Majora's mask or Ocarina of time

[xavier108]

I am thinking what to download.Majora's mask or Ocarina of time.I dont really have a time to download those 2 so im thinking what's better to download.I want a game that is not for noobs but not for experts.I want a game for normal players and a little bit of action.Also please recommend me some games for n64:)

[wiggyx]

Oot, for sure.

[IHatedSega]

OoT is one of my top 3 games of all time.

MM had me all stressed out about time constraints, I much prefer this game if you use an emulator and can do state saves. Theres no way Id play it without those. NO WAY! That said its really good and it being so different in more than just the time tables makes it worth playing. It has really cool graphics and art design too.


If youre gonna download, you might as well use Project64 on your computer. Theyre pretty small files.

[Edmond Dantes]

... "Download?" Be a man and buy the actual carts! Or Minidisc... (Unless you mean "Download" as in like, for the Virtual Console or something)

Anyway, I'd say Ocarina is the better waste of your money. Majora's Mask was when the Zelda series stopped being good.

[Aussie2B]

Majora's Mask has more personality and is a more interesting game, seeing as Ocarina of Time's concept is basically A Link to the Past rehashed, but it's sort of designed to be played following Ocarina of Time. It's not quite as cool if you can't catch the strange twists they put on the Ocarina of Time cast. I wouldn't recommend Majora's Mask without prior Ocarina of Time experience.

[wingzrow]

These games use the same engine, and most of the same models, so really I find it unfair to not label them two halves of the same game.

They complement each other amazingly.

If I had to choose one though? Majora's mask was more difficult, had re-playable boss battles, and NPCs that mattered (they actually had stories & personality)

I think most of the reason was the game was more emotionally involving, so it left a larger mark on me.

[Jack_Burton_BYOAC]

I don't think you can really appreciate Major's Mask right without having played Ocarina of Time first. So much of that game depends on subverting your experiences from the previous one.

[Guyra]

I have to agree with some of the others here; Ocarina of Time is quite good, but Majora's Mask has much more personality because of all the details in the game, and how much more character driven it is. And personally, I think that game is better than Ocarina of Time, as well. But even though you can, I really don't think you should play it without having played Ocarina of Time first. :)

[leatherrebel5150]

Majora's Mask is better

[Edmond Dantes]

I'm actually a little shocked at all the votes for Majora's Mask. I was under the impression it was some sort of black sheep of the Zelda franchise because of the whole "three days" thing.

(That's why I could never get into it, anyway)

[recorderdude]

Even though majora's mask is my favorite 3D zelda game of all time, I have to reccomend playing through OoT first. MM adds a lot to OoT but the three days limit doesn't really let you screw around with the world as much as you can in OoT and, while still anything but linear, makes you really consider what kind of side things you want to do and if you can do them in time.

Play OoT to be in it for the adventure. Play MM to be in it for the mission.

[The 1 2 P]

I'm actually a little shocked at all the votes for Majora's Mask. I was under the impression it was some sort of black sheep of the Zelda franchise

The true black sheep are the three cd-i Zelda games.

As for my vote, I'm going to say neither. Why? Because someone had to do it. Actually, it's because I haven't played either yet. Thats kind of amusing considering I have both the complete US and Japanese N64 versions of each. I just haven't had time to play them. Stupid backlog.

[Graham Mitchell]

See, I think the time constraints ruin majora's mask. Having to redo every dungeon several times was more than I could take, and I gave up.

Oot is one of the best video games ever made, period. Regardless of the order in which you play them, just make sure that you do eventually put the time in for oot. You won't be sorry.

[Robocop2]

OoT for sure here. I loved the hell out of that game. Bought Majora's mask and played it for maybe an hour and never played it again. Jus could not get into it for some reason.

[Aussie2B]

The three day limit of Majora's Mask really isn't as restrictive as the naysayers make it out to be. From what I've seen, most people who harp on it either haven't played the game or played it so little that they never truly got to experience how it plays out. There is some repetition involved, but that usually entails doing things differently the second time around, as you keep what's important. It's a really interesting system, in actuality. Granted, the game does expect the player to be somewhat skilled at 3D Zelda, since it's assumed that the player already has played Ocarina of Time.

[Tupin]

Okay, so here's a little bit of my opinion:

Ocarina of Time is a great game, no doubt about it. It's aged very well and is still fun to play through. However, I've always had a few problems with it. What stuck out most to me was the use of different songs to go to different places. This definitely sounds like a cool idea to begin with, but there's a reason why all future Zelda games had only one song you needed to learn. The dungeons are fun, though some you feel like that the difficulty is unbalanced or that they intended something all together.

Majora's Mask is my favorite of the two. It took everything good about the first game and left out most of the bad. It had less actual dungeons, so you spent more time doing side quests and things like that. But the dungeons it did have felt better designed to me than the ones in Ocarina of Time. You get used to the three day cycle rather quickly. The most important things about your progress, dungeon completion, non-numerical items, and rupees, stay with you when you go back in time. You do have to beat the boss of a dungeon if you want to say, clear up the poison in the swamp or finally bring spring to the mountains, but that just entails beating the boss again from a warp. I also liked the story and transformation mechanics of MM a lot.

