To Ikana!

This is the first time, I have ever made it this far in the game because the game frankly irritated me with its difficulty level to this point that I never cared up to this point.  But following the deeper storyline this time; Ikana is definitely the coolest places in the game and if they had wanted to improve this game any, you would have freed Ikana from its curse earlier in the game than the other areas which involved some quite stereotypical missions (rescuing a princess, thawing a landscape and avenging a lost musical soul).

Ikana Valley is where the game truly takes its own, unique form and makes Majora's Mask as its stand in its own light, independent of Ocarina of Time, without too much frustration.  Although the puzzle factor in this part of the game is still high (this whole game is centered around puzzle rather than action) it is fun to unravel the mysteries in this valley and learn about a lost kingdom within the game itself, adding more flavor to what is beyond Hyrule; this kingdom even sounds like a cool kingdom to base a whole independent Zelda in.

You start out not having any way in until you can best the Gorman brothers at racing (these two idiots look like Ingo from Ocarina of Time and act like him too...not a good synergy).  Either way, this mask makes us look like a ninja and makes ninja warrior appear to do battle with us, and give us hints along our way in this last leg of our journey.  They are mostly pretty cryptic, but they all point towards the fact that something happened to Ikana, though it was once a great nation, it seems...but a curse (via the Majora's Mask) has made all who enter this kingdom riddled with death.

This game gets very emotional, and it's very good in that regard; it makes you the player react not only to what is happening to Link, but to what is happening around him.  I love this part of the game, I wish there was a way to skip a lot of the other stuff to get here earlier.

Either way; now that we have access to Ikana we can also complete the longest side-quest in the game; which is highly evocative but highly irritating in its timing and length.  Everything has a certain time of day by which it must be completed, the whole thing takes a three-day cycle, and it has two rewards: but you can only get one of the rewards per setting, meaning you have to do this lengthy exchange twice!  This is where we reunite Anju, the inkeeper, and Kafei, her fiance cursed to look like a boy.  Though physically incompatible, their love overcomes all, sending a strong emotional undertone throughout the game which prevades the darkness of the overall plot.  Lovely!

The Mystery of Great Bay

So the next stop on our journey is the western section of Termina, which is a giant ocean surrounded by elegant seashore.  This can only mean one thing: a water-based dungeon.  Celebrate, right?  Well, not really.  Here we meet the Gerudo, who are portrayed in Termina as nothing but ruthless pirates.  They were much cooler in Ocarina of Time when they had an entire civilization built around history and culture; these Gerudo are nothing but bandits.  Either way, on the beech we meet the dying Mikau, a zora guitarrist who needs us to complete what he could not in life.  It seems that his girlfriend's eggs were stolen by these pirates and that they are quintessential for without them, she has lost her ability to speak.  So a little sleuthing around (made far easier by a mask in this game that makes it so others don't notice you) and we are taught the next song in the game.  We also get to meet Mikau's gang, and by far, Zora Link is the coolest form that he gets: he's strong, he's tall, and he's the easiest on the eyes too, to be a bit shallow.  What sucks about Zora Link is swimming...swimming is hard.

So all that aside, we explore a bit more for some more items and stuff and then we'll head into the temple.  This temple is, by far, the hardest of the game, accompanied by the hardest boss battle you have to deal with to boot.  You have to do a lot of backtracking, and to make it worse, the temple's hub room isn't all that easy to understand with hallways going this-way and that, often leading you to frustration.  The goal of the temple is simple: adjust the water flow as you go so that you can access each area of the dungeon, one at a time.  This is harder than it sounds, though.

Did I also mention that Gyorg is an absolute terror?  This beastly fish fights you underwater and if you go down to the depths to fight him, you're a goner.  He does an insane amount of damage, and he seems to be able to snag you in those jaws of his more often than seems necessary.  The goal is to stun the boss, then wreak havok on him.  Well, easy enough, except that to dive down to him, strike him, and then swim the hell away before he gets to chomp down on your flesh is the difficult part.  Luckily the boss doesn't have an overabundance of stamina and he quickly surrenders his remains and a heart container.  The seas are cleared, and we're on our way!

Snowfall

The snowfall temple is one of the more interesting of this game's dungeons.  Situated within the great mountain that the Goron race calls home (recall the fire temple, anyone) this temple is encased in ice.  Apparently the goron race doesn't like ice, so this is the form of malice that has decided to befall them.  Either way, up here in the mountains we assume our second transformation: the goron.  This form is by far the strongest fighter if not the clumsiest looking.  It's difficult to control goron link as he rolls around, but this gets easier.

