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Majora's Mask 3D - Dark Jaguar - 24th February 2015
I got it now. Nope, didn't get the collector's edition of it, nor did I get the collector's edition of the new 3DS. I tried, I tried and tried so hard, but stock's just too low. That worker's strike at the west coast ports is really hurting stuff like this, and frankly I'm surprised it's not getting treated like a bigger news story. Though, if it's a matter of reporting that or gross violations of basic human rights, yeah, I can see the strike taking a back seat for a bit. (That's not what's happening though, since the news has dedicated a lot of time to the Oscars.)
What's different? Well, Ocarina of Time 3D was pretty much an exact port with some improved visuals. (That may be debatable, as I actually prefer a lot of the original character animations to the newer animations in the 3D version, even if the models do look a lot better.) Aside from a couple of fixed glitches, you can play it just as you did the N64 version. That includes exploits like back flipping from the bomb flower to the top of Dodongo's Cavern to get a piece of heart way earlier than intended. They even put the Master Quest in there, with the only gameplay difference being that they "mirrored" the world (in the same way that the Gamecube and Wii versions of Twilight Princess are mirror images of each other).
Majora's Mask however has had much bigger changes. All in all, they seem to have rethought the game in light of various reviewer complaints about the original. (It's funny, all those same reviewers are gushing about Majora's Mask like it's ALWAYS been a classic and as though they never criticized it. Not that I have a problem with criticism, but memory is a funny thing and it's weird how they remember their opinions of it and how it actually went down.) The graphical updates, by and large, are of the same quality as the OOT remake. I think the updated animations are of a higher quality than that remake though. There's a few cases where the artwork was rather significantly altered in this one. The Gero mask, in particular, is entirely different now. The bosses, I should note, have all had their appearances altered a bit. Before, it wasn't entirely clear what these monsters were, and the seemed to all be demon masks separate from Majora that Majora simply commanded. This time, they seem to have a clear physical connection to Majora, as though they were "grown" from Majora's body, like budding but into totally different forms from the original. It makes the whole sequence near the end where Majora/Skullkid talks about friends all the creepier, because now it appears that Majora answered that call by "creating" friends for him.
There have been some significant gameplay changes as well. The changes are the biggest a remake of a Zelda game has ever received, bigger than either the Advance version of Link to the Past or the GBC version of Link's Awakening (which were, all in all, just additions rather than real changes, mostly). Generally, it controls much the same way the original did and it's still clearly rooted in the N64 code. The controls have been mapped to the 3DS just the same as OOT was, so be prepared to use the touch screen to use certain items. The new 3DS could have used those extra shoulder buttons as item slots, but for some reason didn't bother. It does allow you to use that c-stick for camera controls though. That, in and of itself, is a welcome addition. Most of the time, Z-targeting (never got used to saying "L-targeting") will do just fine, but with Majora's Mask bosses in particular, sometimes it really helps to point the camera to the left or right as you run straight ahead. It's a nice addition. The maps have been rather significantly altered. From the town layout to the dungeons, everything's been tweaked in various ways, ranging from minor to major. There's a number of item locations that were clearly adjusted for convenience factor. The bank owner (the one you can "trick" with your stamp into giving you money that isn't actually your's when you reset the day) has been moved to just below the clock tower, letting you get your cash back out all the faster. Frankly, I'd have just done away with the whole "reset your consumables" factor entirely. If you keep everything else when you launch yourself back in time, why bother emptying my quiver, purse, bomb bag and bottles? At any rate, the process is at least made a bit less onerous now. Oh, the bomber's notebook has been expanded. It was always incredibly useful, but now it's been made more manageable, and the links between different character's quest chains are made much clearer as you go through them. You'll be better equipped to see exactly what you have time to do and what needs to be sacrificed.
