You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you? Let's Play Majora's Mask!

If so, them I'm just as weird as you are.

Ikana Canyon and the Stone Tower are great, you guys. I mean, come on. The Stone Tower Temple is arguably the best dungeon in the whole series, and Ikana Canyon has as much atmosphere as any area in the game despite being more or less deserted.

I'm working on an update as we speak! Ideally it'll be posted before Monday.

No, they are the ones who are weirdos!

You know, I'll agree with that. Ikana Canyon is a cool place, and the dungeon would probably have been a lot of fun on its own. I just happen to be in a bad mood every time I get there since I have to deal with a bunch of things I really hate right before it, and my last playthrough went particularly badly there.

Yeah, Stone Tower Temple is awesome, but getting up there is a pain in the butt. Collecting its fairies ia also ludicrously hard.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, waiting around for stuff to happen is highly annoying.There's also the major emphasis on minigames (Goron Racing and Shooting Aliens come immediately to mind), and Zelda minigames are almost always a chore for me to get the hearts and other things I need to beat the game. I really could have done without the time limit in dungeons, too. Even with the time slowed way down, you don't have enough to really explore the dungeon before you have to leave and save and then do the same damn puzzles over again. There's other stuff that I'm sure will come to me as I replay it.

You just don't get it, man.

Brickroad/Kishi arguments are the best*. I'ma sit back and enjoy this one.


*No, seriously, they're the only arguments on TT I enjoy reading.

I loved Majora's Mask for so many reasons.

But running out of time on the water dungeon's boss and having to face the prospect of redoing the dungeon? That was reason enough to abandon my playthrough.

I'll go back to it someday. Any game with so many brilliant ideas, along with the sheer satisfaction of Goron-rolling, is worth it.

Oh, also, have I said before how I wish more games in the series had bosses like Goht, and that after spending so much time solving puzzles throughout a dungeon to get to the boss, the boss itself should be an exciting, adrenaline-pumped action setpiece that serves not only as a climactic 'WAHOO' moment rewarding you, but to me completes the trinity of feels that a Zelda game should have, between an adventure-filled overworld, dark and puzzle-filled dungeons, and fast-paced boss battles? Because that.

Zelda bosses are never worse than when they're just a matter of the boss's weakness being a mostly risk-free puzzle that you must solve at your leisure, with nothing to worry about but the boss flailing around and ACTING scary while maybe once in awhile resorting to giving you a little smack that deals a fraction of a heart's worth of damage. And once you've solved the puzzle of hurting the boss, you just do it two more times to win. BOOOOOO.

God bless the Gohts of the franchise. God bless 'em all.

Question: If a giant mechanical bull steamrolling a small child only takes out a quarter of a heart, then why would we ever need to collect heart pieces or get defensive hearts?

For completion's sake is not a valid answer.

Because saving a world requires a lot of heart.

It is though. How many games legitimately require you to use absolutely every advantage you can possibly garner in order to win?

I collect Heart Pieces because it's fun to find and collect them, and having twenty hearts and the white border at the end is a good feeling to have. I've done three-heart runs before (in multiple Zelda games) and they're just not as fun. Much of the game is missing, and the added challenge doesn't even come close to making up for it. I would even argue that if the game was so difficult that it required me to hunt down X Heart Pieces to have a reasonable chance, it would be less fun.

Oh come on, you like getting all of them? What about the 5000 rupee one?

A safe way to play the game the first time is to reset the clock once you open up a dungeon. Every dungeon has a warp point right at the entrance, and no overworld stuff needs to be repeated to open a dungeon a second time. If you still consistently run out of time (unlikely in my opinion), well that's unfortunate but it means you've spent like 3 hours in that dungeon.

Even better, just pause the clock while you're in a dungeon.

I didn't have that problem when I played, because I eat Zelda dungeons and shit victory. But it seems to be a common enough complaint about the game, and something they could have easily avoided.

More, smaller dungeons might have been good too!

Yeah, your average player (me) is going to have (had) a hell of a time completing the Great Bay Temple in under three hours.

Or you could just slow down time, effectively doubling the amount of time you have to complete a dungeon.

It is 3 hours with slow time.

magnificent

Is there anything Brickroad can't do?

Keep his shoe.

