Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - Retrospective

If you were to twist my arm, I could probably expand this list to a nice round 50, but I've already spent more time on this game than I should have.

30 things that suck about Majora's Mask:

1. The fish that constantly spawn just within range to hit you, and can't be killed without coming to a complete stop.
2. the slow as hell vertical movement of zora link underwater
3. the zora boomerangs that take 2 years to come back to you, leaving you unable to attack or even effectively move until they do.
4. the third combo attack of Goron Link and Zora Link, which never seem to hit anything, and takes 3 times longer than the other attack animations
5. that magical woosh animation that plays EVERY time you change your arrows
6. the inability to equip more than one type of arrow at a time (see #5)
7. jumping puzzles in a game with no jump button
8. the fish boss who stays stunned exactly 2 seconds less than is necessary to sink, attack, and get back to safety (see #2)
9. enemies that hit you with an inescapable 8 hit combo of 1/4 heart per hit, rather than simply dealing 2 hearts of damage to you
10. the lack of any type of camera control outside of completely recentering the camera
11. The lack of any way to center the camera if any enemies are in front of Link
12. the overly eager bank teller that looks like he's jacking off whenever you talk to him.
13. The unreliable "automatic" method of getting Epona to jump over a fence.
14. being told every time what every item you get in a chest does, including items that you pick up multiple times in every dungeon like keys and rupees.
15. The 4 pages of text that appears every time you talk to the bank teller, which inevitably leads to the player selecting the first option as a result of button mashing.
16. Getting a measly 5 rupees for putting 1000 rupees in the bank, which you generally only do when you're about to turn back time, forcing you to decide whether to deal with #15 again, or lose the 5 rupees.
17. the way rupees are never used to buy actual supplies, since bombs and arrows can be found in grass and pots all over the world, and thus just end up maxing out your wallet until you deal with #15 again.
18. Riding Epona. If you get near a wall. Any wall. At any speed. At any angle. Epona flips out and you have to wait 3 years to regain control.
19. Watching the same unskippable cutscenes over and over because you have to get a key item again.
20. Bubbles that curse you for too fucking long. Seriously, I timed it. it takes 60 seconds to regain the use of your sword. In game time, this is an entire hour.
21. that 1 second of ocarina time between when you can start playing, and when the game will actually start listening to the buttons you press.
22. inability to move up or down on the owl quick-travel map
23. how slow Epona moves, even with carrots
24. waiting for carrots to recharge.
25. Tingle. just... Tingle.
26. having to listen to Tingle's diatribe every time you want to buy a map
27. birds and bats that swoop down from above and behind link, which don't even deal any significant damage, but continually respawn.
28. that music that plays whenever an enemy is near that sounds like the trolley from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood
29. how slow link walks when charging his spin attack
30. being unable to pause when any message is on screen, even messages that are unskippable, but do not pause the game.

I won't officially go on record to say I hated this game, but it did piss me off many, MANY times. This is the kind of game that was developed to sell strategy guides. In most Zelda games, you are given a full heart container after beating a boss, and there are heart container pieces spread all throughout the world for you to hunt for. Even if you don't find these heart pieces, you tend to have enough containers just from beating the bosses; 10 in Ocarina of Time, 11 in Link to the Past. But in Majora's Mask, since you have only 4 bosses, you would be forced to go up against Majora with only 7 hearts. This makes Heart Pieces a very important commodity and creates a meta-game out of hunting them down. In a way, this is very innovative for the series, which makes the game not only free roaming in terms of location, but even to an extent the order in which you do sidequests.

The only downside to this is that many sidequests are VERY cryptic in terms of how you have to do them. Perhaps the dozens of Gossip Stones around the world give insight into this, but even obtaining the Truth Mask in order to talk to them is a completely optional task. While having this many optional sidequests works in a game like Fallout 3 or Grand Theft Auto 4, Majora's Mask kills it with the addition of the running timer. With that timer always running, and the clock always counting down to the time you'll be forced to start all over. Couple this with the fact that many of these events are linked to a particular time, or even a specific time AND day, and it brings echoes of Night Trap in terms of exploration and memorization.

While I praise Majora's Mask for taking risks with a series that has, let's face it, grown very, VERY repetitive in its age, there are a lot of design choices that prevent it from being hailed as the best in the series.

That award still goes to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Progress for March 9, 2010 - Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - COMPLETED!

Woo!