Lastly, there's the save system. This got loads of criticism, the biggest complaint in fact. Well, that complaint's been resolved. You can now save without resetting the day. Before, they did add in statue saving to the US version, but it was limited to the places already set aside as "quick travel" points with the song of soaring. It's been vastly expanded. First, it no longer auto-deletes your "quick save" when you continue, it's just plain saving now. Secondly, these save points are everywhere now. You can save pretty much any time you need to with nearly minimal fuss. Yes, once again a Zelda game is using save points. It annoys me, since saving was already mastered with games like Link's Awakening, which let you save the game at any time and returned you right back to the last doorway you entered (which is actually even better than restoring your EXACT condition, since you can never get stuck in an unwinnable situation that way unless the designers overlooked something, like they did in Link's Awakening, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword). I'm not sure why Nintendo switched to save points instead of a menu option recently, but I hope they go back soon. At any rate, this system does work pretty well unless you're deep inside a dungeon and need to save and quit right now. Then, you're stuck. You gotta work your way out of that sucker and then find yourself a nearby save point (very few, if any, inside dungeons). The song of time will still take you back though. It won't ask you to save when you reset any more, but it's "close enough" to a "save any time you want" because there's still that save point right next to the clock tower. The backward song of time is made a bit more obvious now as well. With all the streamlining of item locations and the new save system, no one's complained about the limited time ruining play now. There's more than enough time to explore whatever you like, accomplish something, then reset. ABF, there's never been a better time for you to give this game another try. While some of the changes
Note: Veterans of the previous version should be told this ahead of time. I won't really give away any new puzzles, but for this one thing which should save you hours of wasted time. The Giant's Mask in the stone temple has been moved. No, don't bother searching the stone temple for it. Those new to the game already found it on their own way before you did, because you KNEW you needed it for the last boss and weren't going to bother going into that boss room without it. Well, that's the trick you see. The giant's mask is automatically given to you IN the final boss room. There, I just saved you loads of frustration that new players didn't even know they could enjoy. You're WELCOME!
Anyway, with this just about every Zelda game is playable on Nintendo's modern consoles. Of course, the very newest ones (Link Between Worlds and Hyrule Warriors) are on the very newest systems. All of the Gameboy, NES, and SNES Zelda games are emulated (Gameboy on 3DS, SNES on Wii U, and NES on both, though I suppose technically Minish Cap isn't emulated (it's being run as native code in GBA mode), nor can it be bought on the 3DS any more, but it can be bought on the Wii U). Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword (and Link's Crossbow Training) can be shoved into a Wii U and played there just fine (and will eventually be purchasable as digital download Wii games... except for Link's Crossbow Training...). Wind Waker got the HD treatment on the Wii U (although, I must say, rather than looking like an animated cartoon, the cell shading effect has been altered with bloom and other lighting such that everyone looks like a porcelain doll, though it's not a bad look per se, just not the original intent I think). Other than that, there's the DSi Four Swords remake. That was available for a very limited time, then again last year for another very limited time, and now not available at all, anywhere, so that multiplayer focused game is now very hard to play multiplayer with, for lack of others that actually own it. I got lucky, many didn't, and that artificial scarcity* isn't really excusable. Four Swords Adventures, a Gamecube game, is likewise not available on the newest systems yet. I really enjoyed that one, more so than the first Four Swords and would love to see it ported to a current system so I could play it with more people than just my close group of friends. Along those lines, the remake of Link to the Past isn't available outside the GBA, so the additional content isn't available that way either. Maybe they'll put it on the GBA emulator (or eventually start actually selling the GBA games we already know the 3DS is fully capable of playing natively, even if it does disable all the other background online functions until you quit the game, which isn't that much of a sacrifice anyway). However, going the way of most of Nintendo's "virtual console" efforts, it'll be an incomplete experience. That version of Four Swords won't work without multiplayer, and as a result none of the cross-content unlocks in LTTP will even function, including that bonus dungeon. This could be fixed with a "primed" save file with all the Four Swords unlocks already set, but Nintendo doesn't seem to bother with any sort of hacks like that on virtual console games. Case in point: The Oracle games have permanently locked Advance shops, because Nintendo couldn't be bothered to emulate the flag the Oracle games look for to think they are being played on a GBA. Shantae suffers from the same issue. Still, it's getting there.
