23
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
System: Nintendo 64, Nintendo GameCube
Genre: Adventure
Year: 2000
Rank last year: 25 (^ 2)
Being one of the most unique entries in this beloved franchise, Majora's Mask stands out from the rest. While it is one of the few direct sequels in the series, it takes a break from the usual story involving the Triforce, the Master Sword and Ganon. Majora's Mask instead takes the player into another dimension where a prankster (a familiar face from the game's predecessor) under the influence of a demonic mask holds the world in it's grip. The story has quite a deep meaning involving themes of friendship, when the player is able to read through the lines. Infamous is the game's 3-Day system. Personally I think it's a brilliant addition and it makes the game. Without it, it wouldn't be 'Majora's Mask' and the events in the game wouldn't have the same sense of urgency. Moreover a lot of those events wouldn't even be possible in the first place and I feel people opting to remove the feature never really understand what the game is about.
As a Zelda game, the gameplay is unbelievably tight and features one of the best soundtracks in the series. It's also one of the best looking games of the 5th Generation to boot. In Europe, we were also lucky enough to be blessed with this box-art, which I still think to this day is one of the prettiest box-arts for any game ever made. I clearly remember a bet with my mother leading up to the release of this game. When we first saw the tv-advertisement, we were unprepared and weren't sure of it said '27 hours to save the world' or '72 hours'. I said '72', and needless to say, I won!
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