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General Classic Best Aspects of the N64 Zelda Games

Kybyrian

Joined
Jan 31, 2008
Location
Amherst, MA
Gender
Didn't I already answer this one?
In your opinion, what were the best aspects from the games Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask? You hear a lot of praise for these two games, and they are often mentioned in the battle for the greatest Zelda game, but how about, for a little bit, we stop trying to pit them against each other and instead list what was exceptional about these games and compare them to the rest of the series?

There are so many things that people absolutely love about the Nintendo 64 games. Whether it be the graphics, gameplay, ideas, stories, characters, and everything else, there are things that people are absolutely wild about. Personally, I find that the story combined with the various characters of the game are magnificent. The gameplay is also a big plus. No matter what people say, graphics always matter. It may not be the aspect of the game that turns you away or really pulls you in, but it can up the level of enjoyment by a bit. Now, to go into depth about these. I encourage you all to do the same in your posts. Let's make this thread awesome and get some discussion going on up in here.

The characters are going to come first. The characters in these two games were, in my opinion, absolutely wonderful. They seemed to really put those more minor characters into play, especially in Majora's Mask. Ocarina of Time did it's own thing with the characters, and that was great, and Majora's Mask did something different. Ocarina of Time was more focused on putting a few characters in for minor roles through the game that made quite a difference. Malon and Talon, for instance. They weren't really big characters throughout the entire game, but they each served their own role. You got a bottle from Talon, Epona's Song from Malon. You got Epona from their ranch. They even made the ranch hand Ingo come into play in the future where he took over the ranch. It made him a bit of a bigger character and served a minor role. I'm sure you can think of some other examples yourself. The carpenters in Ocarina of Time, as well. They were very minor characters and you didn't think they were going to be much at first, but later in the game they came out and had a bit of a bigger role when you were traveling through the Gerudo Fortress.

I've mostly mentioned Ocarina of Time here, but that's because that game happens to be my personal preference. Majora's Mask did even more with the characters with the very awesome sidequests. Two characters in particular that I would love to mention are Anju and Kafei. I've only done this sidequest a couple times, but I know how great it is. They really add a background to what seem like two very minor characters through the game. Until you initiate the sidequest, you really know just about nothing about either of them. The sidequest really goes into depth on them and their story and makes for a very good sidequest. This is a great example of the use of some of the characters in the Nintendo 64 games. There were also many other sidequests and minor characters that made their big debut in parts of the game that were separate from the main story.

Let's think about this in comparison to the other characters from other games, now. Twilight Princess was a very large game, but think about the characters that were involved. It seems that most of the game revolved around only a few characters. Some of them that were located in Ordon Village played a bigger part, such as Ilia and the kids and whoever else, but not much outside of that. If you think about it, there weren't many in Hyrule Castle Town that actually had much to them. There was Agatha and Jovani, but they only had simple collection quests to them. Through most of the game it focused on the same characters and didn't introduce many of the other minor ones into slightly bigger roles. I think it was the fact that they made it such a big game as far as the story goes and really tried to focus on them through the story and forgot about adding in and making some of the characters serve bigger roles. Malo, for example. One of the kids from Ordon Village, and, like most of the other kids from there, he played a slightly bigger part throughout the game. He was one of them that it most focused on, though. You don't see many others aside from him and the other kids. This is a big letdown from what the Nintendo 64 Zelda games showed us.

Let's pick this up with the story, then, shall we? Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are always known for their great stories, especially Majora's Mask. Majora's Mask had a really sad and darker story than most of the Zelda games, and it seemed to really pull players in and get them more emotionally involved in the game. Some of the Zelda games that we are seeing don't really pull you in with the story. I'm going to use Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks as an example. The stories seemed very weak in these two games among the other aspects. You almost never really realized that you were playing through a story in the game. There was so much running to do and the gameplay was generally boring. Eventually you just forgot what you were doing. They could have done a better job with really emphasizing some of the parts of the story in these two games. It mostly seemed like you were going a few places and playing through a dungeon without much else going on.

The Nintendo 64 Zelda games, however, were completely the opposite. They were very exceptional games, and they had wonderful stories to go along with it. In Majora's Mask the time limit feature really puts emphasis on the story and what is about to happen. They show different things happening and reactions of people throughout the game that really puts more emphasis on the dark side of the story and what is about to happen to everybody. Though Majora's Mask didn't have a huge story and focused a lot on sidequests, the part that was the main story was pretty amazing. Ocarina of Time is sort of reversed in the focus of sidequests and the main story, but it's very similar. While playing the game it really felt as if you were doing something for the good of the world. There were characters that you encounter in the game that reference to the situation and what is happening in the story, and the focus really keeps on it and you stay interested for a longer amount of time. The story aspect is something that is clearly superior to a lot of the Zelda games that we have been seeing.

I'm sure all of you can come up with your own comparisons from the Nintendo 64 Zelda games to some of the others. I'd love to see what you have to say about the aspects of these two wonderful games compared to those of the modern Zelda games and maybe some of the other old games as well. What you think that Nintendo can improve on in the future and such.
 

Austin

Austin
Joined
Feb 24, 2010
Indeed, I believe that the N64 era was the "Golden Age" for Zelda. Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time (the latter especially) are in most Zelda fans' top five list. First off, Ocarina of Time was absolutely revolutionary. It gets a lot of crap nowadays because people figure it's cool to hate what's popular, but I think anyone looking at the issue logically will see the game's numerous merits. It brought the Zelda series into the three-dimensional world, and in the process created a large, expansive world that you could lose yourself in for hours on end. The story was more or less a rehash of what we saw in A Link to the Past, true, but I've never really considered story to be a strong element in any Zelda game. All of the dungeons were original and memorable, and compared to modern Zelda games the difficulty was perfectly acceptable. After playing through the game several times, it's true that it didn't retain its initial difficulty, but most games are like that, honestly.

