Previously on Master Quest:
Majora's
Mask
Released
April 27th, 2000
-You've
met with a terrible fate, haven't you?-
Majora's
Mask sounds like shit on paper. The game had a development cycle of
roughly a year (Skyward Sword, by comparison, was in development for
five years). Its graphics are composed almost entirely of reused
Ocarina of Time art assets. There are only four dungeons. The game's
central time travel gimmick promotes large amounts of repetition. Not
to mention that the previous game in the series, Ocarina of Time, had
sold over 7 million copies and had quickly established itself as one
of the most beloved and iconic video games ever made. Making a
quality sequel to OoT in 12 months is a task that would be almost
impossible even for the mighty Hercules, especially since Hercules
doesn't have any game design experience.
This
quote not only describes MM's development process, it essentially
describes the game's central design philosophy. The Legend of Zelda:
Not Quite Enough Time would be a much more accurate title if it
doesn't quite roll off the tongue. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I
should probably actually tell you what this game is all about.
Majora's
Mask begins as it should: with the video game equivalent of a punch
in the teeth. Link is riding through the (presumably lost) woods on
his horse, Epona. He looks rather downtrodden, and the opening text
informs us that he has left Hyrule in search of a "beloved and
invaluable friend" who "parted ways when he finally
fulfilled his heroic destiny". I assume this refers to Link's
fairy companion in Ocarina of Time, Navi, who appears to part ways
with Link in the final scenes of the game. This has always kind of
bugged me. First, I've never been sure why Navi left you in the first
place. Second, why would Link go a quest to find Navi? Navi is
annoying as fuck. "Hey, Listen!" she'd say. "You
should go to Death Mountain." "You should go to Death
Mountain." "You've been playing too long, you should take a
break. Also you should go to Death Mountain." SHUT THE FUCK UP!
I'M TRYING TO PLAY THE FISHING MINI- GAME, YOU ASSHOLE! If Link wants
a friend, he's got a ton of options. Is Zelda still hanging around?
There's also Saria or your bro Darunia. What about Princess Ruto?
She's pretty cool.
Regardless,
Link's being all somber and shit when he gets horse-jacked by some
dickhead named Skull Kid. Skull Kid steals the Ocarina of Time and
dashes off on Epona. Link chases after him but ends up falling down a
hole that teleports him to a new land called Termina. Link eventually
catches up to Skull Kid, who informs Link that he has "gotten
rid" of Epona. Skull Kid then proceeds to turn Link into a Deku
Scrub and leaves Link for dead, laughing manically all the way. What
an asshole. Link may be a mute cypher, but you can't help but feel
sorry for the little guy. His friends are gone, his horse is gone,
he's lost in a foreign land, and he's been unwillingly turned into a
creature that looks like the love child of an octopus and a
horseradish root. If that doesn't give you sufficient motivation to
kick Skull Kid's ass, I don't know what does.
Once
you escape the hole Skull Kid left you in, you meet the outrageously
creepy Happy Mask Salesman.
He
informs you that Skull Kid has stolen a powerful artifact called
Majora's Mask. In order to stop him, you'll have to find him and get
back your ocarina. Sounds simple enough, except for a small caveat:
the moon is going to crash into Termina in three days time.
Considering every in-game hour lasts roughly 45 seconds, you have 54
real world minutes to complete this section of the game or Link gets
vaporized. This opening is so brilliant for a couple of reasons:
It
establishes the game's tone and setting. Anyone
who has ever played a Zelda game before can pinpoint what Majora's
Mask is all about a mere 15 minutes into the game. Its narrative,
visuals, and gameplay all contribute to making it far and away the
darkest and most unique Zelda game.
The
developers, confident that the player was familiar with Ocarina of
Time, immediately set out to defy your expectations. OoT certainly
had its dark moments, but it can't even begin to compare to the
oppressive, pitch-black atmosphere of MM. The extensive use of time
as a mechanic is totally new, and to my knowledge has never been done
before or since, at least on this scale.
