Lurker > Evillordexdeath

It's probably safe to assume I'll get the stone rank on every single level from now on.

Chapter 8

Short motorcycle level. The chapter title is "Route 666," which made me wonder if the Pokemon series has featured that same location by now. Sometimes these kind of single-appearance vehicle sections in games can be really badly made and obnoxious, but this one went by quickly and painlessly enough.

Chapters 9 & 10

A sort of narrative diversion into Bayonetta's past, set in Paradiso. Most of her amnesia is gone by this point. A lot of pretty visuals in this area. The enemy variety is apparently starting to run out as we start facing golden powered-up versions of previously encountered baddies, including miniaturized versions of the first two bosses.

Chapter 11

Third boss. Even though I got a lower rating than I did for the previous two, I think this guy is actually the easiest boss yet. Many of his attacks are aimed so far outward that you can just stand close to him and keep attacking, and he goes down a lot faster than either of the previous two. His final phase has a long animation when it begins, during which you can deal a lot of damage while he isn't attacking. You can exploit this even more by jumping off the platform you're standing on, which will make Bayonetta jump onto a new one, and the boss will go through that animation again afterward.

Chapter 12

Another short one, this time on a plane. It took me a while to figure out where I was going at one point, where you have to break open a pair of doors and go outside. This is also our third fight against Jeanne, who has a very similar power-set to Bayonetta. I find these mirror matches to be pretty satisfying from a gameplay standpoint, because it's interesting to match up against someone else who will use the dodge and break out of combos more like another player might. You have to change up your tactics accordingly.

By now Bayonetta has built up relationships with Cereza and to a lesser extent Luka, and is actively protective of them both. I think this is definitely a positive thing for the story that helps give it some more immediate stakes and makes Bayonetta a more sympathetic character.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

ZenOfThunder posted...

here's a question now that youve been playing it for a bit:

does Bayonetta truly feel like a great, worthy first game of the decade?

(i like it a lot and i think it definitely does)

Well the pedantic part of me wants to say no: it came out in 2009, damn it!

But to answer more seriously, I think it makes a good "first" game for this project because I'm gaining an appreciation for it and I wouldn't have tried it out otherwise. I definitely think it's a well-made game and can see how most of the design choices serve what the devs were going for. So yes!

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

Leonhart4 posted...

Hey now fighting games have plenty of content

It's that kind of talk that got us into this mess with Street Fighter V

I admit that statement came from the perspective of someone who doesn't play many fighting games and is generally ignorant about them. I was mostly going by the old Street Fighter games where there was arcade mode and vs. mode and not much else.

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Chapter 6
Rank: Stone

For a lot of this level we're accompanied by Cereza, who calls Bayonetta her mummy. While I'm mostly on board with Bayonetta as a character by this point, I will say that her aloof attitude toward the kid wasn't too endearing to me. In gameplay terms we have to protect Cereza in the combat sections, but she's protected by a high-health magic barrier that regenerates, so I never failed because of the escort quest.

We fight a shape-shifting angel who transforms to look like Bayonetta, and they have a dance-off, which was hilarious and one of the game's highlights for me so far. Eventually Bayonetta dumps Cereza off on Luka, the guy whose dad she killed 20 years ago, which comes as kind of a relief.

Chapter 7
Rank: Bronze

Our second boss fight. I actually found this guy easier than the first boss. He has three distinct phases: one where we're jumping around on floating platforms while he flies past us, a second that reminded me a bit of Super Mario Galaxy where we run on his massive body and break red glowing spheres, and a third against his head. In the first phase you can actually stop many of his attacks just by hitting him enough during the wind-up, and I found the second pretty easy to get through without taking much damage once I learned that you can easily avoid its attacks in your panther form. The third one I struggled with a little more, because it has some quick-to-start attacks that I consistently failed to dodge.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

"Immortal Machine" -SHODAN
"Obey" -Tyreen
"Ten Minutes" -Boss
"Beyond Death" -Ultimecia

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

I think the best point of comparison for Hideki Kamiya's and Platinum's games are 1-on-1 fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. Like how Bayonetta is meant to be played again and again to improve the player's skills, fighting games have almost no content in the traditional sense but can still be fun for an insanely long time as you improve at them to almost infinite levels. Arcade-style games can be like that too. I remember someone talking about clearing Ikaruga for the first time on infinite lives mode with hundreds of deaths, and then going back again and again to reduce that number. I feel a little bit tempted to do the same with Bayonetta, and play the game again on normal mode to try and get some half-decent rankings.

It does expose a potential flaw with this project, where I'll have to move onto the next game and therefore games like this one may not leave the same impression on me that they could, but I'll always have the option to revisit Bayonetta once I'm done.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

Played through chapters 2 through 5 of Bayonetta today, with Stone rankings on all the proper levels and bronze on the Chapter 4 boss fight. At least I can take solace in the idea that I correctly predicted how bad I would be at this game.

I can tell it was designed to be played multiple times through, both for the unlockable difficulties and improving your rankings. There's a dizzying amount of stuff to keep track of in the gameplay, between all the different combos, unlockable skills, temporary weapons dropped by enemies, and permanent weapon options that change all your light attacks. So far I've unlocked a sword and a pair of gauntlets, and have mostly been using the sword. It seems to make certain enemies much easier to stagger with the faster attacks.

The boss fight in chapter 4 was super long and elaborate. There are checkpoints mid-battle, which was a saving grace for me, because I think I would've really struggled to complete it without them.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

"Selfie" -Victoria
"Insects" -Beatrix
"Gun" -Boss
"Fall" -Darth Traya
"Silent Hill" -Claudia

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

"Queen Bitch" -Kerrigan
"Silent Hill" -Claudia
"Bullet" -Sniper Wolf
"Claire" -Alexia

---

I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

Prologue:
Rank: Gold

Yesterday I played the interactive intro to this game. This level is the proper tutorial, explaining Bayonetta's light and heavy attacks, basic combos, dodge, and Witch Time, which slows down enemies if you dodge at the last possible second for some safe follow-up attacks. It might be described as a more involved version of the parry mechanic from Dark Souls. Unlike that, the amount of damage you get out of Witch Time varies, to an extent, based on your individual skill.

After a large brawl in a graveyard, there's a second sequence on an exploding plane that tutorializes the magic meter, which lets you perform pre-animated instant-kills on certain enemies. I failed this part the first time by going over the time limit, but got the "pure platinum" rating on my second attempt. Go figure.

