How do you generally feel about open world games?
 

I like them fine. But I understand why some don't.

Having said that, I think we're reaching a point where there's way too many open world type of games in the market. Not everything needs an open world setting in a massive world map and 80 hour story + 100 hours of side-quests and DLC content.

If it makes sense for the game, sure, but only if the world is made to be worth exploring.

I remember when I was first introduced to Grand Theft Auto, my mind was absolutely blown. Just the idea that you could roam the busy city freely, steal any car you wanted and go on a carnage was so exciting.

Of course, back then I didn't care about the story or whatever, and I still enjoy messing around in an old GTA from time to time, so I wouldn't say the novelty ever wore off for me.

What game(s) do you think didn't meet that criteria?

I'd say Pokémon Scarlet and Violet kinda disappointed in that aspect. Although that's not the only issue with those games.

I didn't get to play the GTA games as a kid. The first game like that I played was Bully(Canis Canem Edit in Europe) back when I was in 12th grade. Fun game but never beat it's a bit less "hardcore" than the likes of GTA and Sleeping Dogs.

A lot of modern open world games are way too big. The older ones were better because the game worlds weren't that huge yet and you could explore all of it. Now they're 10x bigger than they need to be and they fill them all with repeated objectives and collectables and you realize you're doing repetitive tasks of the same thing over and over again.

Agree that some questing is repetitive, though I tend to fly through them anyhow and just get them done because I'm stubborn. But I like nice big open worlds. The more zones to explore the better. Really, they're all I play anymore, it's how I and a long-distance friend hang out most weekend evenings.

I was originally overwhelmed with open world games, but they have grown on me. As long as there is a fast travel option or teleportation to get to far away places. I prefer my games to be smaller (like Ocarina of Time size) but a good game is a good game and there are some fun open world games out there. I think that my first open world game was the Simpsons Hit and Run.

It's funny how Ocarina's world seems so small these days. When I was a kid in the late 90s it seemed like the biggest video game world ever.

It depends on how it is designed. I don’t mind an open world that gives me a lot of interesting stuff to do. At the same time, I don’t want it too big and empty. Majora’s Mask is an example of game with a world I enjoy roaming around in whether it’s running around wearing the bunny hood or riding Epona. The game is not for everyone but once you memorize everything you need to do at certain times in order to progress in the game and collect all the masks and items, the game becomes fun and rewarding.

I could never get into Majora's Mask. I didn't like the overall setup and I detest games where there is some ticking clock to finish everything by. FFXIII Lightning Returns is like that, too, ns I never finished that game either.

What.

Majora's Mask is not an open world game. The only open world Zelda games so far are Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

A game belonging to the action-adventure genre, having a large world map and some side-quests does not make it "open world". Otherwise we'd have to really expand the list of games that file under the open world genre.

Large world maps, back tracking and side-quests are not inventions of the open world genre. Did adventure games like Zelda and RPG games like Final Fantasy highly influence open world games? Absolutely. I'd go even as far as saying we'd not have open world games if it wasn't for games like Ocarina of Time. But that does not make those influential games open world. The same way that hard and prog rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull are not heavy metal bands despite being huge influences on the genre.

Majora's Mask gives you infinite time to do things, you learn the song on the Ocarina pretty early to slow down time. And you're expected to do dungeons on the first day, and get warps so you don't have to do everything all over again. And the sidequests you do stay saved in the Bomber's notebook so you know which ones you did and didn't, along with the masks you keep.

I really need to beat Majora's Mask sometime. But I kept getting distracted with other things.

I no longer have a N64, sadly. Which doesn't matter since I bought the 3DS remake nearly a decade ago, but it changed some things from the original that did not sit too well with some fans of the game.

I have some mixed feelings about the 3DS version. Things like adding an extra bottle, making it so you can skip to any hour instead of exactly half a day and making the notebook more detailed are good changes. However, locking speed of water skipping, tying Zora swimming to magic and making the bosses beatable with just one strategy are really annoying. The main problem with the original is that it was largely a waiting game, the Anju/Kafei quest is annoying as hell because you need to wait so much so I get fixing that, but I don't understand why character movement needed to be changed.

The 3DS one is overall better except maybe the weird Zora swimming change they did. Everything was for quality of life changes, getting to slow down time, skip to a certain day easier, a much better bomber's notebook that kept better track what sidequests you did and when to do them, and of course improved graphics.

You know what's weird? Street Fighter 6's World Tour mode. Who'd have thought a fighting game like SF would attempt at making an open world mode? Seems so strange. You have to play it if you want the unlock some of the stuff in it, but it's not like it locks crucial stuff behind it, so you can never touch the WT mode and enjoy SF6 fine. I'll try to beat WT mode someday but it's not a big priority for me. I mostly like it for the interactions with other SF characters.

I guess they needed an extra mode besides arcade mode in order to give more single player content to casuals. Those of us who play it online don't need WT. Having said that, I'm all for fighting games to have strong single player content. i do play SF competitively, but I don't play games like Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Dead or Alive, etc. competitively.

Majora's Mask is my least favorite 3D Zelda game due to the time factor. I fully completed it one time with the help of a guide and I never touched it again. I just don't like time pressure when I am trying to explore. I think it would have been a much better game if time was frozen while in dungeons. That way you could look for the fairies without having to replay the dungeon again to collect them all. When I saw the Angry Video Game Nerd's review on MM, it made me happy that he had the same opinion that I do. So many people hype up Majora's Mask to extreme levels (even tattoos) and I just don't understand it. Sure the aesthetic and world building are cool, but the time factor just ruins everything.

Yeah, I play games to enjoy. Adding a time ticking down factor just brings anxiety into the equation.

AVGN reviewed Majora's Mask many years ago. While James Rolfe is a character and often exaggerates the flaws in the games he reviews, from what I remember he was wasn't exactly wrong about any of the criticisms he gave the game.

It's a pretty damn good game, but not one without flaws. "Well no game is perfect" some of you will say and I get it. But I can't really think of any glaring flaws in, let's say, Super Mario World. And if you ask anyone about the flaws of Majora's Mask they don't need to think that deeply to come up with them. That says something, imo.