Video games are like Hollywood. Hundreds of games can be the exact same product - same gameplay, same story, same result - but with a different skin on it, just like we’ve been watching the same Hollywood movies for 20 years. Similarly, the gaming industry loves (like the take-a-bullet-for-it type of love) sequels. Loves them.

If you take a look at any given holiday line-up for the past few years, you’ll notice that most of the high profile games are sequels, with original IPs thrown in sporadically. However, once in a blue moon the industry will surprise us with a sequel that is a complete upheaval of the elements that made the original game so successful. A dangerous move to be sure, but in these instances that follow, a complete success.



5. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

With the revolutionary success that came with Ocarina of Time, I honestly didn’t expect there to be another Zelda that generation. But, I was proven wrong, and Nintendo delivered Majora’s Mask, using the same graphical style but with a complete change in the game’s design and structure.

While it’s true that combat and classic Zelda dungeon elements remained the same, the core structure of the title changed drastically. The player only has three days to save the land of Termina - a setting that is a departure in an of itself - before its moon crashes into it, killing all of your new friends. Besides being the scariest effing moon you’ve ever seen, the time limit adds a sense of urgency never really present in previous Zelda games, and also an interesting time-travel element that allows the player to effect environments via the three day system, opening a whole new range of puzzle types.

The most significant departure of Majora’s Mask is the mask/transformation system that allows Link to become a Deku, Zora, and Goron, each giving him new abilities. This concept was later incorporated into Twilight Princess, with Link’s ability to transform into a wolf.

Nintendo loves to prove the size of their balls, and Majora is a great example of that, especially considering that it’s a sequel to arguably their best game of all time.