HS doing his Zelda series run

[mikecamper]

I am soon be experiencing Minish Cap for the first time.  I just bought it (along with Four Swords Adventures--which is also un-played by me)  a week ago and it showed up this past weekend in the mail.  I have been doing a series run myself (chronologically) so I have to finish my current TWW run first.   Your post has gotten me even more excited about playing it.   Truth be told, I did flip the game on for a short moment the other day, just to get a taste.  I viewed the intro up to where Zelda is all like "cmon link, come to the festival with me."  Anyhow, I'll share my thoughts here later after playing it.

[Hyruleansoldier]

Four Swords: Anniversary Edition completed!

Only the first “trial” in the Chambers of Insight was mandatory, after that you could talk to one of the fairies and go to the world map.  I did all of the trials right away since I figured I wouldn’t ever be returning to them Chambers (I don’t think you get to keep your Rupees from these stages anyway, and you can’t win Medallions either).

Acquiring 5000 rupees (to get the Hero’s Keys) without Rupee Fever (rupees count double if both players are at full health) is a cruel joke.  I followed in Rew’s steps and farmed Gibdo’s in Death Mountain, Rupee Likes in Talus Cave, and Bow & arrow Moblins in the Sea of Trees – which I found much more doable than the Spear Moblins.  You HAVE to be behind them (or sideways) to hit them, and although using your second Link to temporarily distract one of the enemies, you could still get hit by another.  Also, you shouldn’t attempt farming if you don’t have 2 seeds for each skill – if you are unfortunate enough to die, you’ll have a really hard time, and will only end up losing more money than you’re gaining.  Trust me.  Fortunately for me, Bow & arrow Moblins appeared pretty early in the first Sea of Trees stage for me, so I could farm them and complete parts of the stage in the meantime.  Making sure to keep my hearts high if I got hit a couple of times.  But 3 hits (with 2 ember seeds) isn’t a lot – usually you can deliver these in rapid succession with the Moblin even having a chance to retaliate.  Only thing that really sucks with all this is that it takes forever for a new enemy to spawn.  I was in this stage for almost an hour – figuring I should get close to 4000 rupees in case the second stage would be cruel (things like big blue rupees (200) falling into a pit or accidentally using your key on the final door while you were supposed to use it on another one leading to more rupee-collecting rooms (and then another key to proceed to the finish).  Anything can happen, and you shouldn’t take the boss for granted too since he can be a royal pain in the butt.  Tougher than the easy Talus Cave one, but definitely easy compared to the infernal Death Mountain boss that makes you run around screaming (Link, I mean ) more often than not.  The fire from the main stages was annoying enough already as you would sometimes take a hit if you were too close to it while trying to slash it.  At least the boss didn’t go batshit crazy with spewing fire like TMC’s Mt. Crenel Mines boss.  Ack!

The soundtrack got old pretty fast, considering you hear the same theme for both stages of an area – I’m pretty sure that also goes for the 12 stages of Vaati’s Palace (in the Hero’s Keys run), even though they recycle stages from the first 3 areas).  I don’t remember the themes for the Realm of Memories or Hero’s Trial, but did you know that if you select the Hero’s Trial on the map you will always hear a different theme (one of the other areas)?

Vaati.  The FS games make him to be this one-dimensional maiden-kidnapping mischievous wind creature, but this was of course before TMC, which really gave him the backstory that made him a villain being worthy of mentioned in Hylian lore.  He does pose more of a threat than in FSA, as he uses multiple attacks, and only has 2 short vulnerability moments.  Either team up to slash at his plant-arm from below, together, or bounce his colored energy balls back until it changes color and he’s hit by one.
I did fail miserably at the first stage of the battle, forgetting you can remote-detonate bombs.  Sure, they tell you when you first acquire bombs, but I didn’t remember from last time.   And yeah, his plantlike arm was only visible for a short while and you had to line up your Links to inflict damage (and get out of there before his energy balls came after you (giggity).

I like how they made the ending sequence longer.  More fairies to hit for rupees, and some treasure chests; I’m pretty sure those weren’t in the original.