So I remembered why I didn't finish this game. I had just beat the stupid water dungeon and for some reason I decided I really wanted to see what would happen if you didn't stop the moon from falling, so I saved my game and let it happen. Somehow the save didn't count (maybe those saves are only temporary and only going back in time saves count verses moon death?) and I lost the entire dungeon I'd just finished.

"Fuck this game, I'm not doing that damn dungeon again I don't care enough to go back and do it again, later!"

That's rough. But yeah, I recall that any save except ones triggered by actually resetting the days is temporary. I think, though, that what we can take away from this is that, whatever causes the situation, no person can be confronted with the prospect of having to redo the water dungeon without just turning away in disgust.

(Honestly, I'm not sure what alternative they could have gone with without compromising the otherwise excellent passage of time angle, but Zelda dungeons should not have a time limit, because there are people like me, who are stupid, but will happily stick with the dungeion and suss 'em out, slowly but surely, and patient though we are we cannot handle the heartbreak of having what progress was made all snatched away from us. I enjoy challenges, and think the Zelda series could use more of them, but while having to redo rooms or walk back to a boss after dying is fair punishment, having to redo something as massive as an entire Zelda dungeon is just cruel)

Ack!



Sorry about that. My life was just flashing before my eyes for a second there. Now time to sit back and wait for death…



Huh?




Indeed it has!

This is our introduction to Majora’s Mask’s other main gameplay innovation, its most distinctive and controversial feature. Other than the brief prologue where Blondie chases the Skull Kid into Termina and the final area in which the final boss is confronted, the three Days we experienced during the first update are all that is in the game. If Blondie lets them go by without finding some way to stop the Skull Kid, the Moon will fall and everyone will die, no backsies. (And the game doesn’t just tell you “The Moon fell and everyone died,” either, it’s far more graphic than that.) If he hasn’t yet found a way to do that when the clock runs down, he needs to play the Song of Time to reset everything back to the Dawn of the First Day.

Now, when I say it resets everything, I mean it. None of Blondie’s victories are retained when he goes back in time. The Great Fairy has gone to pieces again, the Bombers no longer have any idea who we are, and the Business Scrub has still planted his fat ass on the Deku Flower. In other areas, going back in time means reviving the enemies (including bosses) and resetting the puzzles. There are a small handful of events that can only be done once and stay done once completed the first time, but by and large the only changes that “stick” are the ones that affect Blondie himself: He still has magic power, the two Heart Pieces he collected, and the Ocarina of Time. He’s lost his Deku Nuts, though, and if he had any rupees still in his wallet he’d have lost those too; trivial items like rupees, subquest-related items, and most forms of ammunition are lost. He still remembers the Song of Time, too, as well as — and this is critical — everything else he learned during the first cycle. He knows, for example, where the Stray Fairy is, and he knows that the Business Scrub will trade his Deku Flower for a Moon’s Tear. This is because nothing changes of its own volition in Termina. The only changes that occur are the ones that Blondie himself sets in motion, and while these changes can be pretty subtle and hard to notice, once he figures them out he knows that it will always happen that way. This is where much of the gameplay of Majora’s Mask lies — figuring out what actions result in what changes, then performing such actions as produce the most serendipitous result. While it is possible (though difficult) to complete the game in a single cycle, you cannot help everyone or get the best ending by doing so; many of the sidequests are mutually exclusive, requiring you to use multiple cycles to see everyone happy.

There are two major points to make about the time travel mechanic:

1) During the last update, we discussed the kind of Zelda fan who would be the least interested in Majora’s Mask: The kind for whom Zelda games are about the traditional dungeons and combat. There’s another camp, though, one that is sympathetic to Majora’s attempt to shake up the series, but who are wary of having to play under a time limit.

I feel the need to stress that in practice, the time limit very rarely comes up. Nintendo did not just make a regular Zelda game then slap the three-day system on it; the entire game is built around the premise that at any point, the player may be forced to play the Song of Time and go back to the beginning. At all points along the story, you’ll reach silent “checkpoints” where, if you get to that point, you won’t have to do any of the events leading up to that point again. (I counted four such points in between here and the first dungeon alone.) This includes dungeons, to get all topical on you; all four of Majora’s dungeons are built around the same structure: Go through the dungeon for a while until you find the dungeon item, then return or loop around to the beginning of the dungeon and use the item there to head further in. If you’re running low on time by the time you’ve found the dungeon item, you can safely play the Song of Time there without fearing that you’re losing much (if any) progress.

