Just what is so good about Majora's Mask?

Stop.

Anymore arguments will result in warnings and infractions.



This ends here.

Originally Posted by Swift_Knight

(On-topic: Another thing good about it is that unlike most Zeldas, you're thrown in on the action within a few minutes. It also takes a turn fo the unnerving in just a few minutes, without going too OTT.)

Yeah, this is what I've noticed. Once you get your Ocarina back, you're immersed in the action.

It's pretty interesting.

Agreed, I hope future Zeldas will immerse you in the action quickly.

if i could have one wish it would be for more terminian games. Id love to see the landscape in the graphics of today. Or even better, the graphics of tomorrow.

I've always wanted a Majora's Mask HD too.

I was so upset when they did OoT3$ instead of MM3D. It was an obvious choice, but man, MM was one hundred times better in actual story and character depth imo

I loved Majora's Mask for it's deep story line and side quests. However the dungeon's were a bit lacking. I hope that if they do make MM3D that they ad a master quest with re:vamped dungeons

Just add that to a list of things nintendo is less likely to do than put out a cigarette in every employees eye.

yes nintendo will try to get the most profit out of the least amount of effort

Originally Posted by Swift_Knight

(On-topic: Another thing good about it is that unlike most Zeldas, you're thrown in on the action within a few minutes. It also takes a turn fo the unnerving in just a few minutes, without going too OTT.)

And even more quickly thrown into an even more tedious and/or error-prone opening act than any Zelda before and after it, and I'd call that a helluvalot worse than just a drawn-out opening act (a complaint of other games that people still GROSSLY exaggerate anyway, considering the inital act in TP can take barely an hour, but I digress). That's due in no small part to the impact that this 'turn for the unnerving' has on the gameplay. OOT throws you into the action in a few minutes, MM just has some ♥♥♥♥ going down before becoming as big a matter of "slow-starts" as any other Zelda, only worse given the very poorly-handled initial tasks at hand by comparison. I never had trouble with it myself, but that doesn't mean it's something to outright ignore in terms of making a candid judgement. It also fails to establish the story considering how MM's becomes virtually irrelevant as far as prominence is concerned, and made worse so with or without fulfilling the sidestories, considering most are even less pivotal than Ganon's involvement with Lon Lon Ranch in OOT. Hell, the only bit of a role the Skull Kid had in Kafei and Anju's sidequest was a pretty brief mention of the Skull Kid turning Kafei into a child, with that part of the sidestory rendered moot almost as quickly as it's brought up, and that's among the few that had ANYTHING to do with the main plot.

I remember reading an article that was similar to this thread a while back.

Majora's Mask: Not the Greatest (Zelda) Game Ever Made

Neither of which I agree with. Of course there's gonna be a group of people that won't agree or will question the goodness of something, that's just the way it is. That article linked above though complains about the stupidest things such a character designs that were recycled from OoT, how much time is given to the player before the game ends, (which makes literally no sense since you can turn back time whenever you wish.), and the save system which the article whines about because it's inconvenient if you're in a temple... how easy do you want the game to be?

The save system had far less to do with the inconvenience in dungeons than the time limit itself potentially has. For example the entire point of the bank making for a tedious process just to keep money can be extended to the entire approach to progressing through the game in general even for a casual playthrough. More often than not, the actual process of reaching the dungeon will take more time than what the remainder of the limit would allow in order to complete a dungeon without having to rewinding time. That's applicable to any and all of the dungeons in MM, and while the addition of a convenient warp-point helps somewhat, it only helps if the upcoming events (in this case, the dungeons) were ever any good, of which I personally think otherwise. That much applies to any other point of bad design that made for the examples in that article--that article, if anything, just listed extremely specific parts of the game that suffered just as much as the rest of the game did from said design choices.

