The Ringer-Verse - The October Gaming Gauntlet and a ‘Majora’s Mask’ 25th Anniversary Replay | Button Mash

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

Ben and Matt James banter about the big launch by ‘Battlefield 6’ and share their spoiler-free impressions of three noteworthy recent releases in an overloaded gaming month: ‘Absolum,’ ‘Pok��mon Legends: Z-A,’ and ‘Keeper.’ Then Ben and Arjuna Ramgopowell discuss how and why they revisited, and finally completed, an N64 cult classic that has haunted them for a quarter of a century: ‘The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.’ Intro (0:00)New releases: 'Absolum,' ‘Pokémon Legends: Z-A,’ and 'Keeper' reviews (2:40)‘The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask' revisited (44:20)Outro (1:30:06) Host: Ben LindberghGuests: Matt James and Arjuna RamgopowellProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or road trip goes sideways. Ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors.

So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. And welcome into the ringervers, your nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, a senior editor at The Ringer. I play many roles at the ringer, wear many hats, wear many masks, in fact, would be the episode appropriate way to say that. And today, I am wearing my button mash post mask because it's time to talk about video games. With me for the first segment of this episode, what do you get the man who plays everything?

A few more games, actually, because they're never enough and there's never enough time to play them though he somehow finds time. Matt James, Ringer, Deputy Art Director, often my sidekick here on Button Mesh. Hello, Matt. Welcome back. Thank you. So many games.

This is like I'm drowning in video games. This is one of the busiest few weeks of releases I can remember ever. It is wild. We talked about this last time. Things have not slowed down whatsoever. No. I mean, it's the highly anticipated games that we've been looking forward to for months and were delivered on schedule.

It's also the surprise drops that we didn't know we're going to come out when they came out. And then it's the games that weren't really on anyone's radar and then have suddenly turned into sensations or have been warmly received. And now we feel like we have to check those out. So we are going to talk about what we're playing, essentially, just a smattering of things

that we have at least sampled. You have played some of them to completion because somehow you have played the inverted song of time and you have made more hours in the day than there actually are. Someday, I need to just observe you in your natural habitat, which would be in front of your TV. Well, I do that too. I check that box, but somehow just I need to chart your daily routine

and record what you are doing and what you are playing at all hours because it seems as if you are somehow always playing something. But that comes in handy at a time like this. Later in the episode, I will be bringing on Arjuna, Remgapal to talk about the legend of Zelda Majora's Mask, as if there aren't enough new games to talk about something old, something new on this episode. It's spooky season. Yeah, exactly.

I don't know if we have something blue, but Majora's Mask is kind of blue, thematically speaking. It's a sad boy game. And we never got to play it or we never finished it when we were kids. And now for the 25th anniversary of its original release in North America, Yes, we are old confirmed. We have revisited it and actually played it to completion, and we're going to give you our thoughts. Were you a Majora's mask fan?

Did you beat it back in the day? I did beat it back in the day. Of course you did. But I do remember it not being as smooth an experience as Aquarena of time. Yes, that's for sure. For better and worse. Certainly worse in some ways. Arjuna and I will get into that.

But first, we want to talk about a triforce, if you will, of new good recently released games. And really, we have to pick our spots because there are so many. Briefly, we have not played Battlefield, but everyone else has. We're going to be talking about some new games that maybe not everyone else has played,

but Battlefield 6 is in fact a sensation, as we anticipated. We talked about this last time with Justin Charity. We previewed the Call of Duty Battlefield battle, and now it is really raging. And call of duty pulling out all the stops, right? Tried to do everything seemingly to distract from the release of Battlefield 6, made Black Op 6 free to play from the release dates of Battlefield 6 for a week

and then also extended the Blackup 7 beta to end just before Battlefield 6 finally dropped. Hasn't had any effect. It was ineffective because Battlefield has been just huge and launched with the more than 700,000 concurrent players on Steam alone and also sold 7 million copies in the first few days, and this is a full-priced game. So this is the biggest launch seemingly in battlefield history, so it is indeed the rebound that was forecasted.

Yeah, I'm not entirely surprised. The buzz around that beta is just absolutely massive, absolutely massive. And you and I have played it, But I'm sure that everyone listening knows at least like four dudes who are currently playing. You're probably playing it yourself if you're listening to this podcast. Well, I do intend to get around to it. Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, maybe later in the year when things slow down slightly, if that ever happens, we can actually revisit this battle and see who won, if anyone won. Maybe they're both winners. Both can be winners. It's not necessarily a zero-sum game. But once Blackop 7 is out, perhaps we can actually play an internal. these games. But the reception has been pretty positive to Battlefield 6, specifically the multiplayer,

the single player campaign. Not so much. I would have probably made time for that single player campaign if the reviews of it had been decent, because I like to check out the Call of Duty campaign still. The last Black Ops one was really fun, actually, surprisingly fun. Apparently, this single player campaign in Battlefield is not worth my time. Yes. even though you have an infinite amount of time somehow.

Wait until everyone gets really good at the game multiplayer and then check it out. Perfect time to jump in just when you're a noob and you get fragged immediately. So we're going to talk about three games that have been released in the last week or so. One is called Absalom, unless you pronounce it differently, which you might. It's defensible. I don't know that there is a clear consensus on that, but we're going to call it Absalom. Then we're going to talk about Pokemon Legends, ZA. Is that how you say?

Z2A? ZA. I say Zah, but I know that that's not correct. Just ignore that little dasher hyphen there. And then we're going to talk about Keeper. So we're going in release order here, earliest first. And probably we will not have time to talk about Ball X-Pitt, the latest Steam sensation. But I am, in fact, planning, yeah, yet another game added to the first.

pile. I think we will have an episode next month where we just speed run the Steam sensations from this year and catch up on all the games that hit big, perhaps including Bollick's Pid, but from Schedule 1 to Peak and to Megabank and on to the rest, we will sample them all. And of course, later this month, but Mesh will be back because we have two other games that we are going to be playing in the coming weeks and talking about. a guide in four, and outer worlds too. It's Xbox season suddenly. So that's what's next on our slate. But you must somehow try to make time for Absalom, which came out October 9th for Windows, Switch, PS4, PS5. This is more of a budget game. It's 25 bucks. And it is the latest and one of

the greatest in what I think we could call a beat-em-up Renaissance. Everything that's old is new again, or is still old and we're playing it again in Majores' mask's case, but this is really kind of one of the hot genres right now is the throwback retro beat him up, but with a new spin. So this is sort of post the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Shredder's Revenge, Streets of Rage 4. Both of those games were also published by Deltimo. I think that is how you pronounce it in the French,

something like that. It's a French publisher and developer, which will also publish Marvel Cosmic Invasion, another upcoming beat-em-up that we will probably cover here. And this game was co-developed by one of the developers of Streets of Rage 4. It's Guard Crush games, and it's the first original IP for Guard Crush for this publisher. So usually they've been doing ports and throwbacks and remasters and licensed IP.

This is a new thing. This is a new fantasy setting. and it's an old genre with a new spin. It's a beat-em-up meets roguelike, and I really like it. I have to agree. Yeah, everything is a roguelike now. I'll let you know when I get sick of that, but I am not sick of that.

Yeah, this game is really cool. And I, you know, jumped into this right after finishing Hades, too. Yeah. So the influences of Hades on this were immediately apparent to me. Yes, yes. I'm with you on that. But I roguelike it because it, It is not purely a Hades clone.

There's definitely some Hades influence visually and structurally, but there's also kind of a comic blend in the visuals. It's very Hades in that, yeah, you're doing repeated runs. You're getting upgrades on each run. You're slowly but surely upgrading your character and getting better. There are no boons. They're rituals in this game. But sometimes when you pick one up, your character says that there'll be a boon.

So even that seems like it's kind of a... It's a little head nod. Yeah. Yeah. You're trying to take down a king who's basically a god and a tyrant. So somewhat similar there, there's a randomized procedurally generated aspect to this with some branching paths, et cetera. So, yeah, fundamentally, it is fairly Hades-esque, but it's beat them up. It's not isometric perspective.