The time limit is at its most annoying when you fail some one-shot event and have to start the cycle over to give it another go, but this is almost exclusively restricted to side content like the Kafei/Anju sidequest and some of the Romani Ranch events. It is very difficult for me to envision a player making a good-faith effort to play Majora’s Mask and ending a cycle having accomplished absolutely nothing they can retain. Items, songs, warp points… all of these only have to be collected once. So, if you’re worried about time limits or having to redo puzzles or whatever, I urge you: Give it a try. It’s not as big a deal as you’d expect.

That said…

2) The game really does need it in order to set the mood it’s aiming for.

Think about it this way… In most games (certainly not all, but most), it’s taken as read that the player’s failures “don’t count” in terms of the story. Link doesn’t really get raped by Blue Wizzrobes on Level 6. Mario doesn’t really misjudge a jump and plummet into boiling lava. The Light Warriors don’t really receive a total party wipe thanks to a ZOIDBERG ambush. Snake doesn’t really forget to crawl through a minefield and accidentally blow himself up. The “true story” of the game is the one where the protagonist evades all obstacles, beats all the bosses on his first try, and wins the game with life and limb intact.

Majora’s Mask exactly inverts that. It’s possible to win the game having only played the Song of Time once, but the game is not designed under the assumption that this will happen. A “normal” playthrough of Majora’s Mask will take at least ten cycles. More to the point: That means Blondie will have to undo his own heroism at least ten times.

That’s the worst part of it, I think. Blondie isn’t finding himself thwarted by some cackling villain here. He’s doing it to himself. He’s re-kidnapping princesses, separating lovers, returning communities into peril, putting peaceful souls back into torment. He’s telling himself that he’s doing it for the greater good, that if he does it enough times he’ll have accumulated enough incremental advantages that he can confront the true evil and put a stop to it once and for all, but it has to be eating at him every time he does it.

In every other game you start out with the bad guys in control everywhere, but as you proceed with the game and help people, you gradually solve all the problems and make the world a good, safe place again. Blondie doesn’t do that — he can’t do that. For Blondie, helping someone find happiness means sacrificing a chance to help someone else, and he knows this. He still helps people, sure, but every time he does so he knows that their happiness is temporary and their triumphs fleeting — and that it will be his doing. He fights evil, sure, but he does so knowing full well that he’s condemning innocent people elsewhere. It’s a wonder he can even bring himself to bother. How many times could you stand returning to the first day and having everyone treat you like a stranger again?

That’s the brilliance of Majora’s Mask. In terms of gameplay, it doesn’t really matter whether or not the swamp is polluted or if spring comes to the mountains as long as you’ve got the plot coupon from those places. But it matters to the player; it’s always lurking at the back of their mind. No one wants to live in abject terror all the time, but if a survival horror game doesn’t at least make an attempt in that direction, it’s not doing its job. So it is with Majora’s Mask. The time limit isn’t a huge deal as far as the actual game goes, but you’re intended to feel at least a little bit of pressure from it and a little bit of guilt. If you were Blondie you’d be hurrying right along. Who would want to experience this more than they had to?




Tatl demands to know who Blondie really is, but before we can get into the whole think about the Sages and the Master Sword and the Evil King, she becomes sidetracked again.



Namely, by the fact that the Mask Salesman promised to return Blondie to human form if he could get his precious object back. I seem to remember the Mask Salesman wanting his mask, as well, but I’m sure he’ll take it well.




Note: The Mask Salesman remembers the events of the previous cycle. He is the only character outside of Blondie and Tatl to acknowledge the time-traveling shenanigans of the game.



Blondie is well-known for his use of hammerspace, but the Mask Salesman one-ups him here: He pulls out a friggin’ pipe organ out of thin air.




The Mask Salesman teaches Blondie the Song of Healing, which frees Blondie from the Deku curse…



…And converts it into a mask.

Despite the name, the Song of Healing functions more like a mercy kill than anything. Its primary function is to put wandering souls to rest. Other than Blondie here, I can only think of one other character who has the Song of Healing played for them and remains in the realm of the upright and breathing.

It can also fix destroyed signs, a la Zelda’s Lullaby in Ocarina of Time.

