Majora's mask is weird. For Nintendo to follow up their success of OOT with a weird, otherworldly, unconventional game such as this, I respect it a lot. In many ways this game is bolder than OOT, immediately noticable with its premise. I'm not going to repeat the story exactly here, as this game has been talked about to death, but the fact that ganon isn't here, we aren't in hyrule, we're only playing as young link, there is no Zelda in this game (minus one small flashback), I mean this game takes a lot of risks with its plot. Aesthetically this game stands out the most compared to other zelda games. There is a really dark art style here, but one that is at the same time, colorful. It's playful but at the same time a little rugged and creepy. The giants, for example, feel alien compared to giants you would normally see in medieval high fantasy settings. This also extends to the NPCs (who are overall borrowed from OOT), wherein you can feel a very old japanese influence. Other than the visuals, the atmosphere is also created with its haunting music. The song of healing is one of the most harrowing pieces of music I've heard in a game; it feels anxious at the beginning of the song, but once it hits the bridge, it starts to feel a little hopeful. What a perfect song to encapsulate the main gameplay motivator: the time limit (counting down to the crashing of the moon onto termina).
The time limit is not something that is used as a cheap gimmick to make you feel stressed. Most NPCs in termina are working on the clock. They have set schedules, many of which are required for you to recognize if you want to grab any extra items, or for many main story events throughout the game. This mechanic (plus lots of unique time-specific dialogue from NPCs) help make the world feel much more alive than OOT was.
Masks in this game are also very different in this game, most of them amounting to just using them for one instance, but a lot of them act a lot like gameplay buffs like the blast mask and the bunny hood. The main 3 though, add a lot gameplay-wise and allow you to kind of choose exactly what you want your playstyle to be during combat. It's neat to see a simple, early attempt at creating more variety in traversal, in this way. It really makes the puzzles that more interesting to try and solve, where you not only have the unique item that you found within a dungeon to use, but you also have these masks at your disposal.
The main 4 dungeons are extremely fun and very rewarding. Minus some cryptic game design in a few spots, I thought these dungeons aged very well. For some more confusing gameplay moments, you can still understand what the developers were intending for the player to do. One example is the "Dexihand" enemy, which normally is supposed to grab you and throw you off course, being used in the Stone Temple dungeon to throw you onto a ledge you wouldn't have normally been able to get to. This is a fun, clever use of existing game mechanics, but wasn't as obvious to me that I could do this. I can recognize that this was a clever puzzle but I also recognize that the game didn't push me towards that conclusion. Which is fine. With a lot of older titles in the 3d era, I can look past puzzles like these only because they were still figuring shit out.
Most of the uniqueness of this game compared to other zelda titles comes from its weirdness. Majora's boss fight is very fun yet very strange. Majora starts fucking moonwalking and doing a Cossack Dance? I didn't know he was chill like that.
The weirdness of this entire game aesthetically I think adds a foreign, otherworldly aspect to the world, which I believe is intentional. It feels like if I just walked onto an alien planet. Things are familiar, there is an order to this world that is here, but I don't know the full picture yet. It's a lot like star wars in that way lmfao
Majora's mask becomes a living, breathing game as a result of all this. No other zelda game really comes close in atmosphere honestly
The time limit is not something that is used as a cheap gimmick to make you feel stressed. Most NPCs in termina are working on the clock. They have set schedules, many of which are required for you to recognize if you want to grab any extra items, or for many main story events throughout the game. This mechanic (plus lots of unique time-specific dialogue from NPCs) help make the world feel much more alive than OOT was.
Masks in this game are also very different in this game, most of them amounting to just using them for one instance, but a lot of them act a lot like gameplay buffs like the blast mask and the bunny hood. The main 3 though, add a lot gameplay-wise and allow you to kind of choose exactly what you want your playstyle to be during combat. It's neat to see a simple, early attempt at creating more variety in traversal, in this way. It really makes the puzzles that more interesting to try and solve, where you not only have the unique item that you found within a dungeon to use, but you also have these masks at your disposal.
The main 4 dungeons are extremely fun and very rewarding. Minus some cryptic game design in a few spots, I thought these dungeons aged very well. For some more confusing gameplay moments, you can still understand what the developers were intending for the player to do. One example is the "Dexihand" enemy, which normally is supposed to grab you and throw you off course, being used in the Stone Temple dungeon to throw you onto a ledge you wouldn't have normally been able to get to. This is a fun, clever use of existing game mechanics, but wasn't as obvious to me that I could do this. I can recognize that this was a clever puzzle but I also recognize that the game didn't push me towards that conclusion. Which is fine. With a lot of older titles in the 3d era, I can look past puzzles like these only because they were still figuring shit out.
Most of the uniqueness of this game compared to other zelda titles comes from its weirdness. Majora's boss fight is very fun yet very strange. Majora starts fucking moonwalking and doing a Cossack Dance? I didn't know he was chill like that.
The weirdness of this entire game aesthetically I think adds a foreign, otherworldly aspect to the world, which I believe is intentional. It feels like if I just walked onto an alien planet. Things are familiar, there is an order to this world that is here, but I don't know the full picture yet. It's a lot like star wars in that way lmfao
Majora's mask becomes a living, breathing game as a result of all this. No other zelda game really comes close in atmosphere honestly