It's more of a side-scroller look. And there's a multiplayer component. Sure it is. various wrinkles to the gameplay that distinguish it from Hades. So it does not feel like pure imitation. I mean, it is a form of flattery. Clearly, they're following the footsteps of Hades, but also synthesizing that with the influence of the original beatem-ups and this new generation

of beat-em-ups. Yeah. And the combat feels really fantastic. Yeah. There's a few different unlockable characters, each with their own movesets that kind of play differently. And I think the combat is simple enough to harken back to, you know, the glory days of the sides of berling beat them up while being complex enough to keep you engaged through multiple runs. And the co-op element of it is a big highlight for me.

I've been playing with one of my best friends. And it is a seamless experience. You play a lot of games that are co-op and there will be times where you're like, okay, we'll play. in my game or we'll try and play in your game but oh you're a higher level than me how is that going to work in this process right and it just kind of seamlessly works you play together and the person who's like less far along in the story you kind of like default to their part in the story but you anything that you do in their game as as you will often encounter things that you haven't seen in the other person's game even if you're not as far in the main

story. Everything that you do in the other person's game will translate to yours just seamlessly. It just is thought out super well. It makes the game more fun, obviously, to play with another person, but you also feel like you're still progressing stuff, even if you're in a less experienced players game. It's really fantastic, the co-op. And I think you could still have a tremendous time playing this single player, but I feel like that wrinkle of it to the rogue-like format really adds a lot and makes this even more special. Yeah. And if you don't have friends, don't worry. I mean, maybe worry. Maybe it would be good to have friends. I've heard. You should get that. But it's not a problem really for Absalom specifically. It may be a problem in other

respects, but you can play local and online and it will just match make you with someone who is at a similar equivalent level. And it's pretty seamless and fun. And, you know, there are a lot of little things that I appreciate that separate it from Hades, at least. You know, you have enemy health bars. You have a run history. So you can look at each run that you've made at the conclusion of each run. It shows you your stats, but you can also look up in a book and look at all the previous times that you failed and got wiped away. There are mounts in the game, writable beasts you can climb on and use for a short period. there are throws, you can throw enemies, but also throwable items that you can pick up.

Some enemies attack each other. I mean, there's just a lot of little things. You know, there's sort of a similar humor to it and fantasy, but a lot of little gameplay tweaks and additions that made it feel fresh to me, despite also having recently played a lot of Hades. Yeah, and once you get through a decent number of runs, you start unlocking things that stay throughout each successive run that really start to make you feel more powerful. So I don't think that this is a game where you too much have to worry about getting stuck in a scenario where you just feel like you're not good enough.

You play enough runs and get enough currency to upgrade certain things. And eventually you kind of break through. The game is not really interested in wasting your time in that regard. It wants you to progress and to feel stronger. It's not too precious about your skill level or anything. And there are some fairly advanced counters if you want to get into being someone who has precise timing and stuff. But it's also quite friendly for people who just want to button mash. Great idea through the game.

It's another entry in our year of parries pretty much because Yes, there's kind of you can deflect, which is essentially you're attacking but pressing in the direction of your enemy and that just wants their attack. Or you can do a clash, which sort of staggers them and gives you time to attack them unscathed. So timing does tend to be pretty important. But the deflections are fairly forgiving. I find the window there is pretty liberal. And I think in some ways it's as hard as Hades or harder than Hades. it's challenging.

There are assist options, though, if you feel like it, you can very easily tweak it and make it a bit easier. And similar to my experience with Hades, I found it tough but fair and rarely frustrating because I did just kind of want to start another run. Now, one way in which I think it doesn't quite live up to Hades here is just in the story and the setting and the lore. It's not bad, but that is sort of a,

not-so-secret sauce of Super Giants games and Hades specifically. There's good voice acting in this game and good art and production values and everything, but I was just a little less grabbed by the premise and the world than I am in Hades. And also, there's not as much between runs because in Hades I almost look forward to dying in a way, because I get to catch up with all the hot gods and get the hot goss from the hot gods. And in this game, there's a little less to do. The hub area is smaller, more confined.

There aren't as many people to talk to. So, you know, you kind of just get back into the thick of things, but there's not quite as much on a narrative level surrounding the gameplay. Very true. But, I mean, you know, holding anything up to Haiti is kind of lofty, right? Like, yes. And I definitely felt that a bit coming from Hades too, where there's just an unfathomable amount of recorded dialogue and narrative going on there.

And to be frank, I don't want games to start doing that level of story and dialogue, because I don't trust most games to do that level of story and dialogue. If that becomes a trend, I think it's going to actually be a problem, because not everyone you can do that. Then you get a, the dark ages of everything. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I think, you know, we keep saying, oh, 80s, but like side squirrel or beat him up.

Well, you know, just like expectations need to be managed a bit. It's not exactly Hades in a beat him up sense. Yeah. That's a large legacy to live up to. It's unfair. And it doesn't have to be as good as Hades to be worth your time and your 25 bucks. So because it's coming on the heels of Hades, the comparisons are inevitable.

But it's different enough. And the synthesis of Beanem Up and Roguelike works pretty well for me. It turns out that you can blend and fuse Roguelike with almost anything, and it can work if well executed. Absolutely. And this really leaves a lot of room for a sequel to improve upon this, right? I think that if we end up getting a sequel to this, I think some of the

less fleshed out or, you know, underdeveloped aspects of this, which there aren't that many, but there are there are there. It does not feel like a fully Hades out. Every corner of this has been

gone over 20 times and fine-tuned and, you know, there's room to make a sequel even better, more characters, more story, that is good. A few more interesting wrinkles

to mess with between runs. Things like that. Yeah. But I still think that this was a really fun game. Yeah. And would recommend it to anyone who has any nostalgia for that 2D side-scrolling beat him up who also knows that they've had fun

with the roguelike formula. It's kind of a no-brainer for me. Yeah. There's a lot of replay value, just structurally, and the four characters in different classes with different play styles and different movesets, some of which seem like homages, rip-offs of other classic characters,

depending on tributes to. But, yes, you can play this game in different ways. Great music, which is also somewhat 80s-esque at times. But again, that's a compliment. And look, for a first effort, really, at original IP by this developer and publisher, it's pretty darn impressive. Yes. And often, you know, all games are kind of building on a.

foundation standing on the shoulders of giants of past games. And sometimes as you're developing your own voice, you break off from the original inspiration, which is, what if it's this meets that? And then you come up with something that isn't really all that comparable. It's just something that is of its own self and has its own essence. So perhaps Absalom 2 breaks off even further from this mold. But as it is, great game. And one that for many people was probably not really on the radar in the way that some of the bigger brand names are. So go check it out. It gets a high recommendation from both of us. Now, the next game is a bigger name, though not necessarily a bigger game, but Pokemon Legends, ZA, this is for Switch and Switch 2, 60 bucks for old school Switch,

70 bucks for an next-gen switch. Now, of the top 16 best-selling games for the OG Switch, five of them are Pokemon games, and one of them is Archaeus, the predecessor to ZA, though that's down at number 16. The point is, this is a juggernaut. It's a very famous franchise and has been for decades and decades, and we'll sell many millions of copies. But there were some pressure, I would say, on the franchise to innovate, especially after Pow World came along

and another case of emulation, tribute, rip-off, homage, perhaps legally actionable in some respects, but we talked about Pow World and I think part of the response to that game, part of it was that it was cheap and it was a mashup

of many popular formats, but also there was a sense of stagnation in Pokemon, even though Archaeus brought it into the open world, there was a sense of like, Well, aesthetically and narratively, we know what Pokemon's going to give us. So has ZA done enough for you to differentiate itself from Archaeus and its other predecessors? The main innovation, I suppose, being real-time battles.

