say you're justified. I'd like more of that (I assume The Wonderful 101
video does it as well but hell, I haven't played it yet). I just love when you let your care spill over.
Also, I forget that screen effect every time, and it alone startles me a bit. Cool.
Wow, you are immediately one of my favorite game reviewers. You take the time to take the game apart and show it in depth, discussing the good and the bad in equal natural measure as they happen and would matter to the player.
The first direct sequal to a Legend of Zelda game is Zelda 2: the Adventure of Link, and NOT Majora's Mask.
This isn't even the 2nd one. Link's Awakening is a direct sequel to Link to the Past.
Beat me to the corrective punch
how about the first GOOD sequel?
Whoa guy, don't hate on Zelda II, it's a good game too
Linkfreak117 Won't speak for Zelda 2, but Link's Awakening is often highly acclaimed.
I haven't felt a sense of impending doom as the moon was about to hit in MM with any other game.
God that Astral Observatory music is incredible. I can listen to it all day.
Your writing is awesome. The arc spanning the whole video and resulting in this satisfying conclusion, fitting with the music - brilliant.
DAMN! GOOD! WRITING!
Loved theses videos. You provide intelligent, fair criticism and praise for these games. Your commentary is a breathe of fresh air among the simplistic, reactionary reviews and comments that run rampant on TH-cam.
This is my favorite video game of all time. Nothing else compares
This is an amazing review, and really captures the game in a way I'm surprised is even possible. The only thing I can add is to emphasize how central the 20-Mask "sidequest" is - it convinces the player to fully experience the game's best quality (atmosphere) by truly trying to understand and interact with all the amazing characters and carefully experience the scripted-yet-living world. Additionally, the utter stomping the FDiety gives Majora is a satisfying capstone to the intricate quest