RE-UPLOAD ALERT: Hi friends! This is a compilation of the entire Dungeon Design in Zelda series for Majora's Mask. The first episode of which was uploaded 3 years ago in March of 2021. So, yeah you may have seen this stuff before. It is fascinating seeing how far my video making skills have progressed since then, and even how they progressed in the couple of months working on OOT's and then MM's Dungeons. My voice work, writing, editing, all of it feels so much less refined here, unfocused by my standards today. Yet, I still feel like the meaning behind my scripts holds up well enough, even if I wasn't as good at articulating those thoughts. But hey, I'm not here to dunk on my own work! I often have people tell me that they like long form content and binge these videos, so I figured putting them all into one long video would be worthwhile. Enjoyyyy! I appreciate you. Ps. *Frog??*
Damn it seems I should have waited a week 😅 I just went through all of your Zelda design vids (and the Metroid Dread) great videos thank you so much for your hard work!
The past 2 weeks I’ve been binge watching your videos throughout the series. Over the years, I’ve always came back to you, especially since the TOTK ones are the newest ones. I’ve always loved your guides, understanding, tips, thoughts, and voice. I’m also glad that I wasn’t the only one who absolutely hated the boss fight redesigns. I believe the choice to add the eyes were to connect them directly to Majora, but it will always be a horrible design choice since they were perfect and unique before. Thank you for putting all of these together in one video, and thank you for all of your work over these years! 💖 Also, Frog? 🐸
Your sigh whenever the 3DS eyeballs come up makes me laugh every time 😂 This video just came up in my feed randomly today - I realise it's an older one for you but just wanted to say how great it is. Thank you!
This is the Zelda game I like least and have played some of. I just found the timer to stressful with how my mind works. Story wise one of my fave... just hate that 3 day cycle.
I think one of the beautiful things about MM’s plot is that Link needed to go through that inward journey of losing Navi which I think is reflected in these temples. Using water as a healing metaphor, I love how they incorporated that grief/loss in conjunction with themes of water . You purify the swamp, melt the snow in the village, clear the murky waters of the bay, and on a smaller scale have water flowing again to get the Gibdos out of Ikana. Furthermore, Link’s battle in Stone Tower is just accepting his fate when entering a portal which is a deserted wasteland. I also think it’s beautiful how it’s incorporated in the various side quests. Rescue an innocent monkey, soothe a crying baby, help a woman rediscover her voice, and touchingly bring a father/daughter back together in order to progress through the game. In essence, Link’s inward journey (and the Groundhog Day cycle) is that he has to accept and shed the label of being a “hero” because he won’t be remembered. As a result, he *literally* undergoes transformations to recognize that his new role is that of a healer as he processed his own grief/loss through them.
I don't mind MM's journey also serving as a metaphor on top of actually happening, but I don't like the idea that none of it happened and it's just metaphorical. It's basically one step removed from "It was all a dream" endings at that point. And rather than metaphorically helping out random people to extol some virtue, I'd rather just actually help people out.
The "curse" themes are variations of Majora's theme, and when you win it gets replaced with the glorious Zelda theme as you liberate the land. Yay! Something interesting is the idea that the bosses are designed in MM where they are fun on repeat playthroughs since you need to fight them more than once and you can beat them at least 2 ways since each is weak to the Bow which Link can machine gun in this game. It is glorious!
As to the game only having 4 dungeons, when playing as a youth, I always considered it 8 - as the exteriors grew to be an entire cycle's worth of work. The journey into and through the swamp also is the first cycle where you're off gaining equipment, has an entire maze in the forest, the deku palace "stealth" puzzle, and what is effectively an exterior dungeon room where the entrance is. Snowhead is less dungeony on the outside, but Great Bay and Ikana pretty much have pre-dungeons on the outside. Pirate land and dead guy castle. I think it was great that they had these blurred lines between dungeons and helped break down the formality of the dungeons itself.
For that one Snowhead stray fairy that you jump off the central pillar for, if you instead use the deku flower next to the boss door, you can slowly hover down to the alcove. So long as you are not moving around, you can continue to hover without your flight time running out.
I played through the game recently and noticed you can actually skip a small key because of that Deku flower, using it to reach the other end of that room with the Dinolfos to get the stray fairies
The Swimming change feels like it could be related to the 3D function, my best guess with doing zero research is it might have made playtesters experience eyestrain, because they've also removed the water warping effect as well.
For music, MM uses a lot of tritones and diminished patterns which creates neither a push nor pull relationship within a triad (a 3 note chord). A major will push/pull towards the front end of a chord, whereas a minor will push/pull towards the back end of the chord. That's what makes MM's music unresolved, tense and has a somewhat anxious quality, because the tritone, the middle note, which lies within the exact center of the front end and back end of a triad, so it neither pushes nor pulls the chord either direction, which creates a constant tension and a rather unappealing sound. It plays into the tension motif due to the constant running countdown timer.
The weirdest and most ridiculous change to Twin Mold isn't so much they changed the fight in the 3DS version, yeah, it was changed, but what they don't tell you at all is that as Giant Link fighting the last twin, every time is burrows, it's health resets. So, in my case, I spent probably around 20 minutes on the boss battle, and never understood why it felt like I was never progressing in the battle, only to find out years later that it's health resets every time it goes under the sand. It was very frustrating. Thankfully, Project Restoration fixed it, but whoever decided that, or didn't test the fight....shame on them.
That is honestly the only thing I dislike about the change to the fight. Seeing Link become a wrestler and then freaking swing the last twin around is hilarious.
I'm a simple guy. Wheh I see a Majora's Mask video, I have to click and watch it. And damn, I loved watching this. You did such a great job catching the spirit of the dungeons and explaining their concepts while basically walking the viewer through them. Just by watching I really feel like I playing this game again, as it is my absolute favourite of the series. Besides, I totally agree with what you said about the 3DS remake. Inwas so hyped when they announced it, but playing it just didn't feel.. right. It was not the same game anymore. Looking forward to your next videos~❤
1:10:12 it’s even more of a precursor to making ice platforms in TotK with ice materials like the ice fruit. It’s just such a testament to how great and innovative these n64 Zeldas were that they’re still using ideas from them in 2023
It definitely was in hindsight. The script was written before TOTK haha, but you're absolutely right. Especially given ice arrows (or rather, ice materials fused to arrows) behaves almost exactly the same way
@@CaptBurgerson yeah no I knew these came out before its release, but yeah crazy how similar the mechanic ended up being. The first time I threw the ice fruit I was like Majora’s Mask!! 😲 Loved rewatching these altogether, it was almost like a super quick let’s play! Thanks for making these compilations ❤
Hey, I'm only halfway through, but the boss battles are based on masks, not on dungeon items. Odalwa you use deku launchers, in gorh you use Goron, in fishy you use Zora mask, in twin mold you use Giant mask
Thank you so much for this! My son has been sick this past week and I've been sleeping with him. I've been replaying the MM playlist so I can listen when we go to sleep but love the compilation video style! Especially after listening to your OoT one!
In defense of herding goats. It does nothing to progress the plot yes, but its vital to set the mood and set the status qoe, Link is a goat herder and farm hand, he isnt anything special, and he spends his time herding goats, playing with the kids, and hang out with his girlfriend, so when the call of adventure comes, he has to answer, not to save the world, but get back what he lost. Twilight Princes is the only Zelda game where the goal is to get back what he lost, saving the world is just a by product. And herding the goats is vital to this, its a menial task that is part of Links daily routine, he is clocking in a work to afford to eat, its just life, and life isnt exiting or filled with adventure.
You can have these things and not make it tedious. TP is a video game first and foremost after all. Narratively, yes I understand what you mean. This is a defence I've heard many times before. But it makes it hard for me to want to jump back into the game because I know I'll have to grind through the tedium first. I don't think the segment has to be cut, but it shouldn't be as stretched out as it is. We could have limited the goat herding to just one time
@@CaptBurgerson The goats arent that bad. Ive been trying to speedrun it, and even if we skip most of the early game, the goats are still there, and even after herding the goats at least a hundred times, i can say they arent that bad. I can agree that two goat herds so close together can get a little grating, but what is worse is getting the money to buy that slingshot. If you know what to do, its still annoying at best, but if you dont know all the hidden little rupees, you'll have to end up braking a few pumpkins just to get what you need.
I feel like a better way to do this would have been to incorporate "tutorials" for stuff you actually do in game (I can't remember herding anything being a part of the actual non-tutorial gameplay in TP besides having to stop a goat like a goron). For example: Link needs to swing a scyth like a sword to cut his crops, he needs to ride Epona to patrol for foxes and other creatures trying to eat the cuccoos, he needs to use a slingshot to clear away some wasps in the barn. I don't think anyone has a problem with setting up Link's life in the beginning as a normal, boring farm boy, but herding literally never comes up in TP again so it's just tedious and pointless.
@@CaptBurgerson I kinda disagree with that. The point was that his daily life WAS tedious. There's not really any way to make work and chores fun. And the goat herding takes like 2 minutes max, I personally don't see how less than 5 minutes of total gameplay is enough to ruin a game intro
@@brendangibson8200 Where is it implied his daily life was tedious to him? He's never shown to give that impression and it's never pushed to us players. It isn't just goats that are the problem. I can pick up MM and OoT and Link to the Past and actively enjoy the beginning zones. I can't with Twilight Princess and it goes into reasons far beyond goats. Something being badly paced and bloated doesn't have to come with a point; there is no point why it was such a pain to get the slingshot than padding. It overstays its welcome.
I barely noticed the difference. Honestly, the 3ds as a whole is a mixed bag, the good is great but the bad is an equal opposite. Ex: the boss fight changes; odolwa and especially gyorg could use the glow up. Goht did not need it and twinmold was just done badly. The better item accessibility and time mechanics made life SOOO nice... Breaking the character mechanics... Not so much. Overall I like both for differing reasons.
If you have a modded 3DS, install the Majora’s Mask Restoration Project a patch. This bring the vast majority of the changes in the remake back to how it was in the 64. This even includes the ISG and Bomb Hovering glitches from 64. Unfortunately Twinmold can’t be restored back to how it was originally but its final phase was fixed where red Twinmold’s health doesn’t reset if it burrows underground.
It annoys me to no end how people call the Great Bay Temple confusing and difficult. The water current literally drags you to where you need to go. You just follow the current, going top to bottom, and you'll be good.