The song reappears in Twilight Princess as one of the cameo Howling Stone songs. Spirit Tracks has a song with the same name, but it’s a different song with a different function (it can summon a free fairy once per dungeon, essentially)… it should have been called the Song of Rejuvenation or something.




Now that the Deku curse has been converted into a mask, we can wear it to transform into our Deku form at any time. The Deku form is a nice place to visit, as the saying goes, but you don’t want to live there.



And now the quid pro quo…



Uh…






Well, you see, there was this incident with a falling Moon, and…




sorrysiri’llneverdoitagain!



The Mask Salesman goes on to explain that the missing mask is no mere facial accessory. It’s a cursed object with evil powers.



Fanon holds that this tribe is either the Sheikah or the Dark Interlopers, the ancestors of the Twili. That last one is an interesting comparison, because the Fused Shadow that Midna spends the first half of Twilight Princess trying to assemble is covered in etchings that resemble the designs on Majora’s Mask, and the remaining eye looks almost exactly the same as Majora’s Mask’s eyes. The creation of an object of pure evil would be a pretty good excuse for banishment to the Twilight Realm, too. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but it really doesn’t matter, though.

There’s a manga that tells the origin story of Majora and how he came to inhabit a Mask, but its canonicity is dubious at best. Fanwank off! …For now.

Anyway, whoever made it realized that it was so evil it couldn’t be allowed to remain, and sealed it away in shadow, hopefully forever.



…Or not, because the Mask Salesman dug it up again.



He seemed quite pleased with his purchase, too, despite prior warnings of cursed evilness.




The Mask Salesman begs us to retrieve the Mask, and we agree, mostly so that he wouldn’t shake us anymore.



Mask count: 01/24

Anyway! Our first mask! You didn’t think a game titled “Majora’s Mask” would be satisfied with just one, did you? No, there are twenty-four to collect. The masks in the right-hand column (beneath the Deku Mask) are the transformation masks, all of which are required items. The others are normal masks, which can be divided into three groups:

1) Masks which alter Blondie’s inherent properties in some way, such as increasing his running speed or making enemies ignore him.

2) Masks which replace Blondie’s sword with an alternate command, such as the ability to generate an explosion or the ability to break into interpretive dance.

3) Masks which do nothing on their own, but which cause other characters to react in some way.

A handful of these masks are necessary to beat the game, but most are not. We’ll be finding them all anyway.





Our first storyline task lies to the south, in the creatively-named Southern Swamp. However, we won’t be going there just yet. Now that we’re human again, a number of doors have been opened to us that were previously closed, so we’re going to use this cycle to re-acquaint ourselves with Clock Town and its inhabitants and arm ourselves with a few items for the road ahead.





First up on the to-do list is to activate Clock Town’s Owl Statue by striking it with our sword. You can create a quicksave at any Owl Statue (but only in the western versions; the Japanese version lacks this feature), but far more important is the fact that active Owl Statues serve as warp points once we get our warp song in the next update. Clock Town’s Owl Statue is probably the most frequently-used one; we’ll warp back to Clock Town at the end of every cycle at least to dump any rupees we have lying around in the bank before playing the Song of Time. Owl Statues stay activated when you go back in time, so you only have to hit each one once.

Our next goal is the Bomber’s Notebook. There are two ways to collect this item: Either pop Jim’s balloon as the Deku, then take off the mask and do the hide-and-seek even again as a human, or (much easier) simply use the password to duck into the Observatory Passage, and Jim will give you the Notebook when you come back out. We’ll be taking the latter route, and since we’re heading into the underground passage anyway, we might as well go ahead and grab a Moon’s Tear while we’re at it.

Of course, the passage is once again blocked by the Majora’s Mask balloon. No problem, though, we’ll just slip into Deku form…



HOLY CHRIST

Yes, Blondie screams in horrific pain whenever you put on a transformation mask. You can skip the cutscene every time after the first, but we’re given to understand that it occurs every single time. Thanks for the pleasant dreams, Nintendo! (Hint: You put on a transformation mask like every two minutes in this game.)

Thankfully taking them off isn’t nearly as terrifying.



The scarecrows mention the Song of Time, and more importantly they will (obliquely) tell you about its two hidden derived songs, the Song of Double Time and the Song of Inverted Time.