Chapter 1
Rank: Silver

The first time we see the gameplay involve anything except combat. There are exploration sections and some obstacles to get around. I would hesitate to call them "puzzles." They're extensions of the combat mechanics, actually. There are walls you have to execute combos to get through and sections where you use enchanted statues to call lightning strikes upon yourself, so you can dodge them to activate Witch Time. For such a combat-centric game, it does make sense to use the battle mechanics in the other sections.

I made it partway through Chapter 2 before realizing how late it was and putting the PS4 into sleep mode so I could get ready for work. I guess that's a good sign!

The story is extremely frenetic in its pacing so far, to the point of being a little disorienting. We're introduced to Bayonetta's past, the roles of witches and sages which are neutral parties in a conflict between Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, and arcs involving Bayonetta's lost partner-turned-enemy and what I think is her daughter, as well as a chap who is ineptly hunting Bayonetta after she killed his father. Actually, a lot of the cutscenes do put a smile on my face, and I think the ultra-fast pacing helps keep things light-hearted and fun.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

pezzicle posted...

Looking forward to it. 1 down 128 to go

Thanks for the support!

Gall posted...

Hey, the NSMB games are solid platformers. There are far worse Nintendo series when it comes to being dull and unchanging.

How much did you like the 4 main dungeons in Majora's Mask compared to other Zeldas? Personally I think they're some of the best. I love how long and complex they are and how they don't just rely on the 'get item, use item, kill boss with item' formula. I also like the bonus objective of finding all the stray fairies which really makes you closely investigate every room for hidden stuff - I think I also liked the skulltula houses for the same reason, did you do those?

I agree the NSMB games are well designed, they just feel a bit generic, you know? You're probably right that some of Nintendo's other properties are worse in that regard, though.

Yeah, I think MM's dungeons are among the best too, mostly for the same reasons you mention. I did do the Skulltula houses. I think they're among the best sidequests in the game, along with the Anju and Kafei quest line. They're like miniaturized Zelda dungeons. I will say that hearing the sound from so many skulltulas at once got on my nerves after a while though.

NFUN posted...

Come on pyre. We could've finally fulfilled the chest's prophecy of "There's probably somebody out there who played SC before FC. I bet they're really confused right now"

//if you're counting both games as one, FC came out in 2011...

Admittedly this is somewhat arbitrary, but my plan was to count them as one game with SC's release date, just because that's the game of the two that was in the contest. Since they're that far apart I might play them separately under their own release dates, though. I'll have to think about it more.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

Between floundering on the Moon in Majora's Mask and writing all those posts I cut it a little close on not being able to play Bayonetta at all tonight. I essentially only had time to see in intro. Bayonetta opens on a shot of a full moon, which makes a cute parallel with our last game. I like how stylized the presentation is, with many of the cutscenes looking as if we're examining them directly on a film reel, and I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly the actual gameplay begins, where I was expecting a long intro cutscene. Instead we have an impossible-to-fail combat sequence over narration, which is a nice way to kill two birds with one stone and give the player a chance to get introduced to the controls.

After that, though, there is a cutscene of Bayonetta praying while a fat man rudely shouts into her ears for quite a while followed by Bayonetta and a second man fighting angels in cutscene for really quite a while. It's about 10 minutes in total, and while it was amusing, I think I would've preferred if that fighting took place in gameplay. Anyway, I'll get into it more substantially tomorrow afternoon.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

Keltiq posted...

The Goron section of the moon would be my favourite... if it weren't for the fact that I only own the GCN Zelda Collector's Edition port, which is notable for having a chance to crash every time the Goron Roll bounces off something.

I'm glad you enjoyed MM so much! It's definitely my favourite Zelda, and was probably my favourite game period until I played Undertale... But that's for much, much later, I suppose.

Man, that would've been a killer for me given how many times I had to try it. The Goron Roll is like the Zora swimming in that it's a movement option that has a lot of room for skill and elegance, so I can see why you'd like it. I think for me the heavy punishment for failure in that moon section was the biggest turn-off. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes more enjoyable when you get better at it.

I think I would say MM is one of my top 3 Zelda games, along with Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild. OoT is up there too, of course.

Undertale is one of the relatively few games I've completed all the way from the GotD 2020 bracket. I have some plans for it that I hope you'll find interesting, but yeah, that's a long way down the road.

ZenOfThunder posted...

I played Bayonetta for like a half hour and gave up, not my type of game, but I love Bayonetta

have fun!

One thing I will say is that I expect to be really, really bad at it. Hopefully I'll figure it out a little more with two games worth of practice.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

Bayonetta
Release Date: January 5, 2010
I Will be Playing On: PLaystation 4
Previous Experience With Bayonetta: None
What I Expect From Bayonetta: Long legs and long combos

Bayonetta is a game I would never play outside this topic. In fact, it will be my first "spectacle fighter." I've never played any Platinum game or any entry in the Devil May Cry franchise. I bought Metal Gear Rising: Revengence for around $5 because the senator at the end is funny to me, but never got around to playing it. It just doesn't seem interesting to me. I'm not entirely sure why. Most games I love have combat, but it's only one aspect out of many. I don't really like fighting games either, so maybe it's the major emphasis of combat that repels my interest.

And like her game itself, there's something about the character of Bayonetta that just doesn't compel me, though I only know her from Smash and by reputation. I can appreciate the sense of fun she has, but I haven't seen her show much emotional range beyond that, so maybe that's what it is. That's not to say she doesn't have such an emotional range, to be clear. I won't know that until I play the game.

Still, this isn't intended as a total dismissal of Bayonetta. It's totally possible that I'll love her game once I give it a shot. That would be a great affirmation of the value of this project.


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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

Alright, now that the bonus poll's contest is done with, we can move into the bracket proper:

2010 - The Hold-Over Year

Decades are an illusion of human categorization. The trends of the last several years don't obligingly end when the calendar turns over to a year divisible by 10. If we indulge that illusion, we can point out that most of the 2010 games I have before me are in some way hanging onto the 2000s. First of all, we have two games from 2009 that snuck into the bracket: Bayonetta and Pokemon HGSS (the latter of which is a remake of a game from 2000.) We also have a set of games in the same engine as their predecessors from 2007 or 2008:

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Fallout: New Vegas
Halo: Reach

Even more notable is Mass Effect 2, the direct continuation of a single narrative that started in 2007, which loads save data from its previous iteration.

This project is so long that by the time I'm done with it, I might be shocked to see the progress made by a then-modern game of 2025. I'll have been stuck in the 2010s for years after their conclusion. If we run with that, and imagine me transplanting myself into the year 2010, then I'm looking to the future by first going over the past.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 1/129
Currently Playing: Bayonetta

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

What I thought of Majora's Mask: A great game to start with.
Would I play Majora's Mask again? Definitely
Did it deserve to win Game of the Decade? Yes, even if it wouldn't have been my first pick.