I always had trouble getting through the dungeon as a kid because you have to remember to hit all the valves to turn on the water. That one in the room with the blue chu chu is the notable easy to miss one if you're not paying attention. Also Wart was real tough as a kid, killed me every time. But yes, going through it when you're older it is just as simple as following the adventure line.
@@peco595 yeah i will say it's much more confusing when you're a kid, and first impressions of a dungeon leave a big impact on how people view a dungeon. also, yes, Wart sucks.
Completing Great Bay Temple by itself isn't that hard. Completing it while getting all the Stray Fairies to get double defense is pretty annoying though.
@jameslars7391 I do kinda agree, it is a bit of a pain to complete the temple in time. Waiting to get Chateau Romani and then going for all the fairies eats up a lot of time.
I always found Odolwa a surprising boss, as it is very different to the usual monsters of TLOZ. The first time I battled him, I had no idea how to hit him, as I thought that, as usual in Zelda, the key to defeat him would be using the characteristic item of the temple but I didnt have any arrows left so I tried with Deku flower attacks. Once I defeated him and saw the giant, I assumed that ALL bosses would be humanoid (it would make LOTS of sense: The giants possessed by the masks). Thus, Goth was even a bigger surprise
As much as I love the 3DS remake, it was my first Zelda game, the thought of not having to restart the stone tower temple because the Twinmold fight was way to long sounds amazing. Same with faster swimming.
The thing about the zora swimming is: I’m glad they added a slower swim speed in the 3DS version because it makes navigating areas like the underwater tunnels in the pirate fortress easier, BUT it shouldn’t cost magic to use the normal swim speed. They could have just made a button toggle to switch between the two speeds and kept magic out of it entirely.
This would...probably be the best compromise. I didn't personally mind the swimming myself on the 3DS, but I could get behind that. Like the X or Y button since you don't have access to your normal items anyway in that form?
This is literally all they needed to do. I didn’t mind the swim speed in the great bay temple or the pirate fortress, but it made actually traveling around the beach a slog because I wanted to conserve my magic. It doesn’t help that it drains so fast even with the magic upgrade.
I remember playing this game as a kid and i couldnt play it more than an hour or two before i needed a break. I never could explain it but the game just made me feel dreadful and scared and now that im older i understand all of the atmosphere, music is meant to do that Its like they took the well and shadow temple and made a whole game with the same goal of creep out the kiddies the goal
One thing i always liked about the original bosses is that they're not a glorified puzzle that, after being solved, is barely a challenge. You can immediately figure out what to do and still struggle, because you actually need to be consistent at executing the strategy they demand. Those kind of enemies are the reason i like Skyward Sword's combat so much. I also like how they (almost) all act in believable ways. Odolwa doesn't leave himself open (especially against his weakness, Bombs), until he either summons minions or just straight up Taunts you. Goht never gives you free hits. he keeps running if you're close, speeds up to get away from you and sometimes kicks you, if you're right behind him. Gyorg literally acts exactly like a irl fish or a Orca would. Twinmold is the only one i'm disappointed in. Would be great if their movements would actually have reason. All hits you take seem accidental, (Shoutouts to red Twinmold from the 3ds for actually attacking) Majora's Mask never let's you hit it's back for free, Incarnation treats this whole thing like a game and Wrath is just a straight-up douche, especially if you go sword only against him.
I think Gyorg and Twinmold both kinda suck. You fire arrows at will into Gyorg until you land a hit then jump in the pool and zap him, no change in strategy at any point in the fight with the added challenge mid-way being nothing at all. Twinmold you just flail wildly. Like seriously, I replayed it just the other day and quick spins are the way against Twinmold. The remake did all the bosses except Goht a favor by making you have to do more than just flail at them. I know people like the more free form style the originals have, but the bosses don't do enough to make it really that interesting. Gyorg has one attack and Twinmold zero.
I played this game mainly as a old kid/young teen and always seemed to get stuck at the Ikana canyon part. It took my years when I finally figured out the ikana castle, learned the elegy of emptiness and was finally able to fully climb Stone Tower. I was super happy and impressed with the design, concept, puzzle execution, and minibosses (minus wizrobe) regarding the temple. Got to the boss super excited expecting an intense battle that would make me have to really use strategy to win......only to see the boss(es) just fly around in the air and sometimes run into you. And all you do as a giant is just run around and attack them. I just found the battle so boring and uncreative. Like the idea of being a giant for it is cool, but that's really it. I can appreciate the ideas behind trying to mix it up and make it more interesting and use some actual thought behind it for the 3ds version, but I think execution for them was made difficult just because of the original design of twinmold. It's kind of cool but didn't really seem to allow much creativity and flexibility of boss attacks and behavior patterns. I think they would have been better making twinmold like a desert scorpion or something like that. Where maybe you avoid attacks and take out the legs as small link and then for the second phase it grows wings and forces you to use the giants mask for the second half of the battle. And add different attacks to the boss and body movements so it wasn't so boring (at least IMO).
That stray Fairy in the ice dungeon You use the exploit for Can actually be acquired with a deku scrub launchpad up at the top so no exploit is actually required to get it
I'M SO HAPPY TO HEAR ESSENTIALLY THE SAME OPINION I HAVE ABOUT THE 3DS VERSION OF GYORG, BUT I HAVE ANOTHER VERY STRONG OPINION THERE THAT I WANT TO ADD (well, I think you're sharing it, just didn't quite verbalize that bit, and I wanna add it) ...first of all, the point about Goth and Gyorg fights being the opposite in terms of initiative is brilliant, never thought of it that way! But about Gyorg specifically - he's my favorite MM boss, and high up there for Zelda bosses overall, because he is DANGEROUS. Yeah, sure, Zora Link can swim. Not around Gyorg though. In the water in his room (un-stunned) Gyorg is king, and if you're in there with him(un-stunned), your first and only priority should be getting the hell out of there. So what do they do, for the second phase of the fight? They remove the platform, and have you swimming in the water with him. You two are sharing the pool, or whatever the hell. That to me is so boneheaded, and goes so directly against the concept of the boss fight, and the main thing I love about the fight that it genuinely makes my blood boil just looking at the footage of the second half of the fight. ...probably my strongest opinion about all of Zelda, so I'm sorry if I come off too strong, but I had to add that, right as I saw that part of the video. Great video so far, BTW, love it!
I hated Gyorg originally. It deals half the health of a casual player at that moment in game and takes too long to kill. I actually hate 3DS Gyorg more, though. Sure, the half health destroying attack is gone now, but the second phase took so long that an entire twelve ingame hours happened *with the inverted song of time activated.* Whoever thought it was a good idea to make the bombs spawn in randomly instead of always near where Gyorg is moving is atrocious. It takes like five minutes to stun the damn fish even once!
1:26:00 feel like alot if people over estimate how anoying this quest is. All you need is bean sprouts and a blue potion. so just teleport to the swamp hut and buy them. Theres even a kind of shortcut if you follow the stream at the entrence of ikana to the swamp to get the bean. And the blue potion you can buy at ikana. All other items are found in the crypt itself. Think about the gold skultulas from oot. Or the graditude crystals from skyward sword. Those are actually tedious
Been listening to some of your dungeon analysis videos lately for background noise and I have to say, I really enjoy your insights. I find you articulate your thoughts very well on the overall game design and how it plays into themes. I had a D&D campaign based on Zelda on the back burner for a while and your videos are inspiring me to work on it again. Keep up the great work!
I think Odolowa can be fought with deku link, spins stun him iirc and there's the deku flower in the middle of the room where you can get above him to drop nuts or possibly jet out from beneath him like the turtles, its just that nothing stops you from going ape with your butter knife. That one specific stray fairy in Snowhead can also be reached via deku flowers as there's a few in that chamber where you can float down to reach them, the limit on deku links flight is horizontal distance from his start position, I've used it to just gently float down to reach it, even though the scarecrow is an option on return visits incase you missed them or are just bored and reclearing the dungeon for no reason (like i do a lot). "Just this moment of silence..." Epona: "NEEEEEEIIIGH" Fun Fact, in Ikana castle if you're in one of the deku flowers when the ceiling drops you don't get squished and push the ceiling back up when you pop out.
Theres actually a restoration patch that was made for the 3DS version of Majora's Mask that fixes literally every complaint you had about the remake, I highly recommend it (as well as hacking your 3DS in general, its easy)
To me, the zelda franchise IS Ocarina of time and Majoras mask, and the two complement and build upon each other soooo well. Yes, i did play a Link to the past first, but in my minds' eye/imagination, these two games are what will stick with me for life, whenever the zelda franchise is mentioned. Its awesome videos like this that are keeping the magic alive for so many of us.well done👍
the nintended way to get the fairy in the main room of snowhead is either the scarecrow song and hookshot or using the deku flower at the top floor to hover all the way down there, which takes forever. Great bay for dummies: Top to bottom - reverse - top to bottom - boss there is no need to do the top route again after getting the ice arrows as you will go through the same rooms again later. also the seesaw room only needs 3 fire arrows. you only need to refreeze if you mess up. the gibdo trading quest can be trivialized if you buy some milk. if you don't want to wait for the milk bar, you can fetch some overpriced milk from the gorman brothers. if you bring your own milk you don't need the blue potion to get to the hot springs, and you don't need the big poe fight to get the poe leading to the underground cow. you can even prepre the fish and bugs in advance, both of which can be found in the stock pot inn's kitchen.
Another cool thing about the great bay temple's music is the background ambient noise, which sounds like water pumps or something like that, fitting to the theme. This was the 2nd zelda I played (also the first time earlier last year) and while I initially didnt like it as much as OOT, partly because of the time cycle, now after seeing the bigger picture I think its definitely superior. Its just so ambitious.
In stone tower temple, if you use hot spring water on the sun block that blocks the way from the entrance room, it will disappear. It doesn't work on any other sun block. Just on this one
I will never *not* be impressed that this game was made in a single year. Sure it uses a lot of the same graphics and models but god, this game is a achievement to Miyamoto’s mind.
