Aska's Blog: Majora's Mask (long read)

This post relates to: The Legend of Zelda, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

I'm sure most people who know me will easily figure out how much I prefer Zelda: Majora's Mask over any other Zelda game, or any video game period.  I obsess over it and can't stop talking about it.  Anyway, I thought I'd make a blog-post dedicated to one of the greatest games ever!

Majora's Mask is arguably the darkest, saddest, most emotional video game in the Zelda franchise.  That's what I love about it, it tells a better story because of this, and can pull at your heart strings in way Ocarina of Time never could (you'll see me compare this to OoT a lot in this post).  So many people just don't like the game because it's so radically different than it's predecessor.  They can't connect with it or simply don't give it a chance.

Playing this game fills me with many different emotions...  a strange mix of happyness and dispare, sadness, longing, etc.  I can't explain why but all these emotions piled into one makes for one hell of an experience.  It really pains me to see people so blinded by OoT that they just pass this game off as garbage.  I sincerely hope you'll try the game after reading this.

The game came so late in the N64's life, I feel that's another reason it didn't get the praise it so awfully deserves.  This game is a true masterpiece. This might sound incredibly stupid and highly exaggerated but I just have a strong affection for this game, so of course I take it a bit seriously.

What, exactly, makes this game so amazing?  I'll try and fill all that in within this post.  If you made it this far, prepare for more and thanks for reading!

As I type this I'm listening to the game's soundtrack, to get into the mood.
The game starts off oddly, no princess needing saving, no country under attack, no epic adventure about some kid who doesn't know he's destined to save an aincent land, none of that.  This being a direct sequel to OoT, it's the same Link.  It's simply Link looking for his Navi, riding Epona through some woods he's suddenly ambushed by an evil Skull-Kid wearing a horrifying mask.  The Skull-Kid steals the Ocarina of Time and runs off on Epona, as Link realizes this he grabs on and is eventually flung off.  He begins chasing the Skull-Kid and eventually they meet again, in a strange, dark, scary looking area.  The Skull-Kid mocks Link, and says he "disposed of his horse".  You can imagine the emotional and mental strain this must take on him.  Suddenly the Skull-Kid, using the power of Majora's Mask, turns Link into a Deku, a plant-like race from the Zelda universe.  Afterwhich, the Skull-Kid leaves with his two fairies following suit, however one of them, Tatl, doesn't make it through the opening and is left behind with Link who is still shooken up by his Deku-fate.

They eventually decide to help eachother out to get out of that room, they make their way through and eventually come into a clock tower, where a creepy looking Mask Salesman starts to tell Link that he can help him return to his true form if he can bring some sort of instrument to him.  In return, he wants help getting a mask back from a Skull-Kid that took it from him, that Skull-Kid is the same one Link's been having trouble with, and that mask it Majora's Mask.  He tells of the Mask's strange dark powers, and how the land of Termina will end in disaster if the Skull-Kid so wishes.  Link agrees, without much choice.  As you more than likely know, he gets the Ocarina back.  However, it's just before the Moon falls to Earth because of the Skull-Kid and Majora's Mask.  Link than remembers Zelda, and how the Song of Time might help.  He plays the mystical song, and gets sent back in time 3 days earlier, back where he found the mask salesman, and noone but him and Tatl remember.  Since he now has the Ocarina, the mask salesman teaches link a special healing melody, which transforms Link back into a human and drops a mask in the form of the Deku he was imprisoned as.  The game pretty much officially starts here, and you can go from Deku to Human whenever you want.  It's a selectable item.

The game, as the title implies, revloves around masks.  As you do side-quests you gain more and more masks, these masks usually give Link minor abilities, like entering the night-time Milk Bar or running at a faster speed.  Besides these more common and non-required masks, there are four special transformation masks, three of which you must get to complete the game, one of which being the Deku mask I pointed out earlier.  I don't want to go into too much detail about the majority of these masks, or their special abilities or how you get them because I want people to play through this game after reading this and experience it for themselves.

You get special upgrades along the way too, most of these you'll get by collecting all the fairies floating around in the game's 4 dungeons and then bringing them to the fairy fountain located outside the respective dungeon.  The upgrades range from more magic, to a giant two-handed sword (which, by the way, is insanely powerful).  These, again, are completely optional but help tremendously if you take the time to get them.

There are so many side-quests and hidden things in this game it's unspeakable, there's just so much to see and do.  Even though I've gotten everything there is to get, I still enjoy just running around and finding stuff, useless stuff, but cool nevertheless.

You have only three days to complete the game, but as I said before Link has the power to reset that time.  After those three days are up, the Moon falls and crashes into Earth.  At that point it's basically a game over and you start back at the clock tower, however it's actually like you just played the song anyway, as if that whole thing never happened.  Restarting time makes anything you've done in the world reset, things inside dungeons, side-quest progress, etc.  However all your items and masks stay with you.

Now enough about the gameplay, I want to talk about why I find this game so amazing outside of all that.  It gives you so many things to think about...

• The townspeople being unaware (and or just not caring) about the empending doom.
• Link's psychee and mental well-being, you'd have to imagine him being pretty screwed up after witnessing all these horrible things, fixing them and making them right.  Then just going back and restarting time only to see that they're messed up again.  The feeling of isolation, and longing to have these people know what he's going through.
• The origins of Majora's Mask, why is it so powerful and how did the mask salesman get it.

Stuff like that, thinking about it... I'm just in awe that I can pull all of that out of a video game.  It's amazing.

All in all, final words, in closing, whatever.  I really want more people to try this game and give it a chance, if you can connect with it you'll have an amazing gameplay experience and it really can't be matched.  If you don't... well, I guess you just aren't into this type of game.  I really appreciate the level of detail and work that went into this game and all the little touches they've added.

Please check it out, and thanks for reading.
(I might edit this if I think of more to write)