Just curious, but who else is playing Majora's Mask for the first time?

I think with this particular entry into the series it's kind of interesting to see why people never played it on the N64.

For me, I was 10 years old when the game came out on the N64. I bought it and I had never played a Legend of Zelda game before in my life. Leave apart the fact that I had no idea what the The Legend of Zelda series entailed, Majora's Mask left me completely confused as a kid. I could never get myself past the prologue of the game, I never understood the 3 day cycle and I found it incredibly hard.

I'm obviously much further than I ever was as a 10 year old and I'm finding myself enjoying the game a lot. That said, my experience with the Zelda franchise--as I stated above-- is pretty unique. I'm not like everyone else who played Ocarina of Time on the N64 and says that's their favourite Zelda game. I don't have the same appreciation for what that game did when it came out that everyone else does, because I played it years later on the 3DS for the first time. While I liked it a lot I still think Wind Waker is the best Zelda game--it was also my first one.

I'm only at the Goron Village in Majora's Mask but it's quickly becoming one of my favourite Zelda games as well. I think I appreciate the fact that the structure is entirely different than the typical Zelda affair. It dares to do more than even a game like A Link Between Worlds did, which is crazy considering it came out only 2 years after Ocarina of Time. Initially I thought the time mechanic would be a huge headache. Time limitations in games always get me anxious and stress me out, but in Majora's Mask it's not really a big deal--especially with The Song of Double Time.

I'm taking my time through the game and I'm really enjoying it, it's different. It's dark and gritty, more so than any other Zelda game I've played. It's also probably the only one where I've actually enjoyed interactions with all the NPCs. Despite the fact that Ocarina of Time has done so much for the action-adventure genre, I think Majora's Mask is ultimately a better game so far.

How come you never bothered playing it before? If you're playing it for the first time now, what do you think!?

I might as well be. It's been 10 years since I last played it (or likely more) and I don't remember a damn thing about it. Practically a new game at this point.

Man I wish I could go back and play this for the first time again... Chrono Trigger, Shadow of the Colossus and Silent Hill 2 & 3 are all on that list that I'm jealous of people who are getting to experience them.

It's my first time properly playing through the game. I played it all the time off my brother's 100% save file back in the day.

Do you feel like the game properly communicates to you the importance of the Inverted Song of Time (the one you play to slow down the passage of time, or put it back to normal if time was already slowed)? Majora's Mask is probably my 2nd or 3rd favourite Zelda, but I think its one big flaw is that either:

• A) the game should've just added that song to your song list on the pause screen so that no matter how little attention you were paying in the first 90 minutes of the game, you definitely remember it's there and know you can slow down time
• B) the game should just always default to that speed when you start the game, and you would only play the Inverted Song of Time to basically speed up the game if there is a particular sidequest event you're trying to reach quickly

The time limit on each 3-day cycle is a breeze if you immediately slow down time and have something close to 3 hours to fuck around, but I'm imagining a nightmare scenario where 10-20% of players didn't pay very much attention to that tutorial scarecrow at the lower level of the observatory and never remembered that they could slow down time. I'm fairly certain that finishing a dungeon with time running at the normal speed is relatively stressful, especially the more complicated 3rd and 4th dungeons.

@bisonhero: I mean I was told by someone who had already played the original to talk to absolutely everyone. The game makes it fairly obvious with coloured text too about important stuff you should probably be listening to :P.

Defaulting to the Inverted Song of Time would be useful I supposed. Though, I only kept forgetting the first two times or so. Now whenever I warp back to the beginning of the first day I just play the Inverted Song of Time immediately after, though I can see many people probably forgetting until it's already later in the day.

I agree though about the dungeons though. I'm at the Goron Village but I've taken my time exploring that entire area. If I was under a stricter time limit I'd be having way less fun with it.

I was pretty damn young the first time I even attempted to play Majora's Mask. I feel like I should give it another chance. I don't think I ever even beat a single dungeon. The mask stuff seemed like the worst and I never picked up on the song of time stuff. I think a lot of what they did in that game sucks pretty badly, but I may give it another chance when I get some case and some time.

