Zelda: Majora's Mask for the N64
This sequel-of-sorts takes up after Link's last adventure, and drops him into a town where he only has 3 days to save the town from certain doom. In this world an hour goes by in about a minute real time, so this gives you barely over an hour real time to do the job. Sound stressful?
Luckily, Link can use his Ocarina to go back in time whenever he wishes, in essence resetting that 3 day countdown. This can be helpful at times, and REALLY annoying at other times. Reset in time and you lose all cash on you, as well as any quest items, but somehow the bank still has your money and you still have your masks. You lose your coins, you keep your sword. Does this make sense? No, but it's the way the game works.
The first section of the game is perhaps the worst designed, and unfortunately this might turn players off before they give the game a chance to shine. It is relatively difficult to get to the ocarina in the first place - meaning you have to play over and over again without ANY ability to save! You can't leave the town either, or do much of anything, so the frustration can get high. Just work through it, or refer to a walkthrough, because the game gets MUCH better once you get the ocarina.
Once you've got it, you can save, become Link or many other creatures with the neat masks. The characters in the game react to you differently based on what mask you are wearing, and you even get different skills based on the mask.
There are a wide variety of interesting quests going on. Meet one character, and they are looking for another character. Ask around, and arrange to meet someone at a certain time for more information. You start carrying parcels around to various people, and in the end, you've made a group of people happy! A notebook you carry helps you keep track of who you talked to when, and who you still need to help out.
The time changes are great. Dawn becomes slowly rosy, and night descends with gentle dusk. Thieves only come out at night, characters go around on their business rounds, and depending on the time of day or day of the week characters are doing completely different things. Start back at Day 1 and you can see it all happen again.
The game tries to help out players with the time, too. You can slow time down so it goes as slow as molasses, or you can jump ahead to the next day if you're finished with your tasks for a day. You can jump back to Day 1 at any time as long as you have the Ocarina, and owl statues let you save the game exactly where you are, just in case you have to do something boring like eat dinner.
I find, once you get past the initial stage of the game, that it is greatly challenging and fun. It might be stressful for younger gamers, because everything is extremely deadline based. Instead of the old Zelda, where you could wander around and enjoy the journey as much as you wished, in this game you have to race from point to point to get your current quest in before the 3 day cycle begins again.
If you enjoy time-based challenges and lots of jump-exactly-here-and-then-there kinds of action, along with a bit of RP puzzling added in, then you will love this newest member of the Zelda family!
Buy Majora's Mask on Amazon.Com
Majora's Mask Walkthrough
Majora's Mask Walkthrough
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