Majora's Mask was yet another brilliant game. Instead of simply making Ocarina of Time 2, they expanded on that game and gave us things we've never seen before. The dungeons, while few in number, were all excellent. The Great Bay Temple, in particular, stands out and remains one of my favorite Zelda dungeons of all time. The mask transformations added a whole new and unique element to gameplay and were all incredibly fun to use. I don't know about you, but rolling around with the Goron Mask never ceased to entertain me :D/. Additionally, the game was packed with sidequests and extra items not necessary to complete the game. It was non-linear to the extreme (with the exception of the dungeons), as you could plan out each day to complete the game 100%.

Compared to Modern Zelda, I don't think the newer titles stack up too well. That's not to say that they're bad games, they just aren't on the same level in my opinion. I enjoyed the Wind Waker for most of the game, but it got far too tedious after a bit, I was not a fan of sailing. Twilight Princess has always seemed incomplete to me, and overly depressing. That can be a good thing, but in this case, it didn't add to the game's overall quality. It just ruined my day. Compared to older Zelda titles, I think the N64 error is better just because it built on and improved the formula of the games that came before it.
 

Majora's Cat

How about that
Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Location
NJ
I feel like I should mentioned some things. Ocarina of Time was just a perfect game at the time - I feel that even today, OoT stands as one of the best games I've ever played. Now here's where Ocarina of Time fell short. It didn't have much depth to its characters and story. What I mean is that the storyline is so typical - the hero saves the princess... except with one plot twist (Sheik). Ocarina of Time is certainly epic, though: nine compelling dungeons and well-designed boss battles along with the best soundtrack of its day. As or Majora's Mask, I can't really say the graphics improved that much. There are improvements in shading and color, but other than that, I can't see other visual improvements. I felt MM was a bit rushed in its production - it resused OoT's engine but only took two years to develop as opposed to OoT's five years. Many of us consider OoT to be the "bigger" game, but when MM was first released, there was so much content that Nintendo had to make it a golden cartridge. That in itself impresses me. I loved MM completely from start to finish. When I bought OoT and MM at the same time, I remember playing a little bit of both. OoT's problem is that it doesn't pull you in from the start. When I first began to play MM, BOOM! The action is on its way, and I must complete a set of actions before the three day period is over. This proves a difficult task for Zelda beginners. On the other hand, OoT is painfully easy in the beginning - let's get our facts straight - the first three dungeons only took me about a half hour each on my first run of OoT. MM really starts off strong and keeps you hooked in there. That's a big difference.

Now I'm going to get into the actual games. Ocarina of Time was fantastic. Once the Forest Temple had begun, I understood the kind of game I was playing. I gripped the GameCube controller fiercely and my jaws dropped. This was the famed Ocarina of Time - I had no doubts then. I felt that it was even better than MM, whichI played before OoT. Sure, Majora's Mask was the one that hooked me first, but I soon learned that OoT would be as good - or even better.

Starting off with the Forest Temple, the game only got better. An epicand challenging battle against Phantom Ganon followed. All I could do at the time was either go insane in frustration or marvel at Ocarina of Time's brilliance. Miyamoto followed up the first magnificent dungeon (which had equally magnificent music) with an even cooler one. The Fire Temple is always going to be one of the places I think of when I think of Ocarina of Time. The Fire Temple gave me an amazing two hours of gameplay with one of the best bosses in the Zelda franchise - Volvagia. Oh, and I can't describe the Water Temple. Easily one of the best dungeons in any Zelda game, the Water Temple was ridiculously hard yet had an amazing atmosphere. It was like a confusing labyrinth. The design, technically and graphically were impressive. Then came the Shadow Temple. Personally, this was one of the less memorable dungeons in the game. I still absolutely loved the idea of using the Lens of Truth, but I feel like Nintendo could've done more with it, you know. But the boss wasn't disappointing - Bongo Bongo was certainly fun, but not exactly difficult (I beat it in under a minute on my first try). Finally... we have the Spirit Temple. Wow. I have nothing else to say. The design was great. The music was great. And the boss... oh, the boss. Twinrova? Don't even get me started. Most. Epic. Boss. Battle. Ever. I loved it - every single inch of the Spirit Temple was brilliant.

Finally we come to the end. Ganon's Tower was not only more difficult than the rest of the 3D Zeldas' final dungeons, it included perhaps the greatest final boss in the history of gaming. Ganondorf and Link face-to-face, then an escape from the crashing tower... and Ganon. One of the most menacing and difficult bosses ever, Ganon is the absolute definition of epic. The credits nearly pushed me to tears and after I finished, I had no words left. Absolutely beautiful.

I love OoT!
 
Last edited:

Dabombster

Do the thing
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Jan 9, 2008
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Probably somewhere
Excellent post Mr. Kybyrian. Very well done and thought out.

Personally, I didn't enjoy the N64 games as much as the older 2D games, but they were very good games nonetheless. Ocarina of Time had a great story right up to the end. Very few minor characters, but it pushed you right through the main story right of the start. I didn't find this particularly great myself, because I enjoy the more detailed side of things. For Ocarina of Time the best thing to me was the introduction of so many new things. Being able to ride a horse, having three weapons equipped, changing equipment at will, and just the general idea from transitioning to 3D in the first place. When Ocarina of Time first came out, it was absolutely amazing. Definitely my favorite game for the N64 console. However...

Majora's Mask came out a few years later. This game blew me away. I remember having to go to the store after getting it to get the memory expansion for the N64 just so I could play it. I was ecstatic, but the game was very difficult at first. I've heard a lot of people claim the game is nearly impossible to beat without a guide, but I managed anyway. The main story of the game wasn't the exciting part for me though. I loved how nearly every sidequest had so much depth to it. The Anju and Kafei quest was great. Protecting the milk from Romani Ranch for a mask, even the Skulltula houses had a small story involving what happened there. There was so much put into Majora's Mask, but admittedly they could have done better with the main story. The Fierce Deity's mask was such a challenge to get, but if you got it on your first playthrough and never fought Majora without it, it made the fight seem kind of broken. A great idea though, and well worth the challenge to get to it.
 