Progress for March 7, 2010 - Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Well, there goes Twinmold. I don't really know what it is about this game. I guess it's a pretty standard Zelda game, but when a game is about exploration and puzzle solving, having a constantly running timer can be rather cumbersome. I'm quite glad they never did it in other Zelda games. I think tomorrow I'll go around helping some people, get some last heart pieces, and take on Majora. However that works.

Progress for March 3, 2010 - Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

'nuff said.

Progress for February 21, 2010 - Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Ugh, fuck. Okay, I beat Goht (3 times, actually, but that's not important) and I was going around doing some sidequests. Getting the bomb mask, the giant bomb bag, beating shooting galleries, and getting ready to have my sword forged and get Epona, and then the game crashed. Fucking fuck. I don't know when the last point I saved was, but I'm not looking forward to replaying everything I have to. Ugh.. Oh well. 2 dungeons down, two to go.

Also. How come the bomb shop cators exclusively to a Goron clientelle, but the entrance isn't low enough for Gorons to enter?

Or for that matter, how come Goron Link can't even use bombs? He can use the powder keg, but not the normal bombs. I thought the Goron economy was based around bombs.

Progress for February 2, 2010 - Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Deku Link is cute.
Anywho, pretty standard progress today. after a couple of hours getting re-acclimated to the area and doing the occasional rupee grind, I beat the first dungeon. I beat Odolwa... somehow. Honestly, I don't know how I killed him, but I was at 1/4 of a heart when I just happened to set off a bomb flower at his feet and he died. No complaints, but weird.
Looking at a walkthrough online, I see I missed a LOT of special items I could have gotten. Oh well. Tomorrow.

Progress for January 29 - Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Nothing really too major to report. All I did today was play through the obligatory first three-day cycle, and now the real game can begin.

One thing that's always fascinated me about this game is the way the first section is designed to be played through in exactly 50 minutes, otherwise you lose and have to start the entire game all over again. I'm sure more than a few kids have run into this, unable to complete it correctly on the first playthrough, and then being dumbfounded when the end of the world happens.

That kinda stuff can scar a kid for life.

Paper Mario - Retrospective

Many people consider Paper Mario to be the sequel to SNES masterpiece Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. The game was developed by RPG juggernaut Squaresoft, so not only is Mario RPG touted as one of the best SNES RPGs ever, but also one of the best Mario games ever. Paper Mario was Nintendo's attempt to build upon the established Mario RPG format. Without Squaresoft's hand in the development, the core gameplay and feel of the game is very much altered from its predecessor. This doesn't make the game bad; just different.

Paper Mario picks up the torch by using the same revolutionary attack system SMRPG introduced: Timed Hits. By pressing the attack button at the right time, you could increase the strength of your attack, or decrease the amount of damage you took from enemies. This seemingly simple idea was nearly unheard of in 1996, but it makes combat a much more active experience. Instead of simply inputting your commands and waiting for a minute or so for the actual battle to play out until you get another turn, you had to actually provide additional input as the combat ensued. This kind of system rewards the player just for paying attention to the game they're playing.

Unlike SMRPG, Paper Mario is a much shallower game, both in complexity and story. This makes Paper Mario an easier game to comprehend, but leaves a lot to be desired for players who loved the depth of SMRPG. The story revolves primarily around Mario, with only passing footnotes on his 8 companions. Paper Mario is very linear, especially by other RPG standards, which makes story progression easy and straightforward, but also painfully predictable. As you might have gathered from my previous posts, I was practically able to tell you the whole story before I was even a few hours into the game.

Paper Mario is not without its charm, though. The Action Attack system is more versatile and easier to use than in SMRPG, and the Badge system lets you customize Mario's abilities to match your play style. Additionally, the characters and story scenarios range from dryly comedic to hilariously memorable. It also marks the first time, to my knowledge, the word "murder" is actually used in a Mario game.

Paper Mario is a fun and satisfying romp, but gamers looking for a hardcore 100+ hour RPG will have to look elsewhere. Paper Mario is likely intended as an introductory RPG, similar to Quest 64 or Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. It gets gamers interested in core RPG mechanics like HP, magic, and experience points without making it an overwhelming situation. This makes the game an excellent gift for RPG fanatics trying to get their friends or family into RPGs, but series like Final Fantasy or Tales are too complex.

Paper Mario is available on the Wii Virtual Console for 1000 Wii Points.

The Good

• Memorable characters and dialogue
• Princess Peach sub-missions add a break to the more action-oriented Mario gameplay

The Bad

• Formulaic and predictable story
• Too short for the player to really get time to appreciate the interesting characters
• Too easy for any experienced player to find challenge.