*I tried looking up the Wikipedia entry for artificial scarcity. I found the page on scarcity, which had a list of "see also" related topics, one of which was "artificial scarcity". I clicked on that, and it reloaded the page on scarcity "Redirected from artificial scarcity". I broke out of that endless "see also" loop by noting that the page on artificial scarcity was extremely hard to acquire, seemingly made so for no discernible reason. Also I closed the tab.
Majora's Mask 3D - Sacred Jellybean - 26th February 2015
I love Majora's Mask. I didn't play it when it first came out, I thought the 3-day system sounded gimmicky and obnoxious. It wasn't until 5 years later that I first tried it. Must have found it used somewhere. I did okay my first playthrough, got to the Zora mask, but must have gotten stuck before I reached the Water temple.
Just this past year, actually, I played through the entire thing. I remembered how the game was a little creepy, definitely darker than the first. The opening scene with Skull Kid is teriffic: you fall down a great hole and awake in darkness. Skull Kid is across the room, illuminated as though by firelight.
He hovers in the air, legs crossed, and titters at you. He has stolen not only your things, but in a sense, your body, as he's transformed you into a pitiful little deku scrub. The scene is quite silent, little music, no ambience, just the sound of his laughter and the rattle of his wooden limbs.
Then you get to Clock Tower, and all the residents are warning you to evacuate, a big moon is coming down to destroy everything in three days time. As the hands of the click swing around and the apocalypse looms, you find yourself running around, trying desperately to fix things you know in your heart that you cannot.
The tone of helplessness and despair runs throughout the game as you meet its characters and learn their troubles. You can choose to help them, learn their backstories and routines throughout the days. But the sad part is, no matter how hard you try to fix things, it all resets again in the next cycle. It's not only impossible but ultimately futile to help anyone.
The game's dreary music helps drive the emotional vehicle of the thing. The Northern lake is downright ominous. Such a heavy story is a departure from Zelda's normal M.O.: adventure, thrills, but ultimately light-hearted as good triumphs over evil and you become the one true Hero. Majora's Mask almost seems like the opposite: hard as you try, your efforts in the long run won't amount to much. (so emo!) It's not a surprise that MM was seen as the black sheep, but I'm thrilled that it's getting recognition and a re-release.
I think my gf has a 3DS (I played the OoT remake on it while we were on a plane last year) but I'm in no hurry to get this release. I'd love to experience it again, but not just yet. A game this fine is like a good book: you read it again when you're ready.
Here's a few links of people discussing MM's subtext. I especially love the idea that the Stone Tower is an allegory for the Tower of Babel.
http://www.zeldainformer.com/news/the_message_of_majoras_mask1#.VO8EIfnF-So
This guy is kinda corny (I had to skip the bad jokes which was frustrating) but his analysis is articulate and spot on:
Majora's Mask 3D - Dark Jaguar - 26th February 2015
I must say that a LOT of the "this is a symbol of this" stuff I read online tends to not make too much sense. I mean, what exactly do we get out of the notion that the stone tower is the tower of babel? There's no indication that Link is being punished for getting too close to the gods, or any weird language stuff (all the nearby ghosts speak perfect Engrish). Even if there's a few parallels, it's not enough unless it actually adds something to the narrative. (I also don't subscribe to the notion that the whole game is supposed to be Link's death. The developers themselves debunked that one.)
More to the point, symbolism isn't the end goal of all art, it's just a tool. I don't like when movie makers insist on adding countless symbols that have nothing to do with either the characters or the plot of the movie in question. "Look, this character died covered in oil, just like those soldiers died for oil!" Not only is it a bit crass, the movie had NOTHING TO DO with oil, or pointless wars, so why the hell is that IN there?!
