not a bad murder mystery game! completely stomps on everything aitsf 1 stood for and drops its most interesting concepts right at the end! i recommend you play it, but with a cautious mindset. some of the characters are great, some of them are quite benign or completely pointless to the story (genuinely why is lien even here??? what does he add!!). its trying extremely hard to be an uchikoshi game, and often fails. dont expect it to bring up any concepts from aitsf 1 in any meaningful way because its trying its hardest to not spoil that game, as well. also dont expect it to be relevant at all to the pre release ARG because uh.... i dont know??? im a little bit biased against it just due to how much of a dissappointment it was on launch, but while its flawed, its still enjoyable and has some endearing characters

a game that gets worse and more annoying every time i think about it
like i can appreciate some of the concepts thought up for this game like the twist and some of the character beats but i would appreciate if they were done in, you know, a game that utilized them properly in a meaningful way lmao
only gets 2 starts because it warms my heart to see the characters i love so much again (even though i hate how most of them were handled) and because the game has better puzzles than the first one and because its funny and silly sometimes

uchikoshi pls hire me babe im a god with the pen

I think I can generally be pretty cynical in regards to Nintendo and their games in general, mostly a by-product of outside influences I suppose, but I find that despite my best efforts I can't be cynical in regards to a great majority of Zelda games, and Majora's Mask especially. Everytime I play Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask I come away just in fucking love with these games and video games in general. "Ah, fuck!! They're so good at making these fucking things!!"

So much has been waxed poetically about the themes of Majora's Mask that I don't think it's a productive use of your time or my time to get in detail about them. I know what this game is about and so do you, I just feel the need to say that I think the game warrants such deep readings. It does so much to get you thinking and asking questions that it deserves these long-ass essays about the fragility of time and life, and the compassion of doing good things for people who won't even know you did them, it's so rare to feel like a piece of art warrants everyone stepping up to the microphone to say what it means to them.

For me, personally, what it means is a game that I loved playing as a kid and still think is loads of fun. Before this most recent replay I replayed it recovering from dental surgery in 2018 when I was working as a manager at a high stress job so the dread of a looming threat of time felt so very real to me then, and now, far removed from that, I appreciate how Majora's Mask is able to evoke different times in my life for me without coloring my opinion of the game.

But really though, actually playing this bad boy is a blast. This had my favorite bosses in the series and still does, has my favorite dungeons, music, characters, and is far and away the best Zelda game. For the record, my other favorites are Ocarina of Time and Oracle of Ages/Seasons, Ocarina for similarly saccharine reasons, and Oracle for car-rides as a kid reasons.

Sometimes you can feel the changing tides in regards to critical appraisals for games, and I have a feeling Majora's Mask is about due to be the latest in "overrated" games. Ocarina of Time had to be the whipping boy for a few years so it's only fair. I just want to plant my flag now that I think Majora's Mask is a beautiful, excellent, fantastic game and I will NOT rescind my opinion. UNLESS a beautiful girl happens to think it sucks, in which case 1 star.