It's impossible to review this game without seeing it in the context of Ocarina Of Time. OOT has been for a long time considered one of the best games ever made, if not the best (before being dethroned by Breath Of The Wild, which shows how strong this franchise is). Majora's Mask was developed in the same engine, with the same tools, reused assets, and was developed at a break-neck pace, releasing a year and a half after OOT. The expectations were sky-high: this was a direct sequel to the greatest game of all time!

And what we got was this disturbing and weird game. Where OOT was more akin to a traditional fantasy tale (the chosen hero retrieves the legendary sword from the stone to go defeat the evil wizard and save the princess), here we get a much more introspective nightmare. There is almost a Souls-like quality to the resignation that permeates the entire world: the world is doomed, and there's nothing anyone can seemingly do about it. Except for you, trapped in a time loop, condemned to relive the end of the world over and over again until you can prevent it. You try to help people fix their lives, but you can't fix everything and save the world in one loop: and on the next reset, they're back to their problems, even if you still hold the token you received that proves you have helped them in a previous iteration. You get your powers by harnessing the souls of dead people of other races to be able to transform into them in an agonizingly painful way!

Despite having dungeons, and heart pieces, and all the things you would expect from a game mechanics perspective, it feels like the least Zelda-like of the franchise, and is often considered the odd one out. But, don't get fooled: it's a timeless (eh) masterpiece.