hello thread
The Hookshot represents both the best and the worst elements of the Zelda series. It is at once an interesting and useful ability, while simultaneously heralding really mindless lock-and-key dungeon design.
To me Zelda is always at its best when it deviates the most from established formula. Majora's Mask and Four Swords Adventure take the series in almost opposite directions, but for all their flaws, I'd rather play either one over just about any other game in the franchise.
Four Swords Adventure turns the usual Zelda quest structure on its head. You don't get to keep your treasures; they're distributed throughout the dungeons not far from where you'd need them. It's
level based; the force gems you find under a rock or in a hard-to-reach chest only matter in this level, and since you have to get 2000 before the level's end, it doesn't feel as gratuitous. It's like the Zelda equivalent of a brawler.
In Majora's Mask, the item-trading quest from Link's Awakening evolves into a full-on adventure game: a network of NPCs whose lives and schedules progress over the course of three days, and whose stories often interconnect in surprising ways. This is
often promised but seldom delivers
anything interesting. Majora's Mask balances this both by allowing you endless attempts to influence the network of interconnections, but also soaking the whole thing in a palpable dread. The world is going to
end in three days, and so convincing a young woman to wait for her beloved while her family flees the town without realizing that I still have to break the curse on him--well, let's just say that no other game has so impressed on me the feeling of being the progenitor of tragedy.
