THE PREMISE
A few years after Ocarina of Time came out the N64 still had enough life left in it to support another Zelda outing. Majoras Mask takes place after young Link comes back fom the future and is out searching for Navi, his old fairy friend. Madness ensues when a Skull Kid steals his horse and ocarina and eventually curses him and turns him into a Deku Scrub. Link wakes up in another world and has another mission to comlete. His must save the new world of Termina before the moon smashes into it within 72 hours, get himself back into regular form and help the inhabitants of Termina with their problems.

GAMEPLAY
If you were expecting a very similar game to that of Ocarina of Time, you would be wrong. You must use your ocarina (when you get it back) to turn the clock back in order to set right all of the areas of Termina. Time is always ticking so you only have a limited amount of time to complete a task before you must turn the clocks back. This doesnt really make the game harder however because the 3 days seem to last quite a long time.

There is also the issue around masks that the world exists upon. You must collect lots of masks that perform functions to help you through the game. In some cases they change your form such as the goron mask, zora mask, deku mask and the Fierce Deity Mask. While in these guises you can have special moves or powers, such as swimming under water, spinning etc.

GAME SPECIFICS
The overall feeling of the game is to create nostalgia for the original game. Many of the character sprite have been reused but this time have been given specific personalities instead of just background filler. It is also interesting to note that every character has his or her own routine which they perform everyday unless you cause events to change that. This causes lots of side quests you need to stop or make certain things happen in order to gain masks.

FEEL OF THE GAME
One thing about the game that is of note is it's general mood, unlike Ocarina that always had an almost whimsical light heartedness and dramatic inserts, Majoras Mask is a plodding durge of destruction. Everything is depressing, the moon always hangs over you with a ghastly frightening face permanatly remiding you that its there. The screen shakes on the last 24 hours and the music gets even more bleak.

The characters you meet have dreadful woefilled lives, for example a young couple (Anju and Kafei) that are due to be wed have disaster strike when the man gets turned into a young boy and runs away leaving the woman depressed. The two farming girls discuss their fathers death and how lonely they are, especially the elder of the two who explains her heart ache over Kafei. One girl keeps her decomposing dad in the wardrobe while another (Lulu) has just had a clutch of baby Zoras and has her boyfriend die. See, it's al depressing and even after you've helped them out 72 hours later you have to go back in time again and their woes are present again.

It is a good game but the slog (the storyline and music) make it less enjoyable. Ocarina of Time is still very much the better game but if they had tightened up on the music and storyline this could have been as equally as good. However the best thing about these problems are that it helped guide the creators into perfecting Twilight Princess - a story that could have been very dark.

Well done Zelda team