The Realm of Memories stages were mostly just good, clean fun, and I liked how they stayed true to the style of these games (for the look of Link, rupees, chests and the like). It’s good to get the sword skills as rewards: the Sword Beam is quite handy (handier than the Hurricane Spin, which is also harder to unlock…)

The Hero’s Trial was really hard, even just the first one.  I was down to my last rupees (from having died a couple of times) when I beat it.  
Those bone-throwing Stalfos are a PEST, and even with bombs from a distance you’ll still get hit by their bones, it’s aggravating.  They were effing relentless.  

I probably won’t be tackling any other Zelda’s until SS – I got my head firmly stuck in the sand so it’ll be a glorious experience starting on it.  By then some of you will probably have caved to watch at least the game intro (I trust they’ll release that like they did with TP a bit before the release), but I’ll be watching it the first time on my Wii, on November 18 (hopefully 17, but can’t be sure – often times the game store lets you pick up your preordered stuff the afternoon before.  It was like that with even the Wii itself (and TP, with it), and OoT 3DS).  So excited!

[Hyruleansoldier]

Last weekend I played through Twilight Princess again. Though I still like Skyward Sword better, I’m still pretty amused playing through TP, and I wasn’t too bothered by the things it failed to deliver on (or that SS clearly did a better job on), like plot holes, and the lacking difficulty.

1)   TP is what it is, and the fact it’s set in Hyrule (not TOO long after the events of Ocarina of Time) will always make it a “classic” game.  It has Death Mountain with the Gorons, it has Zora’s Domain, it has sufficiently entertaining dungeons, and more than enough of them, and the Cave of Ordeals, which is one of my favorite versions of its kind.

In TWW you also had a 50-floor survival cave (“the Savage Labyrinth”), but it was rather easy compared to TP’s.  Spirit Tracks did a nice job with the 3 “Take Em All On” challenges, but the tricky part was the combination of preset monster floors with all the bosses after one another.  I prefer to keep those two separate.  And personally I enjoy a Cave of Ordeals type of deal over a Boss Rush mode.  You’ve already defeated the bosses, so apart from trying to get an insanely good time and not getting hit there’s not much new it has to offer.  Also, the perfect TP file has 4 bottles of Fairy’s Tears, making a second and third run of the Cave of Ordeals even more challenging as you’ll only have one free bottle for a potion to heal. You had to be pretty fast on those two or three floors with ChuChus to get to a red or blue one to recover some health. It was a bit of a gamble as you could choose to waste most of your rupees by wearing the Magic Armor early, but then if you had the chance to heal it would be better to have saved most rupees for the last dozen floors. Darknuts do get easier, but a multitude of small monsters or any ice-related monsters were sure to rob you off several hearts. I for one rather lost a couple 100 rupees getting hit by ice, than taking it in the butt and walk away with only half my hearts.

2)   TP’s ending is longer than Skyward Sword’s, and thus shows more of the overworld. It also shows a short NPC-cheering-arm-in-arm scene similar to OoT, but it doesn’t feel as good since you couldn’t even talk to most NPC’s in TP’s Castle Town, and none of the ones you could talk to said anything about the events in Hyrule Castle, or the big honkin’ dome over it post-“Zelda heals Midna” cutscene.  It does however reward you by showing the 4 Spirit Springs, which will have fairies (and the cloud allowing you to speak to the Fairy Queen) in them depending on how many floors of the Cave of Ordeals you beat. SS should have at least shown Batreaux.

3)   One thing I definitely like better about TP compared to SS is the amount of treasure chests.  SS had disturbingly few treasure chests in the overworld, and especially in dungeons.  Part of the fun is having lots of lame 20-rupee chests, partly because in dungeons they throw you off from the chests you REALLY need to get, like small keys, the big key, or the dungeon map.  Though TP may have had a little too many chests, perhaps, the only bad part about it was the game wouldn’t allow you to keep the rupees if you would exceed your wallet max.  This was particularly frustrating when you had 251 rupees and didn’t get to keep a purple 50 rupees.  But if it hadn’t given you crap about that, there would have been no complaints about the treasure chests in TP. The more the merrier. Just like in MM: it’s better to have them and not need them, then need them but not have them

4)   Additionally, I feel most of the 100-rupee chests in TP should have been Heart Pieces, replacing some of the easier Heart Pieces.  Some of these chests were harder to spot than certain Pieces of Heart.