Defining Moment

• Mario being accused of murder
• Guessing correctly that the final Star Power attack would be called "Star Beam"

Burning Question

• Does "The game was fun and all, but seriously Square. Give us back Geno and Mallow!" count as a question?

Progress for December 16, 2008 - Paper Mario - COMPLETED!

And once again, Bowser goes down! The fight was satisfyingly challenging, but not overly difficult. The only thing that got tedious was that every time he charged up his star power, I just used Star Beam and removed it. This happens every 4 turns, and Bowser can't be hurt while he's using the Star Power, so the only possible way to continue the battle is to use Star Beam. And since Star Beam costs absolutely nothing to cast, and its only purpose is to eliminate Bowser's Star Power, there's no reason to wait or use it any time other than immedately after he powers up, making it both repetitive and ultimately pointless.

I was impressed with how expansive Bowser's castle was. It doesn't disappoint as a final dungeon; It's about 3 times as long as any other dungeon in the game and the enemies are certainly not pushovers. Dry Bones are the most annoying enemies in the game.

Final Stats
Play Time- Just about 31 hours (There's no way to see the final time, so I just estimated up from the last save file)
Level: 25
HP: 50
FP: 40
BP: 30
Coins Collected: 3878
Badges Collected:54/80
69/160
Tayce T.'s recipes: 1/50 (I didn't even bother at all with this subquest.)
Quizmo's Quizzes: 5/6
Battles: 511

I don't think I'll be going for 100%. It seems pointless, unless someone can give me a good reason to.

Progress for December 14, 2008 - Paper Mario

Thus begins the final countdown. One more star to find, then the inevitable Bowser battle. Will I try for 100% completion? It's entirely possible. But we'll cross that hurdle when we come to it.

Time: 23:33
Level 18
Coins: 9 (I bought a lot of stuff from the arms dealer in the sewer)
HP: 35
FP: 20
BP: 30
Star Spirits: 6
Star Pieces: 3 (I also bought a bunch of badges from Merlow

Progress for December 11, 2008 - Paper Mario

This game is just going by faster and faster, isn't it? I already have 5 of the 7 stars and I'm halfway (I assume) through getting the 6th.
I've maxed out my BP at 30, so now I have to actually put some thought into what skills I boost. But since I have 2 of each HP Boost and FP Boost badges, I can further customize my characters based on which bosses I'll be going up against. Not that the game really merits a great deal of strategy. It's a rather easy game overall. I should be able to finish by the weekend.

Time: 21:00
Level 17
Coins: 209
HP: 30
FP: 20
BP: 30
Star Spirits: 5
Star Pieces: 41

Progress for December 10, 2008 - Paper Mario

Up.... too.... late. Registering.... internet domain names. Creating.... website content.... for friends. Having trouble..... staying awakr.
Saved 2 more Star Spirits...... 3 more to go.
4. Itchy. Tasty.

Time: 15:57
Level 14
Coins: 382
HP: 25
FP: 15
BP: 27
Star Spirits: 4
Star Pieces: 26

Progress for December 9, 2008 - Paper Mario

Another day, another star spirit. Paper Mario seems to be pretty linear thus far, but I am enjoying the numerous side-missions that become available as you unlock new weapons and information. I also like how they use the Princess Peach stealth levels to break up the gameplay a bit and bring the player into the psyche of exactly what's going on while Bowser has the Princess captive. Not many of the other Mario games do that.

Time: 9:16
Level 10
Coins: 728
HP: 25
FP: 15
BP: 21
Star Spirits: 2

Progress for December 8, 2008 - Paper Mario

The journey begins anew! The last time I tried to play this game, after about 8 hours in, the A button stopped working due to all the pressure and sharp presses that a game like this requires. All the action prompts have wreaked havoc with its ability to snap back to its un-pressed position. A shame since the controller itself is really nice otherwise.

Paper Mario starts out, like every other Mario game ever made in the history of mankind, with Bowser a being jerk and trying to take over the world and the only person who can stop him is Mario. Not exactly Pulitzer material, but there you go.
I like the way the game handles levels and skill growth. Rather than give you a random increase of each skill at each level, the game lets the player choose a flat increase of their Health, Magic, or Ability points.

I'm about 5 hours in. I've gained 3 party members and rescued 1 of the 7 stars needed. Why the hell do mario RPGs always need you to find 7 stars? Oh well.