I have been addicted to Zelda games since I got the legend of Zelda a link to the past about 5 years ago for my SNES. I play the game through non-stop till I beat it(and found out that it's credit music was the exact same has another game I got called Yoshis island but that's another story).

Well while doing Christmas shopping I decided to pick a copy of Majoras mask up (while the gold cartridges where still available) and a copy of DK64 (needed the expansion pack from it).

After getting home and setting the expansion and everything else up the first thing I did was put in Majoras mask, the next thing I knew 3 hours at past and I was still trying to figure out how to get my Ocaraina back. This game is one of the most addictive games I have played since Pokemon.

The story goes like this:
Link (or whatever you decided to name him) has defeated Gannoandorf and has return to his own time and his child body. Now that Hyrule is no longer threaten he has decided to leave on vacation and to find a friend, which he lost after his journey accrues time was through. While journeying thorough the forest Link is jumped by a mysterious imp wearing a strange masked called skull kid and two fairies. They steal is ocarina and his horse Epona. Link gives chase and falls down a hole (kind of like Alice and wonderland). After falling down the hole Link gets turn into a Deku plant by the skull kid. On exploring his new surroundings Link finds himself in a parallel dimension called Termia. It seems that a huge moon that is falling from the sky and will destroy Termia within 3 days has frightened the locals. Now it's up to Link to stop the moon from falling and to show to skull kid that he has chosen the wrong hyliean to mess with. The first step in doing this will be getting is Ocaraina back so he can get enough time to figure things out.

Now true Zelda purist may not like the plot because there is no Triforce or even talk of the magical triangle in the game. Also Zelda only plays a cameo role in which she teaches you the song of time which link will use to get back to the first day when his time runs out.

Graphics.
The graphics are a step up from ocarina of time (OOT), There is no graphics fog and very little jagged edge around people in places.

The thing I was glad to see improve the most was the color. See the OOT's color where always a tad washed out and certainly not has bright has they could have been. In majaras mask the colors are bright and well texture, there is not a dull color in the game. They also used the colors to create a sense of atmosphere to, during the first day the sky is blue and the sky is shining and the color is bright. 2nd day it is raining and everything looks a little dreary. During the final day the sky is green and gives everything a green hue. During the night of the final day everything gets a very spooky red hue to it to give you more of a felling that the apocalypse is on you.


Sound:
The biggest disappointment I got in OOT was the first time I step into the field and discover that they did not include the original Zelda theme in the game. Now OOT field music was very good but it wasn’t has memorable has the original Zelda theme.

Well Nintendo seems to be trying to make up for there sins by finally putting in a 64 remix of the Zelda theme in Majoras mask. It is the best remix of the Zelda theme since a link to the past was released 10 years ago. My only big gripe about it is that it doesn’t play continually it stops whenever an enemy is near (a minor annoyance seeing how it gives good warning to an enemy ambush) and doesn’t play at night.

Another thing they did with the music is change the tempo considering what day it is. It keeps on getting faster the closer you get to the final day, and on the final day it plays really fast and frenzied giving you a felling that you must rush and get everything accomplish before the moon falls on you.

For those of you who liked creating your own music with the ocarina in the original OOT will rejoice to see that they gave you the same ability to write songs on your ocarina (you will be amazed on how many sites have codes on how to play the theme from star wars). But if they couldn’t be nice enough they also threw in the guitar, trumpet, and bongo drums for you to experiment with.

Gameplay.
The control scheme is the exact same from the OOT so if you play it them jumping into majoras mask won't be to hard. Link will be taking 3 different other forms each with a variety of different special moves but done of them are to different from normal link and you will get told about them when you come upon them.

Has in OOT link will be guided by a fairy called Tatl. Tatl unlike Navi from OOT has a personality and a serious attitude problem, which adds some humor to the game.

In order to beat the game Link will have to travel to 4 dungeons in termina and awaken 4 sleeping giants. While there only 4 dungeons (that is about half of what a normal Zelda game has) the dungeons in this one are huge, tricky, and will have you running to an online strategy guide before you even get out of there first room. Also you do have a time limit, at the end of the 3 days you will have to play the song of time and travel back to the first day resetting all the traps and doors in the dungeon.

Masks.
The masks play a very small role in OOT and where just sort of a sub quest player could do for fun. The only mask that was any good was the bunny hood, which made it so no skeletons would attack you in the field.

In Majoras mask there are 24 masks total and they are the key to winning the game. The masks do differ from ability and importance. The most beneficial mask in the game is the bunny hood which makes Link run faster, the most useless would be the circus leader mask which helps link on the Cremia ranch side quest unfortunately you will have to complete the side quest in order to get the mask in first place. Whether they are important or not you will need to get all of them in order to get the best mask of them all the fierce deity mask which will turn Link into Oni Link (he looks like an adult link mix in with Raiden).

In the end the Majoras mask is probably going to be the last truly great game to come out on the N64 and no true gamer should be without it in there N64 library. If this game alone doesn’t give you enough of a Zelda fix then the fact that the triforce series (or whatever they have decided to rename it) will be coming out sometime this year for the GBC will.




Recommended: Yes