Originally Posted by BloodRawEngine89

The save system had far less to do with the inconvenience in dungeons than the time limit itself potentially has. For example the entire point of the bank making for a tedious process just to keep money can be extended to the entire approach to progressing through the game in general even for a casual playthrough. More often than not, the actual process of reaching the dungeon will take more time than what the remainder of the limit would allow in order to complete a dungeon without having to rewinding time. That's applicable to any and all of the dungeons in MM, and while the addition of a convenient warp-point helps somewhat, it only helps if the upcoming events (in this case, the dungeons) were ever any good, of which I personally think otherwise. That much applies to any other point of bad design that made for the examples in that article--that article, if anything, just listed extremely specific parts of the game that suffered just as much as the rest of the game did from said design choices.

I can see why people wouldn't like the save system, however it wasn't intended to be a "save system". More so a check-point. Due to the length of areas. As for the dungeons not being any good, how so? You can tell me all you want how they were poorly executed, but how? Give examples, or else I can't find any sort of respect in your opinion.

Originally Posted by OneHungryHippo

I can see why people wouldn't like the save system, however it wasn't intended to be a "save system". More so a check-point. Due to the length of areas. As for the dungeons not being any good, how so? You can tell me all you want how they were poorly executed, but how? Give examples, or else I can't find any sort of respect in your opinion.

Perhaps some people only compare the dungeons and their puzzles to the ones that were presented in OoT or any other predecessors, but OoT being the stronger focus since it's the only 3D counterpart before MM. The dungeons were purely challenging in my opinion, but I may just have a weak intellect, I played the game on and off for several years because I was constantly obstructed by The Great Bay temple.

Overall, I agree with the quoted post as I'd like to see backbone to that claim.

Originally Posted by OneHungryHippo

I can see why people wouldn't like the save system, however it wasn't intended to be a "save system". More so a check-point. Due to the length of areas. As for the dungeons not being any good, how so? You can tell me all you want how they were poorly executed, but how? Give examples, or else I can't find any sort of respect in your opinion.

Originally Posted by Save Owl

Perhaps some people only compare the dungeons and their puzzles to the ones that were presented in OoT or any other predecessors, but OoT being the stronger focus since it's the only 3D counterpart before MM. The dungeons were purely challenging in my opinion, but I may just have a weak intellect, I played the game on and off for several years because I was constantly obstructed by The Great Bay temple.

Overall, I agree with the quoted post as I'd like to see backbone to that claim.

That doesn't excuse the ultimately inconvenient and largely forced-upon effects they had on the areas, espeically considering the lengths. SS simply did the entire concept of static save points in an adventure game on a much grander level and in an overall more convenient and less consequential manner; I really doubt at least one or two owl statues in the middle of any one of MM's dungeons would've been impossible hardware-wise.

Secondly, I'm not necessarily looking for respect towards my opinion on these matters, and I can just as easily ask the same question to any and all (of the thousand) equally 'backless' claims of MM being this grand, open-ended and timeless gem, and that goes just as much for any claim of mindless complaining to certain points in the same manner as the arguments against aforementioned article.

But, to avoid an irrelevent tangent, one point comes from just taking the actual substance of the dungeons into consideration, the dungeons are VERY minimally based on puzzles and more around overemphasized use of the game's mechanics that feel finnicky at best and really only artificially lengthen the dungeons to begin with. Even the earliest stages through something like Great Bay Temple is composed of what're leaps of faith in order to land a jump to a narrow pipe or get the right passage in a constant whirlpool. None of this becomes challenging when 1. The only real impedements offered are born SOLELY from these things, and 2. As someone who's played through the game no less than a dozen times in my life, I can say this sense of "challenge" stops being a challenge and just becomes a really bland trudge-fest that only feels uneven; If unevenness counts as a testament to challenge, then MM certainly does have "challenging" dungeons, but if that's the case, then the game is still as piss-easy as any other 3D Zelda and whatever it is that other Zeldas do in place of this unevenness still makes a much more genuine feeling of challenge.