The Song of Double Time, which is played by playing each of the Song of Time’s notes twice in a row (RRAADD), mimics the scarecrows’ ability to jump you forward to the next dawn or dusk. This is handy if you’ve started a cycle specifically to do a particular event and don’t want to wait around for it to happen. It would be even more useful if it just allowed you to skip ahead six hours, no questions asked, but I suppose that trivializes the clock a little too much.

The Song of Inverted Time, played by playing the Song of Time backwards, cuts the speed at which time flows to a third of its usual speed for the rest of the cycle. (You can turn it off by playing the song again.) This is your dungeon/exploration song; you play it when you need lots of time to work out how a particular area fits together and aren’t concerned about sticking with a schedule. It also slows the rate at which certain characters move (they keep to their schedules, no matter what the speed of time), but will not affect Blondie or most enemies, so you can’t use it to get all bullet time on the bad guys.

Neither of the variations appear on the status screen, and neither are directly taught to you (you have to reason out their existence), but don’t forget them! As far as comfort features go, these are among the most useful.

You can also create a Scarecrows’ Song by inventing a song for the Scarecrows, as in Ocarina, but it is not retained when you go back in time, so it’s best not to bother with it until you need it.




As in the first cycle, we can use the telescope to look around Termina Field, but now that Termina Field is actually open to us, there’s a lot more to see. For example, you can spot NPCs running around out there, as well as rupees. (Both will still be there if you go outside.)



Also, if you pay attention you might spot a Business Scrub flitting around. If you follow him around the screen he’ll eventually head to a small pit; go there and he’ll be there, ready to deal. (Make sure you don’t look away until you actually see him go into the pit, or he won’t be there.)





We grab our Moon’s Tear and head back the way we came. As predicted, Jim is so impressed by our infiltration skills that he inducts us into the Bomber’s Gang right away.



The Bombers’ Notebook is arguably the most important item in the game, depending on how you want to look at it. You don’t technically need it for anything — all it does is keep the schedules of twenty specific NPCs for you. However, the ending would seem to indicate that… well, that’s for later.





Jim also explains the “helping people” procedure. The first time you talk to an eligible NPC, they’ll be added to the Notebook. As you continue to interact with them, their schedule and requests will be filled in. Once you’ve done everything related to them, they’ll be marked with a Happy Sticker, which indicates completion of their quests. This Sticker remains even if you go back in time (and undo the quest completion).




The Bombers are one of the twenty NPCs, and just having the Notebook is enough to satisfy them. The password to the Bomber hideout is also marked in the Notebook, so you no longer have to worry about forgetting.



Hrm… helping people… let’s check out the Mayor’s Office, shall we? (Ignoring the fact that his receptionist seems ready to jump our bones.)

Seems we’ve stepped into an argument here.





At least someone isn’t ignoring the whole “falling Moon” business. Viscen, the leader of the Clock Town guards, is trying to convince the Mayor here to order an evacuation of the town, while Mutoh, who’s in charge of preparations for the Carnival of Time, scoffs at his fears and demands the Carnival be allowed to continue. The Mayor, on the other hand, hems and haws.




At least until Mutoh makes the wrong move.





Mayor Dotour’s problem cannot be solved until late in the game, after completing the longest and most arduous subquest in the game, and the means of actually solving it is one of the few true moon logic (no pun intended) puzzles in the game. It’s very likely he’ll be the last Happy Sticker you acquire. Amusingly, Blondie “solves” his problem more or less by convincing him to ignore it.




While heading on over to Madame Aroma’s sitting room to introduce ourselves, we run into Luigi Ingo Gorman, owner of the Gorman Bros. circus, which was contracted to perform at the Carnival of Time. Or at least they were, until literally ten minutes ago, when Madame Aroma fired him due to the aforementioned carnival concerns. If nothing is done to help him, Gorman spends the rest of the cycle avoiding his employees and alternatively drinking heavily and sleeping it off, and who can blame him? (I’m not joking.) We won’t be able to do anything for him until somewhat after the second dungeon.




Visiting Madame Aroma is Toto, manager of the VH1-esque Zora band, the Indigo-Gos. At first I thought he was supposed to be King Zora, but he’s even more spherical than His Royal Weetweetweetness.

I dunno… It sounds familiar for some reason.



