Those of you looking for an example of the video game Master Class, look no further.

I don’t feel I’m spoiling anything by giving away Ocarina of Time’s ending, so I’ll just go ahead and do that. Once Link successfully seals Ganon away in the Sacred Realm with Zelda’s help, he’s teleported back to the past before everything even happens in the first place. Upon arriving in the past, Navi, his companion for the entire game, says nothing and mysteriously flies out of the Temple of Time’s window (side note, this means that the Spiritual Stones wouldn’t really be needed to gain access to the Master Sword/Sacred Realm as you could just, I don’t know, go through the open window?). Finally, Link meets up with Zelda again, just as before, but no one says anything as the screen freezes and says “The End.”

Majora’s Mask picks up essentially right where Ocarina leaves off. The game mentions that Link is in search of an old friend, and while the friend is never explicitly named, it’s implied that he’s looking for Navi. Also, he’s a kid again, which just adds to the strangeness. And beyond that, he’s riding Epona, something that’s truly baffling seeing as how he couldn’t ride her in Ocarina of Time while he was a kid.

His search for Navi is halted by the Skull Kid, and thus begins the first reason why Majora’s Mask is so great: It is able to appropriate characters from Ocarina and flesh them out far more than they were originally portrayed. This is the main reason that, looking back, I’m just amazed at what Majora tried to pull off. The characters from Ocarina were wonderfully detailed and full of personality, but so few of them were ever used for anything more than just little NPC’s in towns to make them feel a bit fuller. Shopkeepers are simply shopkeepers with no story or history to them whatsoever. But story is where Majora takes over and shows the entire series how it’s done.

Hey Skull Kid, I'mma break that smug mask of yours if you touch my horse and ocarina again.

Just about every character has a story that Link can discover. Character models from Ocarina of Time appear in Majora’s Mask with actual motivation and, at times, tragic stories to tell. Anju, merely a character present to ask you to collect her chickens in order to earn a bottle during Ocarina, now has a story that lasts the entirety of Majora where her fiancé has gone missing and her life is spiraling into depression as a result. You can almost tell that Ocarina’s development team liked this batch of characters so much that they decided to set MM in an alternate dimension just so that the characters could be used again in a game that let them breathe.

However, we can’t talk about Majora’s Mask without mentioning the aspect that a lot of people can’t get past: The whole game is on a time limit. The Skull Kid, being in possession of Majora’s Mask, is causing the moon to slowly fall. That gives you three days to stop it from crushing Clock Town and destroying the land of Termina completely. During gameplay you can see a little clock at the bottom of the screen alerting you to how much time you have left, though it is possible to control time a little bit using the Ocarina of Time, which Zelda has given to you since you left Hyrule. You can play the Song of Time to go back to the beginning of the first day, play the Song of Double-Time to jump ahead 12 hours, and the Song of Reverse Time to slow the clock down to a crawl.

As a result of the clock being ever diligent, the game feels that much harder, plus, you can’t just save wherever you want, another aspect that adds to the difficulty. A certain amount of planning must be taken to accomplish anything in the game, especially side quests, a Zelda mainstay. Instead of just deciding to go exploring, you have to be aware of the time to ensure that you won’t have your adventuring cut short unexpectedly. Hunting for Rupees is great, but if you don’t have enough time to get back to the bank and deposit your money before teleporting back to dawn of the first day, then you’ve just wasted your efforts (item quantities and story-specific items are stripped from you whenever you go back in time).

There is, however, no escaping this guy. He will kill us all in our sleep.

Thankfully, the game gives you a handy journal that lists 20 different people around the land that are in need of your help, along with time-specific plot points mapped out so that you know when and where to be. Some of these are rather simple, such as just being in the right spot at the right time in order to meet someone and get a new mask. Others, like Anju and Kafei’s plot, require the entirety of the three days to resolve.