Joined
Apr 5, 2008
Location
Chula Vista, San Diego, CA
No matter what people say, graphics always matter. It may not be the aspect of the game that turns you away or really pulls you in, but it can up the level of enjoyment by a bit.

This I completely agree with. One of the reasons I think Super Mario 64 was so popular was that it was colorful and looked enjoyable and happy and things like that. Ocarina of Time wasn't nearly as dark as Majora's Mask, so it got the same thing. Majora's Mask is nearly universally said to be the worse of the two (not by me, mind you) and I think a big factor was that it was so much darker, not only in story, but graphic wise too. The artwork is where you see that the most. The shading done in the artwork isn't just a darker form of the initial color, it's pretty much black. Ocarina of Time in almost every sense was much brighter, drawing people in.

The characters are going to come first. The characters in these two games were, in my opinion, absolutely wonderful. They seemed to really put those more minor characters into play, especially in Majora's Mask. Ocarina of Time did it's own thing with the characters, and that was great, and Majora's Mask did something different. Ocarina of Time was more focused on putting a few characters in for minor roles through the game that made quite a difference. Malon and Talon, for instance. They weren't really big characters throughout the entire game, but they each served their own role. You got a bottle from Talon, Epona's Song from Malon. You got Epona from their ranch. They even made the ranch hand Ingo come into play in the future where he took over the ranch. It made him a bit of a bigger character and served a minor role. I'm sure you can think of some other examples yourself. The carpenters in Ocarina of Time, as well. They were very minor characters and you didn't think they were going to be much at first, but later in the game they came out and had a bit of a bigger role when you were traveling through the Gerudo Fortress.

One thing about the characters, in Ocarina of Time, they seemed to remind me of the NPCs from AOL. Most of them don't really say anything to you. I have to admit, most of this was as a kid and it was the sort of thing where "kids get less respect than adults" so that's probably the main reason why, but most of the characters had one line of dialogue, almost none of it really saying anything. In Majora's Mask, everyone had multiple lines that changed with how you changed the game. The Bombers for example, they would just say something along the lines of "Hey guy, got any problems" pre-getting the bombers notebook, but after doing so, they'd be all like "Hey, Link. You filling out your notebook?" In AOL, most of the NPCs either said very little or even some people said "I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING" where they were just filler characters. Ocarina of Time didn't nearly take it down to that scale, but I still feel the characters could have been fleshed out a little bit more.

Of course, Ocarina of Time did have those few characters that gave you a heart piece or a song or an item, but even those people were pretty bland. I thought a lot of it was dull. Take the skull kids for example, they just felt like normal humans to me, aside from their appearance. "Play a song with us" then when you're done "that was a good session". They could have put a little more thought into that to make the characters seem more like what they were. Skull kids were mischievous and lonely. I never felt that way at all, well, aside from a little for the skull mask kid, but even then, that was pretty bland too.

I've mostly mentioned Ocarina of Time here, but that's because that game happens to be my personal preference. Majora's Mask did even more with the characters with the very awesome sidequests. Two characters in particular that I would love to mention are Anju and Kafei. I've only done this sidequest a couple times, but I know how great it is. They really add a background to what seem like two very minor characters through the game. Until you initiate the sidequest, you really know just about nothing about either of them. The sidequest really goes into depth on them and their story and makes for a very good sidequest. This is a great example of the use of some of the characters in the Nintendo 64 games. There were also many other sidequests and minor characters that made their big debut in parts of the game that were separate from the main story.

I loved the Anju and Kafei quest and here's why. It had multiple endings and multiple paths to take, but you had to really be decisive about which road to take. If you go through one door, another closes. You can't do everything. Such as once you get the Letter to Mama. You could give it to her directly or you could take it to the postman to deliver. Doing either closed off the opposing reward, but opened the other.

I know a lot of people don't like that, but think of other series' that are very open ended. Oblivion isn't as open ended as I would like, but it'll work as an example. Plenty of quests in that game have multiple paths but you can never do them all in one save file. Due to Majora's Mask's time system, you could redo the quest over as many times as you'd like and complete every side to the story. I know a lot of people hated that, because they hate having to repeat things, but I loved that a lot. I just wish more of Zelda was open ended.

Let's think about this in comparison to the other characters from other games, now. Twilight Princess was a very large game, but think about the characters that were involved. It seems that most of the game revolved around only a few characters. Some of them that were located in Ordon Village played a bigger part, such as Ilia and the kids and whoever else, but not much outside of that. If you think about it, there weren't many in Hyrule Castle Town that actually had much to them. There was Agatha and Jovani, but they only had simple collection quests to them. Through most of the game it focused on the same characters and didn't introduce many of the other minor ones into slightly bigger roles. I think it was the fact that they made it such a big game as far as the story goes and really tried to focus on them through the story and forgot about adding in and making some of the characters serve bigger roles. Malo, for example. One of the kids from Ordon Village, and, like most of the other kids from there, he played a slightly bigger part throughout the game. He was one of them that it most focused on, though. You don't see many others aside from him and the other kids. This is a big letdown from what the Nintendo 64 Zelda games showed us.