Its
almost like Eiji Aonuma and Shigeru Miyamoto are the Skull Kid,
laughing at your confusion and discomfort. "Did you like Ocarina
of Time?" They sneer. "Well, how about you play as a Deku
Scrub for a while, you stupid bitch!"
Termina
itself is a beautifully drawn setting. MM mostly reuses OoT art
assets, so the populations of OoT and MM are nearly identical
visually. It become very clear, however, that despite seeming similar
on the surface, Hyrule and Termina are very different places. Termina
is a world filled with people contemplating their own eminent demise.
Some of them are in denial. Some are angry. Some are melancholy. Its
a rare example of a game that brings the player, the player
characters, and the NPCs together with the same thought: "There's
not quite enough time." Not enough time to live. Not enough time
to be with the people they love. And in Link and the player's case,
there just isn't enough time to save them all. The setting, like
everything else in the game, contributes to an atmosphere of dread,
sadness, and even a little bit of hope.
Speaking
of atmosphere, if you would indulge me for a second I'd like to show
you one of the most brilliant uses of music in video game history.
The
opening Deku Scrub sequence takes place entirely in the game's central hub, Clock Town. Here's Clock Town's theme:
It's
a pretty conventional Zelda town theme: warm and upbeat. It reminds
you of home. What's cool about Clock Town is that each one of the
three days has its own musical theme. Here's day two:
I
love the subtle differences between day one and two. They're very
similar, but day two has a slightly faster rhythm. It may not seem
like a lot, but this is a subtle reminder that you're running out of
time. The moon's going to crash, hurry the fuck up! This leads us to
the best of them all: Clock Town Day 3.
Holy
shit. I love how the main thing we're hearing is the standard Clock
Town theme, but beneath that we've got this weird, unsettling droning
noise. The game is trying to fill you with dread with this track, and
it totally nails it. The end is nigh! Run for your lives! Finally, on
midnight of the final day with only 6 hours left until the
apocalypse, this plays:
I
love how this track isn't even fast paced anymore. Its less "Hurry
up!" and more "Well, you're fucked." You did all you
could, buddy. Time to hold your loved ones close and pray for a quick
death. Thinking about how good this game is gives me fucking goose
bumps.
Damn,
I was supposed to be talking about how good the opening is.
Anyways...
It
introduces the new gameplay "gimmicks". After
the first five games established the core Zelda formula, Majora's
Mask is the first game to really shape things up.
The
first main "gimmick" is the time mechanic. Eventually you
*SPOILERS* meet back up with Skull Kid and recover the Ocarina of
Time. As a 10 year old, I figured the whole "3 Day" thing
was just a neat concept for the opening, and that the rest of the
game would play out in standard Zelda fashion. In a fantastic twist,
Link plays the Song of Time and travels back to the beginning of the
cycle. As it turns out, Link's Deku Scrub escapades didn't accomplish
jack shit. The moon is still going to crash into Termina in three
days. The rest of the game plays out like this. You start with 54
minutes. You have to accomplish as much as you can in that time
before you start the cycle over. Link will keep certain items he
acquires during his journey like the bow or hookshot. The game is
designed in such a way where if you had, say, the bombs you can
bypass certain parts of the game. This is how progression is handled.
You keep going until you reach certain "checkpoints", at
which point you travel back through time, bypass the area you just
did and proceed to the next. Admittedly, this can make you feel like
you're not really accomplishing anything, but I think that's kind of
the point.
The
second "gimmick" is that Link can assume various forms by
equipping masks. Once you've gotten back your ocarina, Link changes
back into a human but can return to his deku form at any time. The
forms are basically "super items" with completely different
control schemes and abilities. This obviously allows for some
interesting puzzle and level design, and I think they're a great
addition overall. Link forms are:
Deku
Link: Deku Link is my favorite
form for some reason. His main ability is that he can burrow into
these big pink flowers you find in various places throughout the
world. When he pops out of the flower, he flies up into the air and
slowly glides down using two big flowers. This actually lets MM pull
off some pretty cool platforming sections.