The most important thing is after the temple's boss, a giant mechanical goat (ghot, lol) is defeated, the winter outside thaws and we have access to the entire mountain which allows us to sharpen our sword to the gilded sword which tremendously will help from here on out (this sword is unbreakable, transcends time/space and contains three times the attack power and twice the reach of the kokori sword which was just as lame as it was in Ocarina of Time.  Link is now capable of surviving.)

Woodfall Temple

All right, here we go.  This is the game's first dungeon, and right away the difficulty level of this game becomes apparent.  Granted, this is no Link's Adventure but it certainly ranks up there with it.  Not only are you now timed (you can't take your time thinking on puzzles or trying to subdue the boss) but the puzzles are difficult right from the very beginning.  While this dungeon is relatively short, there's a lot to do: we have to collect a bunch of stray fairies in order to gain more power, gain a new weapon (we get the Hero's Bow right away in this game, a definite plus) and unlock the mysteries one by one of the Woodfall Temple without falling victim to the poison water.

Puzzles now make use of masks as well as standard items in order to solve them, so it really takes some brain power to wrap yourself around this game.  However, it is a fun new dimension as Link takes on new forms.

This boss, however (Odwala) is an extreme annoyance.  He's virtually invincible and a powerful summoner with a longsword.  Someone was feeling sadistic at Nintendo.  Not only that, but Tatl all but tells you that you'll be dead if you get too close...which is the only way you're going to injure the thing.  Go figure.  As with virtually every dungeon in the series, you use the item you found within to combat the boss, and this is no different: arrows work from a safe distance to stun him so you can get in close with sword strikes.  However, this boss makes a clear statement: action isn't lacking in this game either, you will be entertained.

After we're done with this yahoo, we find the Deku Princess who is another snot (there is a theme with princesses in the series, too, right?  I guess like bride's maids to a bride, these princesses make Zelda seem all the more graceful and wise...although Zelda isn't in this title except for in a flashback in the very beginning.)  Oh well, we cart her off (using a bottle, hehe, that's a bit unrealistic but at the same time, explains things a bit better than the girl simply following Link when she really can't) and she gives her father hell for making a rash decision in labeling her companion monkey a kidnapper.  Whoo, another crisis averted!

The Swamp

So you'd think that at this point this game starts to do something to drag you into it.  Not really...only little tiny pieces of the plot have been exposed thus far (while in Ocarina of Time, the plot was thrown in your face from the beginning and never left you alone thereafter.)  We journey into the woods (something I've noticed is that the Zelda series likes to put a woodland theme around its first dungeon.)  These woods surround a swamp which has been polluted by some evil spirit...hmm, sound familiar?  Sounds like what Ganondorf did to Hyrule, the Skull Kid is trying to do to Termina.  Except that you get a nice, teary scene on your way that shows you that the Skull Kid himself wasn't a bad guy...just a trickster of sorts who was turned into the menacing villain you met in the Lost Woods.

Here, you find that the Deku (lovely creatures they are) are in charge of this region of Termina and they don't like the other races at all (what a coincidence, none of the humans in Termina like them either!  Karma sucks, don't it.)  So anyway, we have to pull a stunt similar to that in Ocarina of Time: we have to sneak through the palace garden a few times in order to find out that the Deku Princess and a young monkey went into the Woodfall temple to find out what was going on and the Princess was captured by an evil monster who lives inside.  So now we know our mission...let's to it!  Just have to sneak around again and through the woods to find that temple that only the Deku are allowed into...strange times we're living in!

Welcome to Termina

So Link finds himself in the land of Termina, doomed to perish under the weight of its own moon in a matter of seventy-two hours.  The unfortunate events keep piling on top of us, don't they?  Either way, a character we could have done without his return, the Happy Mask Salesman, has come to Termina to stalk us.  The game begins by taking away our humanoid form and makes us a deku scrub with no other option (hey, thanks...sarcasm is not sold seperately.  when I first played through this game, this in of itself made me detest the game.)  I mean, seriously, do you want your players to detest you from the start of the game?  I'd have switched the orders of the forms a bit so that you get a useful form, the suckish form, and then finally the coolest form...whereas this game goes from suckish to nice to awesome (and nice and awesome are able to alternate into a humanoid).  Well, the first part of the game is designed to introduce us to the doomsday element of the game by making us stay around for the three-day cycle in order to gain access to the Skull Kid's chamber (after a series of errands, of course...we need to be productive while letting time fly.  there's plenty to do in Clock Town, after all).  Here we gain magic power (Deku Link's victory pose at this is humorous), become a member of a top secret organization (kind of) and ascertain a useful item or two.  What makes this game hard is it plants you in a non-Hylian world (so there's nothing familiar for you) off the bat and doesn't give you much direction - you must make most of the decisions yourself (unlike most Zeldas, where the game leads you to where you need to go next via plot or an irritating fairy), and you must make them quickly because while the game has 72 hours, each hour translates to about a real-world minute. 