Link, at the end of Great Bay: Wow, in terms of water dungeons, this one really wasn’t that bad. Hopefully we get a boss as unique and interesting as that Goht fight from Snowhead! The massive fish preparing to eliminate half of Link’s health in a single attack:
36:04 I was a music major in college (though not the best at analyzing heard music- I would be able to decipher sheet music) and I'm PREEEETTY sure there's a reason why you feel like the tension never releases. I'm pretty sure all of the chords the piano plays are diminished chords or a cluster of tri tones. These types of chords or note distances are used to create tension for a release. Think of the ending of a major Classical Piece and it probably ends the song with a drawn out diminished chord or a chord that is designed to create tension. Or uhhh... okay so one song that I'm sure EVERYBODY knows but doesn't know the name of is Bach's Toccata and Fugue. That's the creepy organ song people love to play during Halloween. Look it up and you'll recognize it in the first three seconds. The ending of the first major section has this super large drawn out tension filled chord with semitones that sounds dramatic and tense until it resolves into this bright and pretty major chord. It's like the first 40 seconds of the song. That's how composers NORMALLY use these types of sounds, but the composer for the Snowhead temple decided he didn't want us to feel a release of tension so the piano portion never plays anything OTHER than these awful dissonant tense sounding notes. It's funny how you've said many times you're not a music theory expert, but you've hit the nail on the head several times with how the music works. Like you understand what the music is doing without knowing any of the theory behind it, and that's really cool to me as a music nerd.
Thanks so much for this comment. It's incredibly validating to read. I'll reiterate, I am NOT an expert on musical theory. I can't even read sheet music haha. But I try my best to articulate the *feeling* in my scripts, so I'm glad that it shines through. Cheers!
Another music major here. Comment is spot on. There are very dissonant tone clusters that don't resolve, with a notable b7 in the bottom of the cluster. Music in this game is so underrated. Edit: This video is amazing!!
Don't know if this was already mentioned, but if you're fast enough and use the Inverted Song of Time to save you some time, you can get to Woodfall, get the Bow, leave to go to Snowhead, get the Fire Arrows, leave to access to Powder Keg guy near Goron Village to do his mission to get Powder Kegs, and the rush to Romani Ranch (should've headed there at the beginning of your Cycle to activate the Owl Statue) so you can blow up the boulder there and get Epona, all before the 1st Night of your 1st real Cycle. You can go even further and even beat MM all in the 1st real Cycle if you know where you're going. You should even have time to do the rest of the Romani sidequests so you can access the Milk Bar and get Chateau Romani for infinite magic.
Hopefully, when they do MMHD they'll make it more like the original by removing the eyes on the bosses but keep the fishing holes and allow us another area where we can fight as Fierce Deity Link
Thank you for this! I love your critique of the music theory and everything else! A fellow perfectionist! I'm 31 this brings me back to the times I was a preteen and couldn't beat the game until I bought the 80 page guide for $19.99 lol. Blessings thanks for all this there are many things I don't even remember doing!
I always loved how Majora's Mask managed to carve its own path despite being a complete rehash of Ocarina of Time's character models. This is a prime example of the difference that worldbuilding and storytelling can make. Also while I caught the implications of Navi's name back in the day, I never thought twice about the idea of tatl and tael being two halves of the same idea (which naturally amounts to a tattle-tale).
_Majora’s Mask’s_ only major flaw, in my opinion, is the lack of a proper final dungeon. I know Stone Tower Temple was basically the final dungeon, that makes use off all the items, skill, and transformation masks Link’s acquired throughout the game, but still… the completely disconnected mini-dungeons of the Moon felt pretty anti-climactic, and they’re technically optional! a final dungeon built around a time motif would’ve been nice, or maybe the dungeon layout is the same as Clock Town? or there’s some sort of Silent Realm-type thing, like in _Skyward Sword_ ?
24:33 - use Bombs to get rid of the Moths...the explosion already has a pretty wide radius, but on top of that, the lit fuse of the bomb will Attract the moths toward it, so you can almost-always wipe out the entire swarm in one go
another factor in the game's difficulty is that it started life as Ura Zelda, the Second Quest for Ocarina of time (also it's not talked about a whole lot but Ura Zelda was released, it's the Master Quest version of OoT) so the game's development started on the expectation of players who had already completed OoT, which is about the same as what you were saying, I was just elaborating that it's a bit more complicated than "Because it's a sequel"
I see what they were going for with the remake boss eyeballs. Tying everything in with Majora's visual motifs, explaining their corruption. But regardless, the mission failed. Almost every change they made was badly executed.
"The Elegy of Emptiness wears pretty thin, and you'll get tired of hearing it before you even get to the dungeon" Am I really the only one who didn't get tired of it? I actually enjoyed that song, even after having to play it 5000 times or so just to reach the dungeon...
To be perfectly fair, the fact that he didn't get the map in Greatbay first was just because the fact that he didn't hookshot the chest. He used Ice arrows to get to the platform instead of using the hookshot which latches onto wooden things or specific targets
I'm not 100% sure why they changed the Ice Arrows aside from making the game easier for people who have no brain capacity for trial and error, but I do know that if you slam back some Chateau Romani, you can use Ice Arrows in the Great Bay to make it all the way to the temple out in the sea and eventually the edge of the map. Could be part of the reason, who knows.
The remake is weird to me, because it's so very nearly a better version, but there's so many weird little decisions that just bring it down. Especially considering that the OoT remake, from what I remember, didn't do anything super weird like this.
Gomess is one of those bosses that I believe is easier if you have more comfort with the controller. My roommate played though MM and she had a lot of trouble with Gomess. It was a puzzle fight as much as a combat, and the consumption of her resources put the pressure on her. Granted, if you get everything along the way you have so many hearts, extra magic, and double defense then you would be a powerhouse
I want to talk about the Odalwa boss fight. Not only did he stand out, I had played every Zelda game as they were new(ish) as they came out. That battle shocked me. OoT made bossfights collapse into the formula of "Big Creature has dungeon item used on him which allows you to kill him/her in 3 cycles". It wasn't actually that smooth, but the game assumed when you stunned a boss you'd walk up and bash it with regular sword hits until they become invulnerable again and it usually lasted for 3 cycles. And usually other weapons seemed impractical to use. During this fight I recall whipping out bombs to try. Our toolkit as a player at this point is pretty small - but a lot of it works. It is the easiest bossfight in the game, but its also quite early. As for the theme of Dread, I also feel its the least present in the Swamp. The palace of the Deku feels pretty upbeat - I mean they're letting strangers in the front door. The people living nearby are doing poorly, but compared to how the other areas are in outright collapse the Deku Palace is probably an okay place to chill for three days. A major factor in the reduced Dread is on the player. A new player may or may not solve all the puzzles up to the Temple in the first single cycle, and the Temple itself. We all know how to beat the games and the language they speak for puzzles. As a new player I recalled being quite often worried about the time in-game. I still have a fairly vivid memory of trying to solve the room before Odalwa with the final 6 hour countdown spinning down rapidly. The boss dances as the ground shakes from the moon's approach. That sense of dread is vastly built upon by the 3 day cycle mechanics as well. Sometimes you can sit on your butt and solve a puzzle. Majora's Mask asks more of the player.
The last stray fairy in the second dungeon is also accessable by using the deku flower at the very top before going to the boss. Use the flower as deku link, line up and then fall down.
I have only one counterpoint to anything you’ve said, and it’s regarding the 3ds giant’s mask I thought the idea was genius; stone tower was the only temple without a transformation, we have to keep that in mind as I type this. This area as a whole subverted a LOT things(even literally) that we were used to in the game at that point. We got multiple masks in this area that “represent” transformations, (garo, from the Gorman’s sure, keeta, and gibdo), we even got the gibdo mask through the song of healing, which, at that point, was specially used for transformation masks. So of course it’d be wise to assume that WE’D transform into a gibdo after (why, idk, seemed like a terrible experience, but expectations) considering it’s the area of the dead, it’d make the most sense, right? But nope, nothing. Even the song we get from igos doesn’t necessarily represent the area in an immediate way, but it actually does, I’ll explain So when we get to the tower, we’re honestly not even thinking about the fact that we don’t have a transformation mask, nor a song that “activates” the dungeon(the lullaby technically didn’t, but it directly aided in the access of the dungeon), elegy of emptiness, while aiding in the access, doesn’t do so in a way that any other dungeon does. Youre just using husks to step on pressure plates. Another subversion. But then you realize that you’re being aided by the dead, the spirits of the deceased are literally helping you advance to the top (I obviously won’t count link, that’s a whole other iceberg) All of that to say, we’ve explored the whole dungeon, without a transformation, the only actual transformation at this point is the dungeon itself. So when we get to the end, what to expect? A boss with no mask? Ok, maybe we use all the other masks at this point like we have in the dungeon. Nope. We use this cool mask in the final part that makes us freaking GIANT! This is where it gets subjective; it’s only a transformation mask in the figurative sense, since it’s still link, just big. I think the remake improves it in a sense by making it an *actual* transformation mask, it’s not link anymore, the same way deku/goron/zora link are not technically link. He’s inhabiting their bodies, completely changing his physiology and personality of a sort (shy deku, jolly goron, and cocksure zora, it even shows in their movesets), it would make sense to show a brutish soul in the giant’s mask since he’s essentially inhabiting it. I thought it was another great subversion of everything we’ve seen so far in this culminating temple. Again, just my opinion, great video btw!
I don't know if this is the same comment as on any of the first uploads on this (XD), but i loved watching these since i never was able to play this particular entry of the series. The approach is to these make for great analysis.
A bit of a minor details, but I enjoyed the quality of life changes in the 3DS Version. Actual Save Points? Yes! That made me excited! The Clock Town Bank is now in South Clock Town instead of West Clock Town. Song of Double Time was made to be more efficient. Rather than just booting you into the Night or Dawn of the next Day, you could proceed to a specific point in time. Bosses, while different, grew on me. The one that wasn't changed too much was definitely Goht. Since that's actually how I fought him in the N64 Original. Other than that, the games are more or less the same.
I think the reason for the eyes added to the remake is that the creatures are supposed to be CORRUPTED by Majora, not created by them, so the weird eyes makes that a lot more obvious.
I still hope someday we’ll get an enhanced port of the 3DS version that would fix the swimming and the nerfing of the ice arrows. I’m ok with the boss changes mostly, even if I found the giant Majora’s eyes quite lame. The 3DS version was so beautiful and added some nice changes (mostly control wise), it just too bad they again decided this should be playable by 3 years old and nerfed so many good mechanics from the original.
