Poll of the Day > How can Majoras Mask not be everyone's favorite Zelda game?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I mean even if you are a noob like me... They have guides that hold your hand and tell you what to do.
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Cause that game sucks
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It's my second favorite a bit behind LttP.
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Mead posted...

Cause that game sucks

What Zelda is better?
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ImmortalityV posted...

Mead posted...

Cause that game sucks

What Zelda is better?

BotW, LttP, AoL, LoZ, WW, OoT, PH
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It was good, but felt more like an Oot expansion pak than its own game
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Mead posted...

ImmortalityV posted...

Mead posted...

Cause that game sucks

What Zelda is better?

BotW, LttP, AoL, LoZ, WW, OoT, PH

How so? The mask system is brilliant and Clocktown is one of the best hubworlds.
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It's not my absolute favorite but it's a top five Zelda for me

MM was a work of art. It made choices not everyone agrees with, sure, but it had emotional and interpretive depth.

JixHedgehog posted...

It was good, but felt more like an Oot expansion pak than its own game

Not exactly, but where I could see anything close to meriting that opinion is because it was an originally unplanned side story that was only allowed to reuse the assets from OoT. The devs of MM took what little they had and made something memorable and good.
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Entity13 posted...

MM was a work of art. It made choices not everyone agrees with, sure, but it had emotional and interpretive depth.

JixHedgehog posted...

It was good, but felt more like an Oot expansion pak than its own game

Not exactly, but where I could see anything close to meriting that opinion is because it was an originally unplanned side story that was only allowed to reuse the assets from OoT. The devs of MM took what little they had and made something memorable and good.

Yeah, you can tell it was part of OoT somehow (same graphics, inputs, sound effects as opposed to all other Zeldas apart from PH and ST that are unique)

I enjoyed it, more so than TP and maybe SS, but I still love WW and I'm only 130 hours into BotW (which I'm loving)
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Because personal tastes exist.

It's in my top 3.
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Lil_Bit83 posted...

Because personal tastes exist.

^

MM is my favorite Zelda though.
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"Oh cool, Another Zelda ga-"
"THE MOON IS FALLING AND IT COULD RESET EVERYTHING YOU'VE DONE SO FAR!"
".........Nope".

A Time Limit to beat or get to a certain part before it essentially resets you?, Ha, No, Not dealing with that kind of BS Mechanic in a game....
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because people have different tastes
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Kaguya_Kimimaro posted...

A Time Limit to beat or get to a certain part before it essentially resets you?, Ha, No, Not dealing with that kind of BS Mechanic in a game....

It's really not that bad.
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LttP, OoT, WW, and TP are the only ones I really liked.
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I think I got to the part where the game wants you to get five Zora eggs or something like that, and I only had one or two bottles at that point, making the entire thing extremely tedious, to the point where I just quit. The time mechanic is only neat when you know how to balance your time, know where to go, what to do, and have the right tools at your disposal. Resetting my progress, only to learn I missed an item and have to redo a puzzle, is not in any way fun or entertaining. Coming so very close to completing a dungeon and then running out of time is not fun. Backtracking is not fun. Call me slow or sucky at the game, but when I want to take my time, I shouldn't be punished. Because of that, I honestly kind of hate the game.

Because it is too different from a traditional Zelda game.
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I have never been that big of a fan of the Zelda series. I have only played Breath of the Wild for around 10 hours on my Switch(which I've had since launch).

I have played most of the Zelda games though. Not all but most of the main ones at least.
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donkeyjack posted...

Because it is too different from a traditional Zelda game.

That's the biggest thing. What it does, it does extremely well, but that's not necessarily something that's going to appeal to fans of the series.
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adjl posted...

donkeyjack posted...

Because it is too different from a traditional Zelda game.

That's the biggest thing. What it does, it does extremely well, but that's not necessarily something that's going to appeal to fans of the series.

Some years later, another Zelda game comes out doing things totally different from the series, but instead goes the way of the open world trend, towers and all, and look how well that turned out. <_<
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It just wasn't fun to me.
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Entity13 posted...

adjl posted...

donkeyjack posted...

Because it is too different from a traditional Zelda game.

That's the biggest thing. What it does, it does extremely well, but that's not necessarily something that's going to appeal to fans of the series.

Some years later, another Zelda game comes out doing things totally different from the series, but instead goes the way of the open world trend, towers and all, and look how well that turned out. <_<

well open world games are very popular, so when you do it well people will like it
adding a time limit is not a mechanic people are particularly fond of so even when you do it right a lot of people will be turned off from the get go
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When I was a kid MM was my least favorite because of the time limit and awful save system

But I enjoy the 3DS game more now. Still not my favorite Zelda due to mechanics though.
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TheSlinja posted...

