The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Legend of Zelda: Mujura no Kamen

Being a more or less direct sequel to Ocarina of Time, only not so much.
That is, it takes place a couple of months after beating Ganon in OoT, and returning to the era of young Link. Young Link is just on his way to wherever when he is brutally robbed of his stuff by Stalkid, who consequently turns him into a Deku Shrub. Not content with his new form, Link winds up in Telmina at Clocktown where a festival is soon to be held, in search for Stalkid.
When he finds him however, it turns out Stalkid, who is under the influence of a suspicious mask is trying to bring the moon down to earth for a face to face meeting that will probably not leave a lot of things standing.

Before the moon hits however, Link is able to warp back 3 days in time, and now it is his task to prevent the moon from crashing into the planet by summoning 4 Giants to hold it back.

So as you can tell, the story is actually kinda original and cool this time around, and that is definitely the strong point of this game. The concept is totally original, but, as often happens with really original ideas, also has a lot of problems and could probably have been worked out a bit better.

Through your Ocarina you get the possibility of travelling back to the first of the three days leading to the big climax as many times as you want. This is also the ONLY way to save your game, BUT, most annoyingly, it kinda erases all your progress.
That's right, you SAVE and yet you DELETE your progress.
That is, you get to keep any new songs you've learned (and songs are always important triggers for major events) and any non-consumable items. So you get to keep all your weapons and equipment and stuff, but you loose bombs, arrows and money. You don't lose the ability to use them though, fortunately, so the most important things, that are necessary to continue your interrupted adventure are still there.

But, the whole world is returned to normal, so any events you have witnessed, or dungeons you have cleared are reset. Clear a dungeon though, and you get the mask of the boss at the end, allowing you to warp to the Boss Room immediately, defeat him and reap the rewards, which lead into newly accessible areas etc.

The advantage of the 3-day world is that everyday is different. Townsfolk have their own behavioral patterns that differ per day, and they'll be freely moving about the place in Shenmue fashion. In the early stages of the game you receive an Agenda where you can keep score of requests and subquests that involve the many people of Clocktown and that will often reward you with nice items. The agenda shows at what time certain events can be witnessed, only not where, so that's up to you to find out. This is a really fun and clever idea that works well if you have the energy and will to actually bother with it.

As it is, there's only 4 dungeons in the entire game, meaning you only get 4 heart containers in the course of the game. You start with 3, + 4 = 7, and ever since Link to the Past it has been customary for Link to have a total of 20 (!) hearts, so that means you have to find 13 heart containers, all split into four, as usual, so 52 (!!) pieces of heart. That's over twice as many as in LttP.
And that SUCKS, cos you'll be completely dependent on your skill to find and earn these things if you want to have a chance of survival. The game really forces you into exploring, even though you don't really get the time for it. And, geez, only 4 dungeons!? Come on!

Still, the whole idea is terribly original and all, but the fact that you often have to redo stuff is extremely annoying. You are under constant time pressure (who's idea of fun is that anyway?) because you only have 3 days, which go by pretty quickly. There IS a cheat to slow down time considerably, which is really essential to survival, but to my knowledge it cannot be found in the game, you have to know it in advance, or you're in trouble. Mind you, I don't have the booklet for this game, so it might be in there, although I highly doubt it.

Also, the game is really cheap as a sequel. On the one hand it has great new environments which look really pretty. The game requires the N64 expansion pack, and it really shows, cos it's just that bit more colorful and detailed than Ocarina of Time, but SO many elements of OoT are repeated that it's not funny anymore.
I mean, of course it has the same combat system and everything, that stands to reason, but there are so many similar subgames and subquests, it seems as if Nintendo had this one great idea for a new game, but not enough new ideas to actually make it play a lot differently.

What is more annoying is that you have to replay these things, which you already experienced in Ocarina of Time (and they were more fun there) in this game OVER and OVER again, because of the nature of the story, really squeezing out every ounce of patience you have. Replay value for this game is essentially 0, since you'll be replaying it a LOT just to finish it once.

So I really have a Love-Hate relationship with this game. The dungeons, few as they are, are really fun as always, and it is obvious why they are the gist of any Zelda game. Expect some really inventive and clever level designs again here.
Boss fights are rather dull though. Most are a simple hack and slash affair, doing away with the clever gimmicks and use of alternative weaponry that made OoT so great.
There's also a bunch of REALLY annoying subquests that HAVE to be done to complete the game, one of which involves a sub-dungeong where you have to try to put Zombies to rest by giving them the items they want, which often requires travelling back and forth to shops to go and get them.
Fortunately, you get a good warp system, through the use of owl statues that you can activate and that serve as landmarks.

And that is typical of this game, and indeed most Nintendo games, it might have some really stupid and frustrating ideas at times, but there's ALWAYS something to make it just that little bit easier and more user-friendly for you.
You might argue, why throw in the bad ideas in the first place, but, well, I don't know the answer to that either. Also, the whole mask thing, with Link changeing into Gorons, and Zora's and whatnot, doesn't really seem to belong in a Zelda game, it feels kinda weird.

But, as with any Zelda game, you will be amazed at some points. There are plenty of memorable moments and some stuff is REALLY worth hanging around for, in some cases it shines as brightly as its predecessor, but those moments are, alas, few and far between.

This game deserves about an 8.

So, up next is LoZ: Oracle of Seasons. Not ages, since I'm playing the Japanese game, which is called 'daichi no shou', as opposed to Ages, which is called 'jikuu no shou'. D comes before J!

posted by Ingen! @ 11:33 AM