I *want* to like the MM dungeons, but I feel like the game tries really hard to make me dislike them. The time mechanic meaning if you take too long or don't get everything you wanted during or after the dungeon done, you have to redo everything. The in my opinion extremely janky controls for the goron and zora transformations really hurts my enjoyment as well - I know it's a skill issue, but *man* they're a pain to control for me. But that's not really a fair way to look at it. The temples should be assessed on their own merits rather than what I think about the game more largely, and my low skill with the the Zora and Goron transformations shouln't impact my view on the dungeon design. I agree with you about Woodfall. I think it's a good, solid opening dungeon. Not a fan of the music or the boss fight, or that final room before the boss, but other than that it's a genuinely good temple especially for an intro. If it was in another Zelda, I'd like it more, but like I say that's not really fair. Possibly the strongest opening dungeon in Zelda hoenstly. Snowfall, man I hate playing it, even though I have a lot of respect for it. And it's almost entirely because of the goron controls. I spend countless in-game hours trying to make that jump in the second room with the broken bridge; I have no idea why I find it so hard but it's just *infuriating* to me, and you have to do it multiple times. And I really really hate how easy it is to be at a high level and then lose so much progress if you fall. I also really don't like the precision platforming section with the lense of truth for similar reasons. And I find the final stray fairy in the main room really ridiculous - how is anyone supposed to be able to access that in their first playthrough? It's so precise and non-obvious, you even call accessing it with the way you show an exploit, which would be fine if it wasn't for the time mechanic essentially forcing you to redo the entire thing if you miss one stray fairy. I have a lot of respect for the design of the dungeon, but there are just so many things that frustrate me with it that it has to be one of my most disliked dungeons in the entire series. I was replaying the game for the first time in many years on NSO, and this dungeon has made me quit playing because I just find it that frustrating. From what I remember though, I also didn't like the boss. In general I think MM did a poor job at telegraphing the bosses weak points and strategies for them; it felt like hitting my head against a brick wall for all of them, and I can remember looking up the correct strategies and being annoyed because I had the right idea but was just not doing it in quite the right way, or annoyed because I assumed I had to use a transformation or item that turns out to be useless. But again, easy to argue this is just a skill issue rather than a problem with the boss itself. So I have to go by memory of Great Bay Temple because I quit partway through my replay. But from what I remember I hated it even more than Snowfall! I found the Zora transformation extremely difficult to control, and thought everything was extremely disorienting, especially the central room. Make a wrong turn and it's more time wasted. Again, I respect the design and your description of the puzzles sounds good, but man, part of the reason why I quit was the memories of this temple flooding back to me and not wanting to deal with it again! Stone Tower though? It's one of the reasons I wanted to replay the game. Amazing central idea with the room flipping, excellent design, great music, a wonderful final temple for the game. I didn't fully watch your review of it because I want it to be fresh if I end up giving the game another go, but if it's anything like I remember it's definitely up there as one of the best dungeons in Zelda. I know your opinion on the remake is the popular one among Zelda fans, but I just completely disagree with it. I think almost every change made in the 3DS remake is for the better. The controls feel so much more reliable and accessible to me; they actually do what I want rather than the chaotic feeling I constantly had with the original. This is *especially* true for Zora. And although I don't like the clumsy slapping of a big eye for the boss fights, in general I much prefer their designs in the remake too. The only change I don't like if for the deku, because I don't think the spin jumping had any difficulty or lack of accessibility for lower-skill players, and getting rid of the ability to do that just felt like punishing good players with no benefit for anyone else either. But the remake allowed me to actually *enjoy* the game and appreciate it for all of its excellent design, without the controls and harshness of the time mechanic getting in the way. I really appreciate it for that.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and it takes a lot of maturity to assess to be as introspective with your criticisms as you are, even if I think you were being a little hard on yourself. I will say that playing the game on NSO is a bit of a different experience. The Switch's emulation is not quite tuned right in some ways, and so a lot of the controls end up being way more sensitive than they were on the N64. That may have exacerbated the issues you were already experiencing on the original, since a lot of precise movement is made harder by the added sticked sensitivity. Thanks still for giving the video a go as much as you did, and taking the time to leave a thoughtful comment, cheers!
@@RedHatGuyYT hey man they are UA-cam comments not mandatory reading. I actually really like when people take the time to articulate their thoughts like this. No need to be a party pooper. Nobody is holding you at gunpoint telling you to speed-read every comment. You can choose to keep scrolling through the comments section
In Snowhead, you're supposed to use the flower as a deku to get the last stray fairy. Also, the Great Fairy's Mask's hair will glow if there are any strays left in the room
The 3DS Version just Changed and Ruined a lot of Aspects of the Original N64 had. I mean come on... Eyeballs for the Bosses? Designated Areas for the Ice Arrows? The King Kong vs Giant Flying Worm segment in Twinmold's Boss Fight? The Zora Swimming being Fucking Nerfed into a Casual Paddle? I don't mind the Graphical Upgrade but I HATE the Changes that were made.
This was *such* a good video and I'm so glad I found it - but in particular I just want to say I'm *so* glad to see someone with the same sort of opinions on the remake, particularly the bosses and even more specifically, Twinmold- I've been disappointed in the remake's Twinmold fight for so long in ways I couldn't quite explain until you put it into words better than I ever could here - But in so much online discussion, at least in the spaces I've been, I've seen so so much praise of that fight in particular and how it's "such a big improvement over the original" that I felt like I was going mad! Like, is it really that unpopular of an opinion? So definitely validating to hear someone else share those thoughts to say the least- Twinmold rants aside- Majora's Mask is one of my favourite Zelda games - not quite the top, but definitely up there in the top 3 - so I'm always down for just super long videos on it like this- On seeing it in my recommended, I originally intended to maybe use it as background noise while I worked on some drawing stuff, but I found myself just constantly pausing and rewinding to the point where the goal of drawing did not pan out as I'd simply become fully engrossed in the video and just sat to watch the full 2 hours uninterrupted- I don't comment on stuff often since when I do I tend to get very ramble-y (As you can see right now-) but this was one of those special cases where I just had to- Yes, mostly to point out how validated I feel with my opinions on Twinmold dfdhdhs but also to just say this was such a good watch, and once again, I'm very glad I found it- I don't even know if you'll take the time to read all this since I can't even imagine how long it is at this point, but 😭 Ye 👍 Good video-
I like both versions of Majora's Mask and will fully admit the 3ds one makes some weird choices however one thing I like that the 3ds version does is give the expanded magic reward in woodfall. It helps with the snowfall temple.
I do like that they changed the bosses up in the remake. I know people are all upset because big eyeball weak spot or being forced to do specific things, but after replaying through MM the past week I think it was for the best in the remake. All the bosses are super easy in the original with Goht being the only real fun one and the only one definitelychanged for the worse. Odolwa has no reason to use the Deku mask in the original which is pretty meh to me since all the other bosses use a transformation Gyorg is just shoot arrow, zap, repeat until dead Twinmold is just swing your sword wildly until dead Not very engaging honestly. I'm glad they souped them up in the remake in retrospect.
@@peco595 yeah Goht was the only boss I was super bummed they changed. Twinrova was odd but I didn't hate it since it forced you to fight one of them as normal Link. Wasn't a fan of the wrestling gimmick though.
@@michaels4917 I think the hand to hand makes more sense for the giant's mask, making Link a powerful giant not unlike the ones that stop the moon with their own two hands
in defense of the remake's giants mask, when you have your sword it makes the final dungeon boss fight pretty easy. As well as in oot; when link grows, his weapons dont grow with him, so in my mind at least, it kinda makes sense that you wouldnt get his tiny sword and shield as a huge giant. Even if i wish it were a bit more polished, in my mind its a pretty logical change. As for the swimming i just assumed it was more accessibility, someone else mentioned the 3d feature (which, i love my 3ds but i never used LMAO) but my other idea is the fact that the 3ds screen is SMALL, if you're moving really quick its SO HARD to be able to effectively get anywhere- esp with the 3ds' joysticks. I love the original and the remake and the remake does sacrifice a lot but i think some sacrifices were made to keep it playable. (Esp with how 60% of the aiming is on the 3ds oh my god) love the video though im insane for oot and mm
RE-UPLOAD ALERT:
Hi friends! This is a compilation of the entire Dungeon Design in Zelda series for Majora's Mask. The first episode of which was uploaded 3 years ago in March of 2021. So, yeah you may have seen this stuff before.
It is fascinating seeing how far my video making skills have progressed since then, and even how they progressed in the couple of months working on OOT's and then MM's Dungeons. My voice work, writing, editing, all of it feels so much less refined here, unfocused by my standards today. Yet, I still feel like the meaning behind my scripts holds up well enough, even if I wasn't as good at articulating those thoughts.
But hey, I'm not here to dunk on my own work! I often have people tell me that they like long form content and binge these videos, so I figured putting them all into one long video would be worthwhile.
Enjoyyyy! I appreciate you.
Ps.
*Frog??*
Damn it seems I should have waited a week 😅 I just went through all of your Zelda design vids (and the Metroid Dread) great videos thank you so much for your hard work!
The past 2 weeks I’ve been binge watching your videos throughout the series. Over the years, I’ve always came back to you, especially since the TOTK ones are the newest ones. I’ve always loved your guides, understanding, tips, thoughts, and voice. I’m also glad that I wasn’t the only one who absolutely hated the boss fight redesigns. I believe the choice to add the eyes were to connect them directly to Majora, but it will always be a horrible design choice since they were perfect and unique before. Thank you for putting all of these together in one video, and thank you for all of your work over these years! 💖 Also, Frog? 🐸
Your sigh whenever the 3DS eyeballs come up makes me laugh every time 😂 This video just came up in my feed randomly today - I realise it's an older one for you but just wanted to say how great it is. Thank you!
Fire vids
This is the Zelda game I like least and have played some of.
I just found the timer to stressful with how my mind works.
Story wise one of my fave... just hate that 3 day cycle.
Fun fact!
In conjunction with using the Captain's Hat on Igos. If you pull out the Bremen Mask, the guards will march to the tune, allowing free hits.
I think one of the beautiful things about MM’s plot is that Link needed to go through that inward journey of losing Navi which I think is reflected in these temples.
Using water as a healing metaphor, I love how they incorporated that grief/loss in conjunction with themes of water . You purify the swamp, melt the snow in the village, clear the murky waters of the bay, and on a smaller scale have water flowing again to get the Gibdos out of Ikana. Furthermore, Link’s battle in Stone Tower is just accepting his fate when entering a portal which is a deserted wasteland.
I also think it’s beautiful how it’s incorporated in the various side quests. Rescue an innocent monkey, soothe a crying baby, help a woman rediscover her voice, and touchingly bring a father/daughter back together in order to progress through the game.