Still, it's fun to play around in now and again. I think the most annoyingly stubborn "SYMBOLISM!" claim has to do with Earthbound though. I remember finding it "an interesting take" when I first heard that the final boss could be interpreted as a fetus. "Huh" I thought. Then I kept seeing it over and over again, until it reached the point where instead of being "an interpretation", it was starting to be considered an undeniable fact about Earthbound. Videos and reviewers just would state, matter-of-factually, "Gigas is an unborn fetus", as though popular opinion had just plain settled the matter. Only a couple years ago did Itoi finally step forward to say that wasn't his intent (with the added wiggle room of "but I think it's whatever you want it to be"). Frankly, as time went on I started to see the comparison as little more than pareidolia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia The final boss was clearly meant to be a slowly degenerating bunch of unintelligible squiggles, and you could see whatever you wanted in that. In fact, someone else did when they just flipped one of his stages upside down. http://earthboundcentral.com/2014/09/a-different-look-at-giygas/ It looks a lot more like the original alien's face from the first game that way. Heck, even upside down it always looked like a screaming spectre to me.
There's a bigger point there though. What, exactly, does Giygas being a fetus actually add to the storyline? It's "symbolic" sure, but symbolic of what? Being creepy for it's own sake? Earthbound has an extremely well thought out story, and it can get dark, but I can't see what Giygas being a fetus actually adds to anything, and that to me is the biggest problem with that whole notion. In the same way teenagers often lament of how "censored" Disney movie versions of old fairy tales are, I think these sorts miss the point. As an adult, one realizes that Disney changed the stories so significantly because the original fairy tales were, frankly, HORRIBLE lessons to teach a child, from a more barbaric time. The original Little Mermaid was gory and dark, sure, but the reason is because it was teaching the exact OPPOSITE of the movie version's lesson: don't follow your heart and know your place, or you will live in horribly unnatural pain and die turning into sea foam.
With all that said, I should check out these videos at some point. There's still a good amount of perfectly legitimate symbolism to be gained from Majora's Mask. My favorite revolves around the deku butler's son.
Majora's Mask 3D - Sacred Jellybean - 26th February 2015
Quote:I mean, what exactly do we get out of the notion that the stone tower is the tower of babel? There's no indication that Link is being punished for getting too close to the gods, or any weird language stuff (all the nearby ghosts speak perfect Engrish). Even if there's a few parallels, it's not enough unless it actually adds something to the narrative.
That theory is its own reward. :D If you want to dig deep into a game find its meaning, its objective meaning mind, then yes. You would take the Tower of Babel or other bibical allegory and compare it to the rest of the game, seeking other evidence to support it. If there are contradictions or a lack of a coherent picture, you could use that to refute the theory.
On the other hand, I don't prefer to be so rigid. Looking at the aesthetic of the Stone temple and linking it to a story of hubris, blasphemy, and vengeful gods, is interesting in its own right. Perhaps Link himself doesn't show hubris towards the gods, but the idea that Hyrulian ancestors had made this mistake is interesting. The more you can find to support the idea, the more compelling the thought. "The Stone Tower was first flipped upside down so that the builders would reach hell instead of heaven!" Whoa!
Quote:(I also don't subscribe to the notion that the whole game is supposed to be Link's death. The developers themselves debunked that one.)
I contend the idea that a game or any piece of art has only one meaning. Even taking authorial intent into account. Art isn't a mathematical function, one input and one output. It's more like, one experience is one individual meaning. Parenthetically, I say "experience" and not "person", because even your age can make your reaction vary. Ebert wrote a good article about a movie he watched at 3 different stages in his life, and how he got something different each time.
The more each experience between individuals lines up, the more competent/coherent the art. I prefer the school of thought that once an artist exhibits a piece of art (especially en masse), it takes on a life of its own. Deciphering the meaning doesn't require just authorial intent, but three things:
1) Authorial intent: Yes, okay, kind of hard to avoid this.
2) Individual interpretation: e.g. "300 is a movie where a bunch of anglosized manly men go kick the shit out of effeminite Persian shits. It serves as a propaganda piece for the Iraq war."
3) Collective interpretation: Just a pool of number #2, so maybe that is a subset of #3. Not just, what does it mean to one person, but what does it mean to society?
Art (such as painting/writing) that is a product of one person is more coherent. You can look at the artist's life, age, environment, etc. and gain traction that way. Guernica, painted by Picasso, is about devastation and war crimes. But collaborations will produce a little bit of input from many different people. It's hard to keep intent + meaning straight in something so complex, it's like a cacaphony. At that point, it's prudent to look at the final product to derive a holistic meaning, rather than a sum of individual parts.