This is like Final Fantasy going from turn-based to more of an action-r-G kind of mold. That's sort of what ZA is attempting to do here. Yeah, I mean, I think the big. knock on a lot of the Switch 1 era of Pokemon games was that they feel cheap, whether that's the performance or the sparse nature of some of the area. Like, Pokemon is one of the most significantly huge, profitable IPs in the world, and yet we keep getting games that feel less than that size. And there was a supposed leak of information regarding this game and perhaps the next one in the Pokemon series this week, the validity of which has not been confirmed.

But the rumor is that the budget for this game was somewhere around $13 million, which is a laughably small amount of money for potentially one of the biggest game franchises in the world. Now that being said, my expectations coming into this were fairly low. I was excited about the idea of the combat, which is not turn-based anymore. You basically have a bunch of Pokemon you can carry around with you and throw out in real time. And it works on all of their skills are kind of on like a cool down, right? So in like a sort of a Diablo sense almost. You're using your skills and putting them on cool down. As soon as they're ready again, you're slamming that button.

So it goes off as soon as possible. And I have been pleasantly surprised by Pokemon, CA, by the Zah. I've been hitting the Zah every night, and I'm really enjoying. And I didn't expect to be this positive about it. I've found the combat to be really refreshing. being that it's not turn-based anymore, all of those kind of status-effect moves that I would maybe be more hesitant

to use in previous turn-based games. I find I'm using those all the time because my other attacks are in cool-down, so of course I'm going to hit that button to do Lear, right? So that adds a level to the combat that is interesting, but I think that it feels a little bit more polished on Switch 2.

It runs super well. It still feels like they didn't spend enough money making this game, but it feels like they made the right game for the budget that they had. And the entire thing being confined to one city

I think rubs a lot of people the wrong way. I think that it makes it a more palatable experience having everything in one Explorable City. How have you been finding your time with this? Yeah, and full disclosure,

I have not played a lot of Pokemon in recent years. You know, that kind of post-Gameboy era. I took a long break. I didn't play Archaeus, and so this is sort of new to me. There is a hefty tutorial period, which is kind of a staple of these games and maybe is unnecessary for people who play every Pokemon game,

but it certainly holds your hand and familiarizes you with the new systems, perhaps to a fault. Yeah. Gotta catch them all is actually about indoctrinating the children. It's not about the Pokemon. Yeah, but, you know, we get it. And I enjoy the combat, which is good because that's the centerpiece of the game. That's the main attraction here, and it's a worthy attraction.

I would agree with the widespread critique. of the setting, which feels like, kind of like it's out of the Dreamcast era, which is usually a compliment. Whenever I invoke Dreamcast era, that's usually praise, but Lumio City in the year 2025, it's just, it's small. Sonic Adventure vibe for sure. Yeah, or it's like less lively than New Donk City or something. You know, it's just, it doesn't give you, there's no life to it. And really, the whole presentation of the game, there's no voice acting, which is not that unusual for a Nintendo associated game. But here it feels like the absence is conspicuous. It just feels too quiet.

You know, you get little Pokemon cries, but it just feels like it should not be entirely text-based, not that that's a bad thing. In some games, it's perfectly fine. But yeah, between that and just the smallness of the city and how just dead and antiseptic it seems and visually not. varied or interesting, that's kind of a bummer. And that's where probably that that budget comes into play. And even though people associate Pokemon with Nintendo, it's published by Nintendo, but it's not developed by Nintendo. You know, it's co-published by Nintendo and the Pokemon company, and it's developed by Game Freak. And it does tend to lack that Nintendo charm and polish just in the world. But the actual gameplay is good. And I guess the Legends games have kind of

of been a testing ground for new ideas for the franchise. It's like, you know, Archaeus goes open world, and then that's kind of imported into subsequent Pokemon games, and now we're going real time. And look, I have no problem with turn-based battles. Final Fantasy Tactics Remaster just came out. Channel 33, Expedition 33, Claire obscure, it's a year of the return to traditional RPGs. But I do like the dynamic Pokemon combat. So I'm pretty into it. I don't know if I will play it as much as you have been or as much as you will,

but I enjoyed dipping into it, at least, and checking it out. Yeah, it's nice to see them trying new things with the franchise. Yeah, after all these years, feeling things are pretty samey. And it's also nice to have a new Pokemon hit and not be worrying about the frame rate. Yes, yeah. That's the other thing. It set the bar so low that when they like handily clear a low bar,

it just feels exhilarating to me as someone with which Pokemon history as I've had who, similarly to you, like I have not been super invested in Pokemon. games in the past decade despite how much Pokemon means to me and my history with it. So anytime they try something new and it works, it really feels extra special to me. So happy to keep playing this one, happy to see how it develops. And happy to feel like a Pokemon game has some new life. it for me. Yeah.

Yes. And yes, it runs well. No performance problems as far as we can tell. We're playing it on Switch 2, but reportedly it runs pretty smoothly on original Switch as well, which after all the problems with Archaeus and Scarlet and Violet, especially that was needed. And it should run well because, again, it's not doing anything that would seem to require a system to chug the way that those games did because of that kind of. of Dreamcast era city design.

So it should run well if you're going to sacrifice some visual pizzazz. Then hopefully you get back that in frame rate and performance. It has delivered on that level at least. And this is, I guess, sort of the big game for the switch to holiday season, at least Nintendo published. It's maybe not the one that we're anticipating the most. Of course, there is Kirby Airwriters coming soon. And then the one.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe I played a little bit. It was fun. But of course, we're excited for Metroid Prime 4. But I am always taken aback when I am confronted with the fact that Metroid is just not that big a franchise for Nintendo because I think of it as it's the pantheon, right? I was walking around the Nintendo store in San Francisco and the Metroid section is not nearly as big as the section for your beloved pigment. Not as much merch, I'm sure. Well, yes, so we do not denigrate Pickman on this podcast. At least I don't. I wasn't going to. To me, that's, you know, S-tier Nintendo.

I mean, it's Mario Zelda and Metroid, right? The Holy Trinity and Smash, I guess you could put in there. But for most people, it's a much, much smaller game. Metroid games do not turn into huge sales sensations, but they are great. And if you know, you know, and so we are super excited for Metroid Prime 4, which of course we will cover on this podcast. But for a big many million seller, Nintendo will be banking on Pokemon Legends. Zah having a huge breakout potential. And it probably will because it's good enough.

That's all the Pokemon game ever needs to be. Exactly. Yes. So it clears that bar. Congrats, Game Freak. Okay. The last game that we wanted to talk about here, man, we're hitting something for every platform these days, really. On this episode, whatever you're playing, whatever you play it on, we've got a recommendation for you.

Because we're talking about Keeper. Is Keeper a Keeper? This is the latest game from Double Fine, a storied studio developers of the Psychonauts games, which are near and dear to both of us, I believe. Keeper is out now for Xbox, Windows, Steam. It's on GamePass. It's also $30 if you don't have Game Pass. And we were super excited. Yeah, we talked about that last time too.

Yeah, if you need something to play on your brand new $1,000 Rog Ally X, Xbox branded handhelds, then you can check out Keeper. We have not picked up an Ally X. of yet. However, we were very excited for this just because of the double fine name and because of the look of this thing. So in this game, in Keeper, you play as a lighthouse, essentially, a controllable lighthouse. It is essentially a walking lighthouse simulator. You are a lighthouse on legs. And you control the legs with the left stick. You control the lamp with the right stick. and you progress through a beautiful, psychedelic kind of off-kilter world,

the kind of design that only double-fine can do. It is very visually distinctive and sort of soothing and impressive looking. But how does it play? That is the question. Are you a little let down by Keeper? Are you satisfied by Keeper, given that we had fairly high expectations? We did have high expectations.

And I think most of my high expectations were because this is a double-fine game. I saw the trailer for this when it came out, and I thought to myself, well, it's a double-fine game, so I'm going to play it regardless of how this looks. And I did think that if it didn't say double-fine on it, I would have looked at it and been like, that's intriguing, but I don't know if I'm 100% sold on that. Yeah, it could be any number of other indie games that have some interesting hook or design or central character. And it's kind of like it's a double-fine game in the way that Pentiment is an obsidian game, sort of. Like, it's not exactly what you associate that name with, but there are some, and, you know, we love Penton, so that is not a shot. Or keeper, for that matter. But it's a little bit of a diversion from what you expect or from the kind of name.

brand franchise of that studio. Yeah, I mean, what's Double Fine about it? It's got a really unique art style. It is weird, and games should be weird, in my opinion. And that's why I love Double Fine. It's why I love Psychonauts. Keeper, to me, I have kind of mixed feelings about. I think that the art style is beautiful.