I respect Nintendo for making a game like Majora's Mask. It's easy for huge AAA developers to repeat themselves for the sake of financial safety and broad appeal. There's no denying that Nintendo have done this in the past. I find the New Super Mario Bros. series of games to be unbearably dull for essentially this reason. MM might be the furthest they have come from those games aesthetically. New Mario is cute and bubbly to the point of being sacchirine, while Majora's Mask is brooding, somber, and creepy.

I think what I admire most about the game is the art direction. It has a very consistent visual theme of morbidity. The animations when Link transforms with his masks are painful and disturbing, his new power-set includes thing like making souless copies of himself and disguising himself as a monster, and even tools like the Mirror Shield have been redesigned, in that case to resemble a tormented human face. The four deities you call upon are ugly long-legged elder gods, and instead of collecting sacred artifacts or rescuing maidens or sages you collect the corpses of your enemies. It's all framed by the ever-present threat of the apocalyptic moon, which is deliberately placed within the player's vision at important moments. Seeing it hanging over the peaceful Romani Ranch and nearly coming face-to-face with it at the peak of Snowhead mountain made for some of the game's most memorable moments.

All those visual motifs serve to reinforce the game's themes, perhaps the most significant of which is futility. It makes an interesting contrast against most video games as well as most other stories based around a time-loop, such as Groundhog Day or Edge of Tomorrow. While a character like Phil Connors learns from each successive cycle of his personal time loop, and a satisfying part of most adventure games or RPGs is visiting new places and leaving them better than you found them, the time loop in Majora's Mask is used specifically to undermine your achievements. Although you can run around Termina righting wrongs and preventing disaster, it will all be rendered meaningless when the moon strikes and you're forced to start again. You have to ignore the villany around you for the sake of simple pragmatism: you know that an old woman will be robbed on the first night of every cycle, but you can't practically help her every single time.

What's even better is the way those things are conveyed. Link's silent protagonist status serves this game well: cutscenes of him lamenting how his heroic achievements are undone would be much less impactful than allowing the player to experience that feeling himself through the gameplay. We can hold up Majora's Mask as a valuable example of how to use video games, in particular, to tell a story. Exploring this young medium in that way has always excited me.

I find that most really good games have either a great story (Mother 3, Silent Hill 2, Xenogears) or great gameplay (Star Fox 64, Symphony of the Night,) but the combination of the two (Final Fantasy Tactics, Dark Souls) is much rarer. Majora's Mask is one game I would say is great at both. The gameplay is where MM more closely resembles its Zelda brethren: some aspects of the formula started by Link to the Past are visible here. While that was a generally potent gameplay format (I remember absolutely loving the dungeons in Twilight Princess,) it eventually became repetitive enough that I was glad to see Breath of the Wild tear it down.

Majora might be the second-most unusual post-LttP Zelda game (we will have to revisit this claim when it comes time to play A Link Between Worlds.) You find items like the hookshot outside dungeons and the boss fights are open-ended brawls rather than repeating puzzle battles. I like this approach to boss fights! I think my favorite was the first one, where there's a surprising variety of mechanics at play: you have to dodge and block against his attacks, change targets (or spin attack) against his minions and throw bombs against the swarms of gnats he summons. As I mentioned earlier, the surprising highlight was playing as a Zora. The room for skill and elegance just in swimming around made the aquatic sections satisfying and fun.

I definitely have some complaints. I wish most of the masks were more useful. Mechanics like the Elegy of Emptiness weren't much fun to play around with. A common annoyance in Zelda games is how often you have to pause the game to change items. Masks can exacerbate this issue, especially for players who understandably dedicate a slot to the bunny hood at all times. There were tons of times when I talked to a shopkeeper with a mask on and had to go through their mask dialog, remove my mask, and talk to them again. Likewise, I wish I could swap a mask for another item while wearing it. Those are essentially nitpicks. I think most of my issues with the game are ultimately no big deal.

It's heartening for a game like this to be so powerful in our popularity contests. I've talked to a lot of people who were turned off by the time loop mechanic or the sense of helplessness it evokes, which I consider to be its important artistic decisions. Of course, there's a cynical part of me that thinks its strength is mostly attributable to GameFAQs' obsession with Nintendo and Zelda in particular - but the fact that it won where Twilight Princess failed at least says something.

Likewise, I don't know how long it might have taken me to revist Majora's Mask without this project, but I'm glad I did, and that makes me feel optimistic for the rest of it.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

ZenOfThunder posted...

there should have been a sidequest where Link needs to get something off a high shelf and he puts on the giants mask to get it

literally just a second use for it, even a gag

Yeah, that's a good idea. The same goes for the Circus Leader's Mask I would say. I think I read that the 3DS version adds a quest where you can get a bottle from that one.

Keltiq posted...

One of the only changes in MM3D that I actually liked was the complete rework of the Twinmold fight, including giving the Giant's Mask a unique barehanded moveset including a spinning toss.

That sounds pretty cool. I do think the original game has some things that need expansion or refinement, so the remake was a good chance for that. It sounds like most people think they messed that up though, which is a shame.

---

The final section of the game is pretty quick for a competent player. We finally play the Oath to Order and summon the four giants, who hold up the moon and knock out the Skull Kid. Majora's Mask itself comes to life and gets swallowed by the moon, and we chase it for the final, somewhat surreal sequence of the game, where we play with some moon children who ask downbeat questions about the nature of existence. We trade in all our masks for The Fierce Diety's Mask, which turns Link into a grown-up with a mighty two-handed sword. We make extremely short work of Majora with this powerup. I liked the "Dawn of a New Day" title card indicating that we're finally free of this time loop. The ending being so upbeat conflicts a little with the morbidity and darkness I found so appealing in the game, but that's forgivable I would say.

I got stuck for a while trying to beat the Goron section of the moon. It's basically organized as a test of all the skills you've learned so far, as is typical for the last stretch of a game. The Deku and Zora sections I breezed through, and the combat section was naturally easy enough, but the Goron one was a huge difficulty spike and felt poorly designed. It's mostly based around bouncing off of treasure chests to complete turns that are otherwise too wide, which is a hitherto unused possibility of the Goron form. It was really precise - at many angles I would come to a complete stop when I hit the chest or bounce off into a chasm. You have to maintain full acceleration for a long time to jump off ramps onto narrow bridges, with even tiny mistakes in the angle of launch sending you falling into oblivion. I kind of hated the existence of the Goron form by the time I finally beat it.

