I'll be one of the few to admit that Ocarina of Time disappointed me; the "biggest, baddest Zelda yet" somehow managed to omit the Zelda theme (replaced by some of the most annoying tunes ever), have a game world a third the size of Link to the Past's, almost did away completely with the non-linearity element, and it sticks you with the most annoying sidekick in gaming history.

Majora's Mask fixed three of those, at least, and once you get past the annoying introductory stage it's actually quite fun. The main quest is much shorter (consisting of only four dungeons), allowing much of the gameplay to be based based around side-quests and minigames. You're also given four different forms to play as (Link, Deku scrub, Goron and Zora), which adds a whole ton of new explorable areas and abilities to mess around with, as well as numerous other masks that give special traits (such as being able to run faster with the Bunny Hood equipped).

Now for the annoying stuff. The biggest for me is that it uses the same awkward control setup as OOT; most notably the context-sensitive "A" button that never seems to make up its mind about what it should be doing and when. You'll also be pausing and swapping items a lot more this time around simply due to the sheer number of masks you collect. Finally, and perhaps most annoying, is the fact that you're constantly under a time limit in the form of three-day cycles; if you don't rewind time by the end of the third day you'll lose all progress you made since your last trip and you'll have to do it all again. It also limits the amount of exploring you can do in any one trip, and you'll likely have to devote an entire time period to completing the dungeons (which are among the most complex in the entire series).

Majora's Mask is another solid adventure title, though its unconventional style may alienate some Zelda fans. But hell, at a price of only $10, you might as well give it a shot if you didn't get a chance to play it back on the Nintendo 64.

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