I think it is as weird as I want a Double Fine game to be. I think there's some cool storytelling in this without words, but ultimately as an eight-ish hour experience, I kind of felt like the gameplay, which does change up without spoiling anything. There are some changes and turns to the gameplay in it, but I never really found that any form of that gameplay reached a depth that felt truly engaging or revelatory.

I kind of felt like everything from a gameplay perspective was good enough that the puzzles were amusing or entertaining. There are a few secrets to find that weren't particularly satisfying. I think it is a good game. I think that if you have the chance to play it for free, if you haven't canceled your game pass twice already, it's definitely worth checking out. And I almost feel like guilty about having an opinion about this that isn't stellar because I think so many of the elements of it

are truly fantastic. And yet as a whole, it doesn't fully. gel into the experience that I would hope for out of double fine. Do you feel the same, Ben? I'm with you. Yes. I wanted it to hit a higher gear and reach a new level, and it just didn't really get there.

And so I'm with you. It's a good game. I think people should play it, but it's not necessarily a must play. Because I think a lot of the impact of it is the first second you booted up. and you're just looking at this world and the art and the design. And it's not that the charm of that really wears off, but that's almost the high point when you enter this world.

And as you said, there are ways in which it changes over time. But, you know, playing as a lighthouse doesn't offer that much in terms of dynamic controls, perhaps unsurprisingly, right? Like there's only going to be a certain level of interactivity as a lighthouse on legs. So you're walking around with the left stick. You're controlling the lamp with the right stick. You can focus the lamp with the right trigger. You have a bird companion in the opening cutscene.

It seems like maybe you're going to play as the bird, control the birds, which maybe would be the more natural expectation. But then you subvert that expectation because, nope, you're playing as the lighthouse. So you can send your bird twig to interact with various things in the world. You know, press X to turn something, whatever. it is, and you can dash as the lighthouse to break through things. But that's about the extent of it for a lot of the time. And there are puzzles that often revolve around your lamp, because that's kind of the way that you interact with the world. And so the solution to the puzzle is almost

always focus the lamp on something. You know, like there's only so much depth and variety. And even though it's not the longest game, you do see a lot of what it has to offer fairly early on. And it's not a super brain twister. And by default, the game even prompts you if you're stuck for a second. It's just like, oh, press this button, you know, do that. Or here's a lit up thing that you should interact with. So it's somewhat simplistic, which can be fine. And if this were just any no-name studio's first effort, I think we would probably be more

impressed by it. In a way, it's kind of cursed by the double-fine expectations. Yeah, it's the opposite of Pokemon's. expectation. Yes. Pretty much. And so it's really pretty and it's sort of soothing. And it reminds me of Jusant, the climbing game that I enjoyed a lot just visually or just

enjoying being in this world and finding out a little bit more about the setting. And it's pretty. Does art matter more to you as an artist? As someone who makes art is the visual of a game? Do you think more important than it is to the typical player? Not that you don't also need gameplay, but can art design alone carry you forward in a not super long game? Or do you eat more than that?

I think it can. I think it has in certain instances. But I don't know that Keeper reaches that level for me. And I do think it's a great-looking game. I think it looks. maybe there's something about the art style

that is simultaneously very creative and should be celebrated and also like it has a grittier look to it at times so I don't think the art style really rose to a level to kind of save it

for me I was really kind of I'm looking for the metaphor in this game and I think that I found it I think that I got the gist of what this game is trying to say. And I still feel like most of the elements of this game could have used a little more, right?

I think the story slash message could have been a bit more compelling. I think the art style could have been a little bit more beautiful. unless I guess there's a jaggedness to certain elements of it. It's just a stylistic choice that maybe didn't hit as hard for me. I just, yeah, every kind of element of this just felt like a little bit more would have gone a long way. Yes, just a tad. But it didn't overstay it's welcome as a game, I don't think. And without spoiling anything, again,

the gameplay does evolve in interesting ways throughout the game. In some instances, I would have liked to see more from some of those segments. And in other instances, I felt like I could have seen less. Yeah, it's a little bit underbaked in some respects. You want to keep the scope small because it's sort of a side project or you get this wacky idea and it's clearly a passion project and then you pursue it. And perhaps the whole idea is, hey, this won't take years and years and years and many,

many millions of dollars to develop. And that's good. Yeah. It's a good case. Yeah. It's a good game. Yeah. It's, you know, if anything, we keep too much pressure on it because of the legacy of that studio and how much

we like psychonauts. But it's worth playing. All these games that we're talking about, good games, some better than others, but all worth at least some of your time and money. And I'm glad that we could do a little roundup of recent releases here. Can't be comprehensive because there are so many games. But these are a few that we have been enjoying and we've stayed spoiler-free and hopefully given you a sampling, wedded your appetites to check these out.

Thank you, as always, Matt, I will let you go so that you can get back to gaming. Got to get back to that ball pit. Yeah. Yeah, and also the games that we will reconvene to talk about next time, Ninja Guidein 4 and Outer Worlds 2. Stay tuned for that. And now, what could be weirder than a walking lighthouse? Well, how about the legend of Zelda, Majora's Mask? At some point in my life, after playing Ocarina of Time, I did own an actual Akrona, which I learned the Zelda tunes on.

And many of those excellent tunes are also in Majora's Mask. Great score, great soundtrack. However, at some point along the way, I have lost my ocarina. I am ocarina-less. And so the next sound you hear will be me trying to mimic the sound of an ocarina unsuccessfully. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business.

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Discover the craftmanship behind every bite, Boershead committed to craft since 1905. That is, of course, the sonata of awakening, which I play to awake Arjuna Ramgo Pal, senior podcast manager for the ringer, Arise Arjuna. Hey, listen. That's a different game. different fairy.

Wow. Fortunately. We are here to talk about the legend of Zelda, Majora's Mask. It's dangerous to go alone in any Zelda game, but particularly in Majora's Mask because it creeps the hell out of us. And that is in large part why you hear always like to coax you out in front of the mic. You know, you're the puppet master behind the scenes, plotting, scheming, assigning.

And I like to lure you out into the spotlight. here every now and then on button mesh. You come on this side of the mic. Once or twice a year. Yeah, I come out. Yeah, it's a little tradition. And this happened because I organically mentioned to you in a meeting that I was planning to play The Legend of Zelda Majores Mask because the 25th anniversary of its North American release

is this month. And you might say we're in the midst of so many new big games. Why take the time to play and discuss an old one? well, this game has haunted me for 25 years in more than one way, actually. And in the course of our conversation, it came up that you had the exact same relationship to Majora's Mask. And so we decided to tackle it together because we never beat this game back in the day. And the memory of not beating us has actually plagued us for a quarter century now. And so we decided to use this anniversary as an excuse

to go back and write that wrong and actually complete this game at long last, which we have done. So congrats to us. I, you know, got it in in the buzzer. Yep, me too. Last night, finished it. And I got to say, it feels like the monkey is off the back. Yes, yes.

It can't haunt us anymore. We have gone through the five stages and we've made it out. I feel like a great weight has been lifted. There's no longer a moon. looming in my personal skies. The scary moon with the face is not looking at us. No.

As everyone goes about their day. We have banished it forever because we have finally beaten this classic game. It's haunted me for two reasons. One is that this game is super scary. And that continues to be true. And we can talk about that because that's not something you associate with the Legend of Zelda series. It's the kid friend. It's Nintendo.