Final thoughts on MM coming shortly.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

"My Life" -Boss
"Rhyme" -Gruntilda
"Justice" -Sae
"Dang Mad" -Wendy

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

+3 Portal 2
+2 Journey
+1 Dark Souls 2
-1 Pokemon Black 2/White 2
-2 Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
-3 What Remains of Edith Finch


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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

ZenOfThunder posted...

What do you think of the giants mask

I always thought it was so lame how limited it was

It's a cool concept. I agree it's a let down how you can't use it outside the boss. I imagine it would be broken in most areas, not in the sense of being overpowered but in the sense of not working. I also wish being giant changed the gameplay a little more than just increasing the size of Link's model. A power to freely become normal-sized or colossal at will might be a cool idea for a small indie game. It seems like an idea that would do better if the whole game were based around it. You could have more wide-open areas where it was handy and program in the results of expanding in smaller places. Maybe there could be puzzles where you have stand in the right place when you expand so that your arm can reach a high narrow corridor to press a switch, or something like that.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

+3 Fallout: New Vegas
+2 The Stanley Parable
+1 The Outer Worlds
-1 Dead Space 2
-2 Dragon Ball FighterZ
-3 Forza Horizon 4

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

"Heart" -GLaDOS
"Hero" -Sniper Wolf
"Carmen Sandiego" -Carmen Sandiego
"Liberator" -Yunalesca

Second and third matches are tough.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

BetrayedTangy posted...

Did a big update today as well, I cleared Great Bay Temple and got caught up on the masks as well as a couple of heart pieces.

Yeah 100% sucks. I did it last year and it's just not fun at a certain point, but I think that might kinda be the point? Like we were saying earlier with doing side quests early/buffing Link up. There's so many different ways to do quests and gain items that each playthrough ends up being different and that's not even touching on the Easter eggs. Like take the Circus Leader's Mask for example it's only use is irrelevant, but it has constant tears streaming down its face. I never knew that until this playthrough!

Also it's funny that you mention EarthBound's monkey cave as when I reached that part during my playthrough I remember saying great it's like the well in Majora's Mask. Also I think you can clear it without leaving technically? Maybe not access every room, but I think you can get to the end.

I think almost all games stop being fun a little bit before 100%, at least for someone like me. With Majora's Mask, I think I'd probably go to around 18 hearts and a full inventory before stopping, if I weren't feeling the need to move onto the next game for this project. I will say that's a pretty good ratio of fun sidequests to annoying ones.

One small detail that I noticed playing today is how many different reactions the NPCs have to different masks. I would have expected them to mostly have a single generic reaction for all masks, but just out of curiosity I tried different ones on the kid who guards the bomber's hideout and he has unique reactions for the majority of the masks in the game. That impressed me a lot and inspired me to run around town trying my masks on other characters. The Happy Mask salesman has different ones for every single mask. I did know about that before.

With the Monkey Cave, you only need to bring the items to trade with the 2 monkeys in the first room from outside. I remember every time I've played I would talk to them, find out what they wanted, and then go buy those two things from the shop nearby. I've played EB enough times that I can remember one of them is a wet towel, but not the other. It is possible to do the whole well in one go, but you have to know exactly what you need beforehand. I had to go in three times. Once to find out what the guys in the first room wanted, like the monkey gave, a second time that lasted until I learned I needed milk, and then I completed it on the third visit.

---

I really wanted to at least finish the game today, but I wound up spending so long on the Stone Tower Temple that I'm worried I would get partway through the final section of the game before having to leave for work. As of now, the plan is to finish MM when I wake up tomorrow afternoon and then start on the second game (Bayonetta) immediately afterward.

The Stone Tower Temple was no joke. Getting the stray fairies was especially arduous. You have to enter and exit the dungeon repeatedly to flip it up and down. One fairy in particular, which requires you to quickly roll through a set of narrow hallways as a goron, took me a ton of tries to get. The reward for all that effort was the Great Fairy Sword, which is used with the c-buttons rather than replacing your other sword. As powerful as it is, I don't expect to get much mileage out of it given that by the time it's available the game is all but over. I think I would skip it on a repeat playthrough.

The boss reminded me a lot of another game I've played repeatedly: Shadow of the Colossus. As a giant flying sandworm, it's very reminiscent of Phalanx, the 14th colossus, which is almost universally considered to be one of the best fights in that game. We use the newly-acquired Giant's Mask to super-size Link and take it down, which while cool doesn't quite have the heart-racing feeling that leaping from horseback onto Phalanx's wings did. Since the Giant's Mask drains magic, a green potion really comes in handy for this fight.

Now all four dungeons are cleared and we're finally ready to confront the Skull Kid again. It's just a matter of speeding along to the night of the third day and returning to the clock tower.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

LinkMarioSamus posted...

I actually started Majora's Mask a day before its first match in GOTD 1 by complete coincidence (I was doing a bit of a Zelda run-through at the time), and finished the game a day after the contest finished. The dumb thing is that I remember feeling like some aspects of the playthrough were a chore, yet I can't in good faith call MM a bad game. Will be interesting if I ever re-visit it.

I think I'd feel some of that tedium of I were trying to 100% it. Though there are a couple parts in the main game that I'm a little unsure of (most of which I just finished, lol,) I've enjoyed the strong majority of the game so far and have felt fairly compelled to clear the sidequests.

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I'm bad at finishing games. There have been dozens of times, even in recent memory, where I've started a game, had no major complaints toward it, but still stopped playing before the end, for one reason or another. Even so, there are a few I've completed multiple times, one of which is Earthbound. Although parts of Earthbound's gameplay are antiquated enough to turn off some people, it's always been one of my favorites. I wish more games would emulate things like the instant-wins against weak enemies and I hold it up as one of the best examples of how to use the storytelling opportunities that come from video games in particular.

But one part of EB that almost everyone could do without is the Monkey Cave, where you have to run around delivering inventory items to monkeys who are blocking the way forward. On the bright side, all the items you need can be found in the cave itself, but it can still be a dull and tedious affair with a lot of backtracking.

I bring this up because Majora's Mask has it's own version of the Monkey Cave, in the form of the Well at Ikana Canyon. It's probably the more complex dungeon of the two and requires more preparation. You have to bring milk, a blue potion, ten bombs, ten deku nuts, and five magic beans from outside the dungeon if you want to go everywhere. It's definitely an area where I would recommend reading a guide. You could get most of the way through before learning that you need milk and having to run all the way across the dungeon to get out, and then back through a second time with the milk. That would be rather galling. This is plot-mandatory and the reward is the Mirror Shield, with a creepy new design in line with this game's aesthetic.