Give them both a shot, I'd say. I prefer Wind Waker to both of them, but given a choice between these two, I'd personally pick MM.

[Graham Mitchell]

The three day limit of Majora's Mask really isn't as restrictive as the naysayers make it out to be. From what I've seen, most people who harp on it either haven't played the game or played it so little that they never truly got to experience how it plays out. There is some repetition involved, but that usually entails doing things differently the second time around, as you keep what's important. It's a really interesting system, in actuality. Granted, the game does expect the player to be somewhat skilled at 3D Zelda, since it's assumed that the player already has played Ocarina of Time.

There are dungeons where you have to kill or capture a certain number of creatures to progress. When the timer resets they are all back in their original positions and you have to do all that work over again.

In addition, I felt the time pressure punishes you for being thorough and exploring. If you can't get to the bank before three days are up, for example, you lose all your money. There were plenty of times where I was making good progress on something, then the timer resets. Gameplay is interrupted, forcing me to trek back to the dungeon I was at. In addition, if you want to save, you have to reset the timer and get warped back to the town. This means that if you want to get anywhere in the game you have to sit there for 1-2 hours. I can't always devote that kind of time to a game. Why can't I just save and restart at the entrance to the dungeon, like every other Zelda game since 1992?

The game has merits, and there are some interesting puzzles and things to explore (the stealth sequences are really cool and unique for a Zelda game, for instance), but I just felt all the good things were undone by a punitive game mechanic. The game gives you a rich, vast world to explore, then punishes you for taking the time to investigate it. Maybe there was something I didn't understand, but I put in about 10 hours before getting frustrated. Maybe I'll pull it out again and see if I can figure out what I was missing, because I know the game is well regarded.

[Aussie2B]

The game definitely requires strategizing around the three-day cycle. If you play it as if it's not there, then, yeah, it's going to be a headache. You have to have a sense for "This is a good time to go back to day 1", if that makes sense. The game does reward thorough exploration and playing in small chunks, but you have to pick and choose when is appropriate to start each task.

[Tupin]

It doesn't punish you for exploring it. It punishes you trying to do too many things at once.

The best way to go through the game, I've found, is to have a plan. I always would do this whenever I wanted to progress:

1. Play the Inverted Song of Time at 6 AM Day 1 to give you the most amount of time possible
2. Plan to do only one thing during the three day cycle (complete a dungeon, collect creatures, do other side quest)
3. Get the thing that you were after, return to Clock Town
4. Put rupees gained in bank, play Song of Time and return to step 1

You can actually get a lot of things done in a relatively short period of time, mainly because you know where everything is. The game has more strategy than any other Zelda game. It's all about when is the right time to slow, speed up, rewind, or skip in time.

If you use the songs to your advantage, the game becomes a lot more fun. Playing it like OoT will only cause frustration. And always, always, ALWAYS play the Inverted Song of Time ASAP. It is your friend.

[Graham Mitchell]

The game definitely requires strategizing around the three-day cycle. If you play it as if it's not there, then, yeah, it's going to be a headache. You have to have a sense for "This is a good time to go back to day 1", if that makes sense. The game does reward thorough exploration and playing in small chunks, but you have to pick and choose when is appropriate to start each task.

Fair enough. I just felt the cues weren't obvious for that. I'll have hook up my GameCube and try it again.

[Leo_A]

Once you learn how to slow down time early in the game, I never ran into an issue with time in Majora's Mask. Always had adequate time to do the tasks I was doing at my own pace.

[Sundowner]

I think Majoras Mask is much better. It was much more interesting and the time limit never bothered me at all. In OOT I always get frustrated in the water temple. I think that has to be the worst dungeon I've ever played in a zelda game. boots on, boots off, boots on, boots off....

[Loganm187]

Anyone and I mean ANYONE who thinks Majora's Mask "rushes" you and makes you do dungeons over either didn't find the inverted song of time at the very beginning or is just a non functioning being at videogames.

When I first played Majora's Mask when it came out I gave up very early on and deemed it "stupid" and felt that the time element ruined the game...
Then last year I started thinking about how dark and weird the game was for zelda. It's like a horror themed zelda game and It seemed so cool on a surface level that I wanted to give it another chance.

I played it for a week straight at age 26 doing everything possible in the game and never felt rushed because you just have to manage your tasks. You really get into that feeling of doom and despair the world is experiencing. With the inverted song of time you have MORE than enough time to complete every dungeon the first time through. When you do all tasks to meet whatever you are trying to do or get to an owl statue just skip forward in time and start over. Then you can warp to the dungeons entrance via owl statue and play the inverted song of time. you will have plenty of time plus some for EVERYTHING. Save states? REALLY? That would destroy them game in my mind. That sense of urgency would be killed that way and like I said I never had to do any dungeon more than once and I am not an expert at 3D zelda in anyway. Majora's MAsk is AMAZING! PLAY IT!

