Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. N64

Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Zelda Rating: 9.0
Difference from Other Zelda's: First Zelda to take a really dark twist, Unique mask collection
Using the Console: No differnce from Ocarina

It's times like these i'm glad i'm not popular, yet, for if i we're i'd be hounded down because i didn't post anything for a week, and I claimed i would do "Zelda Week" and my excuse? I was playing video games and sleeping. Geeze. Oh and eating every now and then. But Lets continue on with ZELDA WEEK!

This game is a doozy, and i mean that in the best way. This game in particular has become quite a Cult hit inside of the Legend of Zelda fanbase, but outside of it, many don't care too much about it, I think. But as you can tell, my 9/10 says that i love this game and too would love a remake, but only time will tell. Now onto the review.

The biggest change from this game from the others is it focuses on Link only, no Zelda what-so-ever (And if you say that Zelda links awakening was his own adventure, that's true, but it was also (SPOLIERS) all just a dream. Also i haven't played that game <- main reason.

So link goes on a quest for his friend, Navi the fairy, and so he goes looking for the little guy in the forest, which forest? We can only assume it's the Lost forest, where if people wander in and get lost, they become monsters. Great place to start right?! So Link is soon attacked by a kid wearing the Majora Mask which holds diabolical immense power...

Those piercing eyes... Soulless piercing eyes...

The kid robs link, steals his horse and flees. So what does Link do? Chase after him of course, and soon he enters a room with no floor and just falls down and down and down... (the rabbit hole). 

Now this game has many theories, that Link is dead, that he died before the theft of his stuff or even afterwards, and i'm not here to discuss that, because i wanna wait and see when they bring it back, because a cameo of majora's mask in the newest Zelda game means they're doing something, hopefully.

So Link gets turned into a shrub person, and has to find his way back to normal. Thus the game really begins. 

He looks so sad, i mean he did get turned into a plant... 

When i played this game as a child, it was the single most horrifying experience i have ever had, my reason being that was because i was going into it with the thought that i was playing a Zelda game, it'll be like a fantasy, but then it throws horrifying things at you. When people say this is easily the darkest Zelda game created, it really is. The moon will kill everyone in the world in 3 days, people don't care because they have a festival to run, and at the ranch run by two sisters, the older one drugs the younger the night the moons supposed to crash to make it easier for her. The younger sister knows nothing about it.

The moon has a face, and is going to kill us all. Alrighty then.

Now everyone's whose played a zelda game knows that there's sidequests, and this game has them, has them everywhere, and i mean everywhere, some quests can't be completed till a certain time, and some quests are completable only at the same time as other quests. How is this possible you ask? For those who have never played the game before let me shed some light on the most unique and evil mechanic this game has. 

Time.

The power to control time, in the hands of a small 12 year old boy. Why not.

So the moons going to crush the world in three days huh, not enough time, so what do you do? Reverse that shit. After the first 3 days you gain access to reverse time whenever you see fit, and why i say this is evil and unique, the only way to save your game is through reversing time. And let me tell you, reversing time does exactly that, reverses it. Did you make a great boding relationship with an npc and almost finish their sidequest but ran outta time. TOO BAD. Did you have to go out with family in the middle of a dungeon and had to save, TOO BAD all that work is gone. 

Though, once you "Complete and finish" a portion of something, you can log it into your logbook and it's completed forever, even if the people's lives are reversed because of your time control power and it looks like their life has gone back to shit, you still got the reward from whatever you had to do before reversing time, so why waste your time with the inevitable, I mean you already got the reward.

Evil father time is evil. 

It is by far the most unique mechanic implemented into the game, and i wouldn't be pleased if it changed if they made a remake. That sense of fear that time was not on your side, even if you had control over it, you never really had "time" having your back. 

There are couple ways to make things bearable, you can slow time down to get more things down, and a banker who saves your money even if you reverse time, you get to keep all those precious Rupees, (their currency).

Now the mechanics in the game are amazing yes, but the one thing that makes this game different from the overbearing ocarina of time, was it had four dungeons, and you may compare them from time to time and think, well this game had four and the other had ten. Ten is bigger than four, but when any of the four is harder than any of the other ten, I must say kudos to the team who made this game. 

The first dungeon is so baffling hard at times, and there's so much to do in the dungeon besides the "get to the end". And for that fact as well, when you get to the end, the bosses are so painstakingly hard in comparison, the first boss has no visible weaknesses. Just attack him and pray you damage him more that he hits you, also, he's a ticki totem man who shoots flaming locusts at you. There' that too.

So to quickly summarize, this game has 4 dungeons only, and yet it feels like the game goes on forever because of the amount of content packed into the game. The difficulty is much harder than ocarina of time, and is truly unique to the Zelda franchise.

Pros:
-Hard difficulty
-immense amount of content
-Detailed Npc's each with their own problem to solve
-Unique bosses
-Depressing and well written story

Cons:
-Saving only when reversing time can be a pain if the game freezes. (happened to me)
-A lot of masks (can be good or bad depending on how you look at it)
-I want that damn'd remake, or even a sequel.
-Hard difficulty

"You've met with a terrible fate haven't you?"