Still, I'm being a bit facetious, because I never really minded the Monkey Cave, and though I was glad to leave it behind, the Well wasn't so bad either.

With the Mirror Shield we can explore Ikana Castle, a miniature dungeon unto itself, and learn the last song in the game: the Elegy of Emptiness. This lets us leave behind motionless copies of ourselves in all four forms, which look like an unsettling Nutcracker version of Link and the true appearances of his Deku, Goron, and Zora counterparts. It's mostly used to weight down switches in the next area, the Stone Tower, which we have to scale to reach the game's last temple. So far there's no use for creating a clone of our Deku form, which is too light to keep a switch down. The Stone Tower ascent is a bit of a let-down because it's mostly just hookshotting and weighting down switches again and again. You have to go into the menu quite a lot to exchange your masks for one another. Although it's pretty cool visually, the Elegy of Emptiness would be better assigned to a single inventory item rather than a song with a long input, from a gameplay perspective. You have to use it much more frequently than any of the other songs, when clearing out this area, so the length of the method becomes a little draining. I activated the Owl Statue at the top of the tower before calling it a night.

I definitely underestimated how much was left of this game and how long it would take me to progress. For the rest of the week, this topic will probably slow down to a rate of one update per day, in the evening. Still, I'm closing in on the end of game #1. I'm hoping to be able to start the next game by Thursday.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

+3 Final Fantasy XIII
+2 Katawa Shoujo
+1 The Last of Us
-1 New Super Mario Bros. U
-2 Dying Light
-3 Heroes of the Storm


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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Something kind of interesting to note about the Zora gameplay is that this game came out just before a period of Nintendo seemingly becoming oddly fascinated with water, with Super Mario Sunshine, Wind Waker, and to a lesser extent Pokemon Ruby all being based heavily around it. For all the emphasis the FLUDD and Sailing had in those games, though, I don't think they're as fun as the Zora swimming. I wouldn't mind seeing Nintendo revisit it as a mechanic.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

BetrayedTangy posted...

Yes, Zora swimming is absolutely awesome, honestly surprised we haven't seen anything similar to it since. Also really happy you're playing the original as the remake on 3DS completely butchers the swimming.

The upgrades are a really nice way of balancing the higher difficulty with this one compared to other Zeldas. Especially since you can get them fairly early on

Wow, that's really a shame about the remake. If that's true, I'm glad I'm playing the N64 version too.

I was definitely surprised that the game let me have the Gilded Sword so quickly. That one in particular might be a little bit too strong - taking down Dodongos with two jump attacks is crazy - but then a challenge-oriented player can always just opt not to get it.

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I did some exploring in Ikana to activate the Owl Shrines and picked up the Song of Storms, Captain's Hat, and Gibdo Mask. Then I went back to day one and completed the Anju and Kafei sidequest, gaining the Couple's Mask as my reward. The sidequest does lead to a bit of what I like to call "Shenmue Syndrome," where the player has nothing to do except wait for the in-game timer to advance. I like it a lot from a narrative standpoint though. We retrieve Kafei's mask and the two of them have their promised wedding - which requires them to stay in Clock Town even as the moon falls. They essentially choose to die together. Then Link travels back in time, so that Anju and Kafei are still alive, but everything he's done to help them is undone. I guess there's the potential to debate whether that's a good or a bad thing.

I've heard of some players doing as much as they can on their last cycle before finishing the game, so that even though the game doesn't show it, the world they leave behind will be as good as possible, but given that it brings you to the last 90 seconds before the moon hits, I don't think it's possible to complete the Anju and Kafei sidequest and finish the game in the same cycle. They can be together or they can survive, but Link is incapable of creating a world where both of those conditions are fulfilled.

On the periphery of their sidequest, we also convinced the postman to leave town and save himself, and got the Postman's Hat in return. With this, I have 23/24 masks, and should be picking up the last one shortly.

Incidentally, the only use for both the Couple's Mask and the Postman's mask is to gain one piece of heart. Given how much effort we have to go to for them, I wish they were a bit more substantial as rewards. Then again, you could argue they do lead to a more substantial reward later on.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Between the Pirate Fortress, gathering the rest of the Zora Eggs, and actually traveling to the damn place, just getting to the Great Bay Temple takes some work. By the time I manged it, I realized I was exhausted and needed to prioritize getting some sleep over any goals for the time-frame in which I finish this game.

The dungeon itself really is one of the more complex I've seen in a Zelda game, but it didn't frustrate me the way that Snowhead sometimes did - at least I never fell from a high place and had to trace my footsteps back through several rooms.

There have been a few times in my life where I have fantasized (I think that's the right word for it,) about becoming an indie game developer, and one of the concepts I was interested in was a game mostly based around swimming. I think the Zora mechanics in this game do a lot of justice to that sort of idea, actually. One thing you can do that looks very impressive is quickly break the surface and "leap" back in and out of the water, like some fish do, and you can use this motion to get back on land much faster than you would by climbing onto it as Young Link. It takes a bit of finesse, and if you mess up you'll smack your head against the wall and waste more time. I like that the movement controls award a degree of skill in that way. The technique is useful against the Great Bay boss, where you have to shoot him with arrows from on land, climb into the water to follow up, and then quickly return to shore before he bites you.

I managed to find all the temple's Stray Fairies, and once again this plus completing the dungeon itself took two full days. The reward is that all damage against me will be halved for the rest of the game. Between this and the sword upgrades, you can really make yourself overwhelmingly powerful through the sidequesting in this game. I also took the time to do the Frog Chorus sidequest. It only awards a piece of heart, and is oddly elaborate for such a small reward. In one cycle, you have to beat the frogs guarding the boss keys for both the Deku and Zora dungeons, who are possessed frogs that you can then speak to with the Don Gero Mask, and defeat the boss for the Goron dungeon, as well as finding two more frogs in Clock Town and the swamp. I wanted to do both this quest and the Zora dungeon in one go to reduce repetition, and I just barely managed it in three in-game days.

Next up: Completing the Bomber's Notebook.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

PostContestUlti posted...

Good stuff. I've done similar topics, and I can promise you that writeups are the biggest time killer for it.

Yeah, I tend to be a very slow and hesitant writer, which would be absolutely fatal to this project. So far I've managed to force myself to write quickly and avoid doing much editing.

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I went through the Pirate Fortress the "normal" way and got the Hookshot, but then exited without realizing I had to gather the Zora Eggs. Not really wanting to do it again, I did opt to head into Ikana Canyon and get myself the Stone Mask, which negates the stealth mechanics that send you back the second you're spotted.