5)   Speaking of which, splitting Heart Containers into 5 pieces wasn’t a bad idea per se, but if they had just had less of them, they could have just kept it at 4.  I didn’t like how there were TWO Heart Pieces in each dungeon. One of them was always easier than the other, so they should have just kept the harder one.  SS had it right, and they didn’t even put one in every dungeon. Although TP was still less extreme than MM, and less annoying than TWW (“just haul them up from random treasure charts nobody even remembers, why don’t ya?”).

6)   Though everybody loves the Gorons and Zora’s, if you only look at the main story, they are pretty bland in this game. Sure, you get to wrestle a Goron and save Darbus, and fulfill everyone’s desire from OoT to melt Zora’s domain, but that’s pretty much it.  Without the sidequests, the famous races wouldn’t be so awesome in this game.  The elders helping out with the funding of the Malo Mart store in Castle Town make the game especially fun – silly dancing ftw!  And design-wise it was nice to see a noticeable difference between male and female Zora’s, and guard Zora’s. I also liked the option to have a Zora swim you up the waterfall to the throne room. That was a nice touch, but of course it didn’t make you care for the Zora’s as much as in OoT, or MM.

7)   The day/night cycle was very slow in TP, which was annoying particularly for the Poe Soul hunting. Since there was no way to instantly make it nighttime, you had to do outdoorsy stuff until nighttime finally came again.  Fortunately though, if you’re efficient enough you can get most of the Poes in 2 nights, with some in a third night later in the game (assuming you don’t wait forever to start collecting Poes). But I guess 2 nights would still work for ALL outside ones, if you’re completely efficient. It would involve a longer trek in the Desert, though, since those are all pretty far apart. (The first one is actually faster to get by selecting the Oasis Flight at Fyer’s).

8)   One thing that did seriously bug me – even more after having played SS – is the extremely slow vine / ladder climbing.  It doesn’t respond that well either (Link often climbs sideways when he should be climbing up).  Long live SS.  Sure, the Stamina Meter restricts your vine climbing, but who wants to climb forever anyway?

9)   TP also had TWW’s movement engine for the most part, with one particular bug that sometimes causes falling down a pit: when you are relatively subtle with taking a turn (often while also turning the camera – so I’m talking about the GCN version, I don’t remember the deal with the Wii version), Link would often keep going straight ahead, into a pit. It doesn’t occur that much, but when it does it’s like the controls aren’t responsive cause Link just keeps on going.

10)     TP was too easy compared to most other games.  Even without Hero Mode SS is a more challenging game, and that’s not just because of the implemention of Wii MotionPlus.   It’s a bit too easy to breeze through TP, never using any potions or fairies.  In fact, if it weren’t for ice enemies and the Cave of Ordeals, they could have omitted potions altogether from TP, and most people wouldn’t even miss them. (Maybe just 1 potion like in LA).  

11)     Dungeons: Arbiter’s Grounds is still my favorite, and Snowpeak Ruins wins originality rewards.  City in the Sky was quite decent as a dungeon, but crappy as a city and was only satisfying from a design point of view.  It also introduced the Double Clawshots, something they were very right in carrying over to SS.  Interestingly, both Clawshots in TP can be found in the Lanayru province, just like in SS (Silent Realm). [Technically the City in the Sky is above the Lanayru Province].

12)     The item wheel was a good thing, but it was way too big since it held pretty much every type of item.  Bomb Arrows were a great asset, though, but Bomblings were pointless.  The only use I found for them was instantly blowing up boulders (for cash).  Although using Bomb Arrows is still faster.

13)     TP’s collection quests were very uninspiring.  You only got a reward for Golden Bug #1 and #24, nothing in between, and for the Poe Souls it was 20 and 60 – with just rupees as a final reward.  Though I do like combing the overworld for critters (OoT’s Gold Skulltula’s are the best example), you need to also have a satisfying reward system.  Most of the time I don’t even bother to get all the Poe Souls again when I replay TP.  I did this time since it had been a while, and I wanted to see if I still knew where they all were.  I didn’t overlook any Poe, and I’m not sure if that should make me happy or sad.  I guess it’s mostly me having a good memory – some of those Poes were in unconventional places. But then the ones you have to try harder for are usually also the ones that stick in your mind better.  It’s a memory training thing.

