Ocarina of Time was good but it's lesser known little brother is one hell of a lot better.
After chasing the Skullkid for a little while, Link finds himself slightly lost, and playing into the thief's hands, who proceeds to use a magic mask he has called "Majora's Mask" to transform Link into a Deku Scrub.
This is the perfect beginning to the greatest Zelda game so far, with a plot greater than OOT's and characters more involving than anything else from it's time.
The plot conveys many themes such as friendship, betrayal, depression, loneliness and more. You can tell simply from this, that it is a much darker and more mature Zelda experience than what fans are used to, but it works well. The world of Termina is full of terrible stories, all overshadowed by the fact that everyone's miserable little lives are going to end in three days when the moon falls from the sky and literally crushes the entire area. Everyone has problems, and in a realistic way, everyone seems to pay more attention to these than the fact the world is going to end, and so it is your duty as a hero to help out with people's problems. This introduces one of the best parts of Majora's Mask, the Side-quests. The side-quests are some of the deepest in the series, most of which being composed of several sections that need to be figured out and dealt with. Of course, some are extremely simple, like finding paper for a poor man trapped in a toilet.
The reward for helping people out with their lives, is almost always masks. Some give you pieces of heart, a sword upgrade or something like that, but most give you masks. Which may instantly seem a little underwhelming, but the masks each have a use, there is no mask which simply exists to be worn for the sake of wearing a mask, the Fairy Mask will help you find the fairies hidden in dungeons (which leads to new weapons and magic,) the Bunny Hood makes you run faster, the Stone Mask makes you invisible to certain people, etc etc. Each has a use. And as you progress you unlock the four main masks, the Deku, Zora and Goron masks which each turn you into the respective race and the Fierce Diety mask, which is obtained by collecting every single mask in the game and lets you turn into Oni-Link, a god-like version of Link capable of defeating bosses with ease.
One of the most unique and innovative things about MM's quest system is that the game takes place in the same 3 days, repeated (assuming you repeat them that is, you can just let the world end and give up.) This allows for much more unique quests, as you can figure out where people will be at certain times, and how their lives interact with other people's lives, so it allows you to effect some quests via helping other people. It never gets too complicated, but in general it works very well.
The actual gameplay in MM is extremely similar to OOT. It uses the same basic controls and HUD (with an extra bar added for the time of day) and the combat controls are the same, a little tightened up and polished perhaps, but in general, the same. The Mask system is by far the biggest addition to the series that the game makes as it allows for three four different fighting styles thanks to all of the races. As with the series, you will spend your time in the game exploring the world of Termina, fighting enemies, defeating bosses and gaining new items. It is through and through a Zelda game. There are only 4 dungeons, but they are substantially longer and more difficult than most Zelda games, and the main length of the game is really the side-quests. You can rush through the main quest in a good few hours, substantially shorter than most Zelda games, but if you go for all the Masks (and you should, Oni-Link is awesome) then it significantly raises the length of the game up to what you would expect from a Zelda game.
The fact that the game takes place in the same 3 recurring days is an odd design choice, and a bold one. It adds a time limit to players, which can be an issue if you take your time and explore then realise "Uh-oh, I need to reverse time." And then need to work your way back to wherever you had gotten. There is however an Ocarina song to slow time down a little (No, it doesn't make everything in slow motion, don't worry. People just walk a tad slower and your clock moves slower.) This also creates an extremely awkward save system, especially for those of us still playing on the N64, as it is an old system and some are beginning to break (Mine! :@). Basically, the only ways to save the game are to reverse time, losing your general progress (you still have all your masks and weapons, but people forget what you've done, and the world goes back the way it was) and money. Or you can save using owl statues scattered around the world - you can also fly to these using a song - however this boots you out of the game which is irritating.
Using the same engine as Ocarina Of Time, Majora's Mask was never going to be a huge leap over its predecessor graphically, but using Nintendo's Expansion Pack it managed to squeeze some more fidelity out of the N64. For starters, you can see significantly further than OOT, which is personally one of my favourite improvements graphically, as I hated the terrible draw distance in OOT. Also, the textures are a tad better, and there are some cool visual effects. The animation is also significantly improved too, making Link's movements all look more fluid than before. Unfortunately, most of the character models in the game were recycled from OOT. Which is a bit disappointing. But it still looks good, all things considered.
The music of the game is also generally from OOT, with a few new additions to its library and a lot of new Ocarina tunes to play, it will instill you with a major sense of deja-vu.
In the end, Majora's Mask is by far one of the greatest games on the N64. It surpassed OOT in almost every way, delivering the darker more mature experience that Zelda fans have since been begging for. It added a lot of innovations to series, which were mostly ignored by the future installments of the series unfortunately. But it still remains the most innovative addition to the Zelda series, despite how little an impact it had.
10/10