While I was at it, I cleared both Spider Houses for the Mask of Truth and Giant Wallet, the latter of which let me obtain the All-Night Mask (which I wish I could have in real life,) and use it to sit through the grandma at the Inn's stories without dozing off, for some lore as well as two Heart Pieces. Now the Bombers' Notebook is complete except for those characters who are a part of the Anju and Kafei sidequest, which I could finish now but will save for after the Water Temple.

There's no way I'm finishing the game before the date change at this point, but maybe I can still manage it before 72 hours have passed since I started.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

+3 Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
+2 Donkey Kong Country Returns
+1 South Park: The Stick of Truth
-1 Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire
-2 Super Mario 3D World
-3 Diablo III

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Thanks, Zen! I appreciate that. For what it's worth, I think your Female Villain Quotes contest is the big exciting project on the board right now, along with Ulti's PCA.

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I spent a cycle taking care of these tasks:

• Upgrading the kokiri sword to the Gilded Sword after winning the races again
• Visiting the Ranch on day 1 with a powder keg, and learning Epona's Song as well as clearing the two sisters' quests for a bottle and the Romani's Mask
• Winning the horse race for the Garo's Mask
• Taking Epona to the great bay and getting the Zora Mask
• Performing for two gentlemen at the newly-accessible milk bar for the Circus Leader's Mask

Doing things this way meant most of that happening while I had no sword, and at one point I needed to kill Dodongos using fire arrows to get some money for the horse race, but otherwise it was no big deal. I knew I wanted to get the sword upgrades and the Zora Mask on the same day, because there was a treasure chest I needed to dive for on the spring form of the mountain. It turned out to contain a Piece of Heart. I'll still need to unfreeze the goron lands a third time if I want to conduct the frog choir. On the final day I went back to Great Bay and activated the Owl Statue there, leaving me in a convenient position to infiltrate the pirate fortress in the next cycle.

I find myself reluctantly using the Deku and Goron masks when I have to and playing as a human the rest of the time, but Zora gameplay seems really cool and fun so far. It helps that Zora Link's animations are so flashy and acrobatic. I definitely prefer this set of tools for going underwater to the iron boot method from OoT and Twilight Princess.

It's Victoria Day, so I don't go back to work until tomorrow night. Although I'm not sure I'll make it, I think I will try and finish off Majora's Mask tonight, if only because the idea of playing the game over the course of three days, with the last one being a holiday, is a little bit amusing to me.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

None yet, but I'm 24, so I would be sad if it were starting. My father still has all his hair, so hopefully that's a good sign.

---

I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 0/129
Currently Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Thanks! It will definitely be nice to have that extra hundred rupees. I had always wanted to buy a fairy from the trade shop at the start of each cycle but couldn't quite budget it in. I imagine that will also help now that I may need to buy powder kegs on the regular to pick up Epona.

I will say that I still had fun making my way through Snowhead. After I posted the last update I realized the way I had written about it probably came off as more negative than I had intended. I think I would say that I like the complexity of the dungeons too. There was a satisfaction to becoming more familiar with the layout as I went. If the next dungeon doesn't have as many mechanics where you can lose a lot of progress, as you could by falling in Snowhead, I might even be able to clear it a little faster, but I'll take your advice and brace myself for a tough one.

I have made a point of collecting all the stray fairies in both dungeons so far. The expanded magic meter definitely helped in the goron race. And yeah so far I find the sidequests interesting. I feel motivated to complete them more for the story content associated with them than the in-game rewards I think. I admit to using a guide for the Anju and Kafei quest because I was nervous about missing out on one of the steps, and I was impressed by just how many optional timed events they added for the sake of characterizing the townsfolk a little more.

One thing I've given up on already is the swamp shooting gallery. That one's tough! I just think it will require spending too much time attempting it and slowly improving.

I've taken to starting every single cycle by going into the Astronomer's tunnel and retrieving the silver rupee behind the bombable wall. This process is sped up a bit by the Bunny Hood, which gives us the power to go fast (valuable in any game, but especially so in one where time is always against you,) and the Blast Mask, which almost feels like an upgrade from The Binding of Isaac - it lets you use the effect of a bomb at the cost of some health. Before I had the Blast Mask, I had to run over to the bank, withdraw enough money to buy 10 bombs, and then use those to retrieve the silver rupee for a profit of 70. With this current setup, and the Song of Inverted Time, it's possible to get the 100 rupees, run over to the store, and buy arrows, a potion, and some bombs all before a single hour has passed, which is useful for a cycle where I'm planning on adventuring.

I find it tempting to spend a lot of time on sidequests in this game. I really shouldn't be pushing for 100% on this or any of the other games in this project, but before I went to Snowhead I got the Heart Pieces for clearing the Deku Scrub minigame and Honey and Darling's challenges three days in a row. The former I struggled a lot with but the latter was not too bad. I also found the Kamaro and Don Gero masks, though I can't get the Heart Piece from the frog chorus just yet.

The context and build up to Snowhead was really well done. One thing I especially liked was the design of the long-lipped Goron Elder, who would visibly sway and shiver as he tried to make his way up the mountain. Link discovers him frozen in a block of ice and has to fetch some hot water to defrost him, and if the player returns after getting what they need (part of a new song) out of him, they will find that he has frozen over again, which is a suitably bleak touch.

As a teenager I definitely didn't understand how much control the game gives you over the in-game time mechanics. This time around, once I had the Goron Lullaby and was ready to start the dungeon proper, I played the song of time so that I could have the full 72 hours to explore it - I remember my run killer last time I played MM was getting most of the way through this dungeon before running out of time.

Progress in Snowhead itself is usually vertical, which means that the player can find himself falling and having to go back over a lot of ground. I admit it happened to me a couple times - I had trouble controlling the Goron roll move well enough to navigate the ramps and jumps successfully every time. I definitely found myself growing frustrated at times, and it led to so much bumbling that I didn't complete the dungeon until just before the dawn of the third day.

The boss was neat. It feels atypical of most video game bosses, because your Goron Roll can brute-force past anything the boss can do, so he has to "outplay" you - normally this situation would be reversed. I like how he starts out trying to ram you only to seemingly realize that this won't work and try a new strategy, now running away and using ranged attacks.

Now that the second dungeon is cleared, spring temporarily returns to the mountain, and we are officially further into Majora's Mask than I have ever been. I know almost nothing about what happens from here on out.

An unfortunate consequence of taking so long to clear the dungeon is that, assuming the reward would be a Piece of Heart, I cleared the Goron Races on the third day, and then found out that the prize was in fact a bottle full of gold dust, which can be used to upgrade your sword - except it takes a full day. I assume (and certainly hope) you can complete the race a second time to get the gold dust again, and that will be my first task when I play the game again.