14)     When it comes to the overworld, it’s not that easy to fairly compare SS and TP.  Yes, TP has a more cohesive overworld, but despite its size it’s still not the best kind of overworld, compared to OoT.  TP has way too many linear sections, basically corridors from field 1 to field 2, with almost NOTHING to do there.  Consider the size of Eldin’s Hyrule Field: without the Golden Bugs and the path to the one Heart Piece (right outside Kakariko Village), there’s nothing to do there (except the Bridge of Eldin, but that’s the road leading to Lanayru).  It has one optional cave you can dig into as Wolf Link, but that’s it.  Faron’s Hyrule Field isn’t much better, and most of these fields just act as connection points to the other areas, so it wouldn’t be like the 2-D games where areas flow over into each other very harshly.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a big connected overworld, but considering the fact that for the bigger part of the game you can’t even cross the Bridge of Eldin or the 2 bridges leading to/ from Castle Town, AND you don’t get Ilia’s Charm to call Epona wherever, most of the fields and paths are a waste of time.  Once you can transform and warp anywhere (not near NPC’s of course, which is an annoyance in its own right), you won’t even be going through these pointless parts.  In a way this is similar to the Sky in SS.  Many people dislike the game making you fly to and from the different provinces, but without that the game would lack a certain realistic depth. You want to stay connected to the organic structure of the world, not warping from sub-area to sub-area, after a while forgetting about how it all fits together.  Since the setup of the game (SS) made it so the surface areas had to be accessed from different points, they couldn’t also connect them, and if they had it’s doubtful said shortcuts would get any use.  Consider the bridge you pay to build in TP to Castle Town, and the rockslide you get rid off with Hot Spring Water. And even restoring the Bridge of Eldin – apart from the quest with the Owl Statues there’s not even any need anymore to cross the bridge. It’s still the faster way to get to the Hidden Village, but that’s it.  Eldin Field itself remains pointless, just like the path between it and Kakariko Gorge.  All these paths create the illusion everything’s neatly connected, but without any reason to use these paths, it all becomes very pointless.  SS did things quite differently, since the 3 surface areas were very much connected, especially Faron Woods and Eldin Volcano, big organic areas you could freely navigate, opposed to wide open space with small corridors leading from area A to area B, with rarely any motive to return to specific sub-areas. I guess it all depends on how you dress it up, but I definitely feel SS is a step in a better direction than TP when it comes to the overworld structure.  I also wrote about this in the Skyward Sword impressions thread.

15)     TP uses a seriously big font, especially compared to SS’s.  This may also be less dramatic depending on your TV (I don’t have a widescreen or HD or anything fancy), but to me it often felt like everyone was shouting in TP (and whispering in SS).

16)     Midna’s still a bossy bitch, but fortunately she becomes a bit more “philanthropic” halfway through the game. I still don’t like being bossed around and used, though.  If it weren’t for that she would be a more enjoyable character overall. She certainly has character, and her interactions with vital NPC’s (Zelda, the sages, Ganondorf…) are good, and wouldn’t have been the same with another helping partner.  Fi didn’t usually engage in conversation with others, so SS needed more side characters (like Groose) to make the interaction level what it should be. Of course that worked out great, so I’m not complaining.

Bottom line: TP is the Legend of Midna, with Link being her servant, and SS is the Legend of Link, who’s Fi’s master.

17)     I noticed Telma has 3 dots tattooed close to her eyes: green, red and blue. Can’t really say much more about that, other than it’s the colors of Faron / courage, Eldin / power and Lanayru / wisdom.