In essence, Link’s inward journey (and the Groundhog Day cycle) is that he has to accept and shed the label of being a “hero” because he won’t be remembered. As a result, he *literally* undergoes transformations to recognize that his new role is that of a healer as he processed his own grief/loss through them.
I don't mind MM's journey also serving as a metaphor on top of actually happening, but I don't like the idea that none of it happened and it's just metaphorical. It's basically one step removed from "It was all a dream" endings at that point. And rather than metaphorically helping out random people to extol some virtue, I'd rather just actually help people out.
@@chaptap8376 i mean links awakening was also just a dream wasnt it.
“Just a dream” is kinda selling it short. It is a dream- but not JUST, and not even Link’s dream
@@CaptBurgerson Agreed - Link experiences and remembers his adventure on Koholint, so it is very real to him. He has his own Awakening (pun intended)
Damn That’s Beautiful!!
The "curse" themes are variations of Majora's theme, and when you win it gets replaced with the glorious Zelda theme as you liberate the land. Yay!
Something interesting is the idea that the bosses are designed in MM where they are fun on repeat playthroughs since you need to fight them more than once and you can beat them at least 2 ways since each is weak to the Bow which Link can machine gun in this game. It is glorious!
As to the game only having 4 dungeons, when playing as a youth, I always considered it 8 - as the exteriors grew to be an entire cycle's worth of work. The journey into and through the swamp also is the first cycle where you're off gaining equipment, has an entire maze in the forest, the deku palace "stealth" puzzle, and what is effectively an exterior dungeon room where the entrance is. Snowhead is less dungeony on the outside, but Great Bay and Ikana pretty much have pre-dungeons on the outside. Pirate land and dead guy castle.
I think it was great that they had these blurred lines between dungeons and helped break down the formality of the dungeons itself.
For that one Snowhead stray fairy that you jump off the central pillar for, if you instead use the deku flower next to the boss door, you can slowly hover down to the alcove. So long as you are not moving around, you can continue to hover without your flight time running out.
I played through the game recently and noticed you can actually skip a small key because of that Deku flower, using it to reach the other end of that room with the Dinolfos to get the stray fairies
You can also reach it with a jump-slash, and a goron roll iirc!
I've been replaying MM for 25 years and this video is the one that told me about the colors of the doorways in Snowhead XD
The Swimming change feels like it could be related to the 3D function, my best guess with doing zero research is it might have made playtesters experience eyestrain, because they've also removed the water warping effect as well.
Lol joke's on them! I just use the magic milk to get infinite magic. Take that play testers!
Nah Anouma said its cause people thought the zora swimming was too difficult
For music, MM uses a lot of tritones and diminished patterns which creates neither a push nor pull relationship within a triad (a 3 note chord). A major will push/pull towards the front end of a chord, whereas a minor will push/pull towards the back end of the chord. That's what makes MM's music unresolved, tense and has a somewhat anxious quality, because the tritone, the middle note, which lies within the exact center of the front end and back end of a triad, so it neither pushes nor pulls the chord either direction, which creates a constant tension and a rather unappealing sound. It plays into the tension motif due to the constant running countdown timer.
"His entire eye ball is his body"... same buddy. Same...
This how I assume you look:
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@@timaeusTestosterone what about💪👁️🤳
😅
👁️
🦵🦵
🤛👁️🤜
🦵👄🦵
Mike Wazowski lookin ass
goht, greatest of hylian time
The weirdest and most ridiculous change to Twin Mold isn't so much they changed the fight in the 3DS version, yeah, it was changed, but what they don't tell you at all is that as Giant Link fighting the last twin, every time is burrows, it's health resets. So, in my case, I spent probably around 20 minutes on the boss battle, and never understood why it felt like I was never progressing in the battle, only to find out years later that it's health resets every time it goes under the sand. It was very frustrating. Thankfully, Project Restoration fixed it, but whoever decided that, or didn't test the fight....shame on them.
Goodness no wonder it feels so tedious
That is honestly the only thing I dislike about the change to the fight. Seeing Link become a wrestler and then freaking swing the last twin around is hilarious.
I'm a simple guy. Wheh I see a Majora's Mask video, I have to click and watch it. And damn, I loved watching this. You did such a great job catching the spirit of the dungeons and explaining their concepts while basically walking the viewer through them. Just by watching I really feel like I playing this game again, as it is my absolute favourite of the series.
Besides, I totally agree with what you said about the 3DS remake. Inwas so hyped when they announced it, but playing it just didn't feel.. right. It was not the same game anymore.
Looking forward to your next videos~❤
1:10:12 it’s even more of a precursor to making ice platforms in TotK with ice materials like the ice fruit. It’s just such a testament to how great and innovative these n64 Zeldas were that they’re still using ideas from them in 2023
It definitely was in hindsight. The script was written before TOTK haha, but you're absolutely right. Especially given ice arrows (or rather, ice materials fused to arrows) behaves almost exactly the same way
@@CaptBurgerson yeah no I knew these came out before its release, but yeah crazy how similar the mechanic ended up being. The first time I threw the ice fruit I was like Majora’s Mask!! 😲
Loved rewatching these altogether, it was almost like a super quick let’s play! Thanks for making these compilations ❤
I have learned one thing from this video. He wants whoever made choices on the 3DS Remake, and he wants to introduce them to the Bomb Mask.
Hey, I'm only halfway through, but the boss battles are based on masks, not on dungeon items. Odalwa you use deku launchers, in gorh you use Goron, in fishy you use Zora mask, in twin mold you use Giant mask
Thank you so much for this! My son has been sick this past week and I've been sleeping with him. I've been replaying the MM playlist so I can listen when we go to sleep but love the compilation video style! Especially after listening to your OoT one!
> I've been sleeping with him
uhhhhhhhhhhhh
In defense of herding goats.
It does nothing to progress the plot yes, but its vital to set the mood and set the status qoe, Link is a goat herder and farm hand, he isnt anything special, and he spends his time herding goats, playing with the kids, and hang out with his girlfriend, so when the call of adventure comes, he has to answer, not to save the world, but get back what he lost. Twilight Princes is the only Zelda game where the goal is to get back what he lost, saving the world is just a by product. And herding the goats is vital to this, its a menial task that is part of Links daily routine, he is clocking in a work to afford to eat, its just life, and life isnt exiting or filled with adventure.
You can have these things and not make it tedious. TP is a video game first and foremost after all. Narratively, yes I understand what you mean. This is a defence I've heard many times before. But it makes it hard for me to want to jump back into the game because I know I'll have to grind through the tedium first.
I don't think the segment has to be cut, but it shouldn't be as stretched out as it is. We could have limited the goat herding to just one time
@@CaptBurgerson The goats arent that bad. Ive been trying to speedrun it, and even if we skip most of the early game, the goats are still there, and even after herding the goats at least a hundred times, i can say they arent that bad.
I can agree that two goat herds so close together can get a little grating,
but what is worse is getting the money to buy that slingshot.
If you know what to do, its still annoying at best, but if you dont know all the hidden little rupees, you'll have to end up braking a few pumpkins just to get what you need.
I feel like a better way to do this would have been to incorporate "tutorials" for stuff you actually do in game (I can't remember herding anything being a part of the actual non-tutorial gameplay in TP besides having to stop a goat like a goron). For example: Link needs to swing a scyth like a sword to cut his crops, he needs to ride Epona to patrol for foxes and other creatures trying to eat the cuccoos, he needs to use a slingshot to clear away some wasps in the barn. I don't think anyone has a problem with setting up Link's life in the beginning as a normal, boring farm boy, but herding literally never comes up in TP again so it's just tedious and pointless.
@@CaptBurgerson I kinda disagree with that. The point was that his daily life WAS tedious. There's not really any way to make work and chores fun. And the goat herding takes like 2 minutes max, I personally don't see how less than 5 minutes of total gameplay is enough to ruin a game intro
@@brendangibson8200 Where is it implied his daily life was tedious to him? He's never shown to give that impression and it's never pushed to us players. It isn't just goats that are the problem. I can pick up MM and OoT and Link to the Past and actively enjoy the beginning zones. I can't with Twilight Princess and it goes into reasons far beyond goats. Something being badly paced and bloated doesn't have to come with a point; there is no point why it was such a pain to get the slingshot than padding. It overstays its welcome.
In Great Bay Temple, you can use the Hookshot to reach the Map chest in that room before acquiring the compass in the following room.
I literally cant imagine going through that dungeon with worse swimming..
its not bad lol, makes things easier at times
you can always get the chateau romani (infinite magic) to get back the better zora swimming mechanic. it's not even game-breaker imo
I barely noticed the difference. Honestly, the 3ds as a whole is a mixed bag, the good is great but the bad is an equal opposite. Ex: the boss fight changes; odolwa and especially gyorg could use the glow up. Goht did not need it and twinmold was just done badly. The better item accessibility and time mechanics made life SOOO nice... Breaking the character mechanics... Not so much. Overall I like both for differing reasons.
You don't have to, there's a fan patch that fixes everything Grezzo broke on the 3DS, now the absolute best way to play MM.
@@bojordan64 you have my full attention! How do I obtain all that is needed for this?
If you have a modded 3DS, install the Majora’s Mask Restoration Project a patch. This bring the vast majority of the changes in the remake back to how it was in the 64. This even includes the ISG and Bomb Hovering glitches from 64. Unfortunately Twinmold can’t be restored back to how it was originally but its final phase was fixed where red Twinmold’s health doesn’t reset if it burrows underground.
It annoys me to no end how people call the Great Bay Temple confusing and difficult. The water current literally drags you to where you need to go. You just follow the current, going top to bottom, and you'll be good.
I always had trouble getting through the dungeon as a kid because you have to remember to hit all the valves to turn on the water. That one in the room with the blue chu chu is the notable easy to miss one if you're not paying attention.
Also Wart was real tough as a kid, killed me every time.
But yes, going through it when you're older it is just as simple as following the adventure line.
@@peco595 yeah i will say it's much more confusing when you're a kid, and first impressions of a dungeon leave a big impact on how people view a dungeon. also, yes, Wart sucks.
There are a few valves that are easy miss and if you miss one you can't beat the dungeon.
Completing Great Bay Temple by itself isn't that hard. Completing it while getting all the Stray Fairies to get double defense is pretty annoying though.
@jameslars7391 I do kinda agree, it is a bit of a pain to complete the temple in time. Waiting to get Chateau Romani and then going for all the fairies eats up a lot of time.
Ook, drink everytime he says "pound down"!