Deku
Link can also skip on top of water and blow bubbles made out
of...snot, I guess?Goron Link: Goron Link is a pretty cool guy. His schtick is that he can curl up into a ball and move really fast, Sonic the Hedgehog style. His other abilities include ground pounding and punching people in the face.
Zora
Link: Zora Link can...uh...swim
pretty fast. Not super exciting, but Zora Link may have the best
swimming controls ever. Its a lot of fun to just glide through the
water really fast dodging enemies and obstacles. Zora Link also has
an electric shield and can throw his fins like boomerangs.
MM
has some really fun, unique gameplay elements, but what makes it
really special is its narrative. Like OoT, MM's plot structure is
fairly minimalist, but the overarching narrative is, in my opinion, a
lot more interesting than OoT's plot. There are a lot of themes being
dealt with here: loneliness, loss, redemption, and friendship. Also
like OoT, MM has some really strong NPCs. There's the weird hand that
pops out of a toilet, begging your for paper. There's a circus troupe
leader drinking away his sorrows at the milk bar. And we can't forget
MM's most (in)famous creation: Tingle, a 35 year old man wearing
green spandex. MM has everything I want from a Zelda narrative:
smart, profound, funny, and delightfully batshit in that uniquely
Japanese way.
Honestly,
I don't have much more to say about Majora's Mask. My OoT review
covered Zelda's leap into 3D, and since the two games play almost
identically you could go check that review out if you want to see my
thoughts on the controls. MM's main problem is that it has roughly
twice the items OoT has, meaning you have to pause a lot more. That's
a problem shared by all Zelda games, though, even if it is
particularly bad here.
If
you haven't already figured it out, Majora's Mask is my favorite game
ever. Does this mean its objectively the best Zelda game? No. It can
be really cryptic sometimes, which will probably scare newer players
away. Its super dark tone and general weirdness may also sit badly
with series veterans. To be honest, I've given up trying to be
objective about the Zelda games. They're so entwined with my own
history at this point that I find it almost impossible to look at
them from an outside perspective. Something about Majora's Mask just
clicks with me, and I'd imagine most fans have similarly vague
reasons for loving their favorite Zelda.
-Majora's
Mask 3D-
Let
me show you two pictures of an item called "Garo's Mask".
The
one on top is from the original. The one on the bottom is from the
3DS remake. A Garo is a ninja like enemy you meet in the horror
themed Ikana Canyon. The original mask looks like a standard Garo.
The 3DS mask is based on a mini-boss variant called a "Garo
Master", so they're both correct from a lore perspective. This
is obviously a very minor change that in no way affects the gameplay,
but it does make me ask a very important question:
"Why?"
Why
take the effort to change something so seemingly insignificant? Look,
I'm not the kind of super nerd who would get pissed about something
like the Garo's Mask change in a vacuum. It's just that the Garo's
Mask is the most obvious visual representation of the almost George
Lucas levels of pointless changes made to Majora's Mask 3D. Two of
the kids you have to find near the beginning of the game have had
their locations changed for seemingly no reason. The banker has been
moved from West Clock Town to North Clock Town. Deku Link now sprouts
a weird root thing out of his head when he spins. The Happy Mask
Salesman gives you the Bomber's Notebook now, which doesn't even make
sense. The Stone Mask has now been moved to a new location, making it
more tedious to acquire. Zora Link can now only swim fast when he
activates the electric shield. The bosses now all have gigantic,
obvious eyeball weak spots and some of the fights have been
significantly altered.
Again,
I know I'm nitpicking, but what is the point of changing so much
shit? I liked OoT 3D because it because it gave me a superior way to
experience a game I already loved. MM 3D isn't even the same
experience anymore.