Oddly, while one of Majora’s strength is taking aspects of Ocarina and going further with them, another one of its strengths is doing away with Ocarina’s conventions entirely. Actually, a lot of Zelda conventions get thrown out the window with the main game consisting of just four dedicated dungeons rather than the standard eight or Ocarina’s nine (counting Ganon’s Tower). This means a lot of time is spent in between the dungeons learning more about the world and the characters involved. Also, neither Zelda nor Ganondorf play important roles at all, with Ganon being entirely absent. And despite this smaller number of dungeons, it still takes me longer to play through Majora’s Mask than Ocarina of Time.

The truly quirky thing about MM is how all of the wonderful things I’m saying would probably be false had OoT not preceded it. Majora built upon everything Ocarina started. They’re really just a continuation of one another, but the saddest part is how the core of the story- Link searching for Navi- is never resolved. In fact, The Wind Waker goes so far as to say that Link never returned to Hyrule, suggesting Link failed in his task.

Oh God failure!

Everything about Majora’s Mask is steeped in darkness, but not the kind of darkness that feels spooky for the sake of spooky. Nope, Majora’s Mask has the ability to be just a bit “off” to the point that the subtle creepy things are that much more powerful. Also, FREAKING GHOST CARTRIDGES!

There are a number of ways to play Majora’s Mask at this very moment. It originally came out on the N64, but it was ported to the GameCube in the Legend of Zelda Collections’ Edition disc and is also on the Wii’s Virtual Console. I’m still hoping for a 3DS remake, but I’ll get into that more once my full review of Ocarina of Time’s remake is completed.

And in the meantime, creepy stuff like this will be happening.

And there you have it; I’m all done with Majora’s Mask. Have you played this one? And if so, did you like it or not? Leave a comment and let me know. Otherwise, without friends, someone might go a little crazy and try to crash the moon into a city, and we all know that someone is me.

More of these, please!

I just finished playing one of the strangest games I’ve ever seen. Earlier this year my wife bought me Earthbound for the Super Nintendo and now that I beat the game I can safely say that I’ll never play a game that crazy again. Why? Because no one will ever make a game quit like Earthbound.

One of The Best Games Ever

For those of you unaware what Earthbound is, it is an RPG on the SNES that stars Ness, a young boy chosen to save the earth from a space alien named Giygas and his hoard of baddies. During the game he’ll get the help of Paula, a psychic, Jeff, a genius inventor, and Poo, a prince from a mystic village. When the game first came out, Nintendo did all it could to push for a successful US launch, hyping the game with incentives such as a free players guide with the game and scratch and sniff stickers to entice fans with the weird factor. And few people bought the game.

Just the game will run upwards of $75 online.

Why was this? Well, the game is crazy. It’s an RPG but it isn’t like any RPG you’ve likely played. It gets cited numerous times for replacing the usual swords and spears as weapons with baseball bats and frying pans, but that’s not the big difference I saw. No, the game constantly does things that make you go, “Huh? Did they really say that?” Characters will point out that they’re in a game all the time, even referencing you as the player, asking for your name specifically every so often. You can expect a whole lot of crazy to befall you on your journey around Eagleland.

Focus On the Story, Not the Graphics

The problem with the game then and even more now is its lack of high-quality graphics. Earthbound didn’t attempt to push the SNES anywhere near its limits in ways that Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI had done, so people brushed the strange game aside as an inferior example of a game. Honestly, if you take a quick look at screens you may think the game was made as a class assignment.

I wish I could find a meteor outside my house some day.

But what the game doesn’t do with graphics it does ten times over with story, pacing, music, and innovations. In a typical RPG battle your health bar will instantly go up or down when hit by an enemy or recovered by an ally. However, Earthbound has a different take on this with a counter system. If an enemy does a huge hit to you that’d normally kill you, your health points rapidly count down, but if an ally heals you before you die then your health goes back up. It makes for a very quick-paced situation every now and then but it sure helps to keep the game from being monotonous. Plus, this game can get tough if you aren’t careful.