I completely agree, and apparently Nintendo does as well. They have admitted that they made Twilight Princess too big, and I recognize this. Although you had to bring it to my attention, you're absolutely right. I poked at the NPCs of AOL and OOT, but at least every one had the ability to talk to. TP seemed like AOL only worse. The NPCs were there just to take up space, but in AOL at least they could talk. Practically no one in TP's Hyrule town could speak to you. I really hate TP and there are plenty of reasons, this is a big one. They took character development and threw it down the drain. I thought OOT was bad at that, but TP was for sure worse.[/QUOTE]

Let's pick this up with the story, then, shall we? Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are always known for their great stories, especially Majora's Mask. Majora's Mask had a really sad and darker story than most of the Zelda games, and it seemed to really pull players in and get them more emotionally involved in the game. Some of the Zelda games that we are seeing don't really pull you in with the story. I'm going to use Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks as an example. The stories seemed very weak in these two games among the other aspects. You almost never really realized that you were playing through a story in the game. There was so much running to do and the gameplay was generally boring. Eventually you just forgot what you were doing. They could have done a better job with really emphasizing some of the parts of the story in these two games. It mostly seemed like you were going a few places and playing through a dungeon without much else going on.

I know some people will hate me for this, but I really care about story in a game, and in fact, it's one of the main reasons why I play a game. Of course it has to have fun gameplay, but in a series such as this, it needs to have a good story, and in fact, that's pretty much the entire game. For example, Final Fantasy, most of the game is just surviving from Point A to Point B to re-pickup the story. The dungeons in Zelda fix that system and adds gameplay, but I don't read books, and I replace reading with video games. One of the main reasons why my favorite genres are RPGs. Ocarina of Time did have an awesome story, but I think Majora's Mask did a much better job of creating an awesome story. That's one of the main reasons why I prefer Majora's Mask, along with the fact that I play games for story, Majora's Mask's story was incredible.

In Majora's Mask, it seemed like every character had a story, no matter how minor, each did. Ocarina of Time, each character barely had 2 textboxes of text. In Majora's Mask, you travel to the four parts of Termina, each with a different race of people (well, aside from Ikana Valley, which really had no people, but even then, it had the Ikana Castle with the Stalfos guys) and you really felt like each of them had actual problems, each of them were really struggling on this. The Pirate's Fortress portion of the game I think is the best part, story wise, as there's so many conflicts that build on themselves. Lulu got her eggs stolen by Pirates, Miaku tries to save them but ends up getting killed, Lulu loses her voice, the Indigo-go's are worried for the sake of their band, etc. There's just so many stories going on that it's just insanity. I love it!

Even in terms of the dungeons, most of them you actually understood their purpose. The Woodfall Temple is an old place of worship for the Dekus that got abandoned and overrun with creatures, stuff like that. In OOT, I couldn't help but thing "umm ... is there a purpose of this being here?" Some of them were explained, but not very well. Dodongo's Cavern was where the best food for the Gorons was, but I couldn't help but think, "Do they really need to make a cavern this huge just for some good rocks? I mean, really none of it aside from the entrance makes sense!" The Water temple, I can't even recall a reason given for its existance. Spirit Temple either, although I do recall for the Fire and Shadow Temple. Jabu-Jabu's belly and the Great Deku Tree are pretty obvious, but there were definitely some dungeons that I couldn't figure out why they were built in the first place.

Briefly on the topic of ST. I quit that game. The main reason being that the story was practically nonexistent and it didn't draw me in whatsoever. I actually liked PH, but ST was just awful. Most people that like the game liked it for the ToS's puzzles, or at least the people I talk to. I'm not a puzzle guy, I'm a story and open game sort of guy, so that didn't appeal to me. You had a mediocre opening story then for 5 or so dungeons, absolutely nothing. Minor stuff to lead you up to the dungeon, but aside from that, main story is just non existent. It baffled me that there was so much room in between main story sequences. I quit the game apparently a bit too early into the game, but god damn, I just couldn't take it.
 
Joined
Nov 20, 2008
That's a pretty super-special-awesome post you have there Wyatt.

To this day Ocarina of Time and Majora's mask are my two favorite games of all time. I grew up watching my friends play Ocarina of Time, but I never got the chace to play though it until I was about 12, because my parents were opposed to getting a n64, and then I found the Collector's Edition for Gamecube. Whenever I want to play a game I just pop it in and play it. The game was just as much of a landmark as A Link to the Past was.

As for Majora's Mask, I think too many Zelda fans overlook this game because they heard of the Time System, and I was one of them for a while. I don't like time limits in any video game, but Majora's Mask made it so you had enough time, but you couldn't screw around the whole time. The masks added a great new aspect. Unlike other games, the characters actually have character. What I mean is, they have more than one set line of speech that they utter throughout the whole game. In MM, depending on what day, what time, and what mask you are wearing, everyone has something different to say. From this you can create an image of their personality. For example, some people are easily offended if you talk to them while wearing a "normal" mask, and other people are more tolerant. The same thing goes for when you wear the masks of different races; you may find out that this towns-person doesn't like dekus, but loves Gorons.

Majora's Mask was the only game I might have actually felt a connection with Link. The developers always talk about this being the reason for his name, but it's only been present in MM for me. When you help someone on their sidequest, you can see how, in the game, you affected their fate. In OoT, many people didn't even notice when you saved them from things like the dragon at Death Mountain.

MM also sparks some of the best Zelda discussion and theorizing. The whole background and nature of the game gives it a very mysterious feel and many people even ask, "Was it Real?"
 

Kybyrian

Joined
Jan 31, 2008
Location
Amherst, MA
Gender
Didn't I already answer this one?
One thing about the characters, in Ocarina of Time, they seemed to remind me of the NPCs from AOL. Most of them don't really say anything to you. I have to admit, most of this was as a kid and it was the sort of thing where "kids get less respect than adults" so that's probably the main reason why, but most of the characters had one line of dialogue, almost none of it really saying anything. In Majora's Mask, everyone had multiple lines that changed with how you changed the game. The Bombers for example, they would just say something along the lines of "Hey guy, got any problems" pre-getting the bombers notebook, but after doing so, they'd be all like "Hey, Link. You filling out your notebook?" In AOL, most of the NPCs either said very little or even some people said "I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING" where they were just filler characters. Ocarina of Time didn't nearly take it down to that scale, but I still feel the characters could have been fleshed out a little bit more.

