Current Events > Playing Majora's Mask (N64) for first time in well over a decade

(+) Yeah! (+)

I beat it when I was a teenager using a guide. I barely remember anything, so Im effectively playing it blind to see if its as brutally hard as I remember.

Tbh, its not hard so much as rough around the edges. Read about it recently and found out it was developed in a year. You can tell. Its a kind of fascinating game because it feels and plays like a fan game, and theres zero way a major publisher would ever push something out like this again. Buggy, yes, but cobbled together rough draft/bizarre mental breakdown manifested as a video game, no.

Majora works because its so bizarre and tonally different from its series and from everything else. It manages to be compelling in spite of constantly fighting the player. Things like bizarre dungeon pacing (snowhead in particular), finicky time progression that forces players to wait around, and specific issues like denying players the proper reward for the Ocean Spider House because they didnt finish it on the first day, with no precedent and no forewarning are emblematic of its rapid development. Im amazed it isnt full of bugs.

---