Still, the game is forgiving by allowing you to keep all your progress when you die. I was so happy to discover that all experience and money and everything I did before I was killed remained even when I went back to my last save point. This is a huge relief compared to what happens in Final Fantasy games where you could be a few hours from your last save, die, and lose it all. Kudos for that.

Fans This Great Don’t Come Along Every Generation

Can we please have this Nintendo, please?

The best thing about Earthbound, by far, is its community. Go to www.starmen.net and check out the amount of devotion fans have for the Earthbound property. They love this game. The soundtrack has been remixed more than once with a special remix album given only to fans that truly prove their love of the Earthbound genre (like, maybe, posting an article about how great Earthbound is). Also, check out their deal on the Ness shirt, hat, yo-yo, and buttons. That’s sweet and I want them.

I told you all this to explain that Earthbound isn’t the only game in the series. Earthbound is actually the second game of three from the series known as Mother in Japan. The US got Mother 2 but never got the prequel or the sequel. Ever. Why the heck not?

Well, far as I can tell, Nintendo is extremely weary about making a risky venture such as localizing a property so random as Mother. They took the chance once, it didn’t pan out, and now they won’t do it again. We haven’t even received a re-release of Earthbound on the Game Boy Advance, DS, or the Virtual Console. Once again, why the heck not?

Here’s the problem: the soundtrack and tons of the references in the game come from copyrighted sources. The Runaway Five, a band that pops up a few times in Earthbound, is obviously a parody of the Blues Brothers. Also, you’ll swear you see Mr. T walking around every town. Even better, the soundtrack was inspired by The Beatles in a number of places (I can’t particularly point these places out), which leads to massive problems with what can and can’t be included in the game anymore.

Forget all that! The game is a parody through and through, which means all of these things fall under the coverage of the fair-use copyright law which states that you can pretty much use anything without worry of being sued as long as you’re doing so as a spoof, parody, or review (which, as a review writer, I love oh so much). It’s why Weird Al is able to make songs that sound exactly like other songs since he’s making parodies. The problem with copyright laws is still why Nintendo typically says they’ll never bring the Mother series back to the US, even in a re-released form.

Oh, but they tease us all the time. Ness has appeared in all three Super Smash Bros games, with Lucas, one of the main characters from Mother 3, appearing in Brawl. Jeff appears as an Assist Trophy in Brawl as well with multiple locations from the Mother series littering the stages such as Onett, Fourside, and New Pork City. Japan has seen both Mother 3 and a Mother 1+2 release for the Game Boy Advance, but since Earthbound, the US has got nothing.

Dinosaurs! Just...arg! Nintendo, come on!

Why is Nintendo still so scared of releasing these games stateside? Fans have been emphatic about wanting more Earthbound. Starmen.net has a full English translation for Mother 3 waiting for anyone that wishes to play it but doesn’t speak Japanese. Fans have already done the localization work! C’mon already! What more do you want?!

Japan always gets better coverart.

Okay students, class is in session. Please pull out your Nintendo and plug in Mega Man 2 for today’s lesson of Games You Should Have Played. If you do not already have a copy of Mega Man 2 on the NES, it is available in the Mega Man Anniversary Collection released on the GameCube, PS2, and Xbox, and is currently on the Wii’s Virtual Console for a grand total of 500 Wii Points, otherwise known as $5. Yes, this one will only set you back $5.

The Mega Man franchise has somewhat of a stigma nowadays since it constantly releases an update every year that doesn’t seem enough like a totally new game to justify the purchase. Back in the times of the NES there was only one Mega Man series and it was just called Mega Man. The first game came out and became a standard for the use of a non-linear progression through the game (you could choose any of the 6 stages to play through in any order), and each Master Bot you defeated rewarded you with a new weapon.

The Master Bots were each weak to one other weapon, so by beating Guts Man you get the ability to throw rocks, allowing you to defeat Cuts Man extremely easily. This is known as the Rock, Paper, Scissors style of gameplay that Pokemon would later go nuts with.