@haz: Having variations on the Song of Time is a cool idea, but my issue with it is that there is almost no reason not to immediately slow down time whenever you start the cycle over. The other song that skips ahead half a day (to either 6 AM or 6 PM) has its uses, mostly when you know there is a particular sidequest event that happens at a certain time or shop that only opens at a certain time. The only time I would ever set time to the normal speed was when I was trying to fast forward time to one of those specific time periods.

So I like Song of Time variations in theory, but it's kind of a false choice because you almost never want time to progress at the normal speed. It's just a clunky design choice because putting that decision in the player's hands doesn't really benefit the player in a very interesting or interactive way, it just becomes an "are you stupid?" tax that fucks over inattentive players.

I didn't have a N64 back in the day so OoT on the 3DS was my first time playing it. I recognize it as a really good Zelda game,but I can only hear and read about how amazing it was on the N64. But playing Majora's Mask has really blown me away. Some of the things the game does in terms of story telling and the time travel mechanics really puts it a step above OoT for me.

It's no Links Awakening though.

@voxus: Yeah I feel the same way. It's incredible how well the ideas still hold up, as well as the fact that not a lot of other games have tried to replicate it.

It feels really modern despite being almost 15 years old.

This is my first time playing through the game as well. I haven't gotten too far into it yet, but I can see why Jeff didn't care for it. I don't think it's a bad game thus far though.

@bisonhero: I think a lot of the reason is because, if the game speed was "slow" by default, people would still complain about not being able to slow the flow of time. It's a decision made purely to quiet a perceived flaw and give players the feeling of having more time than they actually do.

On-topic, this is far from my first time playing it, but I appreciate it more every time I revisit it, and this is a great reason to do so. Ocarina of Time was one of my first "real" games when I was 4 years old, and my uncle bought me Majora's Mask the day it came out. A lot of who I am today is because of him, and because of the Zelda series. When we lost him really suddenly to cancer in 2008, it was more like I was losing my dad than my uncle. I found myself going back to Majora's Mask and using it as both a way to remember him and the time we had together as well as coming to terms with the fact that I'd never see him again. The idea of using the mask of a soul that you healed isn't entirely unlike coming to terms with the loss of someone close and understanding the impact that they had on your life. The time mechanic is like revisiting memories and trying to do things perfectly, even though that's an impossible thing to do. The themes and mechanics tie together in a very beautiful way, and more importantly, in a very human way. It's touching and flawed and beautiful in a way that most things, even beyond video games, just are not.

I have a very strange relationship with the franchise because I had never really played a Zelda game until Ocarina of Time on the 3DS and I really disliked it. It just seemed like one of those franchises that I just did not "get" but then I played Wind Waker on the Wii u and really liked it. But the game that finally made me understand why people love The Legend of Zelda so much was A Link Between Worlds, I love that game so much and it's one of the best games I have ever played.

I got the Major's Mask 3DS XL and I'm currently playing through it. I'm 7 hours in and I have just finished the first dungeon and I'm really liking the game so far.

First time for me, I think it's great but totally see how it would turn people off. Losing all your progress combined with not explaining what's going on and there's this stressful super-fast countdown timer. Then the world gets nuked and all Link knows is that the creepy mask guy had to leave town after 3 days. Nothing about the evil moon apocalypse!

I let my 10-year-old have the first play with the game cart on Saturday (wtf Amazon?), and he's normally way into Zelda games, and spent many hours beating Link Between Worlds last year. He played a lot of Ocarina on the Wii VC and was looking forward to MM I think. But he played maybe 20 minutes of Majora and hasn't gone back to it. I stole the cart 4 days ago and he hasn't asked for it back yet. I know he will play it eventually especially if I tease him about it being too hard for him, but it's an interesting turn of events.

I love the fact that there is a detailed quest log with time schedule, etc. I understand the original didn't have this, which must have really sucked. There is so much stuff going on in the big town right off the bat you feel pretty overwhelmed.

<whiny rant> Hey Nintendo, why the hell do all your games have limited save slots when there is a multi-GB SD card right there? Zelda has the usual 3, but boy I'm sure glad I only have 2 kids. Let me save directly to the SD card, this isn't 1996 anymore. (And fuck Pokemon, it's the absolute worst, only ONE save slot?! Total dick move.)

