LogFAQs > #939277241

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.