General Classic Majora's Mask and ALttP - Critics Wrong

[Majora's Cat]

Something has always been bothering me. Majora's Mask and A Link to the Past are quite literally masterpieces. ALttP received an overall aggregate score of 92.78% on GameRankings. Majora's Mask received a score of 91.92%. I consider GameRankings to be the most accurate review aggregate website, since TopTenReviews is completely biased (GTA IV is the highest rated game of all time with 100% perfect scores? BS!). Metacritic is out of the question, since it no longer has scores for previous generation games. MobyGames is pretty accurate, but GameRankings is much more popular and only uses the most professional reviews.

Anyway, back to the point. Don't get me wrong, the scores for MM and ALttP are among the best on any aggregate score website, but I would've guess that they would rank higher. ALttP has always been regarded as one of the greatest games of all time, but its aggregate rank says different. While its score shows that it was among the five best-scoring SNES games, I believe it deserves higher praise (it is behind Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy VI and Super Mario Kart).

As for Majora's Mask, the score is completely outrageous. Such a masterful game, and the score only shows that it is among some of the best out there, but not in the top 100 highest ranked. I think Metacritic got it right, giving MM a score of 95%. Majora's Mask was truly a deserving sequel to the greatest game of all time, and I think it deserves more respect. I must admit this, though: MM was only starting to be appreciated in recent years, so I don't expect it to get very high scores for the original N64 release.

These are my only concerns for the Zelda series' phenomenal ratings. The handheld games (except for those for the DS) have received over 90%, and WW, TP, and OoT have all scored over 94%. Zelda is probably the highest scoring franchise of all time, but I think some of the series' beloved titles should've deserved a bit more respect from critics reviewing them at the time.

 

[PhantomTriforce]

Yup, I'm right with you in thinking that ALttP and MM should be rated higher, and I think ALttP should deserve a higher rating than MM. But we're Zelda fans, so of course we'll think zelda should be higher

 

[DuckNoises]

Here's your answer: There is no accurate universal and objective ranked list of games. There are just far too many variables; you have to take into account the review scale, the reviewer, and the obnoxious people on the internet who repeatedly inflate or deflate a game's "ranking" by entering a reader score that is obnoxiously high or obnoxiously low, just for the purpose of saying "my game is better." Opinion and enjoyment are subjective attributes, and it can be extremely difficult to convey these values on an objective (and somewhat arbitrary) numerical scale with any kind of consistency. A 9/10 can be very different things for very different people, hence the variety you see in reviews.

Not to mention that these internet rankings are done purely out of databases that have fewer and fewer review scores for games the further back in time you go, particularly before the internet had become commonplace. You'll find no reviews done at the time of a game's release that was made around the SNES time period or older. These databases aren't very inclusive, and contain very few records of reviews of games like ALttP. Those were all released in print format, before the common use of the internet. Because of this, these online rankings can't really provide an accurate representation of real critical acclaim, let alone quantify the exact quality of a game.

It's very hard to reflect such a subjective trait as enjoyment on an objective level, and I don't think we can rely too much on that. These rankings are virtually indiscernible from each other, and these rankings are often corrupted, not only by "reader reviews," but also the attention the game receives from the media. The less attention it receives, the harder it is to find an objective measurement via consensus; even then, that's not what separates a game from being good or bad. A lot of the issues with ratings for games like ALttP are caused because most of the reviews these games received weren't put into these online databases.

Nonetheless, these rankings really are irrelevant. They're not an accurate judge of the quality of a game; the only truly accurate judge in this regard is yourself.

 

[(◕‿◕✿)]

Something has always been bothering me. Majora's Mask and A Link to the Past are quite literally masterpieces. ALttP received an overall aggregate score of 92.78% on GameRankings. Majora's Mask received a score of 91.92%. I consider GameRankings to be the most accurate review aggregate website, since TopTenReviews is completely biased (GTA IV is the highest rated game of all time with 100% perfect scores? BS!). Metacritic is out of the question, since it no longer has scores for previous generation games. MobyGames is pretty accurate, but GameRankings is much more popular and only uses the most professional reviews.

>That is completely your opinion. The only way you can be objective about a game being of lower quality or not is the playability of the game and to an extent the graphics (which even then there are exceptions, e.g. graphic styles and preferences. Almost everything about video games comes down to preference.)

Anyway, back to the point. Don't get me wrong, the scores for MM and ALttP are among the best on any aggregate score website, but I would've guess that they would rank higher. ALttP has always been regarded as one of the greatest games of all time, but its aggregate rank says different. While its score shows that it was among the five best-scoring SNES games, I believe it deserves higher praise (it is behind Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy VI and Super Mario Kart).