Yeah, it's my first time. I started out intent on avoiding any sort of outside help, but it got pretty frustrating wandering around exploring and stuff, only to have everything I just did completely reversed once I had to reset time, so I started making sure I was at least heading in the right direction if it ever became unclear. The fact that you can make it all the way to the Deku Palace before you're "supposed to" (because you have to get the bottle from the witch, even if you don't actually need the boat ride) threw me off for a bit. I had to redo the entire tutorial section because I happened to save in the final hours of the last day and literally didn't have enough time to finish the last part of it, but luckily that only took a fraction of the time once I already knew where to go and what to do. It also still feels really weird how some stuff gets rolled back when you rewind time, and other things don't. Clearly that's a gameplay necessity, but I went a while thinking "why bother getting [item X] if it's just going to disappear when I have to rewind time," because logically, why wouldn't it?

I'm liking it more and more as I get further into the game, but it was a little bit of a rough start. At this point, it's a fun Zelda-type thing, but it's still among the lower ranks of my favorite Zelda games. Hopefully it keeps getting better as I get further in!

I need to go see that Scarecrow then! Playing it for the first time - and having a blast - but still a bit stressed out about the time limit. I've always enjoyed the exploration aspect of the Zelda series and this one seems to force you to book it. So, the Scarecrow will teach me the song? Great!

@roars5000: You don't need to see the scarecrow to use the backwards version of the song of time. He just tells you about it.

The song is literally the backwards version. It's RLYRLY rather than YLRYLR.

@drzing said:

The original did have a fairly extensive time table in the journal that made it clear when you found someone who was significant and could be helped. I think it always filled in the first "bar" of time for that person, specifying at the very least when the first important event happens with that character. For people with multiple events like Anju or Kafei, I believe it would add a new "bar" one at a time as you successfully went through their sidequest. Sometimes it was unclear what you necessarily had to do during the specified time period, or where that character would be, but the journal did do a pretty good job of keeping track of things.

But I have heard that they've made the Bomber's Journal even more convenient in this 3DS update, and the Bomber's themselves give you better tips or something.

I think it's pretty consistent about its rules, even if they don't make any real sense. Any inventory item with a quantity (rupees, Deku nuts, bombs, arrows, etc.) resets to zero, but any non-numbered items (bow, hookshot, shield, masks, the things you get for finishing dungeons, etc.) is permanent. But yes, externally that doesn't make much sense. Also all world events reset, including chests full of money, which is hilariously abusable. There are a few 100-rupee chests in Clock Town that are very easy to get within the first 5 minutes of a new cycle, letting you easily stock up on arrows or bombs or whatever, or buying milk from a certain milk bar.

@bisonhero: Yeah, after I finished the first dungeon it became pretty clear that that's how persistence is determined. It was confusing at first, though!

@cloudymusic: Yeah, fair point, I can't remember how much they directly explain the time resetting aside from saying "play this song to reset time and save" and "by the way, everything resets". And yeah, the reality of that tutorial sequence in Clock Town when you're still stuck as a Deku scrub is that there aren't really many events to do, but yeah, there is a lot of random detective work you have to do to get access to the ocarina so you can properly finish the tutorial and reset time. I think most players figure it out in time, but it does seem like a bummer that some amount of people don't figure it out and have to do a bunch of it over again.

This will be my first time playing it. I was already on the Dreamcast and PS2 train by the time this came out and completely skipped it, so it should be fun playing it for the first time.

I got the new 3ds and the game. Playing for the first time. I've played almost all the other Zelda games. I'm past the first encounter with the skull kid, about an hour in. Then I put it down and haven't touched it the entire week and I don't know why. Tired from work. I've been looking forward to finally playing this game. The only thing I've ever known about the game is that it's running on this "three day time limit cycle" and it's been the only reason why I've never played it before. I need to make some progress and see what happens. I got both the inverted song of time and the double one.

I might as well be playing it for the first time. I rented it around the time it came out and tried playing it again about 5 years ago but never got more than 90 minutes into. This time I'm going to make a concerted effort to finish it.

Majora's Mask was the first Zelda game I had ever played, I was around 10 years old as well, and I loved every bit of it.

And I absolutely Hate time limits in videogames. Whether its a time trial in some racing game, or a time limit like in Dead Rising, I have always despised time limits.

But Majora's Mask is fucking Awesome.

I've never played this before, but I'm sure I'll be getting it on the 3DS. The concept sounds interesting (the Groundhog Day-esque theme), so why not?

