Why some like Majora's Mask over Ocarina of Time?

In light of the future release of Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D for the Nintendo 3DS, I have heard some say that it is better Ocarina of Time released a few years back. Why would some say so, eventhough Ocarina of Time is among the most critically aclaimed games of all time?

OOT isn't the best game of all time or even in the running

At it's time it did the most number of things correctly and introduced some new things.

Since then it's been eclipsed by many other games. It didn't age particularly well.

Majora's Mask followed OOT, if the order was reversed it would have ranked high for it's time.

I think the same can be said about Majora's Mask. The one thing people love about it is how different it is from anything else, especially OoT. Before its release, it looked like a lazy follow-up to OoT because it uses so many identical assets. Then more time passed and we knew it'd be different, then it came out and it was nothing like what was originally expected.

Personally, I love it because it was the first game I completed 100% without using any outside help. Majora's Mask is a particularly awesome game for that kind of thing, because so much of it requires intricate attention to detail and puzzle solving.

But I don't love it more than OoT. OoT is a game you can keep going back to, while Majora is far more involved and intimidating and less fun to struggle through after you've already solved its mysteries.

I think this is the critical statement. Ocarina ranks as the most critically acclaimed game of all time for the mechanics it introduced into the 3D space; however, the core design is extremely similar to LttP and almost all Zeldas have followed this formula. I think Ocarina of Time has been surpassed many times since its release; however, these games offer incremental improvements while Ocarina of Time probably has had much greater influence on game design.

For the same reason many consider Final Fantasy VII or Super Mario 64 to be the best in their series pretty much.

I liked it more because it felt like there were a lot of side-quests that intertwined with the main story really well (e.g collecting all the masks). There aren't many Zelda games that have plenty of side quests, and as a result, they don't capture the "adventure/exploration" feel as well as it could. Majora's Mask did it well.

It's pretty understandable. Like what the others have said, Majora's Mask continues to be perhaps the most unique Zelda game yet. While future Zelda games have surpassed the N64 titles with improvements, they follow ALttP and OoT's general formula pretty closely. Majora's Mask, although often overlooked, is a cult classic because of how different it is, in general and as a Zelda game.

It would have been my favorite over OoT if it just had another dungeon or two added to the game....

I was never a huge fan of either. I hated both when they came out. I didn't take the jump from 2d to 3d very well. Compared to ALTTP the N64 games felt empty to me. It wasn't until years later that I gained an appreciation for the N64 games. After going back and playing them again I find I like MM better. I just like it because of how unique it is compared to the other Zeldas.

I agree with some here that newer Zelda games have made improvements over the N64 titles, but the atmosphere in those games are still unsurpassed in my opinion. The graphical overhauls they've received on the 3DS make that aspect of those games even more immersive and fantastic.

Part of the reason Ocarina holds up so well is the games structure and overall arc. There is never really a dull moment.

Unique and superior are not the same thing. Overall the broad gameplay is the same between games anyway, its just the hook(gimmick) that separates it from OoT as or Zelda games have their hook. I personally prefer OoT because of the story and the locales, but MM definitely does some things better, but that's to be expected of a follow up game. However in the long run, games like Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword trump both. I still consider OoT the greatest game of all time, because it was the basis of so many of the gameplay designs taken for granted now, but were uncharted waters at the time. Of when you ape something, you can make improvements on it, so for its place in history, it earns that rank and unless game comes out now that does the same for current game development, it wont lose that spot. I also think the game aged very well.

It's a lot of revisionist history if you ask me. When Majora came out originally people did not like it as much. Then it got this cult following more or less and now the hype has grown. A few people started saying it was better to be different than the mass followers of OoT and then the opinion kept spreading.

MM is not as well designed as OoT. That time mechanic was a double edged sword. It was both awesome, and extremely frustrating at times. Remember trying to hunt down all those zora eggs? Having to repeat that entire quest because I ran out of time almost made me stop playing the game completely.

@JangoWuzHere: Yeah, the time design is what actually made me stop playing pretty early on. I'm older and wiser now (lol) so I will hopefully give it another shot one day. I do hear that a bit later in the game there is the ability to slow down time or something so I wish I would've gotten that far.

I found it a chore to play through MM due to the time system. I always preferred the "save anywhere" luxury of OoT. I thought OoT was the bigger of the two games, in both scale and length.

However, after spending more time with MM in my adult years, I think the atmosphere, dark tone and side quests really make this game special. It definitely is different than OoT and most of the other Zelda games.

In a lot of ways I find MM to be the better game. The Anju and Kafei sidequest is still one of the most tragic moments in Zelda gaming.

@onesiphorus: I am looking forward to it because it was so different to OOT. I played the original MM and then I'm sure our TV repair man stole it. I had the best sword and was so close to the ending and just collecting the last masks. After my dad had the repair man over I suddenly couldn't find the game. Even 7+ years I hadn't found the game. Then I moved and still couldn't find it. So I still think this was what happened. After so much work, I never felt like trying again even after the Zelda Collectors Edition for gamecube. Now i'm ready for the MM 3ds version. Im gonna play this to completion and looking very much too it. OOT will forever remain one of my favorite games of all time right next to Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Final Fantasy X. But i'm very eager to to MM again.

And, though its not exactly on the fly, you can save the game once you find and activate many owl statues that were hanging all over the place in Termina. One outside of each dungeon and many around main junctions of each area...

All of the 3D Zelda games are amongst the most critically acclaimed games! Lol.

Majora's is obviously very different from Ocarina. A lot of people appreciated its quirky and unorthodox approach.

I'm much more excited to play it now than I was back then. I think in terms of story, most of the main Zelda games for the last 15 years have played it incredibly safe and MM should hopefully stand out more because of it.

Just because its totally unique. It stands out in the crowd of 3D Zeldas with its surprisingly dark story and imagery. OOT IMO is better than MM, because I always disliked the time limit, and the mess they called the Bomber's handbook for side quests. Nintendo convinced me that they fixed,or at least improved on the things I disliked about the N64 version. I'm game.

Maybe just because how Unique and different it was from OoT. And plus the game is somewhat harder than OoT.

@iamjesssjames23: Please don't bump threads older than 3-6 months. Instead, post a new thread with the discussion. Since this thread is over 2 years old, I'm going to lock this.