How much higher do they really need to rank? If you were to average it out, using between 60-90% scores, both of those games would still score high.

Using the Nintendo 64 parameter, the results are:

- Ocarina of Time : 97.48 %
- Perfect Dark : 94:31 %
-Majora's Mask: 91.92 %
- 1080: TenEighty Snowboarding: 90.49%
- Turok 2 Seeds of Evil: 89.41%
- Conker's Bad Fur Day: 89.28%
[...]
-Pokemon Stadium: 79.34%
​

I included the last one to make a point about the statistics of the games. Just 10 games down from Majora's Mask, it immediately starts to go from the ~89-95 percentile range, to the seventy. Majora's Mask ranks several percent above even some of the other highest rated Nintendo games, and even higher when you remove the Nintendo 64 parameter. No matter how you sort the statistics for best game, Majora's Mask is usually in the top five or so (90 percent range).

As for Majora's Mask, the score is completely outrageous. Such a masterful game, and the score only shows that it is among some of the best out there, but not in the top 100 highest ranked. I think Metacritic got it right, giving MM a score of 95%. Majora's Mask was truly a deserving sequel to the greatest game of all time, and I think it deserves more respect. I must admit this, though: MM was only starting to be appreciated in recent years, so I don't expect it to get very high scores for the original N64 release.

Outrageous? 91.92 percent is pretty good, especially considering it's up against some newer games with more intricate and complex stories (Mass Effect, Bioshock, and several others, those are just a few that come to mind).

The percentages decrease (for the most part) gradually. There isn't a sharp slope from ~90% down to 70 or so percent. So even a fraction of a percent can push a game down. Overall, Majora's Mask is still very highly rated, both in the Zelda Community, and on other sites.

These are my only concerns for the Zelda series' phenomenal ratings. The handheld games (except for those for the DS) have received over 90%, and WW, TP, and OoT have all scored over 94%. Zelda is probably the highest scoring franchise of all time, but I think some of the series' beloved titles should've deserved a bit more respect from critics reviewing them at the time.

The fact that the median score is in the 90% range shows that the games got a lot of respect from critics. Like you said, these are just your concerns, but the fact remains the aforementioned games are all quite highly rated, even years after their release.

 

[The Skull Kid]

I think that problems that they had in LoZ were fixed in Alttp and many new things were added, I agree 100% that it is way under-rated, along-side MM, both amazing games, but not respected enough...

 

[Hylian]

I think the issue here is the fact you have to try to remain objective while a game is trying its hardest to create an emotional connection with you, the player.

however, the ranking should encompass those individuals, such as myself, who picked up MM, felt trapped by how the story and game was engineered to shove you in one direction, (firing up the mass-boredom reflex) and hated every instant that game was on their console, attempting to call itself a 'zelda' title. (since, up to that point, zelda had been all about the free-roaming exploration.)


In conclusion, not everyone is going to like everything. It might have been a good game, it might have been an epic game, but that doesn't mean everyone will like it. Free will is just that simple, unfortunately.

EDIT: Just did another playthrough of MM --- because I couldn't believe *me* of all people was hating on a zelda game. I truly did give it another go shortly after this post, and I still feel the same about it.

 

[Tony]

Majora's Mask and A Link to the Past, not masterpieces. That's stupid, I think they are some of the best games in the world. As for the GTA rating is just wrong and I hate it. Majora's Mask is my favorite Zelda game and A Link to the Past is my 3rd favorite Zelda game. This is just disgraceful.

 

[Shnappy]

In my opinion, Majora's Mask and ALttP are among the best games on their respective consoles. But I do not disrespect this site for their ratings of the games; they're simply their unbiased opinions about how good of a game it is. Here at Zelda Dungeon, we might disrespect these reviews because we ourselves are biased towards the Zelda games. Either way, though this site generally gives great ratings to Zelda games, and it might even seem to be biased toward Zelda itself (they gave PH an 88.91? I wouldn't score it nearly as high).

Take a look at the list of top rated games - http://www.gamerankings.com/browse.html

The highest rated game on the site? Not GTA IV (that's fourth with 97.01, where did you get 100?). It's OoT, with a great rating of 97.48. From what I've heard, though, GTA IV is actually a great game, and I think perhaps that many of you are being unreasonable towards it because it's not a Nintendo game or a Zelda game. In any forum, whether it be a Zelda, Metroid, Mario, GTA, Guitar Hero, CoD forum or whatever, is going to have a biased opinion about those games. I think that gamerankings does a great job of being unbiased by taking multiple reviews and averaging the reviews. The only real problem I have is their unnecessarily high ratings of the two SMG games (2nd and 3rd on the list).

While these games certainly are legendary, gamerankings credits them that way and is extremely reasonable in doing so.