In 1998 Nintendo created what is still being lauded as the greatest game ever made in The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of time for the Nintendo 64. The game was a groundbreaking success on all fronts and revolutionary for the Zelda franchise and Nintendo in establishing a gold standard of video game perfection.  Fast forward two years Nintendo had finished a sequel to Ocarina of time requiring an expansion pack and was made on one year's time frame, very quick for a Nintendo 64 game. While initially the game was not well received and understood by the gaming community over the past few years it has finally gotten the proper recognition and cult following it has deserved. This is The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask.

The Plot

Link had just defeated Ganon in Ocarina of Time as an adult to restore peace to Hyrule, Princess Zelda sent to Link back to the past so he could live out his childhood after finishing off the dark king. This is the start of the infamous split timeline in the Zelda series and this is the child path of the timeline. The game starts with Link riding Epona through the woods apparently looking for a lost friend (Navi?), out of nowhere a skull kid wearing a strange mask comes out of the fog and scares Epona making link fall off her back and making him briefly unconscious. Skull Kid proceeds to search the unconscious link and fins his ocarina which the Skull Kid takes and starts playing while laughing. Link Wakes up and tries to get his ocarina back, the Skull Kid dodges Link and jumps on Epona and tries to ride away while Link is struggling to hang on to Epona's leg before falling off. 

Link follows them and eventually gets to a ledge and unbalanced he falls off into a strange dark pit, he eventually falls into a new dark area where skull kid is who says he let Epona run away. Skull then uses his magic to turn Link into a Deku Scrub! Skull kid with his two fairies laughs and flees while Link can't believe what has happened, but one of the fairies named Tatl (sibling of the other fairy Tael) is left behind because she was too busy hitting Link and annoying him. Keen to get back with her brother and the Skull Kid she asks Link to take her with him to find the Skull Kid. Link agrees and just before they enter the new town to find Skull Kid the happy mask salesmen from Ocarina of time starts to talk to you. He says that the Skull Kid stole his legendary and powerful Majora's Mask from him and is leaving town in 3 days and would like to get it back, in return he will turn Link back into his regular self again. So Link goes off to find the Skull Kid and eventually finds out the Skull Kid is using the Mask's Power's to bring down the moon in 3 days, this sets the tone for the game as you have a 72 hour limit to take back Majora's mask and save the town of Termina from being crushed by the Moon!

Story grading B+

I really enjoy the story especially as you enter further into the game and you find out about places like Ikana valley, the origin of Majora's Mask, Snowhead Village and the stories of Mikau and the deceased Goron chief of Snowhead VIllage. It sets the tone perfectly for the dark feeling not felt in other Zelda's nearly as well as this.

When you find out what the area is like to fight the insane final boss of the game you will be surprised to say the least. The NPC's are a great fixture in this game as well due to many side quests and stories and all have the common bond of being subject to the Skull Kid's cruel intentions and helping these people gives you rewards for trying to erase Skull Kid's damage. The game's atmosphere is hauntingly beautiful and I guarantee that if you like ominous themes then this is the game for you.

Graphics A

The game used an expansion pack  to enhance the graphics of an already flawless graphics system used on Ocarina of Time and are much the same with a bit better detail and definition, the design of the temples were simply genius especially great bay temple and stone tower temple, Ikana valley was also every well made. The Final boss looked really freaky and great as well and probably the final boss and it's area pushed the Nintendo 64's graphics limits to the edge to make it appear as good as it came out.

Also putting on the transformation masks and seeing their transformations and reactions was a trip in itself, some of these animations scared kid's when they were young playing this because of how well it was done. An interesting side note is that on the the happy mask salesman's mask backpack where you can see lots of different kinds of mask there is a mask with the face of Mario, the mask's were usually of the healed souls of the deceased which is pretty spooky to think about especially if you are a Mario fan haha.

The Sound A

The sound is perfect no choppiness or issues whatsoever with the sound quality and again it improves a little bit on Ocarina of Time's sound quality and music. The songs composed are absolutely fantastic for this game and perfectly suit the situations when they are played. One song in Particular called the Song of Healing is played multiple times during the game and is wonderfully made and can cause some tear jerker moments for the player in particular scenes. Ikana Valley probably had the most chilling theme and the final boss has a very bizarre theme and some good themes as well.

The Stone Tower Temple music is great as well and my favorite temple music is the ominous sounding Great Bay Temple theme. The sound effects are just as good as Ocarina of Time but with new bosses and mask transformations obviously they are a bit better and more advanced. There wasn't one area r theme or song I didn't enjoy in this Game so an A is a good grade in my books for this soundtrack. Koji Kondo always outdoes himself with his musical composing genius.