I’m not entirely sure which porpoise Toto sucked to get into the Bomber’s Notebook. His quest is entirely connected to another character’s — you can’t do that character’s quest without doing everything Toto wants just incidentally. Examination of the code indicates that he was apparently supposed to give you a mask at some point, so maybe it’s a relic of that.




Madame Aroma herself is apparently in the habit of hiring twelve-year-olds to do her dirty work, as she mistakes Blondie for the private investigator she hired.




Specifically, she wants news of her son, Kafei, who vanished about a month back.




Mask count: 02/24

To that end, she gives us Kafei’s Mask. Wearing this mask and talking to people will allow you to quiz them about Kafei’s whereabouts. You need this mask to start the infamous Kafei/Anju subquest, and completing it fully will give you Madame Aroma’s Sticker.





I promised some Rolling Jump shenanigans this update, so here we go… Forget slicing bushes or whatever trying to scrape together some rupees; you can start each cycle with an easy 200 bucks in your pocket if you know where to look. Use a Rolling Jump off the roof of the Milk Bar, then normal jumps off Honey and Darling’s sign, and you can find a hidden chest containing a silver rupee (worth 100) behind the Shooting Gallery’s sign. This chest can be collected every time you go back in time, making it an easy source of unlimited wealth.




That not enough for you? Buy the Bomb Bag at the Bomb Shop, then head back into the Observatory Passage and hang a left.




You’ll find a cracked wall there. Blow it up, and you’ll find another 100 rupees in a chest behind it. Like the other, this returns each cycle.

The Great Fairy told us she’d have something for us if we returned to her in our true form, and it turns out that she’s not too picky about what time stream that happens to occur in. We find the Stray Fairy in its usual spot and bring it home.



The Great Fairy tells us that she’s not the only one missing pieces of herself. In fact, there are four others. To save them, you’ll need to find the fifteen Stray Fairies hidden in each of the game’s four dungeons…



And to that end, she gives us the Great Fairy’s Mask.



Mask count: 03/24

In addition to absolutely repulsing me, the Great Fairy’s Mask has two extremely useful functions:

1) If you’re in a room where a Stray Fairy is hidden and you wear this mask, the hair will trail sparkles.

2) If a Stray Fairy is in a room and you wear this mask, the Fairy will fly towards you if it is able to do so. (Ones trapped in bubbles, chests, or enemies will be unable to do so, but any others will.)

It’s an essential item if you care about the Stray Fairies.




Heart Piece count: 03/52

This Heart Piece is barely hidden, but Deku Blondie couldn’t climb on the platforms necessary to reach it. Normal Blondie hasn’t the slightest problem with it, though.




Heart Pieces, Heart Pieces… In West Clock Town you can find the Swordsman’s School, which teaches swordplay. The beginner course just goes over the various (unchanged from Ocarina) sword attacks, but the expert course challenges you to cut down some logs as fancily as you can. To score the 30 points required to earn the Heart Piece, just use a jump attack (Z-target + A) on each log as it appears.



A word of warning: Don’t try to go too fast here. If you jump attack as quickly as you can press the buttons, Blondie will miss as often as not, and you don’t have all day here. Z-target, wait a beat for Blondie to adjust his direction, then press A.



Heart Piece count: 04/52

Do it perfectly and the Heart Piece is yours.

Be sure to come back to the Swordsman’s School after midnight on the third day sometime… I’ll be showing it off myself at some point, but I’m not sure when yet.



Minigames in Majora’s Mask are all about cheating. More than any other game in the series, Majora’s Mask allows (and even encourages) you to find “alternate” methods of winning its various side-games. Take the Lottery here, for example. The idea here that you buy a number for 10 rupees, then come back later to see if you’ve won. However, the numbers are always the same (remember, nothing in Termina changes), so after a cycle to figure out the winning numbers, the Lottery is free cash on every subsequent cycle (albeit bloody inconvenient cash, since it requires you to visit the Lottery Shop twice a day).

A lot of the minigames have similar dodges, allowing you to use time travel foreknowledge or a mask’s special ability to defeat their challenge. These methods aren’t always convenient, and they’re not always practical (hell, some of them aren’t even preferable), but they’re usually there. The hardest minigames tend to be the ones that you just have to play straight and there’s no help for it, like the Deku Scrub Playground and the archery minigames.