Entity13 posted...

adjl posted...

donkeyjack posted...

Because it is too different from a traditional Zelda game.

That's the biggest thing. What it does, it does extremely well, but that's not necessarily something that's going to appeal to fans of the series.

Some years later, another Zelda game comes out doing things totally different from the series, but instead goes the way of the open world trend, towers and all, and look how well that turned out. <_<

well open world games are very popular, so when you do it well people will like it
adding a time limit is not a mechanic people are particularly fond of so even when you do it right a lot of people will be turned off from the get go

People get a little too caught up in the punishing nature of the time limit. I think it's only problematic for certain side quests.

Also the 3ds is a serious improvement. You can fast forward to specific hours as opposed to waiting around.
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Im not arguing any of those things, I was just pointing out why more people seem to like Breath than Mask when they are both unconventional zeldas
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Some of us don't like Zelda games.
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Raganork10 posted...

I think I got to the part where the game wants you to get five Zora eggs or something like that, and I only had one or two bottles at that point, making the entire thing extremely tedious, to the point where I just quit. The time mechanic is only neat when you know how to balance your time, know where to go, what to do, and have the right tools at your disposal. Resetting my progress, only to learn I missed an item and have to redo a puzzle, is not in any way fun or entertaining. Coming so very close to completing a dungeon and then running out of time is not fun. Backtracking is not fun. Call me slow or sucky at the game, but when I want to take my time, I shouldn't be punished. Because of that, I honestly kind of hate the game.

I never say this, ever but:
Get Gud
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Fierce_Deity_08 posted...

Raganork10 posted...

I think I got to the part where the game wants you to get five Zora eggs or something like that, and I only had one or two bottles at that point, making the entire thing extremely tedious, to the point where I just quit. The time mechanic is only neat when you know how to balance your time, know where to go, what to do, and have the right tools at your disposal. Resetting my progress, only to learn I missed an item and have to redo a puzzle, is not in any way fun or entertaining. Coming so very close to completing a dungeon and then running out of time is not fun. Backtracking is not fun. Call me slow or sucky at the game, but when I want to take my time, I shouldn't be punished. Because of that, I honestly kind of hate the game.

I never say this, ever but:
Get Gud

who would have thought that someone named fierce deity would not be able to see why majoras mask might be frustrating for some people
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TheSlinja posted...

Fierce_Deity_08 posted...

Raganork10 posted...

I think I got to the part where the game wants you to get five Zora eggs or something like that, and I only had one or two bottles at that point, making the entire thing extremely tedious, to the point where I just quit. The time mechanic is only neat when you know how to balance your time, know where to go, what to do, and have the right tools at your disposal. Resetting my progress, only to learn I missed an item and have to redo a puzzle, is not in any way fun or entertaining. Coming so very close to completing a dungeon and then running out of time is not fun. Backtracking is not fun. Call me slow or sucky at the game, but when I want to take my time, I shouldn't be punished. Because of that, I honestly kind of hate the game.

I never say this, ever but:
Get Gud

who would have thought that someone named fierce deity would not be able to see why majoras mask might be frustrating for some people

Meh, I may be slightly biased. But there are plenty of ways to work with and around the time limit, there are more than a couple bottles in the game, and you need a slight bit of organization.
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You never really lose a lot of time so idk why people complain about the mechanic.
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Mead posted...

ImmortalityV posted...

Mead posted...

Cause that game sucks

What Zelda is better?

BotW, LttP, AoL, LoZ, WW, OoT, PH

I'd rather bash myself in the crotch with a copy of Majora's (or one of the CDi games) than put up with Phantom Hourglass again.

chaosbowser posted...

You never really lose a lot of time so idk why people complain about the mechanic.

its the idea of running out of time that usually gets people, knowing that you could run out of time mid dungeon and lose all your progress can make you sweat when doing trivial things, even if its not likely to actually happen, also as someone said a lot of people like to take their time and thats not something you can in good conscience do unless you've played the game enough to be confident in your time
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I hate time limits in games. Doesn't matter how generous they are, the first time through there's no way to know how long anything is going to take and being on the clock made it hard to enjoy exploring the world. The time mechanics can also lead to a frustrating amount of trial and error. When I played I worked my way through all the steps to get the gilded sword, only to discover at the end that it would take a full day to make and that I had to do it all over again. The game has a lot of good things to offer, but the time mechanics make it extremely hard for me to enjoy.

The interesting aspect of these issues is that they only really matter the first time you play through the game. Once you have a general sense of where to go and how long each quest takes exploration becomes a lot more enjoyable and the pacing isn't interrupted by repeated content. For that reason I feel it's a hard game to judge fairly if you first played it 15+ years ago and that initial barrier is a distant memory.
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I didn't really know much about it before this thread. Now that I've learned it has a time limit I can confidently say I will not be touching it at any point in time, ever.