The Depth A

Another hallmark of this game is it's outstanding depth. I already mentioned the NPC'S but the fact there is many of them that have side quests and occupy your time very well requires you to also go back through time quite a bit to get the game done 100%. The dungeons were very smartly made in particular the stone tower Temple and Great Bay Temple, the Snowhead Temple and Ikana Castle aren't anything to sneeze at either. The weapons and item's you have in this game call for some creative thinking and improv and were relevant to completely particular temples in areas certain ways. The mask's abilities were also a new concept that was greatly utilized in this game and using A Zora was very fun for using projectiles and swimming and killing underwater enemies.

The Goron form was also very fun to use for raw power and the ability to get across the land very quickly using the Goron roll technique. Unfortunately the Giant's Mask can only be used in one area against the temple's final Boss but it is all so satisfying to turn humongous to do defeat the boss. Finding all the Mask's in the game was also fun and the reward for doing this and using them in the final area correctly to get the final mask is probably the best and most powerful tool in the game and turns every boss into a joke if you decide to use the final mask. The Boss battles themselves were creative in some areas, like Ikana Castle and Snowhead temple Boss. It was also cool that you got to see and explore area's that were damaged before restored after you finished the area's temple.

Getting the stray fairies can be fun if you like challenges but annoying if you want to get through games quickly, you get nice power ups if you collect all 15 in each temple. I also enjoyed that all the area's were distinctively different than the others and were all designed in a nice and unique way that adds to this game's replay ability.

The Difficulty

The game itself in my opinion is harder than Ocarina of Time but that game wasn't hard in itself so in my opinion it isn't that hard. I have heard people have found it to hard and give up on the game early, my advice is to stick with it because it gets a lot simpler after you know what you are doing properly. If you are having real problems with the time constraints fins out about the inverted song of time from the scarecrow in the astral lab and it will help you out immensely.  

Finding all stray fairies and mask's takes a lot of time and patience but it is well worth you doing all of this for the rewards you get for doing so and the side quests themselves are fun. Try not to use a walkthrough for this game either you will enjoy it more. The hardest part of the game in my opinion is probably managing your time well enough before the 3 days are up but again if you know what you're doing you should be fine.

Addictiveness B+

Now this is a tricky one, in my opinion this game has replay ability all over it, but some people dislike having time limits on games so they may not want to bother replaying it many times. The game is fun, the concepts are new and original and the story and sound track are great, so I think this s a game you could play again at least once a year after playing it for the first time. The only bad thing about this game really is that there isn't many temples and the game goes by fast if you don't do everything but they made this game in a year's time so that is to be expected and it doesn't hinder a great game because of this.

Stone Tower Temple and Ikana Castle are the areas I had most fun with. If you play the game blind in my opinion it is more enjoyable than looking up a walkthrough to get you by, even if you are struggling at worst take a break from the game and come back at it another time. The save points are a bit annoying since you have to save at owl statue points to save the game instead of just pressing start and ave like Ocarina of Time but again it's a small complaint.

Overall Verdict A

This game is my favorite Zelda game and therefore my favorite game of all time and Ocarina of Time was no easy beat to gain that title. Between the terrific sound track, the originality of the game, the creepy atmosphere of the game seen nowhere else in the Zelda series makes this game a true masterpiece of Nintendo gaming.  You may want to complete the game first and then replay it to get 100% of all items to make it really fun the second time around as well. The graphics are great and any fan of Ocarina of Time will be happy with the graphics used in this game, if you are using a Nintendo 64 console you have to buy an expansion pack to play this however.

If you haven't played Ocarina Of Time I suggest to play that first since it is the prequel to this and it is better to play games in order if you can. I bought this game when it first came out in 2000, I played Ocarina of Time first so I was very excited for this game. I was very confused at first in the game on what to do and where to go but when I got into it there was no looking back. I give this game an A and I highly recommend you giving this game a shot as a feel it is very underrated on the greatest of all time games scale.

UFC : I have to say, this review isn't bad. You passed 2,000+ words, this was well categorized, and you only have 28 posts. I am surprised, but now I'm thinking you copied this from LOZ wiki...

I should have started the thread from the game page to make it look better but oh . No I write the whole thing out myself, I wasn't so sure how far I should write about the story and certain things in case people don't wanna know the secrets for the game and story if they haven't played it before.

Majora's Mask brings a bit of a dark side on the Zelda franchise, and it really is a cool sequel to OoT. I love its everything.

Also, your game review is pretty cool. Well done, UFC.

Thanks Pacman, I really hope the next new zelda game they make for the wii u (not the wind waker remake) is a direct sequel form majoras mask and retains those innovations and dark stylings