Does Anyone Actually Favor Majora's Mask?

[Young Link Addict 67]

^What? Man religion ruins everything.

[Fletchuis11 0]

I like Majora's Mask, but I found that it was hard to keep myself focused while playing. Also, I never really got very far because I thought that it was pretty hard, but that's just my opinion.

[Jo-Bengt 0]

I remember seeing that last bit of Majora's Mask where Link and Skull Kid were etched into that tree trunk. I'm not sure how, but it was a pretty sad moment in the game for me. Seeing that I had been fighting Link's old friend from OoT this whole time? It was a different feeling that you rarely get in gaming.

MM was a great game for all the reasons that Saha has poetically pointed out. Saha, I salute you.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Thanks.

Also, the Deku Butler's son.

That was really one of the twisted parts of the game. Killed by being turned into a tree, and having it pointed out to you that it actually looks like it's about to cry.

To some people, you might not be affected because it's not human, but imagine the corpse of a person turned into a tree, and having a look of pure sadness etched onto their face. There are even theories that suggest Skull Kid ripped the soul from him and used it to transform Link into a Deku. Then, at the end of the game, where everything is supposedly happily ever after, you see the Deku Butler mourning his son.

Darunia's death was sad, but it didn't phase me as much as the Goron Elder's. All he wanted to do was save his village and his son, even though his body was weak and distorted. He was upset when he heard his son was crying.

I have to say the most disturbing part of the game is when you're in the house full of Stalchildren. It's like you've walked into a bad painting. All around you, wherever you look, there are stalchildren laughing and enjoying themselves, but never attacking you, just sitting around, even letting you kill them. No sound came from them. They laughed and smiled and acted like you weren't there.

But in the emotional parts, I almost cried many times. I felt like dreams were being defeated. I felt like I was being defeated. When (almost) everyone was alright again, I did feel satisfied.

Sahaqiel

Edited 12 Jun 2009 by Sahaqiel (see edit history)

[Luneth Uchiha 72]

I say they should do a game like Majora's Mask. No other game had such emotion and feeling in it.

I agree with Sahaqiel alot of these moments were sad.

Edited 12 Jun 2009 by Chef Nonsense (see edit history)

[Young Link Addict 67]

Yeah. I think Skull Kid just killed the Deku while it was lost so that's why it was sad. I know it's a dumb theory.

[bootson 2]

I hate that when you beat the bosses, you gotta do it every time you reset the game

no you don't

[Luneth Uchiha 72]

Really? I didn't know about it until Snowhead.

I was 8 when I first played Majora's Mask. I did not know much about games back then.

[Sevengill 0]

I have to say the most disturbing part of the game is when you're in the house full of Stalchildren. It's like you've walked into a bad painting. All around you, wherever you look, there are stalchildren laughing and enjoying themselves, but never attacking you, just sitting around, even letting you kill them. No sound came from them. They laughed and smiled and acted like you weren't there.

But in the emotional parts, I almost cried many times. I felt like dreams were being defeated. I felt like I was being defeated. When (almost) everyone was alright again, I did feel satisfied.

Sahaqiel

I agree. I found every scene that had stalchildren in it very confusing, depressing, and disturbing, all at the same time. I'm not sure if there's even an emotion that expresses what I felt! Did majora's mask create an emotion?

[Aethix 129]

I thought it was a great game, but I didn't get a big emotional experience out of it.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Yeah... I just really get my head into a game, you know what I mean? During horror games, I am the one walking down that dark hall. Regardless of genre, I pay attention to characters as if they were real people.

Some people thinks it's a bit weird. Whatever, though, it makes the experience so much better.

Like reading a book or watching a movie.

Also, I think the stalchildren part was the only real thing that disappointed me.

Once you got the Captain's Mask, they lost their mysteriousness and overall creepiness.

But still, that was really freaky.

I think I would have rather they attacked you instead of laughing and letting you kill them.

Sahaqiel

[bootson 2]

very fun game, just don't like the time limit

[Abyss Master 0]

It wasn't death it was themed upon.

It was the feeling of hopelessness. In most Zelda games, Link invariably saves everyone, but here, he was powerless.

