[spinkle]

I played the hell out of this game, but given its non-traditional structure (in terms of Zelda games) I had a lot of difficulty with it and didn't manage to complete most of the "side quests." Of course (again citing non-traditional) because almost every "side quest" in Majora's Mask is actually "1/24th of the main quest" I never finished the game, although I got through a significant amount of it--far enough to get to, but not past, the final fight of the game. (not enough masks)

I can't say I didn't like it; I did. I can't say I didn't have fun with it; I did. But goddamn if it ever frustrated me. In fact, the original NES Legend of Zelda frustrated me *less* than Majora's Mask (and in 1988 I was throwing controllers at the television, so that should put this into some perspective.) I've thought of going back and replaying it, either via emu or by actually hooking my N64 up and waking it out of its GCN-induced hibernation. Maybe I will do so just to give Lynk somebody to talk with about the game. XD

It's definitely an oddball...almost to the point of being a non-Zelda game with the only touchstone of familiarity being the use of the sprites (not sure if this is the right word? maybe characters is a better choice?) from OoT. It's definitely a darker-themed game and works the repetition-of-play-leads-to-familiarity angle, since the game essentially requires a large number of full playthroughs [of the three days in which the game takes place], allowing the player to see only fragments of the story at a time and watch it take shape from the perspective of all of the characters rather than being primarily concerned with Find Item-->Beat Boss-->Get Heart-->Move On.

Even still (as you can probably see) I'm ambivalent about this game and I kind of dread starting it over, haha.