Very interesting. I have to admit, I never got any of that from playing MM. Instead, I always felt a sense of dread and anxiety (in a good way; the kind that makes you want to progress and not sit on your laurels) with the mechanic. I felt the characters were all very "real", with real, everyday problems in addition to the elephant in the room: the moon.
If TV Series were Zelda Games, Lost would be Majora's Mask. Now, you need to understand, I never finished either. Luckily in the age of internets I know how both wrap up and that's another field where they both seem to feel...like a letdown. I'm even more glad I ever got only halfway through after reading the conclusion and seeing my elder brother get to the end.
I never got that dread and anxiety you mention from it...possibly because even at that age it was first and foremost a game. And games have to be...fun and challenging in a way that feels appropriate. Majora's Mask never felt like it was appropriately difficult in the right way. I never found myself distressed by Dungeons or puzzles. I never found myself struggling with bosses large or mini. I want my games to make me feel like when I'm failing, the problem is in me. That I must be more analytic or fight better or faster or manage my resources better. As the phrase goes, I want to feel like I must "get good". MM simply doesn't give me that because all the flaws I found were in it systemically. The time, the masks, the large and difficult to follow lay out of the town that didn't seem easy to memorize or logically work through.
Then I evaluated it as a story, and while I can sense they want to instill this sense of fear and dread as you say...well, it seems to me there is this very core contradiction at the center of MM that you touch upon. Most of the problems you end up solving are of this very "real" everyday problem petty variety. Now leaving aside for the moment that if I want to solve petty every day problems for thin characters onto which I've cast my own emotions I play the Sims, it just makes absolutely no bleeding sense that I'm spending time on that stuff when THE ****ING MOON IS THREATENING TO DESTROY EVERYTHING! And in order for these problems to function, this denial of the moon falling is the only explanation given. Which is just annoying really. Like, please Mr. Goron, I'll clean your gutters when the Moon isn't falling. Oh, you lost your children, fish lady, we can talk about adoption when the MOON ISN'T GOING TO CRUSH US ALL!
But returning to the point about not wanting to solve stupid and silly problems, I am supposed to be the hero of time. Not the maid, butler, mailman, farmer, arborist, sometimes mechanic, pizza guy of time. I don't want to progress through my real life list of chores, let alone these ludicrously explained and tedious list of chores that apparently must be performed before the MOON FALLS ON US ALL WE DIE SCREAMING.
I felt like I needed to save them all. I wanted to save them all; I couldn't live with myself if I let them die. I genuinely felt bad the first few playthroughs when I was unable to save everyone.
that's both cute and weird to me. Like I understand why a person might feel that way, I just never did. I felt like they were ****ing morons getting in the way of me fixing the objectively more threatening problem. I don't really care if they're depressed or angry and that's why they cannot see the moon. It doesn't make it any less absurd a situation.
They deserve to eat dirt for not helping me unless I help them with their gardening.