But this game is. creepy as hell. It has also haunted me because I never finished it and never came close to finishing it. And I have rude that ever since because I think it's fair to say that The Legend of Zelda is my favorite franchise. I have played virtually every Zelda game. I've finished certainly every other console Zelda game. Maybe I didn't beat Zelda two back in the day. The memory is a little hazy. But it has always been this hole in my gaming experience and knowledge that I've always meant to go back, okay, I'm finally going to play Majoris Mask, and now we have done it. And I feel very proud of us.

I feel like we have exercised some childhood demons here. Quite literally, yes. Yeah, actually, yes, exactly. So for anyone who wasn't around back in October of 2000, when this game came out in North America, it came out earlier that year in Japan, this is the follow-up to the legendary, the Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time, which was hailed as an absolute classic at the time,

maybe the best game ever to that point. It's still in the conversation for best game ever and best game in the franchise. And Majores Mask was essentially a sequel to it, but a weird one. This is one of the weirdest Zelda games by far. It was the sixth game in the series. It was, I believe, the worst selling game

in the series to that point. and I think we can probably understand why it's a little tough to love. It was tough for us to love at the time, but it's become a cult favorite. And it has this really interesting legacy. And it is still really revered. I would say that opinions vary, but maybe there's something close to a consensus on the top five Zelda games of all time, a link to the past, Akarina, the Wind Waker, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom. And then Majora's Mask is somewhere just outside that, but it's pretty

polarizing. And it's a little hard to get your arms around, but it's also a really impressive accomplishment. So it's sandwiched between these two beloved classics in Ocarina and Windwaker, and yet it is unique. It is its own thing in the legacy of this series. So why did you have a hard time playing it back in the day. I imagine our reasons will be similar. Yeah, I mean, I think you hit on a lot of the ones with just the creepy factor of the game itself, right?

You have the moon. You have Skull Kid. You have the masked salesman who is a creep all of myself. You know, where I was eight when this game came out. So it was, it was really, like, Ocrow of Time was a tough game for me to play.

I had two older brothers. So I had to rely on them for a lot of it where it's like, okay, I can run around in the field, and now there's an enemy, and I hand the controller off for them to do what needs to be done. So this was even harder. And then I think on top of that, we haven't gotten to the element that makes Majores Mask special,

which is the time element of it all, right? You have a three-day period that you play this game through and then time resets. You know, it is Zelda meets Groundhog Day in a lot of ways. So that added element where you only had a certain amount of time to do stuff, again, as a kid, makes it really tough because you're like, wait a second, I have these hard puzzles and enemies to fight and things to navigate while also dealing with this time element.

I found the game extremely difficult as a child. And so that, along with the scary factor, really made me fail a lot in this game. And made it tough to really go through. And then there was also like the practical element of this. This was one of the Nintendo 64 games, the later ones, that required the expansion pack. Yes, just this and Donkey Kong 64. Yeah, I did not have the expansion pack. So I had to rely playing at my cousins for this.

Gotta get the expansion. You got to get that extra four megabytes of RAM or whatever it was. Back my parents, they're like, no. So I didn't actually ever own this game in the kid either. You had to have the expansion pack for perfect dark. It helped it run a little bit better, not much better. And then Rogue Squadron, I remember, was also enhanced by the expansion pack. But yeah, you had to have it for Majora.

Had to have it, didn't have it. So I had to rely going on my cousins. So I wasn't able to beat it in the times that we went. And then it was just too difficult for me. Yeah. It was too hard. I was 13, I think, when I first played it. So I wasn't a little kid.

you'd think that I would have been old enough to handle the horror of Majora's mask. But even now, in my late 30s, I still have a hard time with this game because it really is. You do have Skull Kid who steals Majora's mask and makes off with it and endangers this whole land of Termina. And Skull Kid is like an enemy in Silent Hill F or something, just like super freaky, just like in the end, it turns out I think it's probably safe to spoil Majora's mask to some extent after 25 years. Spoiler warning. But Skull Kid just wants to be friends, you know, right? But it's relatable.

And yet I can understand why Skull Kid has no friends because I don't want to be friends with Skull Kidd. Skull Kidd is super creepy. So there's that. There is, yes, the moon that is just leering at you the entire time. You can look up in the game and it's getting closer and it's closer. And there's kind of a body horror aspect to this game. Yeah.

Because the other thing that makes the game stand out is the masks, the titular masks. There are 24 of them if you catch them all, which is pretty tough to do. And a lot of them transform link into different kind of creatures into a Daku scrub is how you start the game and then a Goron and a Zora and all the rest. And there's always this freaky cutscene every time you put on the mask or take off where he's like, and you can skip that fortunately, but it's still like there's pain and suffering associated with every mask switch, and you're going to be switching masks a lot in this game.

So between that and the various other things, like there's a song that you get toward the ends of the game where you can essentially clone yourself. The song is called The Elegie of Emptiness. So that's the kind of game that we're talking about here. And you can make this like creepy Link Golem, basically, who's just like a just with this weird, weird grin, but like lifeless, just a figurine of Link who stands there.

The mirror shield has like a creepy insignia on the back of it. Just everything about this game is at least mildly unsettling in a way that really got to me at the time. And if anything has been accelerated and exacerbated by age, because those N64 graphics, you know, there's this movement for kind of PS1 era horror games these days, like Crow Country and other games in that genre, just using that early 3D aesthetic to enhance the horror. And Mujors Mask just has that, comes by that naturally, because that's what it actually looked like at the time. It was, it was, you know, it really should have been classified as a horror game. Yeah.

Yeah. There's just, there's so many horror elements. to it. I mean, many of the characters you interact with are dead or dying or die. So there's like, even like as an eight year old and for a lot of kids, like these are heavy themes that you're going through within this game as well. And I think for me as an eight year old, I understood most of it, but some of it I did not understand. Right. And so there's there's a lot I think obviously to get into about the story itself. And you know, I'm sure you've heard the very famous theories of the game and what it represents. Yes, it's like the sixth sense. So link.

is dead the entire time. Yeah, the purgatory. I mean, those theory videos, like, in my teens were some of my favorite to watch. I was just like, oh, my God, it's all correct. This is all right. Yeah. Yeah, it is, it is something for sure.

Like, I didn't, I wasn't able to collect all the masks, but like, I'm curious, are you, now that you finish the game, do you want to go back and do all the side quests and kind of complete this thing, 100%. No, I never want to play this game again. Fair. I think it's a great game that I never want to play again. And I'm happy that I now finally played it and can check off that box and not go back to it, at least not anytime soon, because A, it still creeps me out. And B, because, yeah, I bounced off it hard the first time.

And I think maybe I still would have if I had not been trying to complete it for podcast content, because it is pretty impenetrable in some respects. But also, an incredible creative accomplishment because that's the other thing. So Acherino was the first 3D Zelda. They had to reinvent the whole formula, figure out what this franchise would be in this new medium.

That took five years. And then Miyamoto is like, what if we made the sequel in a year? What if we did that? And that's essentially what they did. It took them 15 months. Now, this game was the first Zelda game directed by A.G. A. G. A. A. G. Aunuma, who is still the producer of the Zelda series all these years later, typical Nintendo continuity. And he had worked on the dungeons for Akarina, but he kind of took the helm here and shepherded this game to completion in a really short timeline. And because of that time frame, that sort of dictated the structure that the game takes. It's kind of a classic example of just the constraints.

inspiring creativity and also a lot of crunch. People were working around the clock in a way that hopefully developers don't do as much these days. But because of that, because they had this limited time to work on the game, it's almost a re-skin of Ocarina in some respects. It started life as a planned remix or expansion for Ocarina. They ended up reusing a lot of assets from the game. It's the same link from Akarina, and you have Phepona, and you have some characters who show up. But weirdly, in this dreamlike fashion, they're different people in many ways. And so having played Akarina is pretty important to playing Majora's mask and seeing all the differences.