18)     At Barnes’ Bomb Shop, when you use your Lantern next to the door, he slams his fist against the counter so Link gets doused with water.  I discovered that early in the game (before you beat the Goron Mines), he’s working with gun powder on the 2nd floor, and when you use your Lantern next to the door he stomps his foot down on the ground instead, causing the same thing to happen =D

19)     I also learned that when the second-to-last bug you kill in Lanayru is in Lake Hylia, you won’t get the usual intermezzo from Midna wondering where the last one is and her pulling out your map, prompting you to investigate the lake.  Instead, you just see the dot on your mini-map in the corner, and when you get close, the bug starts flying around (invisible) already.  It’s good to find subtle differences still in the games.

20)   If you throw all the Cuccos in Falbi's hut (Flight By Fowl at Lake Hylia) off the cliff, Falbi tells you to learn to fly by yourself. =D

21)     I had some fun with the ending: just before I finished off Ganondorf I drank some Fairy’s Tears (or Rare Chu Jelly), making Link’s outfit yellow.  Pretty funny to see him finish off Ganondorf like that.  I was also wearing the Iron Boots, which was especially funny when Link ran up the hill to check on Midna. He runs as fast as without the boots, but you hear the boots’ metallic clanging pretty fast.  The yellowness isn’t shown in the actual ending, but you keep the Iron Boots on and hear the clanging whenever Link walks (this is mostly relevant for the first part of the ending, after that it’s just dialogue or Link on Epona).

22)     Ganondorf is referred to as a Demon thief, which I found interesting, in light of what you figure out after beating SS.

(click to show/hide)

Ganondorf is Demise, aka the Demon King, reborn.  His soul and/or hatred reincarnated into a being of great status. It’s possible that this is also why Ganondorf has such awesome magic powers – I don’t think there’s ever any mention about the Gerudo, or their king, having innate magical powers.

Conclusion: TP isn’t as good as Skyward Sword, despite its big post-OoT Hyrule / Epona / Ganondorf / general nostalgia advantage.  Having more dungeons is only a deciding factor when everything else is spot on.  This is part of why it is unlikely that OoT will be kicked from its thrown.  It did everything right, AND had the highest number of dungeons in any Zelda game.

I’m still playing OoT 3DS MQ and LA DX at night, and I plan on replaying MM this weekend, so more Zelda-related posts will surely follow!

[Hyruleansoldier]

After TP I played through Majora’s Mask again!  My favorite game to get a 100% file in. Granted, it’s not that hard considering you don’t need to open every single chest, but it has an abundance of satisfying sidequests, which are all fun. It’s rewarding to get all heart containers and masks in MM, too.

1)   Tadtones! The 7 hatched Zora Eggs are tadtones, hatched to teach the New Wave Bossa Nova.  I didn’t realize at first when playing Skyward Sword that the Tadtones quest for the Song of the Hero was inspired by the Zora eggs / song in MM

2)   Stray Fairies: still one of my favorite collection quests – works perfectly to make dungeons more interesting, and is a step up from OoT’s Gold Skulltula’s even (there were never more than 5 of them per dungeon).

3)   Gold Skulltula hunting was still kept in 2 mini-dungeons where you need to find and kill all 30. Again, one of my favorite optional things. Optional dungeons are always great (cf. Gerudo Training Ground). The spiderhouses are particularly welcome in MM since it only has 4 main dungeons. There is also the added challenge of beating the Oceanside Spiderhouse on the First Day, so you can get the Giant Wallet from the random guy looking for shelter.

4)   I did like MM’s consistency with the dungeon structure: there’s always 1 miniboss to get the dungeon item (always a type of Arrow, btw), and 1 miniboss to get the Boss Key. Only in Snowhead Temple were both minibosses a Wizzrobe.  In the first and third dungeon the Boss Key protecting minibosses featured a mad frog.  And of course the 4 dungeon item bosses returned with a vengeance in the Secret Shrine in Ikana Valley (where you had to beat them again to get a Piece of Heart). You needed 16 heart containers to access the last boss, too. They all gave you 100 rupees (and there were 3 Lizalfos instead of just 1 – they added the extra 2 from Snowhead Temple ). So even with MM’s inherent replayability structure (time loop), they sure made things even more fun for those who just wanted to beat a certain boss again (warp at the start of a dungeon), and the minibosses gathered in Ikana’s Secret Shrine.