Consequently, that also makes it more fun to discuss. :)
The only time I don't like reading about subtext is if it's uninspired. I once read on a message board some dope who said "Ferris Bueller's Day Off is about Cameron, the protagonist, and Ferris Bueller is his Tyler Durden-like imaginary friend! Cameron wants to be cool, just like him!" Booorriiing. And preposterous. I don't like "It's all in their head!" interpretations, it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
I will make an exception for Majora's Mask being about Link's death, though, I think that's a neat idea too and consistent with the tone. Perhaps I should clarify that when evaluating a piece, instead of taking two theories -- "Link visits the Tower of Babel because he heard about it in his life and now that he's dying, his tormented sees fit to reconstruct it and explore it!" -- I like to meditate upon them individually. So maybe it's easier to compartmentalize and not try to keep everything "cannon".
Majora's Mask 3D - A Black Falcon - 26th February 2015
Dark Jaguar Wrote:If you keep everything else when you launch yourself back in time, why bother emptying my quiver, purse, bomb bag and bottles?
Ughh, they didn't fix that? After hearing so much about how they fixed the games' problems, it's disappointing that several of the things I disliked most about the game, such as this and how annoying it as to, say, get rid of the snow (after you've beaten the boss once it should be easier than having to go all the way down the dungeon and fight him again!), are unchanged. I've always had issues with Majora's Mask, and while I have not played the remake, I think I still would. I don't hate the game, but like it a lot less than some people do, for sure. I never did finish it...
The improved notebook and moved bank are good changes, though. But really, after first getting the game after it came out, I dropped the game for years because I was in Ikana Canyon, wasn't sure what to do, and knew that what I did have to do involved lots of stupid consumable item collecting that I'd have to redo every time I turned the game on. I got fed up with that stupid stuff and dropped the game there, before getting to the Stone Tower Temple. Yes, it was that that got me to drop the game, not the save system and such. I HATED the pressure of the time system, of course; I really dislike a lot of stuff relating to that, not having the time I'd want to wander around and explore, time limits for dungeons, etc. Constantly losing my consumables was just one thing too many, at that point when I actually needed a bunch of them for something. Why couldn't they have fixed this by letting you store them at the bank, or something? Stupid!
Later I went back and got to the Stone Tower Temple, but I never did finish it. I imagine that's where my save file would still be.
Majora's Mask 3D - Dark Jaguar - 26th February 2015
I see what you mean SJ. Don't misunderstand, I'm fully willing to ignore authorial intent. However, I do like a cohesive whole. That's the main difference. I can't really separate different sections so entirely in my head. My mind inevitably drifts around, and if the small thing I'm looking at some interpretation to doesn't fit the "bigger" picture, something's got to give, and it's usually the smaller thing. I do know what you mean about "it's all in their head" being rather lazy though. On a personal note, I treat "they've been dead the whole time" as belonging to the same category. One can take basically ANY plot and say "this is their afterlife and none of it was real", so I tread lightly around such theories. I've heard theories like that for Earthbound and Final Fantasy 8 before, for example. Heck, I once heard a theory like that for Kirby of all things. So, my rule is "do I find this idea actually improves the story, or the intent (those two don't necessarily overlap), or is it just "dark" for the sake of being "dark"? For me, it's not often the former. When I see these theories, all too often the entirety of the theory is done by "finding clues" (things that allow for that interpretation) but not too often do I see theories that actually explain unexplained stuff in the story using that theory, or expand on themes or character development otherwise left in the dark because of it. Squall, for example. Basically the entirety of that fan theory is "there's a bunch of plot holes I couldn't fill in very well, but if Squall was dead I wouldn't need to explain them". At no point do they explain how ANYTHING Squall actually attempted from the moment he recovered from getting impaled was part of his journey to the afterlife. He never actually "accepts" that he's gone. If anything he fights it every step of the way and it ends with him together with all his friends. The whole theme of the game was finding