[Ryudo]

Wind Waker over both

[wingzrow]

Wind Waker over both

Wind waker was much too easy, especially as a followup to Majora's Mask. Additionally, it was very clear that they were rushed to meet deadlines and cut things from the game. One island being blown up and ruined by Ganondorf followed by the big fish giving you a Macguffin instead of having you go through a dungeon to get it like you got all the others were clear indicators of this.

And let's not all forget the Triforce piece collecting.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, but it could have been so much more if they had given it more time.

[Tupin]

Everyone hates the Triforce collecting. I preferred it, it was fun. I also liked the picture taking mechanic, even if it did break the fourth wall a bit.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

The correct answer to "Majora's Mask or Ocarina of Time?" is obvious:

Link to the Past.

[Leo_A]

Everyone hates the Triforce collecting. I preferred it, it was fun. I also liked the picture taking mechanic, even if it did break the fourth wall a bit.

And it was also short. Some talk like it takes hours upon hours. I think I spent perhaps a bit over an hour on it earning rupees in that boat obstacle course to get maps translated by Tingle and then going out and retrieving everything. A bit unnecessary and long but not the tedious and long task some would have you believe.

It was one of the lesser problems Wind Waker had (A fine game, but not short of significant issues).

[kedawa]

Majora's Mask is my least favourite 3D Zelda game by far, despite having the most interesting premise.
It's more awkward than it is challenging, the different characters you can become are Rare-level cheese, and the save system sucks.
I really hope it gets the remake treatment like OoT, though, because it has a lot of good ideas.

[Leo_A]

What's wrong with the save system? It has the hard save that sends you back to the start of the cycle with your major items intact (And rolling around the field as a Goron for a minute or so will restock all your items) and it has temporary saves at strategic locations if you're in the middle of some task that you want to resume the next time. You can even put your rupees in the bank so you don't lose them.

I think the only change I'd of made on the N64 is make the temporary saves act more like Ocarina of Time's standard saves. Allow you to save on demand via the menu and return you to the last entrance you went through. I don't see why they had to restrict it to just those owl statues since it can be a bit of a pain if you're saving mid-dungeon. Sometimes Nintendo can be too clever for their own good and I imagine this was one of those instances.

With the 3DS and what I imagine is the inevitable follow up to Ocarina of Time 3D, I would hope the temporary save would put you back right where you left off thanks to the progress of technology making such a thing easier to impliment than back in 2000 so no back tracking in a dungeon is necessary to reach where you had left off.

[kedawa]

What's wrong with the save system?

You seem to have done a pretty good job of answering that yourself.

[IHatedSega]

Yeah thats another thing I hated about MM initially. That save system scared me, and I couldnt rely on save states on project64 after too long since they disappear when you turn off your computer. I want to play it again though to finish it, I got half way through the game. I have NO clue why they did it that way, if my money can be saved in the bank then let me just save the game normally.

[Jack_Burton_BYOAC]

I enjoy the save system in Majora's Mask, among many other elements. The game does require you sit down and invest at least an hour to get much of anything done. In a way, it feels sort of 8-bit.

To me MM feels like an epic hack of OoT (which it was), everything you know and expect is turned on its head, and the overall difficulty level is quite a bit higher.

There are less dungeons, but it takes a looong time to complete one. It really feels like an event when you strike the final blow on the bosses.

[Leo_A]

You seem to have done a pretty good job of answering that yourself.

In a way I suppose I did. But I'd at least classify that more as a minor nitpick rather than a significant problem.

They did a decent job selecting spots for the owl statues so it's never a long trek to one to save your progress mid-task even if it is an unnecessary extra step.

[wingzrow]

Can you believe the Japanese version doesn't even HAVE the owl statues?

[IHatedSega]

Can you believe the Japanese version doesn't even HAVE the owl statues?

So they save system is just like in OoT? I hope not, thats a real middle finger to US customers if its not because of some coding issue with the us system.

[Leo_A]

Playing the song that returns you to the start of the 72 hour cycle is nothing like Ocarina of Time's save.

What's wrong with Ocarina of Time's save system? It's on demand via the start menu and works just fine. You start off at the last entrance you went through so it could've been a bit better, but that's how 2D Zelda's handled things before then and many 3D games of the era and even later on did similarly.

It's only been this generation where I'm routinely seeing game saves that will stick me right back to exactly the moment I left off.

[RP2A03]

So they save system is just like in OoT?

No, the only save was the Song of Time.



Can you believe the Japanese version doesn't even HAVE the owl statues?

Japan did have owl statues, you just couldn't save at them.

[kedawa]

I couldnt rely on save states on project64 after too long since they disappear when you turn off your computer.

Errrrr, no they don't. You must be running the emulator from a compressed archive or something.

[Tanooki]

If those are the only two choices, clearly Ocarina. Great story, large area, takes considerable time to finish, good weapons and enemies to mess with, and you really can work at exploring.

Majora is a turd. Far shorter, a higher pressure game with the timer(which eventually you can to a point manipulate), you lose some bits of your work and effort each skip back in time, pressure to finish areas before the time expires, story isn't as interesting at all...it's just not fun and a lot of the masks are just a burden and uninteresting.