5)   Speaking of Lizalfos, you can OHKO them with a Powder Keg =D

6)   The game doesn’t feel that short since there’s a lot to do between dungeons. It’s the only game next to Skyward Sword that got the quest stuff in between dungeons long and interesting enough (and always longer than the actual dungeons, unlike in many earlier games).  This makes MM one of the best Zelda games ever, and my eternal second.  Let’s not forget about the original Ikana Well with the Gibdo items quest, Ikana Castle itself, and the neat mini-stages on the moon. And the optional spiderhouses, of course.

7)   Because of the unique time structure, sidequests can be grouped together more interestingly. Of course Anju & Kafei’s quest is the most intricate, depending on Sakon’s thieving ways, the Curiosity Shop owner, the Postman, Madame Aroma…  They’re all intertwined, and that’s what makes this game so great.  When you fail a sidequest it has consequences too – there’s no retry option (since you’re supposed to play the Song of Time and let things play out differently next time). Gotta love causality.

8)   Even though from an outsider’s point of view MM seems to rip off OoT in a million ways, you can’t deny that part of its success is carrying over all the things it carried over, combining it into something new, and having it work out perfectly.  For example, most of the items and a great many NPC’s from OoT are in MM, yet because of the “alternate dimension / universe” deal you don’t feel like they only reused them to reuse them (like putting Beedle in all post-TWW games, for example).  In MM there’s so much depth to the NPC’s, that you don’t even consider them to be OoT’s characters anymore.

9)   Nearly all of the items from OoT return, but we don’t complain since MM uses them well, and who cares they reused 5 out of 8 masks from OoT when they added 20 brand new ones?  When you think about it, MM has 27 masks: you have to count the evil Majora’s Mask, and the Sun & Moon Mask (combining into the Couple’s Mask).  And of course the Happy Mask Salesman has a bunch of random masks hanging from his backpack – like the Mario Mask

10)     52 Pieces of Heart is too much - MM would have been the best game to split them in 5, so it wouldn’t be so easy to have many hearts early on (or just take several of them out altogether, I guess).  Although with 24 masks to collect there were already plenty of non-heart piece rewards for sidequests, but they could have added something else, too, like Gratitude Crystals or item upgrades. (It’s always rather lame when you can just buy all the Bomb Bags, and it’s too obvious the 2 Archeries are going to net you the Quiver upgrades, and the bank person is going to upgrade your wallet).  When it comes to item upgrades, Skyward Sword was a real game-changer so I’m definitely all for that.  Although I did also like the variety in locations to upgrade your items in OoT (it also made you upgrade Deku Sticks and Deku Nuts, so that helped – the more the merrier!).  Games like TP went in the wrong direction, giving you a Slingshot with 50 seeds from the get-go (and not even much use out of it), only one Bomb Bag upgrade, and the Quiver & Wallet upgrades were obtained by the same NPC’s).  TMC had a great system for this with all the Kinstone Fusions – most upgrades, bottles and goodies were in chests that appeared after certain Kinstone fusions.  In a way this is very similar to the Goddess Cube chests in SS!

11)     I learned that it’s OK to get one of your items stolen AFTER you prevented Sakon from walking off with the Bigger Bomb Bag.  Kafei should go to Ikana Canyon and the Curiosity Shop owner should sell the All-Night Mask, even if one of your bottles or your sword got stolen.  You can of course shoot Sakon with a Fire Arrow to blow him up alongside the Bomb Bag, but if I remember correctly that doesn’t make the Curiosity Shop guy sell the All-Night Mask (I tried this in my last run so the details should be in a previous post).

12)     I love how when you first get your Ocarina back and go to see the Happy Mask Salesman, a huge 3-keyboard piano appears out of nowhere, ironically only using 3 notes to play the Song of Healing XD

13)     Chateau Romani, Big Poe, Gold Dust… these all sell for 200 rupees, which is quite good for cash.

14)     Putting 5000 rupees in the bank takes a while – I always find myself having to kill the Takkuri bird several times (for 200 rupees a kill) to quickly add a few thousand. Although you can also run around with your Mirror Shield in the first room of Ikana Castle, instantly killing the 4 dancing ReDeads, good for at least 65 rupees a run. This is also pretty fast, not to mention satisfying   Of course the perfect file has the maximum of 5499 rupees in the bank. When you still want to use cash you need to withdraw a full 500 so you can re-deposit the entire sum afterwards.