I don't even like games with stages that give you a stupid letter grade. One that resets my shit? Lol, nope. Nope it right in the butt with a rusty three-pronged spork. I don't buy games for achievements, I don't buy games to rush through the story and add a notch to my considerable pole, I buy games because I like them and want to play them. If a game is going to punish me for playing it then I'd rather buy a one way ticket aboard the nope train to Fuckthatville.

See, time limits don't inherently bother me. Stuff like Valkyrie Profile execute it perfectly (as well as Persona to a lesser degree) because you don't have a constantly-ticking time bomb that's passing by just by standing still. You're allotted a certain amount of days to do whatever you like, and the time window is extremely generous, giving you freedom to mess around and explore.

Dead Rising, Lightning Returns, and Majora's Mask do it poorly.

because the game isn't a zelda game. it's a different ip with a zelda theme. Like Super Mario Brother 2 US
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I didn't have a problem with the time limit or NPC schedules. I didn't care for most of the dungeons.
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"How can my opinion not be everyone else's opinion?"

You don't know how scary that is.
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I think Majora's Mask is one of the rare games that is more fun the second time you play it, but I don't know if that's really a good thing. It's only because the time limit is so annoying the first time you play it. I remember hating it when I first played it as a kid, and while I enjoy it much more now, there are still some things that I think are bullshit.

The Kafei and Anju sidequest is really annoying. There are too many things to do and if you miss one you have to start the whole thing over again. And even if you do complete it correctly, there are two different ways to notify Madame Aroma. You have to do the whole thing twice if you want to get both the Postman's Hat and the Chateau Romani, which I think is bullshit.

There are smaller things that are cheap, too, for example, I think the All-Night Mask only appears depending on whether or not you save the bomb lady. But I can never remember which it is, and I don't see why it matters since they're seemingly unrelated events. Then there's the grandmother's stories, one of which you're purposely supposed to answer wrong, but that one I also can't remember which. I'm also never sure if you need the room key to do the Kafei-Anju quest, but I seem to remember that if you talk to Anju too early you can't get the key from her later on.

And of course, fuck the saving. I know the game gives you a warning about how it works, but that's the kind of thing you'd probably read once and then skip through it every other time. I remember when I'd have playthroughs that I'd take long gaps in between play sessions, so I forgot how the saving works, and if I didn't do much after loading off an owl save I'd just turn the game off and then when I turned it back on I thought there was some glitch where it was deleting my save data. I guess that's partially on me, but it's just a dumb mechanic. I assume they put it in there to prevent save scumming, but it's annoying, and it's a bad mechanic because it fucks you over on freezes/power outages. I heard they changed the mechanic for the 3DS version at least, though I'm not sure what they changed it to.

I wonder how many players weren't even aware you could slow the passage of time.
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I knew about that almost immediately, but it doesn't alleviate the issues I described where if you miss something or do something wrong, you have to do the whole cycle over again to fix it.

This pretty much confirms that Immortal is just a troll alt. I thought he sounded somewhat like another poster but I chalked that up to both of them just being immature.
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Oh there was always something about his posts that weirded me out but it's just a Zelda topic so whatever

ImmortalityV posted...

Mead posted...

Cause that game sucks

What Zelda is better?

The Legend of Zelda
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Probably some of the portable games too, but I've never gotten into them.

To people citing difficulty, why not just use a guide?
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I'm save-stated immediately in front of the water dungeon boss with like 3 minutes remaining in the day. Have been for a year. As I understand it, if I want to continue, I have to redo the past several hours.

Could have planned that one better with a guide, but I do not wish to use a guide. Guides ruin exploration almost as badly as MM's trademark "time-wasting punishment for exploration" ruins exploration.

This redo/padding mechanic is the only thing MM seems to have added over OoT, and it's crappy. It's an interesting idea that ended up being grindy rather than fun. Redoing the entire goron dungeon because I forgot the sword upgrade because I'm not using a guide was just too obnoxious.
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Why would you have to redo the whole dungeon though? You have to re-defeat the boss, but you can warp to it from the first room in the dungeon.

DorkLink posted...

Why would you have to redo the whole dungeon though? You have to re-defeat the boss, but you can warp to it from the first room in the dungeon.

I haven't beaten him once. And I'm not sure it's doable in 3 minutes.
Maybe with excessive save scumming I could... it's not worth it.
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You said you have three minutes to beat the water dungeon but then mentioned a Goron boss? I'm confused. Also, by "save-stating" do you mean you're using some kind of emulation, or an owl statue? If you have a save state, then why is running out of time an issue