I don’t believe I’m doing this…

Maybe I’ve been watching too much Zero Punctuation but I have this urge to review a game, so I’ve decided that seeing as I am currently playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that I’d do the direct sequel, Majora’s Mask (Who saw that coming):

First things first: Yes, its a sequel, meaning its never going to be as good as the original. Doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be bad… just not as good.

Those of you that have played Ocarina of Time will immediately notice that most of the characters in this game have the exact same character model as characters from Ocarina of Time. This may seem as cheap but the plot can technically be seen as separate, so it doesn’t matter.

Next, the plot! Nintendo isn’t reknown for amazing and original plot, (see Mario series for more detail), and seeing as the game is mainly sidequests then the plot is simple: You play as Link (or whatever you want to name him), who starts off looking for a friend of his when he comes across a new area of the world which is the setting. After a brief chase involving a troublemaker, you end up turned into a wooden creature. After that you come across someone who agreed to turn you back on two conditions: 1. You get an item that was taken from you when the troublemaker set upon you and 2. the mask the troublemaker was wearing (which happens to be the name of the game). While doing this, you end up learning that the troublemaker has decided to bring the rather creepy moon down onto this land, destroying the central place and presumedly killing the friendly man who helped you. I won’t spoil the rest of it, but not much really changes over the timespan of the three days in which you have to complete this task. Its different and won’t get in the way of what you’re doing because of restricted areas. But that is because of the game’s main gimmick which I’ll do next.

In his homeland, Link is known as the Hero of Time, so that has been carried on to this game, but instead of jumping backwards and forwards through seven years, you reset back to the start of the three days in a sort of time-loop. This means that you actually have three days which is represented by a counter and when day three is up, you’d better remember how to reset the loop. Whenever you do reset, you don’t have to worry about starting from scratch because although you lose the collectables, you keep all the key items. This is an interesting idea, and it allows for inter-linking stories and events from the various characters you see around.
The other main gimmick is the masks. The game is full of them, and each one doing a different thing. The masks allow you special abilities which are required for certain sidequests, bonus items, etc. All the masks are gained by doing various sidequests, which I’ll go onto now.

Sidequests, the game is full of them. These are ranging from something simple to be at a certain place at a certain time to being a long and complex ordeal which spans over the three days ending mere minutes from game over. The sidequests are normally out of the way of the plot, making themselves known whenever you talk to the right person… at the right time. Unfortunately, they have a habit of leading you away from the plot for one reason or another.

Other than that, there isn’t much else to say. Gameplay hasn’t changed much from the first: you open dungeon, find item in dungeon, kill boss using either item you gained in dungeon or gained opening dungeon, move onto next. The ‘help’ system has changed in that it no longer has an audible ‘voice’ as such and is a lot less helpful.

Overall, interesting idea and worth playing if you’re the sort of person who likes to explore and 100% complete games and are willing to ignore the fact that most of the characters are from the game before, otherwise you may feel that the game is too short. Also if you want to see what Tingle should have stayed as.

There we go, could be made longer but I’d need to be able to think a bit more straight. It is rather **** but it is my try at a review so… I’ll do better next time?