Of all the Zelda games I've played, none have conflicted me quite like Majora's Mask. When I first played this game, I hated it for how confusing it was. Years later, I gave it a second playthrough and I appreciated it more, but not on nearly the same level as seemingly every Zelda fan today.

Let's start with the positives. Majora's Mask has a great first half as you explore Clock Town as a Deku Scrub, retrieve the Ocarina of Time, and then lift the curses on a poisoned swamp and frigid mountain. The three transformation masks are all creative and fun to use and the dungeons are among the toughest and most satisfying to complete in all of Zelda. The citizens of Clock Town put most NPCs in the series to shame and the music, despite being different from other Zelda soundtracks, is just as well-crafted as one would hope. All of this brings together a powerful atmosphere unlike anything the series has seen.

This feeling holds up until after you clear the second temple, as Majora's Mask's pacing takes a nosedive. For one, you have to acquire Epona even though she is used for very little in the game. The process of getting her takes quite a while and the fence you're required to jump over with her looks like something Link himself could climb. Because the game doesn't hint at you needing her beforehand, I had to look up where to go. Even once I got to Great Bay, I hated having to retrieve the Zora eggs. Don't even get me started on the mandatory fetch quest at the bottom of the well, making sure you have a powder keg to enter Ikana Castle, or playing the Elegy of Emptiness dozens of times. These annoying roadblocks greatly affected my immersion while playing and I actually considered giving up during both of my playthroughs, something no other Zelda game has done.

As for the side quests, I'll admit I didn't look too deeply into them on my first playthrough. After I heard how great they apparently were online, I went out of my way on my second playthrough to see for myself. They were definitely well-written, but I didn't like how you were meant to go about clearing them. You often have to wait for a while before the next part of a side quest can play out and even if you do it correctly, you might mess up another part later and have to redo everything, like with the beloved Anju and Kafei quest. I completed that quest so I could finally check it off the list, but I have little interest in doing it again. The innovative three-day cycle, for as much as it adds to the game, ends up working against the side quests, which is what makes Majora's Mask a work of art for so many people.

I could talk about other things I didn't like, such as the bizarre save system and inconsistent time travel rules, but I'll stop here. My point in saying all of this is that Majora's Mask is too flawed for me to call it a masterpiece. I really wish I could like it as much as everyone else. It has some ideas that are worth admiring and I'll be forever grateful Nintendo didn't just make a straightforward sequel to Ocarina of Time, but the end result is a slog to play through.