| xJbownagex said: I disagree with your opinion. In fact, the game might be my 2nd favorite Zelda or even my favorite. I agree the bosses are awful (However I disagree, I loved the first boss), but besides the Great Bay temple, I loved all the dungeons. The side quests can't be completed in ten minutes, or atleast most of them. Take the Anju and Kafei side quest for example, which finishes right before the end of the third day, and starts on the first day. Sure, you could skip ahead through the days and not do anything in between, but that isn't the best way to manage your time. I personally love the story of Majora's Mask, it was very unique and had a different and darker direction than most Zelda titles. Ocarina of Time, the game you seem to be comparing the game to the most, has the most generic of Zelda stories. It could basically be summed up as "Link needs to save Hyrule." And sure, the point of Majora's Mask is also to save Termina, but it's also to get back Majora's Mask, and you only have three days. The story comes more from the interesting characters you meet. For example, there is a swordsmaster in Clock Town that is extremely cocky and is all like "BRING ON THE MOON I'LL SLICE IT IN HALF" and then when you find him at the end of the third day, he's cuddled up in a corner trembling in fear saying "I don't want to die." Tell me a character in Ocarina that is that well "human." The characters add to the world and it helps you understand Termina a lot more than you could ever understand Hyrule. On the topic of linearity, I have no idea what you're talking about. You can play the game for 3 hours and just do side quests and explore. There are also mini skulluta dungeons that will keep you busy. The game also has a SHIT TON of heart pieces, some of which actually do require lots of effort. Plus, Ocarina is linear in all honesty. The dungeons are still in a set order, and the game is weak on side quests. Just because it has a bigger (and emptier) overworld, doesn't immediatley take away the fact that the game is still more or less point a to point b. Ocarina is my 4th favorite Zelda ever made, but the fact that people think it is the end all be all most well designed Zelda kinda infuriates me. But, we all have opinions. |
The Anju/Kafei sidequest is the one everyone nerdgasms over, but it's by far the longest sidequest in the game and the only complicated one. Most others are just fetch quests or "be at a specific spot at a specific time." I would love for someone to tell me what is so great about the sidequests in Majora's Mask without once mentioning that one in particular.
The story has nothing to do with the design of the game. People being too boners about a game's story to properly criticize the game design is what led to The Walking Dead winning GOTY 2012 everywhere, and I won't have any of it in my Zelda discussions. I assert that Majora's Mask is poorly designed compared to other Zelda games and if you want to refute my claim, you'll have to present something other than "but the story is so good man."
Your comments about linearity are true of every Zelda game since (and including) Ocarina. They all have sidequests that can be tackled in almost any order. The main quest of Majora's Mask is entirely linear and that's what I was getting at. There are far more opportunities for "sequence breaking" in Ocarina and Wind Waker (and, yes, even Skyward Sword) than there are in Majora's Mask.
I never contended that Ocarina is the BEST Zelda game. Only that it is far better than Majora's Mask.
And I would be fully prepared to play through the two games side-by-side and lay out in detail the reasons the dungeons in Majora's Mask are objectively inferior to those in Ocarina.