Do
these changes make MM 3D more accessible? They do, and I'm not
against accessibility, but Majora's Mask was never meant for a
general audience. It's Zelda's greatest "deep cut"; its
meant for hardcore Zelda fans that want a challenge and an
unconventional narrative. By making Majora's Mask more friendly
you've changed the fabric of its DNA. Was it worth snapping the
game's bones in order to cater to the people who would've hated MM in
the first place?
I
mentioned in an earlier review that I didn't like Dark Souls. If they
remake that game in ten years packed with a shit load of alterations
made for the sake of accessibility I'd be just as pissed as everyone
else. Dark Souls just wasn't made for me, and I'm not going to demand
that the game be changed so that I can be accommodated. Art isn't
obligated to be appealing to everyone, and I can still look at games
I don't particularly enjoy and see the artistic merit in them.
This
leads to the question of what the point of a remake like this
actually is. After some thought, I've come up with two potential
purposes a remake could have:
1.
Preserve the original game. With the constantly changing array of
consoles, some older games have become increasingly hard to find.
With the advent of digital services like Steam and the Nintendo
E-Shop this has become less of a problem. Still, a major re-release
like this could help the game find new fans, which I'd count as
preservation of a sort.
2.
Enhance the game in an unobtrusive way. OoT 3D nailed this. It
improved the UI while leaving the rest of the game pretty much
intact. I want to be clear here, I don't even think most of MM 3D's
changes are bad. However, in my opinion MM 3D goes far beyond its
intended purpose. Some people would argue that the changes to MM 3D
improve the game significantly, and maybe they're right. You could
also make the argument that colorizing Casablanca would be an
improvement, but that would show a blatant disrespect for that film's
heritage and place in history. To me, something about MM 3D just
doesn't feel right, and I think I'm going to stick with the original.
If
my negative experiences with this game have taught me anything its
that I am now officially a grumpy old man. Hooray.
-Like
A Boss-
-Woodfall
Temple-
Woodfall
is a great first dungeon. Considering Majora's Mask only has four
dungeons, the game doesn't really have time to fuck around. Woodfall
is comparable in difficulty to OoT's Forest Temple, which was that
game's fourth dungeon. While the four dungeon thing is a common
complaint about the game, I kind of like the "all killer, no
filler" approach. The fact that Woodfall dungeon doesn't hold
your hand also really contributes to MM's "hardcore" vibe.
Majora's Mask does not play around, mother fucker.
Woodfall
is also cool because it puts a unique spin on the standard "forest"
theme of almost every Zelda's first dungeon. It is instead swamp
themed, and poisonous swamp water plays a big role in its design.
Woodfall isn't terribly interesting, but I'd say its just a solid
dungeon overall.
Odolwa:
Odolwa is so fucking weird. Its not everyday a game asks me to
fight a chubby giant in a loincloth. Weird appearances aside, this
fight is actually really cool. To illustrate a point, here's an
excerpt from Odolwa's article on Zeldapedia:
"Link
can shoot Odolwa with his Bow
to
stun him, then attack with his Sword. Odolwa is capable of deflecting
Link's Arrows.
He is most vulnerable while he is dancing or attempting to summon
insects. Link can also harm Odolwa in Deku form by shooting out of
the Deku
Flower found
in the center of the room. Odolwa is also vulnerable to Bombs or any
explosive object, such as the Blast
Mask or
Bomb
Flowers,
which can be found along the edges of the room."
Here's
an excerpt from the article about Wind Waker's first boss, Gohma:
"To
defeat Gohma, Link must wait for an opening to grapple onto Valoo's
tail, which dangles from the roof, while avoiding Gohma's pincers.
When Link swings to safety, part of the chamber's ceiling falls on
Gohma, cracking her armor. After repeating this process several
times, Gohma's armor will completely fall off. At this stage, Link
grapples Gohma's eye so he can access it with his sword. Once the eye
is in range, Link must attack it with his sword until the boss
perishes by hardening and exploding."