+3 Fire Emblem: Three Houses
+2 Yakuza 0
+1 Octopath Traveler
-1 Bravely Default
-2 Hearthstone
-3 Call of Duty: Black Ops

I wound up spending a lot of time on side quests. In particular, there's one quite involved quest line concerning a missing child named Kafei. He's one of the first characters you'll probably meet when you start the game, because as soon as you leave the clock tower on day 1 he will be visible placing a letter in a mailbox while disguised in a keaton mask.

Kafei's mother asks Link to look for him, and by following a chain of timed events that covers all three days, Link is able to meet him and learn that he has been cursed to look like a child by Skull Kid and then had his ceremonial wedding mask stolen by the same thief we need to stop for the Blast Mask and large bomb bag. He then writes a letter that we can deliver to his mother in exchange for a second bottle - on the night of the third day, while she stays in town and waits for him even as most others evacuate. Well, I say most, but I've found a noteworthy number of characters already who stay behind for one reason or another.

We will return to these characters later! First we need to make some plot progress.

+3 Crusader Kings II
+2 Super Mario Odyssey
+1 Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
-1 Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth
-2 Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
-3 Kirbys Return to Dreamland

BetrayedTangy posted...

That's actually one of the things I love about MM. There's this open ended aspect to it. There's a ton of side quests you can do right away or you can jump right into the first dungeon.

Yeah, I agree - that's definitely something I appreciate. I think it's partially a fact of something else I like about the game, which is that is uses a smaller game-world that changes throughout the events of the story and a result of the player's actions. It's something you can see in some of my favorite games, like in Mother 3 where your hometown slowly becomes deserted over the course of the story.

I spent a cycle doing some side quests, including grabbing the bunny hood. I had to defeat the first boss a second time in order to get a piece of heart from the swamp hag's shooting gallery. I'm glad they give you a warp to the boss room if you've cleared the dungeon before. I also took the time to activate the owl statue at the northern village, which should leave me in a good position to start the Goron section next time I play.

Alright, I played through my second "cycle" in Majora's Mask. Unlike Tangy, I have no idea how to get the useful items or the bulk of Pieces of Heart in this game, so I have yet to put together my fifth heart container or acquire the Bunny Hood. I did however get my hands on the Great Fairy Mask and the Mask of Scents.

My first task was to run through the hide-and-seek game a second time for the Bombers' Noteback and then revisit the Scarecrow to confirm how to use the reverse Song of Time to slow down the apocalypse. By keeping it on for the entire 72 hours, I had just enough time to figure out what I was doing in the swamp, clear out the first dungeon, get all 15 stray fairies in there and learn the upgraded spin attack, and put 99 rupees in the bank. The timing was so close that I was running through the maze for the Mask of Scents while the 6-minute timer ticked down onscreen and then slamming out the song of soaring just to make it to the bank.

Going back to this old control scheme always takes some readjustment. One definitely misses having the right analog stick for camera controls. I've never found this sort of thing to be a dealbreaker, though. I'm sure by the time I finish the game I'll have come to grips with it. I have a couple minor complaints about the mechanics, particularly how Deku Link respawns exactly where he was after falling in water. Against some enemies with a lot of knockback, I found it hard not to get shoved back in the moment I respawned. I will also say that after playing every console Zelda I start to notice some repetition. The maze for the Mask of Scents was very reminiscent of the Dampe maze from Ocarina of Time.

Usually a Zelda game is at its best when you're in a dungeon, and I definitely enjoyed myself in Woodfall Temple. The boss seemed to be an interesting digression from the standard structure. Instead of nailing him with the bow and then punishing him three times it felt like more of a brawl with many different tools for the player, designed to counter a lot of different attacks by the boss.

As the Deku Princess reconciled with her father and thanked Link for saving her realm, the sky grew dark and the Angry Moon was unmistakably visible overhead, which does help convey the feeling of futility the game is going for. I saved the princess and purified the toxic swamp-water, but now that I've time-traveled back to day one those heroic achievements have been undone. Ocarina of Time does something kind of similar with the world Adult Link inhabits. While you, the hero, slept in for seven years, the world decayed into a corrupted nightmare. In that game, I imagine it was a bleak metaphor for growing up.

I'll probably play a little more in the morning.

Pirateking2000 posted...

Its such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it.
-Darth Traya (KOTOR2)

TheArkOfTurus posted...

"Look at you, hacker. A pathetic creature of meat and bone. Panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect immortal machine?" -SHODAN

LeonhartFour posted...

"From the day I was born to the day I died, I never helped anyone! I lived for myself and, in the end, I died for myself." - Dahlia Hawthorne, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations

Xeybozn posted...

"Well, you found me. Congratulations. Was it worth it? Because despite your violent behavior, the only thing you've managed to break so far, is my heart." - GlaDOS, Protal

Second these ones.

"Excellent! You're a predator and these tests are your prey. Speaking of which, I was researching sharks for an upcoming test. Do you know who else murders people who are only trying to help them? Did you guess 'sharks'? Because that's wrong. The correct answer is 'nobody.' Nobody but you is that pointlessly cruel." - GLaDOS, Portal 2

Well 999 I have previously played. I don't think I will revisit that game in particular.

The most obvious one, which I have been thinking about, is Mass Effect, since you're meant to load ME1 clear data when you start ME2. I do have the option of re-using the file I imported when I first played that game though.

BetrayedTangy posted...

The Xbox Game Pass might help financially, it looks like there's a little over 20 of them on there right now. Might be cheaper.

Also sweet Majora's Mask is one of my favorites, definitely joining for that one.

Unfortunately I don't have an XBOX One. I don't think it would be cost efficient to buy one just for the game pass, but the good news is that the project can be completed without one. If I'm right, the only game in the bracket that was ever an XBOX exclusive is Halo: Reach, which is available on Steam now.
LOLIAmAnAlt posted...

I hope it makes it past the game that really wasn't even part of the contest lol.

Also, how are you going through these, A-Z order? Release Date? Bracket Order Top-Down? Bottom-Up? Placement? Random number generator? Poll?

I'm playing them in order of North American release date. This is just for consistency. Three games were included in the bracket that wouldn't be eligible based on their original release dates. Trials in the Sky came out in 2006, while Bayonetta and Pokemon HGSS came out in late 2009.

pyresword posted...

So the Trails in the Sky game that made it into the contest is a direct sequel (the "SC" stands for Second Chapter) and shouldn't be played in isolation, because it starts right in the middle of things, doesn't really re-introduce characters that I can remember, and it would likely just leave you confused.