And it's not in Hyrule, just another odd thing about it. It's in this land of Termina. And because of that, the time constraint, the time loop, which was originally planned to be seven days. And then they realized that, A, that's going to take us more than a year to make. And B, that's just going to spiral out of control. And there will be so many different things to keep track of that it will be unwieldy for the players. So let's make it three days instead. So all these things that recycling, both in time and visually, were things that kind of came out of the timeframe on which they were developing this thing. But then they also make this

completely original creation that stands out from every set. Zelda game. So it's an excellent example of how imposing these constraints can sometimes really inspire creativity. Yeah, you know, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head where it's just like, this is such a unique Zelda game with so many first-time elements that haven't been revisited, right? Like the land of Termina has not been seen again in any Zelda game. You know, this is a game that doesn't feature Gannon, doesn't feature Gannendorf, but try to force, you know, the barely usual kind of staples. There's no Zelda.

Zelda's in a flashback scene. It's like, oh, that's right. She told me the song of time. Right. Yes, that's it. Right. You also, you have the Akrona, which returns and a lot of the songs in different forms. But yes, the legend of Zelda.

Zelda is almost entirely absent from this. And it is, it is really interesting because the game starts off with, you know, you're looking for Navi. And, you know, that's a real direct. link obviously from O'Reary of Time and you go on this whole other adventure, right? You go into this whole alternate dimension and this whole other thing. And I don't think if people were like, is this the sequel I want for O'Rean of Time? This would have been the one people wanted. They would have been like, what happens next with the TriForce again and all of these things?

It's like, nope, we're going to do this, right? And like you said, the constraints basically utilizing, you know, so many people in this alternate dimension are just the MPCs from the other one with like slightly different different names, right? I think on the Zelda Wiki, they have the whole list of just like their counterpart in Ocruiter of time, which is great. And, you know,

you see that, even with the environments and stuff, you're like, now playing in this and you're like, oh, this is this, you know, this is this. Just slightly like altered or slightly recontextualized. So that, you know, that is cool to see. And it is like an early example of

utilizing what you have in a game engine and kind of turning it around quickly, like you said in a creative way, versus like, Assassin's Creed, right? Which uses like the same game engine over and over again, and you're like, this is the same game with like slightly different things,

but everything's the same. The story is the same. Or, you know, sports games in general, where it is just like, we've added one slight little tweak. They not only made a great game, they added these cool features, like the mask features, right?

Yeah. While also continuing back the Ocarina features and stuff. And then also, you know, changing, changing your playable character, right? With these mass transformations, each character, you know, the Deku, the Gauron, you know, all of them, the character felt a bit, well, quite different. Had different abilities and different things that you could do. And I think, again, now as an adult, you can really appreciate those differences in gameplay and, like, seeing that progression, like you said, it's 15 months in between these releases. Yeah. And so seeing that, you're like, wow, this is actually a very impressive feat,

especially like coming 25 years ago where it's like, that is not even, you cannot even imagine that today. Oh, no. Yeah, games don't get made that fast anymore. Triple A games in flagship franchises, even something like Assassin's Creed. You don't really get any more. And that's for the best, I think, on the whole. But even so, I mean, you look at, say, Tears of the Kingdom, which is. sort of what Majoris Mask is to Akorina,

Tears of the Kingdom kind of is to Breath of the Wild in the sense that it's a sequel, it reuses the same, well, location in Tears of the Kingdom's case. But that game came out, what, six years after Breath of the Wilds, right? And it's enormous, of course, even though it's set ostensibly in the same Hyrule, there's a whole different layer to it, and it's just gigantic.

And that's the other thing is that this game, the world of Termina feels quite small. I mean, you explore and unlock the entire map quite quickly, and there's not that much to it. There are only four dungeons in this game. So it seems small and compact, but that's kind of deceptive because even if there isn't that much breadth, there's a lot of depth. It's just really deep and complex because it's almost as if, each day is a different world, in some respects, at least.

And there's so many intricate interlocking side quests and loops that the characters and the NPCs go through. And there are things that you can do on only one day. So on the surface, it seems like, oh, this is quite manageable, actually. There aren't that many places that go. There isn't that much to see. But then the more you play, the deeper it goes, really. And you realize just how complicated it can get.

And that's what makes it so difficult, right? Back to your initial question of like, why did you not complete this as a kid? That was the hard part, right? The hard part was like timing these things out and making sure you could do some of this stuff versus, you know, many games. It's just like, I can have 15 quests open all at once and can do them in any order that I want and, you know, can take as long as I need to do that. You can't do that in George's mask.

You know, you really have to like pick and choose and decide how you want to navigate the game. And like, again, it's a little little kid. you know, I guess the eight-year-old is not a little, little kid. But as a kid, it's hard to do and hard to decide. Like, you were like, I want to do it all. And in some ways, like you said, the depth of it feels overwhelming at some point, because you just see all these things and you're like, I have no idea which way to go. I don't know which, you know, I see this heart piece over there.

How do I get that? And you're like, I got to do 12 other things? Like, how do I even attempt to navigate? Yes. Yeah. It's pretty non-linear and non-temporal, and you can go in every which way, and that is kind of overwhelming. And yeah, at the time, and even to some extent today, that time loop pressure really got to me.

I don't love that. I don't love the countdown clock on the screen. I mean, I've been used to this, some kind of timer of some sort since Super Mario Bros. But I always like the freedom to explore a little bit. I've cited the example of other games that kind of went from. times to non-timed and how much I actually enjoyed that, like jet set radio to jet set radio future. Oh, now I can actually explore this place instead of feeling like I have to rush through everything because I'm going to run out of time. And you constantly feel that pressure because of the moon.

There's the clock on the screen at all times. It's getting dark. There's a day-night cycle. There are certain things that are only open at certain times. And if you miss that window, then you've missed your chance. Now, there are ways to mitigate that, which I'm not even sure I was aware of at the time. So there are three days, and each one is about 18 minutes in real time. So it's a 54-minute loop. However, if you get the song of time and play it backwards, you play the inverted song of time, then you can slow things down to, say, one-third the speed, and then suddenly each loop is three or so hours. And that is much more manageable because you could easily get through a dungeon and not have to restart it all. Right. So I think I did a lot less looping than I was worried about because I hate

losing progress and having to do things over again. It doesn't always make sense what resets and what doesn't. Right. Like if you wanted to talk about the canon or the lore of the continuity here, you lose your items, but you keep other things and then some things in the world reset, but other things don't reset. It is kind of disconcerting, though, like you'll beat a dungeon and you'll kill a bus and you'll free a whole land and then you go back in time and it's like you're back to square one. I mean, you keep some of the things that you got the first time, but no one remembers you and what you did. And it's just sort of a blank slate that's wiped away. But I did find that a little less oppressive this time with the inverted song of time. It slows it down to the point that

it's more manageable. Yeah. It's certainly helpful. It is interesting that, you know, playing this game, you're kind of transported back to 2000 and a time in video games where, you know, there, it's not, I'm not saying that games are less challenging these days because there are certainly exceptions to that rule. Yeah. But I do think it is interesting where a concept like this with a time loop did not catch on more in like today's day and age with gaming, right? where, you know, again, you do have some games that have time loops, have things that reset, but I think by and large, still, especially with your main releases and whatnot, like games, I think, are more forgiving by and large, right,

in terms of you do get to keep your progress. You do get to kind of explore at your own pace, because I think people do prefer, hey, like, I get to do this at my own pace. I don't want to lose my progress, you know, X, Y, and Z. And I do think that this game was one where I think they were still trying to figure that out in terms of like, do people want the real challenge? Right. Do they want to be challenged and, you know, really kind of have to like fight for their game?

Or is that going to be too frustrating and going to have people either it's not going to be accessible or we're just going to give up on these games? Yeah. There was a wave of time loop games a few years ago around when 12 minutes came out. and a few others. And then there's rogue likes, which involves some repetition, even if it's not literally a time loop, you're kind of doing the same thing over and over again.

So I'd say that this anticipated that in some ways and was ahead of its time, so to speak. But I do find that it's just opaque in ways that modern games aren't. Modern games can be really difficult. Of course, we've talked plenty about Hollow Night Silk Song on this podcast. They can be challenging, but they generally find. feel more directed than games of this era did.