15)     You can blind a Beamos by shooting a Light Arrow into its eye =)

16)     Gerudo’s have blue blood, apparently.  I know Ganondorf originally hard red blood in OoT, but they made it green afterwards.  I guess the female Gerudo’s have blue blood instead.  It’s a secret to everybody.

17)     The second Beaver race (with the older brother: getting 25 rings in under 1:50) is a NIGHTMARE.  You really cannot mess up in any way, and even when you think you didn’t, I turned out to just miss the timer by a fraction. The time is really steep, and your swimming needs to be super smooth.

18)     When you play the Oath to Order but let the timer go all the way down to get the Game Over cutscene, the giants all fall down, moaning in pain. The rest of the cutscene is the same (when you let the timer reach zero anywhere else or without having summoned the giants, on the clock tower).

19)     Are the Lottery Shop numbers completely random?  Or would it be possible to get extremely lucky and guess the numbers right on one of the days?  I always wondered about this, since because of the time loop think I assumed they made it so it’ll always be a number different from the one you select. Just a feeling.

20)     MM had that bug where if you Z-target to look straight ahead and quickly turn, it’ll jump right back so you might get disoriented for a few seconds.  This is annoying when you’re trying to be quick.  Especially a pain during the fisherman’s Jumping Game (I try to avoid pressing Z there, though it can get hard to get your jumps just right).

21)     Koume & Kotake are very funny in MM (too). The sarcasm, and the references to them being old hags, and with the archery game where you get crap from hitting Koume 10+ times

22)     In the ending sequence, you see Mikau playing with the Indigo-go’s, even though Link returned home on Epona. I guess he made a stop at the Milk Bar first to give his performance (you do see the green cap on Mikau so it must be Link – the real Mikau is quite dead).

23)     My only complaint about the ending is that you never get to see grownup Kafei. He’s not in the wedding sequence or anywhere else.

24)     As I reported in a previous post and specific thread about MM’s unlockable endings, I love the 7 unlockable parts to the ending (if you missed certain masks, you won’t see this sequence in the ending, just the staff credits with the mask spinning in the background).  They should continue to make endings interesting like this.  Even TP had the views of the 4 spirit springs so you could see your released Fairies (from the Cave of Ordeals’ Fairy Queen).

25)     Majora’s Mask 3DS needs to happen.   Apart from the obvious, I think the game would work really well as a handheld, since it’s easy to keep track of the various sidequests with the Bomber’s Notebook (so if you’re not playing for very long, you could do just one or two sidequests).  Of course a more user-friendly save system would be nice – I’m sure they could pull it off. All I know is Termina Field would look amazing on the 3DS, and Clock Town would be even more spectacular – MM is already a very colorful game (at times you think a bunch of stoners designed many of the color schemes in town, the observatory, the room where you fight Majora’s Mask,…)  I hope they won’t make things too bland – I enjoyed MM’s colorfulness.

26)     They do need to add a difficulty setting to MM 3DS – a separate MQ version isn’t really needed, the only thing I would really want out of a second quest is increased difficulty.  Since you can get so many extra Heart Containers early, the damage ratio just doesn’t work as well, and MM is easier than OoT already, and even TP when you think about it. (TWW had a similar difficulty I guess, though it was more of a pain to get all the Pieces of Heart, so it depends more on whether or not you hunt down lots of heart pieces).


Conclusion: MM shall always be my second favorite Zelda game, for all the reasons above, and more.  Though it obviously reused a lot of things from OoT, the way MM boosted up NPC interactions, sidequests in general and the 3-day format, combined with a more satisfying pre-dungeon and dungeon quest time, it’s not hard to see why MM is featured in so many people’s top 3.  It may seem much shorter than OoT, but if you really try to get everything out of it the game has to offer, you’ll be discovering new NPC dialogues, responses to masks and different ways to go about things in many future playthroughs.  I’m actually always still finding some small things myself every time, and I’ve definitely beaten the game a couple dozen times already.  One more reason why MM 3DS must happen!