*shrugs* Of the major improvements I'd make to Majora's Mask, the notebook would be pretty low on the list. I thought it was pretty user-friendly as it was, personally. I think the save & time travel systems are much bigger issues.

So its going to act a little like the Gossip Stone in front of Link's house or in the Temple of Time, except it applies to quests. The only quest that is really "hidden" is the stone soldier. The rest just take a little exploration.

I'm reading this as "we're going to dumb it down for people that found it too confusing".  I had absolutely no beef with the Bomber's Notebook at the time.  The save system was inconvenient (I once had to leave the game paused for a few hours) and having timed dungeons was a bit of a pain but the Notebook and all it's quests was the best part of the game.

And if you get stuck, uh, use Gamefaqs?  Nintendo feels the need to hold everyone's hand and yet today it is a million times easier to just look something up if you get stuck than it was during the NES years when every puzzle was so obtuse you figured the devs were insane.  Hell, that goes for the whole industry.  If people are stuck they can go online and look up what to do.  There is absolutely no reason at all to just blatantly tell the player the answer and there hasn't been in at least 15 years.  And yet that's the direction the industry has gone in.

If you can't figure out the Bomber's Notebook you're going to go online and look it up.  I'm pretty sure I even did that at least once back when the game was current.  If looking online for a solution to a videogame puzzle is too hard for you, Zelda is too hard for you.  My Mom probably couldn't find Gamefaqs but she also probably couldn't get anywhere in any Zelda game at all.  Nintendo needs to take into account that Zelda is a little more advanced than something like Mario and is way more advanced than something like Wii Sports.  The audience expects the games to make them think a bit.  They WANT it to do that.  Zelda has never been for videogame beginners.

For me, this really depends on how it's implemented. If it's something like a small hint in the notebook for each event like "location: clock town" or "Anju's house" or something, whatever. It tells you where to go, but not what you're doing or why. That's a reasonable concession. If it's way more detailed than that, then I do think it's taking away from the element of discovery that's the game's entire charm.

Ian....don't use the handbook then. Just use gamefaqs.

Back when I was enduring Earthbound.  A little before that I decided that if I needed GameFaqs to play a game than I probably shouldn't be playing it.  There are exceptions, Monster Hunter being the notable one because that type of research is part of the game.  RPGs are never really an exception simply because, that tells me their quality.  I don't like when a game doesn't flow and I have to read how to make it do so.  Its Crystalis all over again.

Obviously you shouldn't NEED Gamefaqs.  But it's hard to design a whole game's worth of puzzles that every player is going to figure out on their own.  All sorts of great games have at least one puzzle where even after looking it up online my response is "how the hell would anyone come to THAT conclusion?"  You might get stuck.  But in the 21st century we have the ability to go online and look up a solution when we're totally stumped.  It's a huge improvement over the old days where if you were stuck your only option was a strategy guide or hotline or you just stayed stuck.

But despite this, devs are afraid of the player getting stuck for even a second.  Skyward Sword has Fi point out everything of interest in a room before the game even gives me control to go look around myself.  The assumption is that the player is so fucking helpless that I'm not even given the option to figure things out myself, when figuring things out is the whole damn point of having a puzzle in a game.  If I'm not supposed to explore then why not just make sequential levels?  If I'm not supposed to solve the puzzle myself then why it is even impeding my path?

If anything developers today should be less afraid of player's getting stuck because we all play above the safety net of the internet.  Not that good design shouldn't still apply as illogical or obtuse puzzles are still bad design.  But they shouldn't feel the need to hold the player's hand the whole time when there has never been a time in videogame history where that is less needed.

The Bomber's Notebook is a puzzle.  The whole fucking point is that you explore and talk with people at different times to slowly fill in the gaps.  It's as well designed as a puzzle in any decent game and if you get totally stumped you have the internet.  You don't need Nintendo to guide you around like you're some helpless toddler.  And if you are not capable of searching for game solutions on the internet I am shocked that you can even work your videogame system in the first place.  Funny how Nintendo treats their audience like they're spoonfed diaper fillers but made an update of the Wii U firmware mandatory at launch.  Those that are too stupid to make it through a videogame without being explicitly told what to do every step of the way can apparently install patches.

Honestly, the only questline you really ever NEEDED a guide for in Majora's Mask was the Anju/Kaffei quest, mainly because certainly elements of that questline were EXTREMELY time-sensitive: even if you knew where to go and what to do, you could miss or fail an important event.

Once again it's an optional way for some to have a better idea what to do for each quest.  If somebody doesn't want to use it, they can ignore it.  This isn't like Fi who would outright interrupt the players to spoil things.  The Bombers Notebook is something you have to pause the game and then physically select to use.  Then you'll probably have to highlight the particular quest you want to know about and click  again in order to get the more detailed descriptions this new one might have anyway.  Meaning if someone wants to spoil themselves in this game, they'll have to go out of their way to do so.

It's no different then difficulty settings in games.  If someone wants the game to be easier, they can use it but those that don't want it can just ignore it.