I always found Odolwa a surprising boss, as it is very different to the usual monsters of TLOZ. The first time I battled him, I had no idea how to hit him, as I thought that, as usual in Zelda, the key to defeat him would be using the characteristic item of the temple but I didnt have any arrows left so I tried with Deku flower attacks. Once I defeated him and saw the giant, I assumed that ALL bosses would be humanoid (it would make LOTS of sense: The giants possessed by the masks). Thus, Goth was even a bigger surprise
As much as I love the 3DS remake, it was my first Zelda game, the thought of not having to restart the stone tower temple because the Twinmold fight was way to long sounds amazing. Same with faster swimming.
I just binged your OOT video and this one, and I'm immediately a huge fan. Can't wait to see more from you!
Lol the frog echo bit kept killing me and catching me off guard 😂.
The thing about the zora swimming is: I’m glad they added a slower swim speed in the 3DS version because it makes navigating areas like the underwater tunnels in the pirate fortress easier, BUT it shouldn’t cost magic to use the normal swim speed. They could have just made a button toggle to switch between the two speeds and kept magic out of it entirely.
100,000% this
This would...probably be the best compromise. I didn't personally mind the swimming myself on the 3DS, but I could get behind that. Like the X or Y button since you don't have access to your normal items anyway in that form?
This is literally all they needed to do. I didn’t mind the swim speed in the great bay temple or the pirate fortress, but it made actually traveling around the beach a slog because I wanted to conserve my magic. It doesn’t help that it drains so fast even with the magic upgrade.
I remember playing this game as a kid and i couldnt play it more than an hour or two before i needed a break. I never could explain it but the game just made me feel dreadful and scared and now that im older i understand all of the atmosphere, music is meant to do that
Its like they took the well and shadow temple and made a whole game with the same goal of creep out the kiddies the goal
One thing i always liked about the original bosses is that they're not a glorified puzzle that, after being solved, is barely a challenge.
You can immediately figure out what to do and still struggle, because you actually need to be consistent at executing the strategy they demand. Those kind of enemies are the reason i like Skyward Sword's combat so much.
I also like how they (almost) all act in believable ways.
Odolwa doesn't leave himself open (especially against his weakness, Bombs), until he either summons minions or just straight up Taunts you.
Goht never gives you free hits. he keeps running if you're close, speeds up to get away from you and sometimes kicks you, if you're right behind him.
Gyorg literally acts exactly like a irl fish or a Orca would.
Twinmold is the only one i'm disappointed in. Would be great if their movements would actually have reason. All hits you take seem accidental, (Shoutouts to red Twinmold from the 3ds for actually attacking)
Majora's Mask never let's you hit it's back for free, Incarnation treats this whole thing like a game and Wrath is just a straight-up douche, especially if you go sword only against him.
I think Gyorg and Twinmold both kinda suck. You fire arrows at will into Gyorg until you land a hit then jump in the pool and zap him, no change in strategy at any point in the fight with the added challenge mid-way being nothing at all.
Twinmold you just flail wildly. Like seriously, I replayed it just the other day and quick spins are the way against Twinmold.
The remake did all the bosses except Goht a favor by making you have to do more than just flail at them. I know people like the more free form style the originals have, but the bosses don't do enough to make it really that interesting. Gyorg has one attack and Twinmold zero.
I played this game mainly as a old kid/young teen and always seemed to get stuck at the Ikana canyon part. It took my years when I finally figured out the ikana castle, learned the elegy of emptiness and was finally able to fully climb Stone Tower. I was super happy and impressed with the design, concept, puzzle execution, and minibosses (minus wizrobe) regarding the temple. Got to the boss super excited expecting an intense battle that would make me have to really use strategy to win......only to see the boss(es) just fly around in the air and sometimes run into you. And all you do as a giant is just run around and attack them. I just found the battle so boring and uncreative. Like the idea of being a giant for it is cool, but that's really it. I can appreciate the ideas behind trying to mix it up and make it more interesting and use some actual thought behind it for the 3ds version, but I think execution for them was made difficult just because of the original design of twinmold. It's kind of cool but didn't really seem to allow much creativity and flexibility of boss attacks and behavior patterns. I think they would have been better making twinmold like a desert scorpion or something like that. Where maybe you avoid attacks and take out the legs as small link and then for the second phase it grows wings and forces you to use the giants mask for the second half of the battle. And add different attacks to the boss and body movements so it wasn't so boring (at least IMO).
That stray Fairy in the ice dungeon You use the exploit for Can actually be acquired with a deku scrub launchpad up at the top so no exploit is actually required to get it
I'M SO HAPPY TO HEAR ESSENTIALLY THE SAME OPINION I HAVE ABOUT THE 3DS VERSION OF GYORG, BUT I HAVE ANOTHER VERY STRONG OPINION THERE THAT I WANT TO ADD
(well, I think you're sharing it, just didn't quite verbalize that bit, and I wanna add it)
...first of all, the point about Goth and Gyorg fights being the opposite in terms of initiative is brilliant, never thought of it that way!
But about Gyorg specifically - he's my favorite MM boss, and high up there for Zelda bosses overall, because he is DANGEROUS. Yeah, sure, Zora Link can swim. Not around Gyorg though. In the water in his room (un-stunned) Gyorg is king, and if you're in there with him(un-stunned), your first and only priority should be getting the hell out of there.
So what do they do, for the second phase of the fight? They remove the platform, and have you swimming in the water with him. You two are sharing the pool, or whatever the hell. That to me is so boneheaded, and goes so directly against the concept of the boss fight, and the main thing I love about the fight that it genuinely makes my blood boil just looking at the footage of the second half of the fight.
...probably my strongest opinion about all of Zelda, so I'm sorry if I come off too strong, but I had to add that, right as I saw that part of the video. Great video so far, BTW, love it!
I hated Gyorg originally. It deals half the health of a casual player at that moment in game and takes too long to kill. I actually hate 3DS Gyorg more, though. Sure, the half health destroying attack is gone now, but the second phase took so long that an entire twelve ingame hours happened *with the inverted song of time activated.* Whoever thought it was a good idea to make the bombs spawn in randomly instead of always near where Gyorg is moving is atrocious. It takes like five minutes to stun the damn fish even once!
1:26:00 feel like alot if people over estimate how anoying this quest is. All you need is bean sprouts and a blue potion. so just teleport to the swamp hut and buy them. Theres even a kind of shortcut if you follow the stream at the entrence of ikana to the swamp to get the bean. And the blue potion you can buy at ikana. All other items are found in the crypt itself. Think about the gold skultulas from oot. Or the graditude crystals from skyward sword. Those are actually tedious
Been listening to some of your dungeon analysis videos lately for background noise and I have to say, I really enjoy your insights. I find you articulate your thoughts very well on the overall game design and how it plays into themes. I had a D&D campaign based on Zelda on the back burner for a while and your videos are inspiring me to work on it again. Keep up the great work!
I think Odolowa can be fought with deku link, spins stun him iirc and there's the deku flower in the middle of the room where you can get above him to drop nuts or possibly jet out from beneath him like the turtles, its just that nothing stops you from going ape with your butter knife.
That one specific stray fairy in Snowhead can also be reached via deku flowers as there's a few in that chamber where you can float down to reach them, the limit on deku links flight is horizontal distance from his start position, I've used it to just gently float down to reach it, even though the scarecrow is an option on return visits incase you missed them or are just bored and reclearing the dungeon for no reason (like i do a lot).
"Just this moment of silence..."
Epona: "NEEEEEEIIIGH"
Fun Fact, in Ikana castle if you're in one of the deku flowers when the ceiling drops you don't get squished and push the ceiling back up when you pop out.
I love getting the hookshot before doing Snowhead, that temple is so much more interesting with the hookshot imo
64 version all the way! I LOVE doing Great Bay Temple on repeat plays, it's a lot of fun.
Theres actually a restoration patch that was made for the 3DS version of Majora's Mask that fixes literally every complaint you had about the remake, I highly recommend it (as well as hacking your 3DS in general, its easy)
I'm with you about Odwalla. Them fixing something that wasn't broken shows the lack of originality they have these days.
I love how the giants are like big weird mister potato head guys
The three doors you complained about in snow head makes more sense if you consider that the central pillar cuts between the two sides of that floor.
OMG I forgot how EPIC the intro is for this series ahhhh!!!
I will never forgive whichever person decided to suggest a nerf to Zora Link in the remake. _I will never forgive this person for as long as I live._
To me, the zelda franchise IS Ocarina of time and Majoras mask, and the two complement and build upon each other soooo well. Yes, i did play a Link to the past first, but in my minds' eye/imagination, these two games are what will stick with me for life, whenever the zelda franchise is mentioned. Its awesome videos like this that are keeping the magic alive for so many of us.well done👍
Can’t get enough OoT/MM content, great work on these
I've actually made the comparison between Snowhead and the Water Temple before, and I'm glad someone else sees it
the nintended way to get the fairy in the main room of snowhead is either the scarecrow song and hookshot or using the deku flower at the top floor to hover all the way down there, which takes forever.
Great bay for dummies:
Top to bottom - reverse - top to bottom - boss
there is no need to do the top route again after getting the ice arrows as you will go through the same rooms again later.
also the seesaw room only needs 3 fire arrows. you only need to refreeze if you mess up.
the gibdo trading quest can be trivialized if you buy some milk. if you don't want to wait for the milk bar, you can fetch some overpriced milk from the gorman brothers. if you bring your own milk you don't need the blue potion to get to the hot springs, and you don't need the big poe fight to get the poe leading to the underground cow. you can even prepre the fish and bugs in advance, both of which can be found in the stock pot inn's kitchen.
The fountain fairies have blessed us with a new video ~♡
I know this is a compilation, bit I'm going to pretend it isnt, and comment all my thoughts as they come so the al-gore-ithm might catch on.
Another cool thing about the great bay temple's music is the background ambient noise, which sounds like water pumps or something like that, fitting to the theme. This was the 2nd zelda I played (also the first time earlier last year) and while I initially didnt like it as much as OOT, partly because of the time cycle, now after seeing the bigger picture I think its definitely superior. Its just so ambitious.
In stone tower temple, if you use hot spring water on the sun block that blocks the way from the entrance room, it will disappear. It doesn't work on any other sun block. Just on this one
I will never *not* be impressed that this game was made in a single year. Sure it uses a lot of the same graphics and models but god, this game is a achievement to Miyamoto’s mind.