Which is, of course, why I stated that Majora's Mask had superior character depth to Ocarina of Time. Compared to some of the other games of the series, though, Ocarina of Time really stood out, and Majora's Mask stood out so much that it was hard to keep your eyes on the others when mentioning character depth. Ocarina of Time could have used improvement on their characters, but I think they did pretty decent, regardless of having those "placeholders" in there.




Zenox said:
I loved the Anju and Kafei quest and here's why. It had multiple endings and multiple paths to take, but you had to really be decisive about which road to take. If you go through one door, another closes. You can't do everything. Such as once you get the Letter to Mama. You could give it to her directly or you could take it to the postman to deliver. Doing either closed off the opposing reward, but opened the other.

This is exactly why Majora's Mask is such a magnificent game. When you compare the depth of the sidequests and the "minor" characters throughout the game to some of the characters from the other games in the series, Majora's Mask seems like the boss with absolutely no competition. When combining the positive points of the characters and how they were used in the stories of the Nintendo 64 Zelda games, you have yourself quite an awesome thought, especially after factoring in Majora's Mask.
One of the really great things that you also mentioned in this quote was also that the sidequest had multiple paths you could take to come up with different endings, and that's something that really stood out. You didn't really see it in Ocarina of Time, but it was great in Majora's Mask. I think if some of the games would incorporate this it would definitely provide the grounds for a seriously awesome game, which is something we all have been waiting for for a long time. Not that the recent Zelda games are horrible, though. Compared to some of the other games in the series, especially the Nintendo 64 Zelda games, they are mediocre, but they stand out among other Nintendo games in general.




Zenox said:
I completely agree, and apparently Nintendo does as well. They have admitted that they made Twilight Princess too big, and I recognize this. Although you had to bring it to my attention, you're absolutely right. I poked at the NPCs of AOL and OOT, but at least every one had the ability to talk to. TP seemed like AOL only worse. The NPCs were there just to take up space, but in AOL at least they could talk. Practically no one in TP's Hyrule town could speak to you. I really hate TP and there are plenty of reasons, this is a big one. They took character development and threw it down the drain. I thought OOT was bad at that, but TP was for sure worse.

Yep, Twilight Princess could have really improved on this. So could the other games, in fact. It seems that some of the more recent games that we have been getting are doing just this, but Twilight Princess seemed really bad about it. They added large populations to most areas and almost everybody was a placeholder and it seemed to be really boring with the characters that you encountered throughout the game. Very few of them had big roles and even more you couldn't even really talk to. When you compare it to the Nintendo 64 Zelda games, Twilight Princess seems to fail in this aspect. Just one more thing that they could be taking from these games, especially Majora's Mask, and incorporating into some of the newer games. Maybe Skyward Sword will fix this up a bit.
 

Majora's Cat

How about that
Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Location
NJ
Now for MM. The game just starts off with a bang. Thrown into the world unexpectedly, you're nothing but a mere Deku because of the Skull Kid/Majora's evil little mind. Now you only have three days to retrieve your ocarina and reset time. Once you face off against the Skull Kid and rewind time to the first day... one of the greatest games of all time is born. Majora's Mask throws you right into the center of Clock Town where there are a bevy of sidequests waiting for you. Thought Ocarina of Time had an overload of sidequests? Ha. Wait until you play MM. The sidequests were really the meat of the game for me - MM was like the opposite of OoT.

While the greatest game of all time focused more on the epic main quest, Majora's Mask dove deeper into the characters' situations. As you help the characters with their quests, you start to become attached to them. They each have a unique story, and you can't help but feel bad when you know that they will likely die in three days as the menacing moon descends upon Termina. Even the name of the land you traverse is ominous: Termina. This means "end" and "terminate" in many languages. Majora has summoned the evil moon to crash into Termina, thus ending the lives of everyone that lived there - and did it only as a game. That is why Majora is one of the most twisted villains ever - making MM even more interesting. In the game, you can collect up to 24 masks. The masks give you different powers that will help in sidequests, but there are three main masks: the Zora Mask, Goron Mask and Deku Mask. They let you transform into those races, which is key in the gameplay. There are a whopping 52 heart pieces to be found and plenty of sword upgrades to keep you busy. As for the dungeons, Majora's Mask starts out incredibly strong with some of the greatest dungeons in Zelda history. The Woddfall Temple has great music, great atmosphere and high difficulty for a first dungeon. The masked jungle warrior Odolwa boss is not only tough for a first boss, but is also pretty dark and cool. Secondly Link must travel to Snowhead where he must defeat the boss at Snowhead Temple. This dungeon was also very hard, quite difficult for a second dungeon. It shows that Nintendo really traded quantity for quality with MM - the dungeons are much better than the ones in OoT. Plus, the boss is a handful. Goht is a mechanical monster that rolls around. As Goron Link, you must chase it down and kill it. This can prove difficult and extremely entertaining. Next is one of my favorite dungeons ever. The Great Bay Temple had a sensational atmosphere, arguably the best dungeon music in any Zelda game and a cool pipe system. The boss was the hardest in the game, Gyorg. The strategy was tough to figure out, and Gyorg did a lot of damage and sometimes proved very annoying. Last but not least, we have perhaps the greatest Zelda dungeon ever: The Stone Tower Temple. Boy, oh boy. You could flip the place upside-down, the place was just HUGE, it was extremely hard, and acquiring all the stray fairies for the Great Fairy Sword was extremely difficult, but I have to admit Nintendo did an amazing job with the level design.