There
is exactly one way to defeat Wind Waker Gohma. There are roughly six
billions ways to defeat Odolwa. Generally, I just block his attacks
and use "quick spins" (a button shortcut that lets me use a
spin attack without charging it) when he's vulnerable. Another player
could have a completely different method of defeating him. Its not
like I don't like the later game's fights, I just prefer the more
organic, non-linear approach to bosses.
-Snowhead
Temple-
Snowhead
is the game's second dungeon, and its probably about as difficult as
OoT's later dungeons. Snowhead revolves around a central tower, and a
large pillar that can be moved up and down in order to access
different parts of it. It's a fairly unassuming dungeon, but it's
cleverly designed and generally enjoyable.
Goht:
Goht
is some sort of...demonic goat robot. I also have no
clue how to
pronounce his name. Is it just "Goat"? "Go-hit"?
"Gawt?" Who fucking knows. Repardless, Goht is one of my
favorite Zelda bosses. He runs around on a circular track, and you
have to chase after him by rolling around as Goron Link. Its one of
the most fast paced bosses in Zelda history. There's a primal
satisfaction to be had in rolling off of a ramp at mach speed and
slamming down on to the back of an evil robotic goat. The only fight
I can really compare this too would be Twilight Princess' Stallord,
another one of my favorite Zelda boss fights.
-Great
Bay Temple-
So
a lot of people don't like Great Bay temple. Personally, I've never
had much of a problem with it, and I think its leagues better than
OoT's Water Temple. To be fair, I do think Great Bay is MM's worst
dungeon, but its not significantly worse than the others.
Great
Bay has a "water flow" theme, in that you need to turn on
various pipes to change which way water is moving. This means that
the entire dungeon has an "engine room" aesthetic, which is
a lot more unique than the Water Temple's "bland hallways filled
with water" thing. I can see why people hate it, but I find that
if you just follow the pipes around it isn't too confusing.
So
instead you run around looking for Gyorg. Then you shoot him with an
arrow. He becomes stunned. Put on the Zora mask. Jump in the water
and use your electric shield to damage him. Dolphin jump back on to
the platform. Rinse and repeat. Gyorg sucks.
-Stone
Tower Temple-
I
didn't really realize it until my last playthrough, but Stone Tower
is hard as balls. It has it all: a shit load of mini boss fights,
difficult puzzles with unconventional solutions, navigating floating
mine fields as Deku Link. All the fun stuff. Once you get the light
arrows, you can use them to flip the entire dungeon upside down. At
this point you have to go through it again while walking on the
ceiling. Lest we forget, you only have three in game days to finish
it or you're screwed.
This
is an amazing dungeon, and it feels almost like a Zelda level design
dissertation. If you can make it through Stone Tower without a
walkthrough, then I congratulate you. You, sir or madam, are a Zelda
badass.
Twinmold:
So
you can fight Twinmold with arrows...if you're crazy. You get an item
before the fight called the Giant's Mask. Put that on, turn into
Giant Link, proceed to beat shit out of Twinmold. This fight is super
easy but is also a lot of fun. I presume the developers wanted to
give the player a break after the grueling Stone Tower.
-Finale-
Majora:
So,
if you've gotten every mask in the game, you can trade them in before
this fight to get the Fierce Diety's Mask. This mask lets Link
transform into an incredibly over powered form that kind of resembles
Adult Link. This form totally wrecks Majora's shit. You basically
just Z-Target Majora and shoot energy projectiles out of you word
until it dies. To be honest, I've never done this fight without
Fierce Diety's Mask, so I can't really speak to its difficulty.
So...uh...this fight is really easy?
-Hey,
Listen!-
Like
OoT, MM has a great, atmospheric soundtrack. What better way to
celebrate the Zelda series' most beloved dark horse than with a deep
cut off of its soundtrack? I've always been very partial to "Ikana
Valley". Its creepy as fuck.
Next time: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons
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