Because that was my memory of the early 2D and even 3D Zelda games, just not knowing where to go or what to do. And I wasn't sure whether that's just because I haven't really replayed them. And so I'm thinking of them when I was a kid and I was worse at things just in general. And so I thought, okay, maybe I'll revisit this now. And it will all be clear to me because I am, uh, wise and mature. But no, not at all, right?

This game does not hold your hand. So it's not so much a challenge in terms of not dying or defeating enemies or even the puzzles. I would say the dungeons aren't particularly challenging by Zelda standards. There are some good dungeons here. I think the stone temple is particularly good, but they're not way harder. It's just that there are so many times in this era of Zellda. Zelda games where you just did not know where to go or what to do.

And that's something that stemmed from the original Legend of Zelda for NES, where it was just like, let's wonder around and we'll stumble across things. But unless you had a strategy guide or you called the Nintendo Power Hotline or something, you were just wondering around, not understanding like, how do I trigger the next thing? How do I? And there are so many cases in Majora's mask where eventually I would figure something out. And I'd be like, how was I supposed to know to do that, though? Like, okay, eventually I did this.

But like, how was I to know that I could do this only on this day and it wouldn't work on that day? Or like there's a long quest line where you need this item to get that item and you have to go here to get that. And it's like, how would I even know to start there to do this? Right. And you kind of trial and error, figure it out, or you'll look it up one way or the other. But I had to look it up. I didn't have the time. No shame in that.

No shame. Look, we're under time pressure ourselves. There's always a moon looming in our world. So we have to hurry sometimes. We have to, I wish we had an inverted song of time in our actual lives to slow things down. But yeah, sometimes I would resort to looking things up just so I could finish the game in time to have this conversation. And I would think, like, I guess I would have figured that out eventually. But there is no clear signposting here.

And I don't know whether that's a bug or a feature that just, hey, you know, figure it out. Just explore, talk to people, dig things up, try a bomb here, you know, try shooting this thing. And eventually you'll come across the answer. But I don't get that feeling as much with modern Zelda, which is not to say that there aren't challenges. I mean, shrine puzzles and that sort of thing that stump me. But you can just leave and go do something else. And when it comes to the main quest line, I feel less stumped and stunted. and stymied now than I used to with this series.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's, again, it's reflective of the time, like you said, of when these games came out. And I think Major's Mask feels, you feel more of that than even Ocarina of Time, right? Like, I think Ocarina is a, like, again, it doesn't hold your hand and guide you to exactly where you need to go every single time. Though Navi definitely tries to do that as you're going through that game, you know? But Major's mask, like you said, I don't know if without the guide, if I would have finished this game

or even come close to it. I think I would have, again, maybe got frustrated like I did as an eight-year-old kid. I don't know what to do. I can't figure it out. Well, let me beg my parents to buy the guide or something, you know, or like, or whatnot. But that,

that to me isn't surprising in terms of just like, again, how this game was initially received and everything. It was just such a high barrier of entry. to get in. And so I think that's partially why the game was not as successful at the time of release, where it just felt so much harder. Again, from a surface level,

it didn't seem as big of a game. It just felt like a very much like, this is a quaterina of time, but it has less of the more familiar elements, and it's smaller, and it's harder. I think that's a hard selling point for people. They're like, you know, and then also, again, if you're like me,

and your parents don't want to get you the expansion pack, You have to get this expansion back as well. Yeah, there's multiple barriers to entry. And the whole game is sort of a side quest slash detour from the typical Zelda format. And the game itself is largely sidequest. There are the four dungeons, but a lot of the depth and the content in the game is this other stuff. Is collecting is getting all the masks if you want to? You have the Bombers notebook, which lets you chart the paths.

and the stories and the needs and desires of all of these NPCs in Clocktown, the Central Hub area, and you're tracking them around and you're trying to figure out what they want and how you can help them. And that's a lot of the meat of the game. You can't just sort of speed run through this game,

I guess, even in like a single cycle, and you can just do the dungeons and be out. But I think a lot of the appeal comes from actually memorizing this world and these characters and getting to know them in a way that you often can't in Zelda games. There's just kind of a more personal relationship to the NPCs here, I would say, than there typically is. And I admire that, and I appreciate that about this game.

I guess we should specify, I assume that you played this on Switch or Switch 2 on Nintendo Switch Online. Yeah, I played it on the Switch. Yeah, I played it on Switch 2. There are multiple ways to play this. I still have my N64 handy, but I did not have my Majores Mask cartridge around. There was also a remaster slash remake for the 3DS, and I didn't have my 3DS handy either. That actually was not just a surface level reimagining of that game. That was a whole, like, not quite from the ground builds remake, but significantly changed the original game.

And people differ on whether they like that better or the original. But we're essentially playing the emulated N64 version on Switch. The other thing that takes them getting used to in addition to the visuals is the controls and the camera and all of that. And I did not invest in a N64 switch controller. So I'm using the pro controller, which is one of my favorite controllers just in general. but it takes some reacclimating to the lack of the dual stick controls and the Z targeting. That took me some time. Video games have gotten better in a lot of respects.

So games have advanced. I do not miss C targeting. Me neither. No. So many times I was trying to look this way and I ended up targeting this thing. No, I meant to target that thing, not this thing. And why won't you just look over there? And of course, you can do the first person.

view, but not while you're moving. And it's just, it's very finicky. And it took me hours, really, to get used to going back to how we used to control video games. I think I got used to by the final. By the end base. Yeah, I was like, I got it. I was like, well, I'm done. That was over. Yeah. And also, like, the things that used to be mapped to the C buttons on the N64 are now mapped to the right stick. And it was kind of janky, at least for me, in terms of of like I would try to activate one thing and it would activate another thing. I was like, no, I pressed right, not down.

And I didn't want to switch to that mask. I wanted to bring out my bow and arrow or something and constantly I'd be getting myself into trouble there. There's also just like so much time in the menu because you are using items, so many different items and switching masks so often. And I love the visual of those old school Zelda menu screens, which would just gradually,

fill up with all the items and the pieces of heart and all the things that you unlock. And it's such a cool way of just visually tracking where you are in the game and how much more you have to go and how much stuff there still is in the world. I wish I want to get those framed, like a fully filled out Zelda inventory screen, essentially from the early games and just have my walls adorned with those because just such warm, fuzzy feelings associated with that for me. go to a convention or something, you could definitely find an artist. Like, I think it was at Comic-Con this year.

There was one art vendor. They had really cool kind of hand-drawn renderings of like old school video game maps. And they had like the Ocarino of Time High Rule. They had Majores Mask Termina. Like those were, those are cool. I was like, that would be cool to have my wall. Yeah, exactly. I'm not sure that I would want that much from Majora's mask on my wall because it might be.

Give me nightmares, which like, you don't want just the, The art rendering of Skull Kid, you know, the iconic kind of pose. Just right on my ceiling in my bedroom so I can just stare at Skull Kits as I fall asleep every day. Yeah, no, that's not what I want. And I think Al-Numa said that he had nightmares while he was making this game, which was maybe stress dreams because of the deadline, but also just the world here. And it was inspired by Run Lola Run, you know, the kind of time loop format. So it's just a really interesting experiment. which hasn't really been repeated in this franchise

and maybe there are elements of things that you could trace to Majoras, but it's kind of an outlier in the pantheon. That brings me to something I was curious to ask you about in that are there any elements from this game in particular about you want to see in future Zelda games, right? Like, do you want to see a return to Termina?

Do you want to see a return to, you know, a time loop version of like a Zelda game. Do you want to see a return of like masks or even some of the gameplay elements that are kind of from this era? Yeah. I think the masks, which I guess there are elements of that in other Zelda games, but that's probably the most fully fleshed out mechanic here that is identified with this game and really leads to a lot of cool puzzle solving and some pretty impressive

technological feats, I think, for its era. So I think that probably. I'm not eager to bring back the time loop, particularly. And I'm not sure a return to Termino would be a crowd pleaser. I mean, maybe, you know, if they were to do a full remake of this game, kind of like a Link's Awakening style remake, as people often wonder whether they'll ever do for Akramena. I wonder whether it would preserve that same spookiness,

just because that was kind of a product of its era. If you put a fresh sheen on it, then would you lose something? Would you lose that atmosphere in the process? I think you might, maybe, unless you really faithfully recreated it. But I think a lot of it is, you know, even though it's a better looking more technically impressive game than Ocarina, because of that expansion pack, you can see a little bit farther. There's a longer draw distance. It's still sort of foggy and, you know, you can't see that far around you.

