Either way. Without further ado...
Allow me to introduce you to the majesty which is The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
Released originally in 2000 two days after my birthday for the Nintendo 64 console, Majora's Mask is a markedly darker tale for the hero Link and a direct sequel to the enormously popular Ocarina of Time.
Okay, full confession. I may normally hate rehashing of old titles, or relying on old success to breed new success. I even criticize when comic companies won't support new characters due to fear, and simply push their older characters to ensure money flows at the highest margin. I understand it, but I dislike it. However Nintendo gets a pass with Zelda and Pokemon for me. With Pokemon it's because new features are added, everything is updated with current Pokemon, problems are fixed, and I can play with friends who are not connected by a cord in high school. Zelda gets a pass because... well... I don't know why, but probably because Zelda is my favorite gaming franchise of all time. ALL. TIME. I like Zelda so much I ensure vacation days are set aside so I can play the latest Zelda game. I eat this stuff up like if I hadn't seen food in days and someone took me to a Golden Corral. There's something about Zelda games which allow me to look past things and just enjoy myself in a way I don't normally get to anymore. In more modern times I just see a game as a technical device filled with moving parts and find the flaws and enjoyable bits and weigh them and notice them. Not with Zelda. Zelda sort of washes over me and brings me back to a time of adventure and exploration where even as a tiny insignificant person, a little wit, plenty of courage, and just the right tools can send me across a vast land and free an entire people from the fear they've been forced to endure. Such is Link's burden, and Majora's Mask really drives home this fear.
Quick rundown: Link is looking for his friend he lost at the end of Ocarina of Time and falls into a whole new world (dimension) which is being threatened by the moon crashing into it in three days. That's it. Doesn't sound big? You see that moon in the picture above? It stares at you, getting closer and closer each passing moment, mocking and daring you to stop it. How do you stop it? Defeat four dungeons in classic Zelda style in the three days allotted at which you must turn back time and constantly lose your stuff while trying to progress through the game. It creates an air of urgency and fear other Zelda games don't. It deals with death and mourning and our blind ignorance to our own problems. Seriously. Everybody in Termina town pretty much have to know the moon is gunning them down, but they don't care. They have a festival to plan. Very much a cakes and circuses comment I'm sure, even if unintentional.
Having this title re-released for the Nintendo 3DS is just good, though. Most people gave this title a pass originally due to late release on the console's lifecycle, the need for what was an expansion pack (not the kind you buy online, the kind you bought in a store to boost the power of the N64), and what admittedly was a fairly hard (by Zelda standards) and imposing game. The management and pressure was on, masks were central, creepiness was everywhere, a potentially sympathetic villain at a time it wasn't common, and the awesomeness of the Fierce Deity Mask (which actually implied maybe YOU were the bad guy) made up a different sort of monster which only gained appreciation after the fact. It isn't a case where we look on the past with nostalgia (though a bit of that is definitely there) as much as we see the game for what it was, and not have to compare it with the at the time fresh and massively popular Ocarina of Time of which nothing could compare to (though I said A Link to the Past was better and still stand by that).
I may be a bitter, jerkish, small man, but seeing news of a great game getting a second lease on life for a generation who've only heard about it warms my small, small heart.
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