friendship, and I'm not sure how the heck a ghost is supposed to do that. I don't need to dwell on Kirby so much, but basically I dismiss that as 12 year olds trying to make Kirby seem "edgy" to their friends. Xenogears, well, that's the sort of game that's going to get LOADS of people interpretting all sorts of things, but the cast being dead flys directly in the face of the main message of the whole game (that life is worth living just for it's own sake and death is to be avoided). Link, well, okay an argument could be made. I COULD see the whole journey involving those masks being one of dealing with death by seeing how others dealt with their deaths and how the world in general faces it. Of all of them, Majora's Mask comes closest to having an actual point to such a fan theory. I'll give it my respect for that much at least. Nevertheless, the same message comes across just fine even without Link himself having to face his own mortality. Also, he's trying to do everything he can to AVOID catastrophe. It's a rather major point that undermines that theory. I do think the game clearly has themes of death, but for me the clear interpretation is that seeing how all those people react to utter extinction drives one to prevent it, to cherish all the time one has and make the most of it (again, Groundhog's Day) because just accepting that fate, just giving in, only guarantees that fate. Even if it is actually pointless to fight it, it's even more pointless to accept it, because that does nothing, and you'll only confirm that pointlessness for sure if you at least try. For my part, Link being alive is very important to the narrative about facing death. If he's just a ghost, then everything he saw was meaningless.
Now, on the other hand, you've got Silent Hill. The "death" interpretation is just one of many, but everything about the game fits it extremely well, and that interpretation really adds to the experience. By and large, these games are about facing the past rather than the future, about facing up to how one has lived their life up to that point. To that end, the main character being dead the whole time feeds into that very nicely.
Well, that's just how I see things. I like cohesive wholes in my interpretations, that's the main thing. You know, like dark matter vs modified gravity. At the level of the spiral rotation of galaxies, both fit well, both models are interchangeable. However, take it beyond that look and you find all manner of things which dark matter predicts but modified gravity utterly fails at. At that point, it's hard to really take modified gravity too seriously even at the galactic rotation level any more. It's domain of relevance was matched and exceeded by another, so I favor it.
Majora's Mask 3D - Dark Jaguar - 27th February 2015
ABF, let me ask you this. Why do you think you need to thaw out the snow over and over again? Really, you only need to do it once or twice at most, then you're done.
Anyway, I really hope that something like that doesn't kill your enjoyment of the game. The 3 day cycle is the entire point of the game, and really I can't think of any way to get rid of it that wouldn't hurt the whole experience. I just can't imagine why you would take 3 slow days and still not get anything accomplished, such that you feel the need to redo everything you've already done every single time.
Majora's Mask 3D - Sacred Jellybean - 27th February 2015
Seriously give it A BeneFit of the doubt or we'll start calling you A Belligerent Fellow.
Majora's Mask 3D - A Black Falcon - 28th February 2015
So it's okay for you to criticize DK64, but not me to criticize Majora's Mask? Hmm...
Really though, I remember being very divided about the game. Sometimes it was amazing and one of the best N64 games, but then time-related issues would get in the way and I'd think that it deserved the 8.3 score that Gamespot gave the N64 version. It's some of both of those things.
Majora's Mask 3D - Dark Jaguar - 28th February 2015
I actually really do enjoy hearing your take on these things, and discussing points of difference. I'm really just hoping to see you beat the whole game at some point, if only to see what your opinion is after that.
I can only imagine how infuriated you'll be at the wedding quest line if the mountain's giving you such timing troubles though. I think that'll be hilarious :D.
Majora's Mask 3D - Sacred Jellybean - 1st March 2015
Touché ol boy. If I still had my copy of DK, I'd offer an exchange. ;)
Deej: he'll be okay if he can cheat and look online, no? That's what I do these days. I'd rather do that than stop enjoying a game.
Majora's Mask 3D - A Black Falcon - 3rd March 2015
You mean the Anju and Kafei thing? I remember trying to do that at some point, maybe with a guide I forget, but I couldn't find something and eventually gave up.