It is my favorite game of all time, and I doubt that will ever change. At its heart it has a tender love for humanity that you rarely ever see in works of such a dark nature. It is, to me, the absolute zenith of gaming as a medium, perfectly weaving together its gameplay mechanics with its storytelling to present to the player a fantastically realized world filled with interesting characters. And most of all, its happy ending feels earned. It features unique, compelling stories filled with human emotion. Its music is more or less perfect for every area (although Wind Waker still has my favorite overall soundtrack in the series). Its atmosphere is second to none, perfectly blending an adventurous, upbeat tone with an underlying darkness and sadness. Majora’s Mask has pretty much everything I love in my entertainment. I think I read well over half the Goosebumps books as a kid, I was terrified yet hypnotized by Stephen Gammell’s illustrations in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and quite enjoyed telling ghost stories around camp fires. I was always fascinated and enthralled by the dark and weird as a kid. The opening enthralled me as a kid and continues to fascinate me as an adult. Majora’s Mask showed me how powerful an entertainment medium gaming could be. The game grabbed my attention in a way that nothing else ever has. But right from the serenely creepy opening, to the hauntingly beautiful Clock Town theme, I was hooked. I didn’t know what to expect when I popped it in the old N64. I was very young and my parents didn’t mind the cheap price (the Gamecube had just come out) and I was attracted by the creepy mask on its cartridge art work. And to me, and many, many other people, that’s what makes it such a masterpiece.įor me as a wee lad, I grabbed Majora’s Mask from a used game store after playing/being blown away by Ocarina of Time. But that’s where its similarities to other games in the series end. Sure, you still hunt for items to progress in your quest and explore perilous dungeons. Link’s Awakening is a weird little game, but from a gameplay perspective it sticks pretty close to what makes Zelda popular. It’s rare for any popular franchise to make something that feels so different from the rest of its series, and anything in gaming as a whole. Most series stick to an established formula, only occasionally branching out and trying something new, maybe with a spinoff or two. Majora’s Mask is a true enigma in the gaming industry as a whole. So, naturally, the team was given a year to make some kind of follow up that could somehow live up to its predecessor, and much like Link’s Awakening following up A Link to the Past, the wonderful Eiji Aonuma and his team kind of threw all that they had at the wall, and out emerged Majora’s Mask. That game was such a monumental success, both critically and commercially, and for good reason: it’s a damn great game. That’s kind of the challenge that the good people at Nintendo were given following the success of the universally acclaimed Ocarina of Time. The only thing is you’ve broken two of your fingers and only brought your kazoo from home. Your openers are Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, bands some consider to be the greatest of all time. Imagine you’re forced to be the headliner at a music festival. This week, we are taking a look at Majora’s Mask. That’s why we’re going to cover the entire Nintendo Franchise, including handheld games, every week. At 25YL, we love gaming, and moreover, we love The Legend of Zelda series.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |