Majora's Mask "Majora's Mask: Why Is It So Popular Now?" Full Interviews

[Majora's Cat]

I've taken the liberty of including the full interviews of "Majora's Mask: Why Is It So Popular Now?" and posting it on here (as I have been suggested to do as a direct link from the article). These members on ZD have been asked which game they like better - MM or OoT?

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athenian200's Interview

Honestly, I rank both games about equal. Right now I like MM better, but only because I've recently gotten to a point where I could understand the story and beat the game. Also, I've beaten OoT for the 7th time recently, and MM feels fresh, yet still familiar.

My favorite aspect of MM is how much of the story is hidden in sidequests. If you just go straight through the game, you could miss most of the story. It means that in order to appreciate the game, you have to try going through sidequests and seeing things differently.

I also appreciate the amount of symbolism, hidden meanings, and psychology in this game. I am a person who is obsessed with symbolism and psychology, thus I have a special appreciation for this game, and Link's Awakening.

There's also some replay value in the fact that even after you've been to a place, it can change based on your actions, and the time of day, such that you need to visit it again to see everything.

The masks are definitely a good thing, also. In OoT, masks (aside from the Mask of Truth) did nothing, while in MM... it's like taking on a whole new identity and set of abilities.

Originally, I didn't like MM because I couldn't even get past the first dungeon. I thought it was way too hard and confusing, especially with the time limit. I really had to grow into it, and become a much better and more experienced gamer to handle it. During a Zelda marathon, in fact, I beat almost all the Zelda games before it within a week, and when I hit MM... it took me a month.

My favorite Zelda games were always WW and OoT, and it's only fairly recently that MM supplanted OoT. OoT was an epic, serious game, and that kind of thing hits you on a deeper, more instinctive level than MM does. MM requires a lot of thought and sophistication in order to be appreciated. Whereas OoT can appeal to just about anyone.

Again, a big part of this might be OoT burnout... my opinion may change again in a few months or years.

Durion's Interview (From the thread "Was Majora's Mask a Step in the Right Direction?")

Majora's Mask really does stand out from the crowd as a Zelda game. It doesn't follow the same old, boring formula that the earlier Zelda games set, it does take aspects but it changes them greatly. If you even look at Ocarina of Time, although it's considered one of the best games of all time, it doesn't avoid the fact that really, Ocarina of Time is quite stale from the view that it takes heavily from A Link to the Past, and other games then take from Ocarina of Time.

I don't really have a favourite out of the two, it changes from time to time.

Shadsie's Interview

Alright. For me, it's kind of a toss-up. I do like OoT better, actually. It is, after all, the story that MM is built after and OoT is where we get to know this particular Link, his issues, and get to play out his being a hero - setting him up to be the veteran that he is in MM. However, MM has a greater degree of character-fleshing for the NPCs/better character development/some more interesting characters. I enjoyed the dreamlike surreality of MM. I liked the variety in the magical masks - becoming a member of the different sapient species that make up the world and using their abilities to their extent. I enjoyed the themes of death, sorrow and healing. I enjoyed the theme of looming apocalypse, however...

I honestly thought before I'd played it that I'd like MM more than I actually did - simply because of the darkness and apocalyptic themes. It turns out I didn't like the game as much as OoT and that predictions by friends that it would supplant TP as favorite Zelda game fell flat. This happened because of MM's gameplay mechanics, which I found terribly frustrating. I did not like that I'd have to reset everything if I wanted to save my progress in the game. I couldn't quite figure out the dynamic behind the owl statues, and I hated how I'd lose certain items and some of my dungeon-progress once I had to reset time to save anything.

Maybe it's because I'm kind of a twitchy person who doesn't trust computers - whenever I'm writing something or working on a piece of digital art, I'm hitting the "Save" button every five or ten minutes just on habit just because I've lost work to glitches and power problems when I haven't been on top of that. I'm somewhat the same way with video games. I *like the ability to save whenever* and move on. When that is taken away from me it annoys me. If Nintendo remade Majora's Mask and gave it the "free" saving system that they have in some of their other games (OoT, TP), the kind that I like, I think I'd enjoy playing MM a lot more than I have. They could even keep the time limit (vital to the game) but just being able to hit "Save" without finding a stupid owl and at any time would vastly improve things in my opinion.

Xinnamin's Interview

I liked both games for different reasons, though Majora's Mask trumped in the areas it was designed to trump in. MM was supposed to expand on the sidequest and character development aspects of the series that OoT failed to fully exploit, and in those two regards it did beautifully. The characters of MM were some of the best in the series. They were fully developed, really fleshed out, and each had their own stories to play out over the 3-day cycle, and I loved that about MM. The 3-day system really let us see inside the characters' personalities, allowing a level of story development that otherwise can't be reached. MM's story was in general just amazing, and being a person who loves a game for its story as much as its play value, that is one of my biggest reasons for loving Majora's Mask.

Before I really got to play the games, I didn't have much of an opinion about them. Not knowing much meant I just followed some of the general opinions about the game, that OoT was fantastic but overrated, and MM was awesome in its own way, but different and underrated. I honestly thought I was going to hate MM for being short with a strange save system.

I did change my opinion on MM after getting to know it better. I don't see it as underrated or even much of a "black sheep" as a lot of people think. I see it as an experiment in story telling that worked wonderfully. I can't say I love the actual gameplay mechanics, as the save system did indeed drive me nuts, but the actual content of the game was fantastic, and the amount of quality sidequests totally made up for the short main plotline.

Cooldogs_1's Interview

Now:
After long thinking, I'm going to say Majora's Mask. Unlike OoT, you had to talk to the towns-folk, and had to learn their life story. In OoT, you didn't have to talk to anyone to really beat the game (with some exceptions). This game was more of beat the dungeons and win. The only motivation you had was to simply beat the game. It lacked emotional motivation to save Hyrule. However, in Majora's Mask, when talking to the people and doing their side-quests, you learn their stories and improve their life. This lead to some sort of gamer-to-game connection with the characters. No longer were you just saving some princess, but a community of people. This added a new level of emotional motivation to beating the game and saving Termina. Majora's Mask does this job really well, in particular with Pamela, and her father. You see this poor helpless girl, who has nothing but her father, and find out her father is turning into Gibdo. She is literally loosing her only family, and you feel a sadness never felt with other video games. This sadness motivates you to not only save her and her father, but all of Termina.

In the Past:
I have to say Ocarina of Time. I remember playing the old 2D Legend of Zelda games, and loving them. I remember where 2D games owned the video game market. Before OoT was released, I was already fallen in love with Legend of Zelda. However, when seeing the game out in 3D for the very first time added a new feeling and experience. No longer were you limited to solving puzzles and battling baddies in 2D movement; now, you had to do it in 3D, adding a new difficult to the legend of Zelda.

Over the years:
Yes, it did. When I first played Majora's Mask, I was fairly young, and I didn't notice the things I do now. For example, the emotional motivation it brought to saving Termina. The virtual console didn't really do much as it allowed me to play it after a long time. I lost my GCN disk, and my N64 broke. When it was released to the VC, it allowed me to play it once again.

I hope you enjoy. ^.^

 

[DuckNoises]

Closed as requested. There should be a link to this thread in another post.