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. N64

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Zelda Rating: 9.5/10
Difference from Prior Zelda Titles: Entered the 3rd dimension, Target System, Fishing, Ganondorf
Using the Console: Another Item slot due to controller increase, Z-Targeting

Boy do i remember purchasing this game. Well, by purchasing i mean getting the game from my sibling from a blockbuster bin. Yes, this game, this holy grail of game, one that you find in a retro game store, cartridge only $50+, was in a bargain bin for $15 at Blockbusters. This is why i feel sad when i hear blockbusters is gone. 

Enough of sentimentalism for a video store off to the game! By now, if you've followed and read the other entries i've done, you can kind of understand the rating system, and see that this one scored a 9.5, why? Because it's my favorite Zelda title, ever.

It gives the Demon a face, Ganon, great pig monster, is seen as a man, a man who thrived for power. But a man non-the-less. Ganondorf. Now you may not think much of it because so many games these days have seen it happen, Ganondorfs a human/pig monster ect. But this one show's the current evil happenings of Ganondorf. During the game he kills, steals and freezes the people Link saves, except for the one he killed... sorry deku tree.

Probably one of the few real sad moments of the game, your surrogate father just died even though you saved him...

In the first three games, even the show that isn't canon, show Ganon as a pig monster, no human feature, wielding a trident like spear, on occasion. Whereas this game changed all that. They gave the monster a face, a background a History. 

Ganondorf, scary looking yes, but now i'm going to tell you how tall he is. 7"6.

Ganondorf is born into a tribe of thieves called The Gerudo. Now, this tribe is all women, and once every 100 years a boy is born among this tribe. BUT WAIT WHAT?! How can a tribe of only women give birth or even have children? Geeze c'mon this isn't earth where we discriminate because of race. The gerudo's occasionally went away from their tribe to find boyfriends. Because of this i'm sure you can put two and two together. 

So eventually, Ganondorf is born, and when a male is born among the Gerudo tribe, the male becomes King of the tribe. Having this taste of power from ruling the gerudo tribe, Ganondorf seeks out more power, Hyrule. Ganondorf begins to cozy up to the king, and learns of the secrets of the Temple of time, and goes throughout Hyrule, his first stop, the Great Deku Tree. 

Ganondorf curses this tree because it refuses to relieve itself of one of the keys to the door of the Temple of time, for behind the door lie two things, one, the Master sword, and two, the sacred Realm, and within that realm, the Triforce.

The Spiritual stones, three magical keys that open the Door of Time.

And this Ladies and Gentlemen is where Links story begins. He destroys the curse on the Deku tree, clears out a cave of monsters for some rock eating Mountain creatures, called Gorons, and rescues the fish people's, called Zora's, Princess.

So because of Links adventures and saving people, he was given the magical keys to the Temple of time, Link opens the door and see's only the master sword, he goes in pulls it and is forwarded 7 years...

Now when you play the game, you just find out you've been sleeping for 7 years and the game continues, and you eventually, bit by bit find out what happened. I will tell you, because it's all really trivial.

After link opens the Door, it stays open, like no security or anything, and Ganondorf goes in, and finds the "sacred realm" which quite honestly i don't believe exists because in that room there was only a sword... so i don't know how Ganondorf found the triforce... 

Anyway, he found it, and it split apart because of the many rules of the triforce.

1. The one who lays his or her hand on the triforce will have their wish granted, whether it be good or evil
2. If one who touches the Triforce does not have their will's   in order, Power, courage and wisdom, The Triforce will split and the person will only inherit the piece they believe in the most.

So Ganondorf touches it, it splits up, and Link gets the Triforce of courage and Zelda gets wisdom. 

You may be thinking now, this is a review of OOT, where's the review. And all i've got to say to that is, There are tons, TONS of generic reviews, Link does this, and link does that and gameplay.

No Love for Link...

From what i've reviewed, you can in the least understand that this game is heavily story driven. I've barely talked about Link and the multiple Dungeons and Temples he goes in. And trust me, i can talk about a single dungeon and the mechanics behind and niche with them for a good while. And i chose to review this game by talking about Ganondorf, why? Because when i get to Wind Waker (Gamecube/Wii U) i'll bring it full circle.

And now a brief paragraph on Gameplay. The game brings back many items from previous titles. Hookshot, bow and arrow and bombs. But because it's in the Third dimension, things have to be changed. So Link enters first person when using the Bow and Hookshot, which is quite nice, or if you wanted you actually can be in third person when using them, though strictly to combat.

The controls are well done, and i find are well suited to this kind of game. Z targeting works because the Z button you use so often, is right in the place your finger lands on by simply holding the controller. 

Three spots to hold the controller. GENIUS. if we had 3 hands.

The only area, which personally i never had a problem with, is the water temple. Theres a way to actually never be able to finish that temple, by using the key in the wrong door. This was fixed in the 3DS release of the game. Which was a perfect remaster for anyone considering it.

And the reason that, for me, the water temple is my favoite, is battling Dark Link. It's just a shame that he's only a mini-boss...

The final boss of Zelda II, becomes the mini-boss of not even the final temple.

Pros:
-Ganondorf is created, background given
-Easy target lock system made for the 3rd enviorment
-Detailed storyline
-Diverse npc's
-A lot of Sidequests (Not covered in the review)

Cons:
-Water Temple
-Some, camera problems
-Dark Link reduced to Mini-boss

And now i leave you with the average players final fight with Ganondorf.