The moon is the last dungeon where you go to levels similar to in MM's previous dungeons. It's fairly simple, but you can get four heart pieces there and if you trade in all 23 masks acquire thus far, you will get an amazing gift right before fighting Majora - the Fierce Deity Mask. This proves to be the coolest mask in the game, but can only be used inside boss lairs (unless you glitch your way out of it ;)). The final boss has eerie music and is difficult and creepy - certainly amazing. MM was a worthy follow-up to the greatest game ever, and I shall stand by that opinion forever. :)

I love MM as well!

For whoever neg repped me for saying my post was too long, is this okay? :)
 

TheGreen

is climbin' in yo windows
Joined
Jul 12, 2010
Location
San Antonio
I'm going to try to prove not
that the N64 era was the "Golden Age" for Zelda
,but rather that it was perhaps the time of the most "balanced" game, that is, they focused on making a good game and not on appeasing peoples want's for story or graphics or anything like that.


Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are always known for their great stories, especially Majora's Mask. Majora's Mask had a really sad and darker story than most of the Zelda games, and it seemed to really pull players in and get them more emotionally involved in the game. Some of the Zelda games that we are seeing don't really pull you in with the story.
I couldn't agree more. I think that there are more compelling stories in the Zelda series, I find that Twilight Princess has you involved more than oot, but not MM, right at the beginning. Unfortunately, the story, as far as writing goes, TP does not do well, but you still want to play. The bait and switch maneuver (Zant>Ganon) throws you off, but you still want to kick Ganon's butt and they maintain interest throughout the game better than any other game.
I do think that N64 games beat the majority of games in story/emotional involvement, especially when you consider the characters. The old man from several games isn't all that intriguing, but all of the side quest characters from MM really do connect the player to the game.


I know some people will hate me for this, but I really care about story in a game, and in fact, it's one of the main reasons why I play a game. Of course it has to have fun gameplay, but in a series such as this, it needs to have a good story, and in fact, that's pretty much the entire game.
Yes.


Graphics are good for their time. That's really all I have to say about that aside from this: I think that all of the graphics since have been better and the graphics are inspiring, but not perfect. And not so ugly as they draw your attention from the rest of the game.


What I think is great about OOT and MM is the.. level design? It's really great and has set the standard for the rest of the games. I don't think it's outdone by any other games overall.
I'm only really comparing the 3D games here because it's apples and oranges. One criticism is that some areas seem to be stuck in 2D mode. I recall and "dungeon" type area in Golden Sun where you're inside a tree and I found it more intriguing/fun than the deku tree in OOT.
The difficulty is spot on. At times the dungeons are rather cryptic and confusing, but it's manageable. It think WW more or less matches the standard that the N64 games set. It's too bad. I think they should be improving on that sort of thing. TP's difficulty is too low, but the environment is there. Still I think that MM and OOT's levels have a really vibrant character.

Let me reiterate that I don't think the N64 games are really the best at anything at this point now that other titles have been released. I do believe that they create an experience that was unbeatable at the time and that they are still and standard designers can look back to for inspiration.
 

PhantomTriforce

I am a Person of Interest
Joined
Jul 12, 2010
Location
Ganon's Tower
These two games, without question, are unbelievably good. While I wouldn't say the best, they each have their pros and cons. I'll compare the two games in different aspects.
Graphics: MM was better, but there wasn't much of a difference. Graphics don't really matter to me anyways.
Story/Plot: OoT. I feel that the story around OoT was better than MM. It was more in-depth. MM, on the other hand, was good as you weren’t doing this for the sake of one person, rather an entire country.
Gameplay: Well, they are basically the same, so tie there.
Sidequests: Clearly MM, not much to discuss here.
Characters: MM. It had much more interesting characters, and character development. The characters from MM were basically built upon the ones from OoT, though.
Dungeons: OoT. This is a very personal matter to me, but I like a lot of dungeons. This is the reason why I am big fans of TP, OoT, and ALttP. Stone Tower Temple clearly topped all dungeons from OoT, but I feel that the dungeons were more fun to play in OoT, and their design was better.
Items: OoT. I really disliked the concept of the different arrow abilities in MM, as after Snowhead Temple, the items for the remaining 2 dungeons were predictable. Not the case with OoT, though.

I understand that even though this may not be the full point of the thread, I felt like comparing and contrasting the various elements that made up the two games, and pointing out each of the game’s strong points.
 

athenian200

Circumspect
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
Location
a place of settlement, activity, or residence.
I think the best aspect of the N64 games had to be the story. Back then, they had just enough graphical realism to captivate you, but not enough that they expected it to carry the game. The series also wasn't established enough for that expectation.

The N64 era was "just right" for Zelda. The earlier and later games just don't reach the same level, although ALttP and WW come close.

I think that the N64 forced them to use all the available space as well as possible, yet gave them a lot to work with. I think that the games on it were good because it had a unique combination of limitations and potential that forced them to be creative. Modern games aren't limited in the same way, so they don't have to work as hard on anything besides the graphics.

I feel that there was a lot of depth in those games, a lot of quotable lines... I'm not sure why the story was so much better in those days. It's clear in MM, but it's there in OoT as well. The story of Zelda was never quite that good before those two games, and it was never quite as good afterward, though they tried to reach that level. I think perhaps the writers they hired were just really good, and involved in both games. I don't know, but I know something must have been there. All the pieces came together, and a masterpiece was created.
 

Myriadviper42

Fulcrum Agent
Joined
Feb 14, 2010
Location
Control
Both of these games are awesome. But I like Majoras Mask better. More story in depth, the NPC's actually have feelings, the enemy isn't Ganondorf (k). He as been used.... I don't know how many times. Oot was longer, though.
 