The dungeons stop being about puzzle-solving (what puzzles there are only ever being solve through what are practically scripted events ie purifying the water in Woodfall or any moment of Goron Link's rolling in Snowhead Temple) and just become treks that are laid with the most arduously uneven aspects of a certain form of Link's that's prone to error based more on faulty design of the levels and faulty handling of the forms' main gimmicks than genuine challenge, which is only made worse so due in no small part to an often-times cheap sense of enemy placement ala Woodfall temple where ever flying as Deku Link was an objective, which was more often than puzzles that made any worthwhile use of the items which belonged to dungeons in question, a problem that's consistent in the entirety of MM's dungeons AND its boss fights, which brings me to a second point; What incentive does Goht offer to use the fire arrows when actually fighting him to do so effectively? None at all, instead focusing on the most one-dimensional use of the Goron mask in an equally one-dimensional excuse for a fight that's done better in other games as partially scripted sections like the final boss in Sonic Colors. Where do the Ice Arrows become a deciding factor in any moment of Gyorg? They don't--instead, you're playing a waiting game for a few minutes until you get a chance to acutally take the offensive, and even that gets shot down when considering how pivotal the swimming and poor-camerawork during swimming actually becomes when actually trying to hurt him. Who the hell wouldn't find the entire process to make fighting Twinmold smoothely to be the most tedious and artificial pre-requisites in Zelda bos history, besides blinded fanboys, and even then, HOW does that excuse the fact that there's as much strategy and variety to fighting Twinmold as there is to any regular mid-tier enemy. Darknuts in TP and WW had more sense of strategy to them than Twinmold did. No where do the bosses ever truly fulfill what's otherwise a series standard for bossfights, and nowhere do they make up for it with what they do attempt, considering how much they can exploit how poorly the alternate forms actually control. The only boss in the game that offers any genuine challenge, variety, or strategy whatsoever is the final boss, which is a good one I'll more than readily admit, but considering it's what composes one positive point of the three to four points out of ten that I'd give MM as a score, it doesn't exactly carry the game.

TL;DR--MM's collective dungeon design stops being immersive and just becomes forced and lazy when it becomes clear how much they actually abandon from what defines the dungeon-crawling aspects of Legend of Zelda, that is to say genuine puzzle-solving, coherent progression BASED UPON puzzle-solving, pivotal and prominent use of the items obtained for later puzzles-which again, were lacking in general with MM in favor of poor out-of-place platforming-and the completely butchered excuses for boss battles.

Should that not suffice, I can go on.

Originally Posted by Save Owl

That article linked above though complains about the stupidest things such a character designs that were recycled from OoT,

recycled OoT characters is my second biggest complaint with MM. But I was glad seeing familiar OoT characters in MM when I first played it. And still am. MM would be perfect if it was in development for a good five years instead of two that way it would not have been made to simply make a profit from OoT's success.

Different opinion bro.
While most zelda dungeons are puzzles with some action, MM was action with some puzzles which i believe fit well with its limited time thing it was going for. You didn't have forever to sit around and think, every action was do or die. Maybe not the best design that nintendo ever came up with but i think it works here. Playing off more of link's abbilities rather than his stuff.

That would've worked to a point if there was ANY action in the dungeons at all. As I said, what MM offers is monotonous and oftentimes uneven excuses for platforming to artificially lengthen the dungeons, hardly what I'd call 'action'. Anor Londo in Dark Souls is an example of action with some puzzles. That entire approach, with the given gameplay engine of OOT and MM, was never ideal for a focus on action to begin with imo, so even in that regard, action of that kind is prone to being shallow and uninteresting in general be it OOT or MM. Then there's the problem of about half of Link's forms being completely worthless for any fighting to begin with.

Not all action is fighting. Platforming adds a level of risk that keeps you on your toes.

I'm not saying it is all fighting, but MM's platforming is hardly even worth calling that, let alone a more action-oriented fast-paced sense of platforming ala Sonic.