Yeah I'm playing this for the first time. I finished OOT last year for the first time and I wasn't that impressed by it. Its heaps confusing in the beginning. With MM I found the beginning to be fairly straightforward and then hit a roadblock in terms of progression but that was self induced as I kept doing side stuff and never left town.

The time mechanic has yet to be something that's made me worry as I know I can repeat the side quest stuff. I kinda knew about using the ocarina to slow down time beforehand but since I spoke to the scarecrow I understood what to do. That's the thing with Zelda games, you need to pay attention to what everyone tells ya.

Overall I'm really enjoying it. Much more than OOT. The side quest stuff feels more like an investigation or a puzzle to be figured out and I like that sort of stuff. Still though, 2d Zelda's will always be in my mind better when compared to 3d Zelda's. But this might be in my top 5 and most definitely the top 3d Zelda game.

I played this game a long time ago but never got round to finishing it. I remember the game being too difficult for a younger me but I did enjoy just roaming around Termina, seeing how the characters change as the 3 day cycle draws to a close was just fascinating. As I grew up, I realised how dark and creepy the game actually was and this made me want to play it again even more but I've been unable to until now. So I can't wait to finally getting round to add this to my collection!

I'm another first-timer on the 3DS, and like many have said, I'm blown away by both the complexity of the storytelling and mechanical progress on a Zelda game that came out so soon after Ocarina. Wind Waker has been my favorite 3D Zelda by a large margin, but in my dozen hours so far into Majora I see the seeds of my favorite elements and it appears to sidestep the things I didn't like in Wind Waker. This totally doesn't feel like an Ocarina-gen game.

It's weird how people who clamor for new ideas in the Zelda franchise tend to hate Majora's Mask but adore A Link Between Worlds.

In my mind, Majora's breaks the mold so much, and all a Link Between Worlds does is let you get items in different orders.

This is my 2nd time through the game. Man, this is definitely the version to play. The n64 version had such chunky frame rate, the item switching on the 3ds is great, and the Bomber's notebook's questlog-type system is so good.

Playing this for the first time, myself.

I was a big fan of OoT when it came out originally, but I have never finished that game. Mostly because I would go to a friend's house to play it, so I never really sat down to get through it in earnest on my own before.

I just bought a New 3DS XL the other day to play Majora finally, and I am loving it so far! The darker nature of the story and environment is super interesting, and the exploration tied into the cycle of time is super cool!

I am looking forward to finally getting my hands on Ocarina 3D of course - that will be nostalgia city, I'm hoping.

This is the first time for myself as well. Ocarina of Time is one of my favorite games ever, and it's held that way since the day it was released. I never was able to play this when I was younger because I never had the expansion pak for the N64. To be honest, I'm not really enjoying it very much. It's a great game, but not a great Zelda in my mind. It's just very strange to me, Termina lacks the Fantasy built with Hyrule and the rest of the series. There are mechanics though I think are great such as the NPC schedules, the number of side quest, and the puzzles.

Understanding that this game is now 15 years old, there are thinks that irk me such as the predictability of the overworld, it feels lazy. The music being re-used in each area just different mixes of it. I know this game was built on a short dev cycle and also it was easier to get away with back then, but the amount reused from Ocarina of Time is kind of staggering. I'm judging this on the original game, not the remake.

As a remake, the game is fantastic it looks beautiful, just as Ocarina of Time did. I also picked up a New 3DS XL , and the C-Stick works great fantastic. Nintendo really has been spot on with ever game they've remade/ remastered. I really trust them when it comes to actually doing this with their key franchises. And it kind of stems back to Super Mario All-Stars.

@hollitz To me it's not so much that it breaks the Zelda mold in MM but it's just very weird. A Link Between Worlds, takes the same formula and makes a puzzle that can fit together any way , but still keeps the world together. In a way A Link Between Worlds takes a MegaMan (RockMan) -esque approach to the game. I really hope the new Zelda for Wii U takes the same approach . I think it will.

Man.

I feel like this game has held up a lot better than Ocarina. If you asked me in the n64 era, I'd say that Ocarina was better by a long shot, but I'm not so sure anymore. Not to mention it's way more dark than I ever gave it credit for. It's a really fucked up thing you're doing every time you play the song of time, returning people to this endless loop of sadness and--in some cases--suffering.