I played this game as a kid when it released and remembered not liking it very much. I remembered almost nothing about it. I didn’t remember a single boss fight or temple, like it was really wiped from my mind.
I wanted to play through it again because people always talk about how they love this game, but I found it really lacking and annoying at times.
Having to redo things each time you resets time made the game feel more like a chore. I understand that your going back in time, but it did not make for good gameplay.
I made it to the moon, but I’m burnt out at this point and a little under powered. I did not do any of the side quests as having to redo a bunch of stuff sounds terrible. I don’t want to get 3/4th through a side quest only to have to reset time.
Before resetting, I have to deposit money, then reset, then stock up my items again, and redo all the things I need to do to get back to where I was.
I have to admit that it is really original and a cool concept, but it does not work in practice.
I still put oot and wind Waker at the top of the 3d Zelda’s. (Not counting the switch games)
At this point, I’ll boot up oot and play through that again. I vividly remember child links part of the game and a decent amount of adult link. After that, I’ll try the master quest. I remember that being difficult and I never completed it when I was a kid.
The way I think about Majora's Mask as a Zelda game is that in addition to exploring the physical world, you're also exploring time. That does necessitate "backtracking" by forcing time resets and a lot of waiting around if you don't immediately know what you can be doing in parallel (though the two time control songs make that part easier).
With the exception of the dungeons themselves, the game typically fast tracks getting you back to where you were when you just reset. Some mechanics like that the game forces on you pretty quickly (song of soaring fast travel), others it lets you figure out on your own (dungeon boss instant warp after beating them the first time).
Side quests can be a bit more troublesome to deal with if you have to reset part way through, but each interaction point that you have to go through offers you another way to handle things (or to not and let another sequence of events happen).
To your last point, the game really throws refillable items at you in the overworld, so a lot of times you can skip that (I'm not saying stocking up doesn't take forever on reset, it does. You just don't always have to)
All in all I really love the time mechanic of the game and that let's me forgive some of the other flaws of the game. If it fell flat, then yeah I can see how the game quickly becomes a chore. But I adore the game, hence the username