It's not like in the more recent games where you're looking across. a huge map. And so you feel a little more claustrophobic. It's a little more oppressive. And I like that about it. So I think I'm kind of content with this remaining an exception to the rule in the series, but I'm glad that it exists. I'm glad that it happened. And I think it was largely a successful experiment, even if people like us at the time had a hard time with it, even if it was not. We came back. Yeah, it took us a while. But we got around. out to it eventually. And it did feel like, you said it earlier,

it did feel like a game that was just ahead of its time. Right. Like it does feel like if it was a game that came out later or, you know, had the core audience of Ocary No Time age up a little bit. I think the game might have been received a little bit differently. Like imagine if this game came up for GameCube. You know,

imagine if this was the first GameCube release instead of Wind Waker. You know, that would have been, I'm curious. I'm genuinely curious to see, like, what the reception of the game would have been. Yeah. You know, I'm sure you remember, too, like, people really loved the, you know, this timeline, this link in particular. And I remember initially when Wind Waker was announced, they were outrage.

Huge backlash. Yeah, people were like, what is this? Cartooning link. Yeah, this is not my link. Yeah. Exactly. I want, give me, give me this link, right? In particular.

So, yeah, I just wonder how things might have gone differently. And if part of also that was the reason they kind of did that switch where they're like, okay. the, you know, not, again, not negative reception, I would say to Majoris Mask, but I think because it was a little bit more of a lull, it was a scarier, maybe a little bit more of an adult game, they did go the other way, right? They're like, okay, we're going to do Toon Link, we're going to do Winwaker, you know? Every Zelda game feels like it informs the next as a Zelda game in so many ways, right? So, yeah, that is interesting to me. Ironically, Toon Link ended up aging really well because of that art style, you can still play it now.

And it's beautiful and it holds up in a way that some of the other games don't as well. But it is really hard to know how to follow up a stone cold classic like Akarina when you feel like, oh, this is what we were aiming to do with this franchise. This is the fullest expression of our creative vision. Now what? Now everyone's expecting some sort of bigger, better version of that. Well, instead, we're going to pivot and make Matured's mask, which is not what anyone wanted or expected. Yeah.

And then, okay, we're going to break the mold even more, and we're going to go with the Wind Waker, which now is remembered as one of the grades. But at the time, yeah, it was, what is this? I have one mature link with GameCube graphics, making it look even higher fidelity. And that took some getting used to. But it does stand out as this kind of quirky exception and excursion. And I'm glad that it was made. And in a way, it's, you know, because of when it came out, it was. It was almost obsolete graphically immediately because the Dreamcast had already been released by the time Majoris came out.

This was, you know, fairly late in the N64 life cycle. I believe it launched in North America on the same day as the PlayStation 2, certainly the same week. So it was almost immediately overshadowed by games that looked a lot better and people had kind of moved on to the next generation. And here was Mujer's mask. But yeah, I think it was ahead of its time. We have seen a lot of time loop games since then. It took decades before we got the 2022 movie Moonfall, which was essentially Roland Demerick makes Majora's mask.

Yeah. Not quite a classic, but still. So I think in some ways it was influential. And there's this deep sort of sadness to the game. I think it's just suffused with this melancholy is a, a word that is often invoked in connection with Majores' mess because this world is doomed, or at least appears to be doomed, until, unless you save it. And everyone is dealing with that in different ways.

Some people in Clocktown are just in denial about the fact that the sky is falling, and other people are basically just waiting for the rapture, and you're just wondering around this world as everyone's trying to navigate the fact that they have three days left in their life. And it's very unusual for Zelda, but I think that works really well. It is more mature. And yeah, you have this kind of eyes wide shut. Why is everyone masked and scary?

And the masks are the former faces of dead characters in some cases, which again, just weird. Good for spooky season. Good for Halloween-ish season, I guess. just so happened that we played this now. But because of that, I think that probably rubbed off on people. And there are people who cite that as an influence, just the feeling you get wondering around Termina,

this world whose days are literally numbered, and it's not a high number. It's not a high number. And, you know, in some ways, did Link fail? You never see this world again. Yeah. You know, what is the canonical ending for this area and for these people? They're never seen again.

They're never heard from again. I believe the official, unofficial Zelda Encyclopedia says, once Majora's power was, I guess, spoiler alert again for those who haven't been in the game, once you defeat Majora at the end of the game and Link leaves, the world ceases to exist.

Which is also depressing. The moon didn't get them, the imagination did. Right. Which, in a way, I guess is true of all video games, right? That world only exists while we're playing it, and then we turn it up. system off. Yeah.

Unless it's, I don't know, Animal Crossing. And then your island keeps on hopping and Tom Nook keeps extracting rent from everyone, even while you're not playing. But that's why I think this game has had this afterlife. You know, first of all, kind of a critical reappraisal. And actually, this was kind of cool and maybe even underappreciated at the time. But also this online life, the theorizing, as you said, the kind of conspiracy theories, the videos, the deep dives.

Also, just this kind of creepy pasta world of all this, like, mythical stuff surrounding the game. And this one in particular, popular creepy pasta meme sort of thing called Ben Drowned, which also scares me because that's my name. And it's about a haunted copy of the game

and this, like, creepy link that's haunting the cartridge. And all this just, like, lived on. You know, this game, just like lived rent-free in our heads, even if we never actually finished it. And if you did and if you loved it at the time, then yeah,

something about just the vibe of this world just really stuck with people, even if it didn't exactly stick with the series itself. Yeah, it is, it is fascinating to see, you know, just cultural tastes and when things kind of come back in. And, you know, with the anniversary here, I am curious to see if there is more of a resurgence

with this with this game in particular and you know what that means kind of going forward for the franchise are there going to be elements of this that are revisited in future zelda it's like i'm i'm curious you know again this is the this is a zelda game with barely any zelda which you know thankfully i haven't done too much of in the future but is that something they're like hey let's revisit this let's go back yeah now not only is zelda in the game but we can play as zelda in echoes of wisdom so this series has come a long way in certain respects. But no, it's never too late to revisit this IP Nintendo, as we ourselves have demonstrated by revisiting it ourselves and finally conquering our childhood's memories and the things that

scarred us psychologically as younglings. Now we have revisited them and they're still just as creepy as they were back then. But we're grownups now. and we can beat Majores masks. We did it. Barely, but we did it. All right. I'm glad that we finally accomplished this.

Thank you for accompanying me on this journey. I just feel at peace. I feel a real sense of closure. I didn't even realize the extent to which I had been thinking of this as unfinished business for a quarter century now. We've done our five stages of grief and we can move on finally. Also, screw those water temples, man. The three-de-zelas.

Water temple in Akorina, the Great Bay Temple in Majora's Mask, where you have to swim around as the Zora, which is not the most intuitive control scheme, I would say. The worst. But not too big a challenge for us to complete that too. We did it. We did it. And we did this episode.

So, I will say, as always, Thanks to everyone for listening. You can contact us at Ringiverse Gaming at gmail.com. Thanks to Devin Milnaado for producing this podcast. This is where I usually thank Arjuna Ramco Powell for his senior production management. Thanks, Arjuna. Welcome. You know, anytime.

And thanks for also serving as the guest here. Stay tuned for all of our upcoming coverage on both of our feeds, as well as Button Mash, which will be back later this month with even more big games. Ninja Guidein, Outer Worlds 2, et cetera. And now I will leave you with a little ditty that will return you to the start of this episode so that you will be stuck in a loop listening to this Button MASH podcast

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