Joined
Oct 2, 2010
Location
Faron Woods
OoT and MM were unique games, and completely ahead of other games of the genre or even outside. Games don't tend to age that well, but those two have. In fact, back then few games were even able to get close to the excellence OoT and MM boasted. On a more personal level, this games had a beautiful artstyle. Now, WW and TP and even SS don't fall behind, but for me the best artstyle in the series is the one you find in MM and OoT. This is because, this artstyle is so versatile. Its cartoony but it still allows enough freedom to create darker settings. Just look at the bizarre and dark design of MM. Then check Kakariko Village in OoT. This does not limit itself on the environments, enemies in both games range from creepy to cartoony or even goofy. OoT and MM both have the feeling that you're playing a fairytale kind of game, and the way the plot beautifully blends itself with the gameplay and character interaction is truly memorable. To be honest, theres nothing in MM and OoT that the newer Zelda titles don't do, bit is the fact that these two created Zelda perfectly in 3D is what makes them more memorable than any other games in the series.

OoT takes special mention. That game created the foundation for how 3D games must play for the entire series to date and to action adventures in general. It struck a perfect balance on exploration, backtracking, combat and puzzle resolving. It was this mix what makes this games so special, and what makes the series special as a whole. But OoT and MM were able to translate ALttP gameplay to 3D and improved upon it to a whole new level. MM, as OoT sequel just begins to expand the concept. The world is more complex, dungeons are more challenging and the story unfolds in a very subtle and emotional way. Now, OoT is my favorite and I still view it as the best of the two, but MM has elements that OoT lacks, and vice versa. Those two games bring new elements to the series and incorporates it into the gameplay in such a smooth way that no other games in the industry did. That's the reason their status as classics are still unrivaled, even by todays standards.
 
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Location
Brexit
This is an excellent thread Kybyrian, well done good sir.

First of all, I'd like to agree with what a few others have said and state that both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are amongst the top Zelda games of all time, alongside top games of all time in my opinion. Ocarina of Time was one of the most revolutionary games that we have seen to date, due to the fact that it was one of the first 3D games ever created, and it was amazingly good in all areas, there are genuinely no areas of the game that I can state could have been made better (although I would have liked it if they had time to unfreeze the Zora's Domain). Majora's Mask is quite similar to Ocarina of Time in terms of being revolutionary, but that's mainly when you look at it next to the rest of the Legend of Zelda series. It's the first game that allowed Link to be able to change his race, due to the 3 Race Masks. The entire concept of the Race Masks is awesome enough.

Ocarina of Time may have had a rather simple plot, and most complain that it was a copy of A Link to the Past, but most Zelda's copy off of earlier Zelda's to be fair, and it's not as if it really matters anyway, because everything else makes up for it, and the fact that I never heard of A Link to the Past before I completed Ocarina of Time made the game even more magical for me than say, someone that had played the games the other way around, but even then they would have to agree that the game was still magical. The plot is still nice anyway, because there aren't really that many games that I have played that I could say have a plot which involves time manipulation and stand up to Ocarina of Time. Here's a list of the games: Majora's Mask, Jak II: Renegade, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and the Timesplitters series, are the only games that I feel can hold their own against Ocarina of Time for time manipulation.

Majora's Mask has a really good plot too. It was refreshing to play because the plot never involved Ganondorf, or Hyrule, and involved a new, unusual antagonist. The plot was a little more complex than that of Ocarina of Time's, and didn't involve Nintendo's classic "The Princess has been kidnapped" scenario. The plot was dark, and I prefer darker plots than lighter ones, because I believe that I can read into the plot deeper if it's dark, and I like to be able to do that. The entire fact that the plot was based around a mindless, violent mask causing the Moon to fall out of it's orbit and crash into Termina was dark, and it's unique, because there probably isn't another game out there like that, as others tend to go for large weapons of destruction.

Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are what I see as the last difficult Legend of Zelda games created, seeing as I found the game very hard on my first play through. People will say that once you play the game once though, that the difficulty will drop greatly. To be honest, I don't see what their point is here, because aren't all games like that? Only games in which there is a difficulty setting menu, will you find that the game doesn't get easier the more you play it. But even then, at some point the game will become easier after time. And considering that at points I still forget where I am going in both games, that gives both games instant cool points.

I'm going to agree with what Kybyrian said about the characters in both games. Nintendo really played the way they included the minor characters into the game really well, and instead of just repeating that for both games, Majora's Mask did it a little differently. I could probably say that the way that there characters were incorporated into Majora's Mask was significantly better than Ocarina of Time thanks to the entire side-quest idea that was introduced in that game, which was something that I really like Majora's Mask. Although it can feel like Nintendo decided to forget about the plot and put too much work into the side-quests part. Both games dive a little deeper into each and every character, than say the games we get today like Twilight Princess and Phantom Hourglass, both of which don't really do anything outside of the main characters, whereas Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask puts a little more concentration into all the characters. The example Kybyrian used is excellent, the Anju & Kafei side-quest really did a lot with two characters that really had little to do with the main plot.

Then we have the time manipulation side of boths games seperate from the plot. The way that Nintendo weaved the entire time manipulation aspect into both games was quite brilliant, and both did it differently too. Ocarina of Time's entire time manipulation process was based around the Master Sword, unlike other ideas people have which usually involve time machines and actual time travel. People seem to forget that Link isn't actually time travelling whilst he moves back and forth between time periods, as he's simply just abusing the Master Sword's power and using it to speed up and reverse time, and this is something that is completely original in my opinion. Even out of the the games I mentioned above that involve time manipulation and time travel, only one of them that I can think of actually uses time manipulation in a similar manner to Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, that being Prince of Persia. Majora's Mask played this differently, as the entire time manipulation process revolved around the actual Ocarina of Time (which makes sense, unlike Ocarina of Time, the game that is). It worked perfectly well, as we were able to slow down and speed up time as we wished, which was really helpful in completeing Majora's Mask. Especially as there several parts of the game that included waiting a lot of time, or needing a lot of time to do something like beat a temple. It was something completely new to me at the time though, as I never played another series involving time manipulation until around 2004.

