[GAME] The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000)
Majora's Mask is a Zelda game I had never finished, despite being a massive fan of the franchise. The three day time limit felt too limiting and stressful to me, and I never gave it a fair shot. I finally sat down and made a commitment to finally finishing it and was really glad that I did, because while I still don't think it's a particularly good Zelda game, it is an absolutely groundbreaking work of game design in all other aspects.
The world in this game feels alive because it exists, and continues to exist, without your presence. Characters will have full conversations that you can miss if you are not there, for example, or a black market deal that takes place in the dead of night can be completely overlooked if you don't happen to have been tipped off about it beforehand. Every single NPC in the game has so much going on, and contribute so heavily to the overall makeup of the game's lore, that it's at times mind-boggling. Much has been said about the legendary Anju and Kafei side quest, which requires the player to have intimate knowledge about a large portion of the game's population, but honestly most of the side quests in this game are just fantastic.
The somber tone of this thing is also something to behold - there is a kind quiet despair the permeates every little side story that you encounter. I later read that the team went through significant crunch to get this game out the door, and I wonder if some of this stress made its way into the game somehow.
Unfortunately, the dungeons and everything else that is typically "Zelda" is just not that great. For one thing, the game is significantly more difficult than its predecessor, Ocarina of Time, and while sometimes that can be exciting, at other times it just becomes frustrating. A certain water dungeon boss, with not-so-great swimming controls, was a particular low point for me. The last dungeon was probably the best one, but was frustrating in that its spectacular main gimmick felt a little underused.
I am very glad that I finally finished this game all these years later - it is a staggering achievement in video game storytelling, and it's great to see its influence on modern classics like Outer Wilds.