A Green Mushroom

Continuing with the lite Zelda project brings us to Majora's Mask.  It's an odd one out for the series but I love some of the things it's doing. If you've never played it, Majora's Mask is much more non-linear than any other Zelda game.  It's all about exploration and discovery.  You repeat the same three days that lead to a moon crashing into the planet and in doing so you slowly gain powers, items, and masks that will help you on the way.  You also learn songs on the ocarina that perform all sorts of tasks and change how you interact with the flow of time. I beat this one a few times as a kid and once even did a 100% run of the game while getting the Fierce Diety Mask at the end.  That was a good time.  This time around I booted it up the remaster on my 3DS and played through the first half of the game or so. It's still really fun... if you're in the right mood.  Unless you're following a guide you'll find yourself repeating a lot of ...

This seems like it might be straightforward, but it's not.  If a game is un-fun should you keep playing it?  The answer should obviously be "no" but often we keep playing games we're invested in.  Or we put down a game and tell ourselves, "I'll come back to that soon." but we never do. I feel like these games have a mental weight.  For me they definitely do.  These type of games will be in the back of my mind in some sub-process of my thoughts until I explicitly tell myself that I'm done with a game and I let it go.  But it's a hard thing to do. Sometimes it feels like failure.  What if you've only played 30 minutes of a game?  What if you've played 40 hours?  What if you're right near the end?  All of these are valid jumping-off points but they all carry different feelings and can lead to guilt.  I know I feel it. One of the best ways I've found to let go of these games are to write about them.  If I can get my thoughts ...

I'm through the first dungeon in Majora's Mask and I'm really enjoying the game.  I haven't played it since it originally launched on N64, so it's fun to dig in and discover things I had completely forgotten about. It's amazing how all the characters interact and have daily lives.  I love the three day cycle of this game, it's such a perfect fit with how they've constructed the world.  You can learn where characters will be at certain times on certain days.  They are all interconnected with quests, objectives, and masks. To this day, there's still no other game like it. I think the multi-day cycle is a really cool thing that other games could take and run with.  I would like to see it redone by modern game designers, but it seems like a concept that was left alone after Majora's Mask. At this point I'm mostly focusing on exploring the world.  It's really fun just exploring and doing sidequests for masks even though I'm onl...

I've been sick since last Wednesday.  I'm over the worst of it but now I just have this cold that keeps lingering.  I've been working from home and getting a lot of sleep but besides that I'm just floating between games and activities at the moment. It's hard to lock down on one thing and focus while I'm sick.  Instead, I'm kinda just sampling stuff and making a little progress here and there. I'm through the first dungeon in Majora's Mask 3D on my 3DS. I went back and spent a couple nights playing around with endgame content in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn . I'm playing Quiz Up whenever I have a few free minutes on my phone. I'm trying to finish reading Star War: A New Dawn on my kindle. I finished watching the Star Wars films in Machete Order . I played a little more Wolfenstein . I don't have anything big to report.  I'm still just trying to feel better.  But expect some of those fleeting thoughts above to...

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is releasing on Friday and I'm seriously thinking about picking it up.  I'm still sitting on the fence because I had a lot of trouble getting into Ocarina of Time on 3DS when I attempted to play it a few months ago. My struggle getting into Ocarina of Time was that I remembered the game too well.  I had played those 3 intro dungeons so many times as a kid that I still remembered everything about them.  I got bored before I even got to the first adult Link section.  So I promptly gave up on the game. This shouldn't be a problem with Majora's Mask.  I played the game once and only have some scattered memories of it.  Everything I remember about the game is positive.  I still think the 3 day cycle mechanic is really interesting.  Nothing like it has been done elsewhere in gaming.  Majora's Mask is the most unique Zelda game out of the whole series. If I do pick it up, I'm hoping it can rekindle my lov...