Reviews

The first time (or times) I played MM I was 11 years old and contrary to what I thought, my English wasn't that good so playing this game again on my thirties was like see another whole new game.

First of all, is not that I have mixed feelings towards MM, I love this game but there are some things that I wish they were less notorious than they are. Let's start with the bad first and move it out of the way: the dungeons, they're memorable but not in a good way (there are only 4 so maybe that also helps), is not that they're terrible, I think they all have a lot of problems in their navigation and design, but what brokes the experience to me is the Stray Fairy mechanic (you need to hunt down 15 fairies in each dungeon in order to obtain power ups), it makes you do a fair amount of backtracking and remember chambers in dungeons that as I told you before, have poor navigation and design, this thing just goes worst on each dungeon, being the 4th dungeon the supreme offender (in there you need to do a mechanic that makes the whole dungeon upside or downside, so if you forget at least 1 fairy you have to reverse it and go all the way to get it), when people joke about the OoT water temple beign annoying because you have to equip and unequip the boots, its because they know nothing or at least they don't know the Stone Tower Temple.

The boss fights have this half-cooked mechanic in which you need to use certain race to defeat it, being a Zora, Deku or Goron in theory that sounds amazing but the only one that hit the mark was the Goron fight, the other ones kind of doesn't. Speaking of fights and continuing with the bad things, the controls can be very stiff in more than few situations, the worse one is the aiming, if you're going to use first-person perspective, good luck.

Given what I told you, you may think that I don't like this game, and in other games sure I wouldn't recommend it but, what this game doesn't have in dungeon and control quality, it triples it in the atmosphere and putting you in the boots of Link. This is a sad game that has all kinds of sad stories and moments, treason, death, abduction, there is a lot of hard and sad themes that are extremely well handed in here, merge them with an outstanding soundtrack and you'll have a game for the ages, it also has this time mechanic which serves as a reminder for you the player and for the world of Termina, it's brilliant 4th wall breaking without you noticing it. One of my favorite things in the game is that no matter how hard you try, you can't help them all because you have limited time and even when you do it, the time resets and everything will happen again, is a sad thought but it does a lot to help the narrative.

Another thing that newer Zeldas haven't matched yet, are the side quests, specifically the Mask quests, they feel so magical and esoteric and makes you connect tons to the characters, my favorite one may be the one of a certain couple, which I won't spoil but it takes three days and some masks to complete, and gives you a fantastic closure to it.

Eiji Aonuma did something very impressive and not short of brilliant, no matter how I hate certain things, they're overwhelmed by the good ones, to me, in no other Zelda game I have felt the weight of the Hero of Time like in Majora's Mask. If you haven't tried yet, please do so, just be wary that the Game Cube (Collector's Edition) version has some crashes and can be very hard to swallow.

The consensus regarding sequels is proven right again, God of War II bigger, better and braver than its predecessor. Having defeated the God of War, Kratos takes his seat on Mount Olympus and lords over the battlefields of war. However, when he is betrayed in the most visceral and confrontational manner, Kratos must embark on a quest to change his fate and set in motion events that will bring about the end of the Olympians. The game is still an arcade hack-n-slash game. None of that has ever been lost in the first six games of the God of War saga. But this game definitely ups the quality of graphics and really makes the gameplay feel polished, refined and fluid. The items and abilities that Kratos obtains during this quest are probably the best in the series. I always complained about God of War Ascension and how there really wasn’t any inventive weapons and abilities Kratos picked up in that game. But here, there is quite the arsenal that can be deployed against endless waves of enemies. The story is fantastic and the setting (the Isle of Fate) is wonderful. As a side note, the God of War games always have this big set area where most of the game takes place. In the first game it is Pandora’s Temple, in this game it is the Isle of Creation, and in God of War III it is Mount Olympus. The enemies are all diverse and present new challenges to overcome. There’s also some pretty big voice acting names in this game. The late Michael Clarke Duncan, Linda Hunt (who is the Narrator of the series, but also is a main character), Harry Hamlin and other veteran voice actors lend their talents to this amazing game. There are also plenty of characters and creatures from Greek mythology that are featured as opposed to just creatures that populated the first game. It was kind of cool seeing that other “heroes” exist in this dark world of Ancient Greece. Overall, this game proves that a perfect sequel surpasses the original and sets the stage for future installments, or in this case the climactic finale of God of War…well….the Greek Saga of God of War.

Rating: 5/5