Finally, Majora's Mask probably have one of the best aspects in the entire Zelda series, with the ability to switch between races, which was extremely fun and original. I never expected that I would be able to run around as a Deku, swim like a Zora or roll around like a Goron. Even better was that they just didn't do what Twilight Princess did with a lot of its items, and just make them mainly specific to that dungeon. All 3 race masks needed to be used in several different areas outside of the temples that you acquired them in. There were a few mini games based around them to, which were different than the rest, and were fun.
 
Last edited:

Kazumi

chagy
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Location
Canada
Even though Majora's Mask is my second favourite Zelda after ALttP, and OoT is considerably further down the list, I still really like aspects from a lot of them. The first is the story.

The N64 Zelda games have excellent stories, more so Majora's Mask though. The story of MM is a lot darker and sadder, with a very twisted atmosphere and very believable characters. That combined with the creeper colour pallet and engrossing side quests the game is all very believable. I was drawn in almost instantly by Termina and it's populous. It was amazing how they could fit so much content onto one tiny N64 cartridge, even with the expansion pack. Each character has his or her own back story and side quests. One of my favourite stories of a character would probably be that of the guy who plays the Song of Storms. I don't remember his name. The first time you talk to him at night when he sits by the laundry pool he tells you a story about how he used to travel with a troupe led by a dog. He talks about how everyone loved the leader dog so much, and he wondered how people could like a dog more then a human. So he stole his mask, and now he feels bad, so he gives it to you. Of course, the tale is a lot better told then this, and the fact that he slows down and speeds up his playing of the Song of Storms to match how intense the story is just pulls it all together. MM was full of tons of other characters with sad and twisted stories like this. Generally they are all oblivious to the impending doom upon them, and continue living their lives. It was particularly sad when you ride to Castle Town with Cremia to deliver milk, and she talks about her friend Anju and how he has been having problems with Kafei, and that she thinks that Cremia may have stolen Kafei from her, and generally talks about trivial life problems, all the while oblivious to the utter destruction hanging above them.

I could go on and on about Majora's Mask's story, but I will talk about Ocarina of Time for a bit. This game has a fairly basic fantasy story in my opinion, but that doesn't mean it's not good. It's definitely an epic story, and the excellent music soundtrack, good main characters, and the epic land of Hyrule definitely pulled it all together into a nice little package. Even though I already knew that Sheik was Zelda before playing OoT, I still found that part of the plot particularly interesting. I especially like the quotes that Sheik gives before teaching you a warp song; I thought that they were really good and tied the brief sadness of Sheik not really being able to help Link together quite nicely.

Next I would like to talk about the combat. The combat definitely doesn't compare to other 3D Zelda games such as Wind Waker or Twilight Princess, but it is still top notch for being the first two Zelda games. Ocarina of Time was first, and it pulled off the combat really well. I love the Z-targeting system, and I have no idea where Zelda would be game play wise if OoT didn't introduce it. You can see so much of Ocarina of Time in other 3D games now. For example I was playing Red Steel 2 yesterday and I couldn't help but think how similar it is to Ocarina of Time. You don't have to hold Z, but you press it to switch targets, and you have to strafe around then to attack them at a weak point. Both of these things originated, or if not that then perfected in Ocarina of Time. I thought that particularly the boss fights were good in OoT. I loved fighting bosses like the boss of Jabu Jabu, Bongo Bongo, Twinrova, Iron Knuckles and most of all Ganondorf. I just loved the final fight of Ocarina of Time, and it's probably my favourite final boss in the whole series. I didn't like fighting Ganondorf with the light arrows so much, but the rest of the fight definitely made up for it. I thought that running back through the Castle was very epic, and the final fight with Ganon was great. I loved using a whole bunch of different tactics to defeat him, and he was also pretty hard which was nice. It was a great ending to a great game.

I also really liked the worlds in the N64 Zelda games. Ocarina of Time's Hyrule was quite large, but it also didn't have that much content. I would have really liked to have some actual enemies in Hyrule Field other then Stalchildren and Poes. It was still a nice world though. I really liked places like Zora's Domain and Gerudo Desert. I think that they were really well done and were quite interesting. I also really liked Termina. Even though it's main field area seemed smaller, I always thought that the map as a whole was bigger then the whole of Hyrule. Termina had a lot more stuff to do in all of the places and in the field. The field had a lot of enemies and plenty of little holes and other interesting things. I also really liked the environments in Termina. I loved Great Bay, and I would really wish that there is a beach/coast area in Skyward Sword. I also really liked Snowhead, and I really liked that they made the return of a snowy area in Twilight Princess with Snowpeak. I thought that Ikana was really interesting, and I like the backstory and sub plots involved with it. I'd also love to see the return of a ruins type area like Ikana, as there is always a huge potential for interesting plot with those types of areas.

That last thing that I would like to talk about is the music. The music in both of the N64 Zelda games is excellent in it's own way. Ocarina of Time has exciting, epic music that fits into the exciting, epic theme of the game. I really thought that all of the music fit in really well with the current situation and location. Hyrule Field theme was epic and exciting, the Zora's Domain theme was calm and water-like, the Geruda desert theme was intense, like the desert. It all fit very well and complimented everything else. The same goes for Majora's Mask. All of the music fit really well, especially with the environment and situation. Them music in MM was very twisted and often sad. I found it really cool how Clock Town Day 1 theme is fairly normal, Day 2 is normal, but it is a bit quicker and has some off notes that make it sound odd, and then Day 3 theme is very fast with many off notes. I always thought that was really awesome and reflected the sense of urgency. Especially the theme for the last hour. The Ocarina Songs where also very awesome in both of the games. I really liked the dramatic songs such as The Song of Healing, or Oath to Order in Majora's Mask. I also really liked how the warp songs of Ocarina of Time reflected on the dungeon type and Sheik's quote. I found that really interesting and quite cool.

Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask were definitely two great games in their own ways, and are definitely two of the best games on the N64.
 

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