This game came out when I was 8 years old, I don't remember if I got it by mistake after hearing about how good Final Fantasy on the PlayStation was (obviously meaning FF7 lol) or just happened to pick it up randomly, but I'm glad I did.

It's highly political fantasy story may have gone way over my head at the time, but I remember still being drawn into its depth. At that age I was still probably mostly engaged in very simple "the hero is the good guy who saves the day and gets the girl at the end" stories. To play a game where you reject your family noble blood, fight for the commoners in a war involving rightful heir to the monarchy, making friends along the way only to be backstab by them, finding long lost friends only to find they've grown to value things much different than you shared as younger soldiers was incredibly compelling.

The gameplay was unlike anything I'd played before. Moving your characters around a board as if you were playing a game of chess with environmental advantages/disadvantages and RPG elements was so beyond my skill at that age. The class and weapon system allowed so much customization. Mixing and matching abilities and weapons from certain classes could literally break the game in the same way using cheats would. It felt like such an overwhelming sandbox of potential.

The rereleased version sub titled "The War of the Lions" has basically replaced this original version of the game on all store fronts. But I feel it's voiced 3D animated cutscenes removed a lot of the charm the in game graphics and text boxes had even though the gameplay is exactly the same. I'd recommend this version over that one any day.

There are some classic memes that flow through games and become a part of the language of gaming. Explosive barrels being red, depowering the player after the tutorial, consumables you'll "save for later" but never use, and bad water levels being examples of these tropes.

And if you want a game to blame for starting the "bad water level" trope, it's probably this one.

Game is unfairly punishing in combat, platforming and player guidance, likely due to it being designed in a time where games wanted you to pump endless quarters into machines to progress. It gets 1 bonus star for being nostalgic to me.

No star rating yet since game isn't out.

Played the Closed Beta in March then played a bit of the closed beta in June. Gunplay, movement and destruction are fun. The game mode is needlessly messy. It boils down to run to box, fight at box until timer is up, pick up box, take that box to another box, fight at that box until timer is up.

If that's the main game mode I don't see many people playing for very long. It just doesn't seem to have that magic sauce that keeps the game fun and simple.

Good gunplay and impressive destruction won't carry the game. The primary game type needs to be something people will want to play every day for months on end, and I just don't think what they have now is it.

One of the best cases for video games are art. Extremely moving story revelations, had literal shivers down my spine multiple times. I was on edge the entire last 2 hours of the game. After the game wraps up the only thing you want to do is go hug your loved ones. And if making you feel intense emotions, causing you to want to take real action in your life, and making you contemplate a message for hours or days after experiencing a piece isn't art, then I don't know what is.

The art style works on multiple levels. The mix of 8bit graphics and hand drawn pieces in between gives the game this uncomfortable nostalgia as if you're trying to remember the past but in a way that you want to, not in a way that the past actually was, which serves the story well. Going in I thought the horror elements would be more at the forefront, but they were less scary horror and more psychological damage horror. There are a few jump scares, but the breakdown of the video game medium is used to make many parts of the game feel extremely uncomfortable.

The music is fun upbeat and catchy during the bright sections, somber and wistful when referencing pleasant memories, and intentionally ear bleed inducing when facing the darker topics. Very well designed audio for what is intended, not a soundtrack I'd listen to outside of the game though.

Biggest complaint is length and accessibility. It's pacing is not great, to say the least. I'd say the game is almost twice as long as it needs to be to convey the same message it sets out to. I'd honestly have a really hard time suggesting anyone play this. I'm surprised the BL review score is so high since I'd imagine this game is extremely divisive and bounces off many people HARD. It's a game I'm glad I played and I'll continue to mull over for the next few days, but it's not something I would say I "enjoyed" or would ever play again.

Link may be the hero of this story, but he's not the main character. The residents of Termina, with their own individual scheduled lives, their fear of impending doom, regrets, hopelessness, sad naivety, and denial are what drives this games narrative.

If Ocarina of Time was the hopeful hero story of Star Wars: A New Hope, Majora's Mask is certainly the more mature, darker Empire Strikes Back.

Gameplay wise, it's everything Ocarina was plus the addition of 3 new "playable characters". The mask system is extremely unique and provides interesting rewards for side quests beyond simple heart pieces or glass bottles of the other games of the series. The way some of them build off of each other in a series of longer sidequest meant the rewards you were getting not only increased your life bar, but opened new doors for you figuratively and literally to progress other side quest that may have dead ended on you.

The 72 hour in game time loop is frequently pointed to as a gimmick or made the game feel stressful, but I don't think the game would have worked without it. The feeling of not being able to complete every side quest or dungeon in one loop gives meaning to what you choose to do with this chance. Just like the people of Termina, you are forced to pick and choose who you save and what you do with what little time you have left.

This game may not have aged well, but it's impact on my life when I was an 11 year old kid was profound and it still impacts me today at 34 years old.

I enjoyed this game in the first few hours as a simple Zelda clone and if that's all it was it would have stood its own against Nintendo's flagship series. But after the meta game puzzles begin revealing themselves to you it becomes so much more.

It's a love letter to not only 2D Zelda, but to retro game nostalgia itself. If you grew up in the 90s and have fond memories of sitting in the back seat flipping through the game manual of the game you just bought with your allowance money on the ride home from the mall video game shop, this game is for you.

Make sure you grab a pen and paper, you will be taking notes.