Wow I literally never knew you could see Stone Tower from the goron village
That’s crazy they would disrespect The Zora Swimming Ability like that in the remake. Makes no sense.
Link, at the end of Great Bay: Wow, in terms of water dungeons, this one really wasn’t that bad. Hopefully we get a boss as unique and interesting as that Goht fight from Snowhead!
The massive fish preparing to eliminate half of Link’s health in a single attack:
Boss: 🐟
36:04
I was a music major in college (though not the best at analyzing heard music- I would be able to decipher sheet music) and I'm PREEEETTY sure there's a reason why you feel like the tension never releases. I'm pretty sure all of the chords the piano plays are diminished chords or a cluster of tri tones. These types of chords or note distances are used to create tension for a release. Think of the ending of a major Classical Piece and it probably ends the song with a drawn out diminished chord or a chord that is designed to create tension.
Or uhhh... okay so one song that I'm sure EVERYBODY knows but doesn't know the name of is Bach's Toccata and Fugue. That's the creepy organ song people love to play during Halloween. Look it up and you'll recognize it in the first three seconds. The ending of the first major section has this super large drawn out tension filled chord with semitones that sounds dramatic and tense until it resolves into this bright and pretty major chord. It's like the first 40 seconds of the song.
That's how composers NORMALLY use these types of sounds, but the composer for the Snowhead temple decided he didn't want us to feel a release of tension so the piano portion never plays anything OTHER than these awful dissonant tense sounding notes.
It's funny how you've said many times you're not a music theory expert, but you've hit the nail on the head several times with how the music works. Like you understand what the music is doing without knowing any of the theory behind it, and that's really cool to me as a music nerd.
Thanks so much for this comment. It's incredibly validating to read. I'll reiterate, I am NOT an expert on musical theory. I can't even read sheet music haha. But I try my best to articulate the *feeling* in my scripts, so I'm glad that it shines through.
Cheers!
Another music major here.
Comment is spot on. There are very dissonant tone clusters that don't resolve, with a notable b7 in the bottom of the cluster.
Music in this game is so underrated.
Edit: This video is amazing!!
The cool part in the great bay temple you are referring to sounds the way it does because it uses poly rhythm which causes uneasee😊
51:58 I believe there is a Deku flower towards the top. I used that to drift down and land in the hidden section with the fairy chest.
Don't know if this was already mentioned, but if you're fast enough and use the Inverted Song of Time to save you some time, you can get to Woodfall, get the Bow, leave to go to Snowhead, get the Fire Arrows, leave to access to Powder Keg guy near Goron Village to do his mission to get Powder Kegs, and the rush to Romani Ranch (should've headed there at the beginning of your Cycle to activate the Owl Statue) so you can blow up the boulder there and get Epona, all before the 1st Night of your 1st real Cycle. You can go even further and even beat MM all in the 1st real Cycle if you know where you're going. You should even have time to do the rest of the Romani sidequests so you can access the Milk Bar and get Chateau Romani for infinite magic.
I played a perfect game with no game overs until I fought Gyorg. Gyorg was definitely a learning curve holy crap
Hopefully, when they do MMHD they'll make it more like the original by removing the eyes on the bosses but keep the fishing holes and allow us another area where we can fight as Fierce Deity Link
If you want to cheese a good chunk of Great Bay and Ikana, Chateau Romani turns magic management into a non-issue.
Im obsessed with how detailed you are 😊 great video
Thank you for this! I love your critique of the music theory and everything else! A fellow perfectionist! I'm 31 this brings me back to the times I was a preteen and couldn't beat the game until I bought the 80 page guide for $19.99 lol. Blessings thanks for all this there are many things I don't even remember doing!
Skullkid was my childhood crush…. until he took the mask off.
I always loved how Majora's Mask managed to carve its own path despite being a complete rehash of Ocarina of Time's character models.
This is a prime example of the difference that worldbuilding and storytelling can make.
Also while I caught the implications of Navi's name back in the day, I never thought twice about the idea of tatl and tael being two halves of the same idea (which naturally amounts to a tattle-tale).
_Majora’s Mask’s_ only major flaw, in my opinion, is the lack of a proper final dungeon.
I know Stone Tower Temple was basically the final dungeon, that makes use off all the items, skill, and transformation masks Link’s acquired throughout the game, but still… the completely disconnected mini-dungeons of the Moon felt pretty anti-climactic, and they’re technically optional! a final dungeon built around a time motif would’ve been nice, or maybe the dungeon layout is the same as Clock Town? or there’s some sort of Silent Realm-type thing, like in _Skyward Sword_ ?
I've never even played the original but even I can extremely relate to 58:16
In the gecko fight he stops periodically to turn on the ceiling that's the opening to lock on shoot, just wait for him to pause
24:33 - use Bombs to get rid of the Moths...the explosion already has a pretty wide radius, but on top of that, the lit fuse of the bomb will Attract the moths toward it, so you can almost-always wipe out the entire swarm in one go
another factor in the game's difficulty is that it started life as Ura Zelda, the Second Quest for Ocarina of time (also it's not talked about a whole lot but Ura Zelda was released, it's the Master Quest version of OoT) so the game's development started on the expectation of players who had already completed OoT, which is about the same as what you were saying, I was just elaborating that it's a bit more complicated than "Because it's a sequel"
I see what they were going for with the remake boss eyeballs. Tying everything in with Majora's visual motifs, explaining their corruption. But regardless, the mission failed. Almost every change they made was badly executed.
I really like your style.
"The Elegy of Emptiness wears pretty thin, and you'll get tired of hearing it before you even get to the dungeon"
Am I really the only one who didn't get tired of it? I actually enjoyed that song, even after having to play it 5000 times or so just to reach the dungeon...
To be perfectly fair, the fact that he didn't get the map in Greatbay first was just because the fact that he didn't hookshot the chest. He used Ice arrows to get to the platform instead of using the hookshot which latches onto wooden things or specific targets
Yeah that was my b
1:09:56 the reason you're always getting the compass first is because you can hookshot this chest when you first see it. Great video.
We had cool jumps in the very beginning and then they took them from us. I'm still upset.
What do you mean took them from us? because they weren’t in later games?
Majora's Mask is a great Legend of Zelda game!
The worse zora swimming in the remake makes it feel like zora link is better on land at that point
The real question is why the 3DS remake didn't add an eyeball weakspot to Wart.
“You know what this giant eyeball monster needs? A big eyeball weak point!”
I'm not 100% sure why they changed the Ice Arrows aside from making the game easier for people who have no brain capacity for trial and error, but I do know that if you slam back some Chateau Romani, you can use Ice Arrows in the Great Bay to make it all the way to the temple out in the sea and eventually the edge of the map. Could be part of the reason, who knows.
I don’t see this as an issue really, since you get the ice arrows in great bay temple, so it’s not like you can use that to skip anything
The remake is weird to me, because it's so very nearly a better version, but there's so many weird little decisions that just bring it down.
Especially considering that the OoT remake, from what I remember, didn't do anything super weird like this.
Gomess is one of those bosses that I believe is easier if you have more comfort with the controller. My roommate played though MM and she had a lot of trouble with Gomess. It was a puzzle fight as much as a combat, and the consumption of her resources put the pressure on her. Granted, if you get everything along the way you have so many hearts, extra magic, and double defense then you would be a powerhouse
I want to talk about the Odalwa boss fight. Not only did he stand out, I had played every Zelda game as they were new(ish) as they came out. That battle shocked me. OoT made bossfights collapse into the formula of "Big Creature has dungeon item used on him which allows you to kill him/her in 3 cycles". It wasn't actually that smooth, but the game assumed when you stunned a boss you'd walk up and bash it with regular sword hits until they become invulnerable again and it usually lasted for 3 cycles. And usually other weapons seemed impractical to use. During this fight I recall whipping out bombs to try. Our toolkit as a player at this point is pretty small - but a lot of it works. It is the easiest bossfight in the game, but its also quite early. As for the theme of Dread, I also feel its the least present in the Swamp. The palace of the Deku feels pretty upbeat - I mean they're letting strangers in the front door. The people living nearby are doing poorly, but compared to how the other areas are in outright collapse the Deku Palace is probably an okay place to chill for three days.
A major factor in the reduced Dread is on the player. A new player may or may not solve all the puzzles up to the Temple in the first single cycle, and the Temple itself. We all know how to beat the games and the language they speak for puzzles. As a new player I recalled being quite often worried about the time in-game. I still have a fairly vivid memory of trying to solve the room before Odalwa with the final 6 hour countdown spinning down rapidly. The boss dances as the ground shakes from the moon's approach. That sense of dread is vastly built upon by the 3 day cycle mechanics as well. Sometimes you can sit on your butt and solve a puzzle. Majora's Mask asks more of the player.
Not this man apologizing for a long video
Sir ur keeping me sane at work keep going XD
The last stray fairy in the second dungeon is also accessable by using the deku flower at the very top before going to the boss. Use the flower as deku link, line up and then fall down.
I have only one counterpoint to anything you’ve said, and it’s regarding the 3ds giant’s mask
I thought the idea was genius; stone tower was the only temple without a transformation, we have to keep that in mind as I type this. This area as a whole subverted a LOT things(even literally) that we were used to in the game at that point.
We got multiple masks in this area that “represent” transformations, (garo, from the Gorman’s sure, keeta, and gibdo), we even got the gibdo mask through the song of healing, which, at that point, was specially used for transformation masks. So of course it’d be wise to assume that WE’D transform into a gibdo after (why, idk, seemed like a terrible experience, but expectations) considering it’s the area of the dead, it’d make the most sense, right?
But nope, nothing. Even the song we get from igos doesn’t necessarily represent the area in an immediate way, but it actually does, I’ll explain
So when we get to the tower, we’re honestly not even thinking about the fact that we don’t have a transformation mask, nor a song that “activates” the dungeon(the lullaby technically didn’t, but it directly aided in the access of the dungeon), elegy of emptiness, while aiding in the access, doesn’t do so in a way that any other dungeon does. Youre just using husks to step on pressure plates. Another subversion.
But then you realize that you’re being aided by the dead, the spirits of the deceased are literally helping you advance to the top (I obviously won’t count link, that’s a whole other iceberg)
All of that to say, we’ve explored the whole dungeon, without a transformation, the only actual transformation at this point is the dungeon itself. So when we get to the end, what to expect? A boss with no mask? Ok, maybe we use all the other masks at this point like we have in the dungeon. Nope.
We use this cool mask in the final part that makes us freaking GIANT!