People were dying, but that wasn't the point. He couldn't save them. He couldn't be the legendary hero that left zero casualties.

You will find that Link has been unable to save everyone for a very long time, all the way back to A Link to the Past where he couldn't save his uncle. Ocarina of Time comes to mind where Link was powerless upon facing Ganondorf. Zelda was snatched right before his eyes. The Sages went to take on the dangers of the Temples and Link could do nothing to help them except go on his own way. In Twilight Princess he was faced with the hardships of the villagers of Ordon and the kidnapping of the children - again, unable to do anything. Rutela's death, Zant's confrontation in Lanayru's cave. It doesn't have to be about someone dying. That isn't what makes the games mature, if they can be considered such. Majora's Mask didn't bring the feeling of hopelessness to me, the NPCs were the ones without hope, or at least some of them, which can be compared to the sorrow and hopelessness seen in Twilight Princess with the villagers of Ordon and Kakariko before Link lifts the curtain of twilight from Eldin Province. I still know that I need to somehow make things right. That's why I don't consider TP to be all that mature either, even though it also features these themes.

For me, the player, it's about conquering the evils of the land so that I can stop the moon and defeat Majora's Mask. The fact that NPCs reflect this with their own lives and dreams is very much fine and dandy, yeah, but it still doesn't make the game mature to me.

But I never said that that was a BAD thing.

People lead lives of their own, but could easily be extinguished. They had their daily lives, romances, and dreams. And that's what I meant.

Once again, a pretty touching and emotional theme, but not what I consider mature. That people COULD be extinguished doesn't change anything to me. The deaths of Darmani and Mikau were indeed sad, but that Link were able to put them at peace and use their powers to conquer the evils of Termina shows me that Nintendo didn't mean for them to depart with bitterness and grief. If anything, I consider this to be the most mature aspect of Majora's Mask - not the feeling of doom as the Moon draws closer, or the knowledge that the people around me COULD die if I don't stop the moon from falling. I still stopped it, and Link still saved the day. Majora's Mask probably has the happiest ending I've seen in a 3D Zelda title. Termina is saved, people are celebrating, Anju and Kafei marry, it's really something different from Ocarina of Time where Link is forced to leave behind the world he saved, or Wind Waker where Hyrule is forever drowned beneath the Great Sea along with the King, or Twilight Princess where Midna breaks the Mirror of Twilight. I like the fact that Majora's Mask carries a deeper meaning within the many sidequests, it's wonderful, but it still doesn't make the game mature in my eyes, just deep storywise.

Still want to know what you consider mature.

In different contexts, it's hard to say. The hopelessness we see in Majora's Mask depends entirely on the player - I for one didn't feel pressured at all because I knew exactly what I needed to do, and I knew that I would be able to save the peoples of Termina. The same is applied to, let's say, Lord of the Rings, but in an entirely different way, a mature way. In Majora's Mask, we see the possible outcome of the destruction of Termina. In Lord of the Rings we see the possible destruction of Men. It's clear to me that Lord of the Rings manages to be more mature than the likes of Majora's Mask with this, even though they both play on the same thing (partly, anyways). There's something else that makes one more mature than the other, something I can't put my finger on right away. Maybe it's how LotR is more prominent and brutal with the fact that innocent lives are always at stake, or how the feeling of doom is much more present.

Once again, I don't consider Majora's Mask to be a bad game because I don't find it to be that mature. It still feels like a Zelda game, and Zelda games have never been very mature in my eyes. I consider that to be a GOOD thing, if anything.

This is all opinion, but I can't seriously look you in your username and say Majora's Mask needed redeeming. :|

Seriously, wtf.

Sahaqiel

The redeeming part has nothing to do with the previous discussion about maturity, but about how the main quest simply fell short of making me want to play the game over again. The game can only keep me amused by sheer presentation alone for so long.

[bibl 0]

I really did love Majora's mask in my oppinion it was the second best in the series. But I did not get a big emotional thing goin.

[Cirus 0]

I favor it only for the Masks you get to put on. I like being the awesome Goron Link!