Speaking of fairies, this time around instead of Navi (who I think was awesome, even if she did shout "Hey!" all the time, she was an awesome companion for Ocarina of Time's Link) you have Tatl, a fairy who is seperated from her brother and I suppose "master" the Skull Kid.  You think they'd have difficulty topping Navi's "Hey!" but no.  This little bugger has a bell.  While she isn't as demanding that you pay attention to her, she's still pretty bad.  Still kind of helpful (I think Navi was more helpful, but still cryptic enough not to give everything away) she's actually a major plot element in contrast to her previous element, who served only as a side-kick, really.  (Zelda's role was far more crux in Ocarina of Time than Navi's).

So our first mission is to get the Ocarina of Time back so that we can SAVE.  This also turns me off to this game right off because you have to keep playing unless you want to start the whole thing from the very beginning.  The Song of Time is the only way to save, and when you do, everything that's numerical, you lose it.  Well, that's another great feature isn't it?  Yes, it makes sense given the nature of temporal laws.  But I digress.

A Series of Unfortuate Events

The beginning of this game is by far, the most cryptic and dark of any Zelda title.  Link is searching for his long-lost childhood friend, and is accosted on the way by, in no less words, thieves, who steal the Ocarina of Time.  Link's not the type to take anything sitting down, though, so he gives chase to these bandits (one odd fellow in a mask and two fairy folk, I guess not all of the fairies are good-aligned) and eventually confronts them, only to find himself transformed into a Deku Scrub (dear me, two minutes into the game and my horse and ocarina are stolen from me AND I lose my human form?)

After a bit of traveling in what can only be described as an underworld (this place bothers me because its so vast that instinct tells something must be hidden in it, and you don't get to revisit this place) you find yourself in the basement of some sort of tower with gears everywhere.  On top of that, the guy from the Happy Mask Shop in our previous title is here to pity us and tell us that if we do for him, he'll do for us (oh, isn't that so nice how these NPCs are so subtle about using Link to get their errands done!)

All this aside, a cryptic beginning marks an incredibly cryptic game, and as you open the doors to find the world you've been sent into, you will also find yourself locked into the lovely three-day cycle of time this game calls home.

Majora's Mask

Another adventure is done; so let us set off on Majora's Mask.  The plot of this game is simple enough (or so it seems:) Link is searching for a long lost friend (we assume this to be Navi, thanks to the ending scene of Ocarina of Time) and we also know that this is the same Link from Ocarina of Time, only a few years older.  (So THIS is what he did between 10 and 17...)  Somehow, he ends up in Termina, a land which is doomed to perish under the weight of its own moon which, by unexplianed forces (explained to us through the course of the game) is being pulled towards the city.

This is, by far, the oddest, weirdest, strangest game in the entire series.  With the exception of Zelda II, this is the only direct sequel of another title in the series as well (the next one won't come out until the cel-shade titles appear many years later.)

So let's get started!  This game looks very similar to Ocarina of Time in its graphics style, but from the very first cameo, you know that you aren't playing the same game.  At all.

Review Master Quest

Master Quest is just a spin-off of Ocarina of Time; however, it offers a lot of challenging aspects as a lot of the puzzle parts to the game are made more difficult (if the action isn't toned down a little, at least I think so.)  The major plus of this game is that it takes a game which already had great replay value and made it a little novel so as to expand upon that replay value.  It plays and feels like a different game from the beginning while still leaving the player feeling nostalgic for the original title.

It's kind of heartwarming, as well as amazing, to think of how quickly this series has developed.  Ocarina of Time is a relatively early title in the series and yet it is leaps and bounds ahead of its predescesors, some will argue that its successors don't live up to it.  I don't, I enjoy the games that follow, but I will maintain that this game set a very high standard not only for the series itself but for the gaming industry period...a standard that has yet, really, to be supplanted in mind or heart.

The last scene of this game, though, always leaves me wondering: does Zelda recognize Link?  It is inferred that she does not (which is sad) however, I like to think that she does however, she's wise enough not to let on that she does (although, if you think about, Zelda says when she first meets you that you seem familiar to her...perhaps this can all be explained through temporal anomaly?)

Speaking of temporal anomaly...one happens in Master Quest that didn't in Ocarina of Time.  In the Spirit Temple, to solve one of the puzzles, you must activate a switch that you cannot as a child, but you cannot reap the rewards as an adult...so you return as a child (your past) but even though the switch is not activated until you're an adult (your future) the chest is still there.  Huzzah.  Guess they didn't think that one through all the way.

All in all though...

Master Quest Final Grade: A