This is where it gets subjective; it’s only a transformation mask in the figurative sense, since it’s still link, just big. I think the remake improves it in a sense by making it an *actual* transformation mask, it’s not link anymore, the same way deku/goron/zora link are not technically link. He’s inhabiting their bodies, completely changing his physiology and personality of a sort (shy deku, jolly goron, and cocksure zora, it even shows in their movesets), it would make sense to show a brutish soul in the giant’s mask since he’s essentially inhabiting it. I thought it was another great subversion of everything we’ve seen so far in this culminating temple.
Again, just my opinion, great video btw!
I love the uncontacted tribe feel of Woodfall Temple. Shame that the best dungeon is the first one you play
Love the videos man. Big fan.
I don't know if this is the same comment as on any of the first uploads on this (XD), but i loved watching these since i never was able to play this particular entry of the series. The approach is to these make for great analysis.
A bit of a minor details, but I enjoyed the quality of life changes in the 3DS Version.
Actual Save Points? Yes! That made me excited!
The Clock Town Bank is now in South Clock Town instead of West Clock Town.
Song of Double Time was made to be more efficient. Rather than just booting you into the Night or Dawn of the next Day, you could proceed to a specific point in time.
Bosses, while different, grew on me. The one that wasn't changed too much was definitely Goht. Since that's actually how I fought him in the N64 Original.
Other than that, the games are more or less the same.
I think the reason for the eyes added to the remake is that the creatures are supposed to be CORRUPTED by Majora, not created by them, so the weird eyes makes that a lot more obvious.
I'm reading primas official strategy guide for the game. from the year 2000.
I still hope someday we’ll get an enhanced port of the 3DS version that would fix the swimming and the nerfing of the ice arrows.
I’m ok with the boss changes mostly, even if I found the giant Majora’s eyes quite lame. The 3DS version was so beautiful and added some nice changes (mostly control wise), it just too bad they again decided this should be playable by 3 years old and nerfed so many good mechanics from the original.
I *want* to like the MM dungeons, but I feel like the game tries really hard to make me dislike them. The time mechanic meaning if you take too long or don't get everything you wanted during or after the dungeon done, you have to redo everything. The in my opinion extremely janky controls for the goron and zora transformations really hurts my enjoyment as well - I know it's a skill issue, but *man* they're a pain to control for me. But that's not really a fair way to look at it. The temples should be assessed on their own merits rather than what I think about the game more largely, and my low skill with the the Zora and Goron transformations shouln't impact my view on the dungeon design.
I agree with you about Woodfall. I think it's a good, solid opening dungeon. Not a fan of the music or the boss fight, or that final room before the boss, but other than that it's a genuinely good temple especially for an intro. If it was in another Zelda, I'd like it more, but like I say that's not really fair. Possibly the strongest opening dungeon in Zelda hoenstly.
Snowfall, man I hate playing it, even though I have a lot of respect for it. And it's almost entirely because of the goron controls. I spend countless in-game hours trying to make that jump in the second room with the broken bridge; I have no idea why I find it so hard but it's just *infuriating* to me, and you have to do it multiple times. And I really really hate how easy it is to be at a high level and then lose so much progress if you fall. I also really don't like the precision platforming section with the lense of truth for similar reasons. And I find the final stray fairy in the main room really ridiculous - how is anyone supposed to be able to access that in their first playthrough? It's so precise and non-obvious, you even call accessing it with the way you show an exploit, which would be fine if it wasn't for the time mechanic essentially forcing you to redo the entire thing if you miss one stray fairy. I have a lot of respect for the design of the dungeon, but there are just so many things that frustrate me with it that it has to be one of my most disliked dungeons in the entire series. I was replaying the game for the first time in many years on NSO, and this dungeon has made me quit playing because I just find it that frustrating. From what I remember though, I also didn't like the boss. In general I think MM did a poor job at telegraphing the bosses weak points and strategies for them; it felt like hitting my head against a brick wall for all of them, and I can remember looking up the correct strategies and being annoyed because I had the right idea but was just not doing it in quite the right way, or annoyed because I assumed I had to use a transformation or item that turns out to be useless. But again, easy to argue this is just a skill issue rather than a problem with the boss itself.
So I have to go by memory of Great Bay Temple because I quit partway through my replay. But from what I remember I hated it even more than Snowfall! I found the Zora transformation extremely difficult to control, and thought everything was extremely disorienting, especially the central room. Make a wrong turn and it's more time wasted. Again, I respect the design and your description of the puzzles sounds good, but man, part of the reason why I quit was the memories of this temple flooding back to me and not wanting to deal with it again!
Stone Tower though? It's one of the reasons I wanted to replay the game. Amazing central idea with the room flipping, excellent design, great music, a wonderful final temple for the game. I didn't fully watch your review of it because I want it to be fresh if I end up giving the game another go, but if it's anything like I remember it's definitely up there as one of the best dungeons in Zelda.
I know your opinion on the remake is the popular one among Zelda fans, but I just completely disagree with it. I think almost every change made in the 3DS remake is for the better. The controls feel so much more reliable and accessible to me; they actually do what I want rather than the chaotic feeling I constantly had with the original. This is *especially* true for Zora. And although I don't like the clumsy slapping of a big eye for the boss fights, in general I much prefer their designs in the remake too. The only change I don't like if for the deku, because I don't think the spin jumping had any difficulty or lack of accessibility for lower-skill players, and getting rid of the ability to do that just felt like punishing good players with no benefit for anyone else either. But the remake allowed me to actually *enjoy* the game and appreciate it for all of its excellent design, without the controls and harshness of the time mechanic getting in the way. I really appreciate it for that.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and it takes a lot of maturity to assess to be as introspective with your criticisms as you are, even if I think you were being a little hard on yourself.
I will say that playing the game on NSO is a bit of a different experience. The Switch's emulation is not quite tuned right in some ways, and so a lot of the controls end up being way more sensitive than they were on the N64. That may have exacerbated the issues you were already experiencing on the original, since a lot of precise movement is made harder by the added sticked sensitivity.
Thanks still for giving the video a go as much as you did, and taking the time to leave a thoughtful comment, cheers!
jesus, dude. try to be more concise next time. these are youtube comments, not your school essay
@@RedHatGuyYT hey man they are UA-cam comments not mandatory reading. I actually really like when people take the time to articulate their thoughts like this. No need to be a party pooper. Nobody is holding you at gunpoint telling you to speed-read every comment. You can choose to keep scrolling through the comments section
@@CaptBurgerson you know what they say; "no one is exempt from criticism". besides, we all know i was just teasing 😉
@@RedHatGuyYT Schrödinger’s teasing
In Snowhead, you're supposed to use the flower as a deku to get the last stray fairy. Also, the Great Fairy's Mask's hair will glow if there are any strays left in the room
The 3DS Version just Changed and Ruined a lot of Aspects of the Original N64 had. I mean come on... Eyeballs for the Bosses? Designated Areas for the Ice Arrows? The King Kong vs Giant Flying Worm segment in Twinmold's Boss Fight? The Zora Swimming being Fucking Nerfed into a Casual Paddle? I don't mind the Graphical Upgrade but I HATE the Changes that were made.
This was *such* a good video and I'm so glad I found it - but in particular I just want to say I'm *so* glad to see someone with the same sort of opinions on the remake, particularly the bosses and even more specifically, Twinmold- I've been disappointed in the remake's Twinmold fight for so long in ways I couldn't quite explain until you put it into words better than I ever could here - But in so much online discussion, at least in the spaces I've been, I've seen so so much praise of that fight in particular and how it's "such a big improvement over the original" that I felt like I was going mad! Like, is it really that unpopular of an opinion? So definitely validating to hear someone else share those thoughts to say the least-
Twinmold rants aside- Majora's Mask is one of my favourite Zelda games - not quite the top, but definitely up there in the top 3 - so I'm always down for just super long videos on it like this- On seeing it in my recommended, I originally intended to maybe use it as background noise while I worked on some drawing stuff, but I found myself just constantly pausing and rewinding to the point where the goal of drawing did not pan out as I'd simply become fully engrossed in the video and just sat to watch the full 2 hours uninterrupted-
I don't comment on stuff often since when I do I tend to get very ramble-y (As you can see right now-) but this was one of those special cases where I just had to- Yes, mostly to point out how validated I feel with my opinions on Twinmold dfdhdhs but also to just say this was such a good watch, and once again, I'm very glad I found it- I don't even know if you'll take the time to read all this since I can't even imagine how long it is at this point, but 😭
Ye 👍 Good video-
I liked the 3ds boss fights better. Wish the weak point would have been something else, but it fits zelda.
I like both versions of Majora's Mask and will fully admit the 3ds one makes some weird choices however one thing I like that the 3ds version does is give the expanded magic reward in woodfall. It helps with the snowfall temple.
I do like that they changed the bosses up in the remake. I know people are all upset because big eyeball weak spot or being forced to do specific things, but after replaying through MM the past week I think it was for the best in the remake.
All the bosses are super easy in the original with Goht being the only real fun one and the only one definitelychanged for the worse.
Odolwa has no reason to use the Deku mask in the original which is pretty meh to me since all the other bosses use a transformation
Gyorg is just shoot arrow, zap, repeat until dead
Twinmold is just swing your sword wildly until dead
Not very engaging honestly. I'm glad they souped them up in the remake in retrospect.
@@peco595 yeah Goht was the only boss I was super bummed they changed. Twinrova was odd but I didn't hate it since it forced you to fight one of them as normal Link. Wasn't a fan of the wrestling gimmick though.
@@michaels4917 I think the hand to hand makes more sense for the giant's mask, making Link a powerful giant not unlike the ones that stop the moon with their own two hands
in defense of the remake's giants mask, when you have your sword it makes the final dungeon boss fight pretty easy. As well as in oot; when link grows, his weapons dont grow with him, so in my mind at least, it kinda makes sense that you wouldnt get his tiny sword and shield as a huge giant. Even if i wish it were a bit more polished, in my mind its a pretty logical change. As for the swimming i just assumed it was more accessibility, someone else mentioned the 3d feature (which, i love my 3ds but i never used LMAO) but my other idea is the fact that the 3ds screen is SMALL, if you're moving really quick its SO HARD to be able to effectively get anywhere- esp with the 3ds' joysticks. I love the original and the remake and the remake does sacrifice a lot but i think some sacrifices were made to keep it playable. (Esp with how 60% of the aiming is on the 3ds oh my god) love the video though im insane for oot and mm