Alright, thanks for the tip. I'll probably treat them as one game if I make it to that point.

+3 Bloodborne
+2 Darkest Dungeon
+1 Untitled Goose Game
-1 Pokemon Go
-2 Fortune Street
-3 Kingdom Hearts III

Majora's Mask begins almost immediately after the ending to Ocarina of Time. A retired Link is searching for Navi (I think) when he runs across the corrupted Skull Kid, an elevated minor character from the last game. In OoT he was just a friendly forest spirit you could get some items from. I don't think we really know what happened to him between games. The Skull kid ganks Link's horse along with the Ocarina of Time and transforms him into a Deku Scrub.

I remember wanting to get out of the Deku section as soon as possible every time I've played this game, but that's kind of the intention. It's meant to leave Link vulnerable, even humiliated. No one will give you the time of day as a Deku Scrub. You have to resort to playing hide-and-seek with some local rascals to earn their trust, and even then they won't accept you as a friend because you aren't human. Your only real means of self-defense is a slow-building bubble attack that drains mana, and you have to methodically float around with plant propellers (human Link has a much more effective version of this power in Wind Waker.

It's a very effective intro. This first cycle presents you with easy goals that can be cleared in the 3-day limit with lots of time to spare, and the hide-and-seek game is deliberately designed to get you acclimated to the different parts of the city. What I especially like is the slow build up to the reveal of the Angry Moon. Zelda in general is good at giving a lot of visual presence to its story and setting. The way Death Mountain is visible from almost anywhere in Ocarina of Time is an example of this, and in Majora's Mask, you can always turn the camera upward and see the moon pulling ever closer.

In his Deku form Link is hopelessly outmatched by Skull Kid. It's all that he can do to retrieve the Ocarina of Time and flee into the past, where he learns the Song of Healing from the Happy Mask Salesman (another very memorable minor character from the last game,) and finally turns himself back into a human. That's as far as I have time to play for now, but I feel pretty eager to go back to it. I'd say it has a good sense of deliberate construction so far. I like how the Mask Salesman "jump cuts" to different expressions rather than animating, for example. That helps convey the comic insanity of the character.

I got up a little early, which should give me enough time to get started on my first game:

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Release Date: October 26, 2000
I will be playing: The Wii Virtual Console version
Previous Experience with Majora's Mask: Played up to the Goron Dungeon
What I expect from Majora's Mask: A fun, artistic Zelda game.

Well, it was in the contest! What a cool touch it was to have the Angry Moon slowly descending on The Witcher III as build-up for the bonus poll. It was just a bit disappointing to see MM get hyped up like that way only to come in and immediately get rolled. I felt kind of bad for voting Breath of the Wild when I saw the percentages.

I think Majora's Mask was the first game I bought because of a GameFAQs contest. As a teen I wasn't very fond of either FFX or Brawl, so I was grateful to MM for wiping the floor with those two. Today I respect FFX as a pioneering game in its genre, but still consider MM a pretty good winner. Shortly after the contest, I bought a $20 Wii Points voucher and downloaded the game, which was my third console Zelda after Twilight Princess and Link to the Past (The Wii, incidentally, was the first console I had at home growing up. I received it as a gift on my thirteenth birthday. Before that, I only had handhelds - which meant that Phantom Hourglass was my first Zelda game.)

I didn't get very far back then. I think that, like a lot of people, I felt a certain stress because of the timer, which became an ever-niggling concern that stopped me from enjoying the game as much as I might have.

But I've always had a high opinion of the game. I appreciate the surprisingly dark tone and the themes that come with it, and it is perhaps the most risk-taking Zelda game before Breath of the Wild. In what will be a recurring theme of these intro write-ups, the fact I haven't finished it says more about my habits and tendency to get distracted than it does about the game. I consider it a failure on my part that I never completed Majora's Mask through that Wii Virtual Console download - so we will begin this project by rectifying that mistake. I look forward to revisiting it.

ZaziGuado posted...
Good luck on this ambitious project.

Thanks!

ninkendo posted...

oh ya go my Xenoblade

I have the Wii version, shrink-wrapped. It looks like a game I will like.

BetrayedTangy posted...

I'll be happy to join you on this quest for select games at least as unfortunately I don't have the budget or time for all of them.

I would love that! And I don't blame you. I had some trepidation about starting this project for both those reasons. As of now, I'll have to buy 80 games to complete the collection. I think that I can afford it by slowly buying the games throughout the duration of the project. It helps that some of the older ones and the indies can be found pretty cheap.

pjbasis posted...

If you even make it to 20 games this was a resounding success

I'll definitely be very pleased with myself if I make it through 20 games without missing a day.

Leonhart4 posted...

Isn't LordOfDabu still working on all the games from the 2015 contest?

Tell you what - I'll race him.

Hello board 8! My name is Logan, but you can call me Exdeath. I've been a lurker on this forum since almost ten years ago, when I filled out a bracket for the first Game of the Decade contest. I remember running with the logic that absolutely anything Zelda or Final Fantasy would win against anything else - which meant predicting games like Dissidia and FFXII would win several matches. A decade later, I had a 96th percentile score in the 2020 contest - an improvement, but well outside the range for leaderboard placement or prize eligibility.

I was quite satisfied by the 2020 GotD contest, but like with so many other things, nothing could live up to my first time. One thing I remember is voting for a lot of games I hadn't played. I voted for Return of the Obra Dinn based on its reputation. I voted for Disco Elysium and Divinity: Original Sin II because they carried the torch for games I loved, like Fallout 2 (and because KHIII looks like s***.) I voted for The Witcher 3 because it has every appearance of being a much better game than Skyrim, which I *have* played. Although it's in the past now, I wish I had been more informed. Thus this project.

Here's the deal:

- I will play every game in the bracket for GotD 2020, in order of North American release date.
- While I reserve the right to quit any game at any time, I will try to finish every single one.
- For games with no well-defined ending, I will play them for two weeks.
- I will play every day, and post an update every session.
- This will take years. My two-week rule for "never-ending" games implies a pace that will see me complete Death Stranding, the last game, in 2025.

If you would like to join me on this journey of discovery, expect the first update in the evening. I work night shift, and my bed is beckoning.

+3 Dark Souls
+2 Disco Elysium
+1 Bastion
-1 Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
-2 Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
-3 Destiny

+3 Super Mario Galaxy 2
+2 Sonic Generations
+1 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
-1 Minecraft
-2 Guild Wars 2
-3 Undertale

Easy vote form:
+3 Rayman Legends
+2 The Walking Dead
+1 Persona 5
-1 Bayonetta
-2 Fallout 4
-3 Tetris Effect