All of these Bots can kick your butt...except for Bubble Man.

The first Mega Man game is good, but it wasn’t until Mega Man 2 that the franchise took off and became a legend. Instead of just 6 Master Bots, there were 8 (the series standard). Levels were perfectly designed, bosses were interesting, the difficulty was just hard enough without being overly frustrating, and the game was just fun, the most important factor in all games.

This is a game I’m going to consider a skill-building game. To be good at platform shooters, this is one of the games to start with. When you develop the needed skills here then you will be a stronger gamer in the future. No tutorials, no holding your hand through the stages, nothing to make it overly complex.

This is a proving ground for young gamers. The older generation had to prove their worth on the field of Mega, now it’s the new generation’s turn. Mega Man 9 may be out on Wii Ware, Xbox Live Arcade, and Playstation Network, but Mega Man 2 shows where it got its roots.

Robot fish. You fight robot fish. Go play this game!

Go find a copy of the game and at least get to Wily’s castle for the absolute best track available on the NES. Kids, the music in this game is so deeply imbedded in the minds of older gamers that we’ve considered having these songs played at our graduations, weddings, and funerals. Respect the classics and indulge.

You won’t have to spend more than a day to power through the game in one sitting, though it does have a password system for the scrubs who need a few tries or have other things to do in between gaming sessions.

Doesn't this just scream "Fun"?

I’m going to start something a little different here. Today begins my lessons on games that you should have played, and we’re beginning with Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES.

There are some games out there that you should have played by now and if you haven’t, well you’ve got some work to do. Video games have a history as rich and engrossing as literature or film, but you don’t hear people telling you these games are required for game scholars. No more!

This isn’t a difficult game to get a hold of. It was originally released on the NES but has been ported to the SNES in Super Mario All-Stars, the GBA in Super Mario Advance 4, and the Virtual Console. You have one of those systems, and if you don’t…well you can probably find it online via an emulator. No excuses!

Setting the Bar

Half the world is in the sky. That's awesome!

Super Mario Bros came along and revolutionized gaming, and I’ll probably get to the original another day, but Super Mario Bros 3 stunned everyone with how much better it could be. I can’t stress this enough but SMB3 reset the bar and said, “Okay, leap that suckers.”

Companies other than Nintendo were attempting to copy SMB as closely as possible until SMB3 came along. Then they all tried to copy it instead, but no one could match the plumbers.

What made the game so great were a number of different things. Shigeru Miyamoto has always had a thing for exploration and secrets, thus why Mario and Zelda games are loaded with hidden items, paths, and general amusement that isn’t always required to complete the game. SMB3 added more power-ups, including the single best power-up of the series, the Tanooki Suit, a raccoon outfit that allows Mario to fly and turn to stone. No, don’t try and make sense of that. If you try then you’re missing the point.

Levels became vibrant in entirely new ways. Sometimes it wasn’t all about getting from one side of the screen to the other. Sometimes there was a question of HOW to do it. One level in particular will frustrate gamers till no end. Go to World 6 and tell me when you freak out attempting to fly a Koopa shell up to a nook in a place you’d never think to look. That’s the only way to beat the level, and I applaud that.

Worlds of Greatness

So weird but so great.

Ask a gamer which world is their favorite and you’ll get about 8 answers. Every world is great, and the final world stands out as one of the coolest moments in video gaming.

You go to fight Koopa on his home turf and go toe-to-toe with his army, his navy, his air force, his personal guard, and then storm his castle and make him kill himself. He kills HIMSELF. Gears of War gets all “Hoo-rah!” on our tails, but Mario was doing this stuff 15 years ago and he was dressed as a raccoon when he did it.

I can’t say enough good things about the games. You can play through it in a half-hour or a day depending on your preference. Add a second player and you’ve got a party. If you haven’t played Super Mario Bros 3, then consider this your homework assignment.