Editorial | Majora's Mask 20 Years Later.

 

By Sam Coles:

When we think of the year 2000, we think of a new millennium but these days we are shocked how it is now 20 years since that year. A lot of great gaming experience came out that year with the PS2 first launching in Japan and Europe, the first Timesplitters and the subject of this article The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. A game that had a rather tumultuous development to say the least, turned out to be one of the most unique Zelda titles in the series. So let me take you on a journey through the dark and twisted tale within the land of Termina, this is The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 20 years later.

Let’s rewind back to the late 90’s when production of Ocarina of Time wrapped, they had left over material and some at Nintendo wanted make a remixed version of Ocarina. However Eiji Aonuma suggested to make another game instead, and then he was given 18 months to make another game. I am of course over simplifying the situation, but it shows what pressures he was under when creating Majora’s Mask which explains its morbid and pessimistic tone. So much so Eiji Aonuma would constantly have nightmares, so much so one of them would coincidentally make it into the game with Deku Scrubs chasing him. Despite the short production period Majora’s Mask turned to be a great game, it reused Ocarina of Time assets and character models but it works in the game’s favour as it presents itself as a parallel universe to Hyrule. Laborious development aside let’s talk about the game itself.

Majora’s Mask is an unusual game in the Zelda series due to the fact it is a direct sequel, it takes place after Ocarina of Time where Link is in search of a lost friend which is heavily implied to be Navi the fairy. When he is slowly riding through the forest his ambushed by Skull Kid who is wearing the titular mask, he steals Link’s Ocarina and horse and turns him into a Deku Scrub. Link then bumps into the Happy Mask Salesman who says he can help him transform himself back to his former self, but he first needs the Ocarina back in his possession. This comes with a big price as he has only 72 hours to do so, because the Moon is slowly descending towards the planet where it will kill everyone in the near vicinity.

The narrative in Majora’s Mask was a huge change in tone; it no longer went with the whimsical and fairy tale aesthetic but instead went with dark and morbid themes such as death and loss. In a way it reflects the troublesome development it had which led to these themes, and honestly stands out as one of the more interesting games in the series from a storytelling perspective.

What makes the game standout in terms of the gameplay is the 3 day time mechanic, and the masks themselves. Let’s start off with the most contentious aspect of the game the 3 day time limit; at first when I played this as a kid I did not like this mechanic at all as I found it too stressful. However as a teenager and young adult I adapted to the system as you have to use the Ocarina to control it, you can slow down time by playing The Song of Time backwards which will give you three hours for the 72 hour cycle instead of the gonad crushing 55 minutes. When you understand how to manipulate time via the Ocarina, the burden of stress of the situation becomes less cumbersome.

The masks are also a major mechanic in the game; you have three transformation masks you can use throughout the game not counting Fierce Deity or Giant Mask. You have the Deku which you get at the start of the game, Goron and Zora masks. These aren’t just meaningless magic McGuffins, as they represent the deceased characters you find in the world as you use The Song of Healing to sooth their last moments.  The most mysterious one is the Deku mask as you don’t receive it from a dying Deku Scrub and for years it was shrouded in mystery of who it is until you meet the butler in the Deku Palace who remarks that “You remind me of my son”. It’s those small yet significant moments that really solidify this game’s storytelling, as it doesn’t insult the player’s intelligence and lets them put the pieces together.

Anyway back to gameplay mechanics of the masks, each of them have their uses and weaknesses such as the Deku being weak to fire and can’t leave town as they don’t have effective weapons. However they can burrow into flowers and glide for a short time, which helps traverse areas that lack stable ledges. Gorons are strong, can travel around Termina fast as they roll up into a ball but they are slow when walking and attacking. The Zora mask lets you swim quickly and breathe under water, coupled with some slick combat manoeuvres. What I like about this aspect of the game is that you integrate within each community as you take on the persona of each dead character, they don’t see you as Link as you just ghost along within the land as someone else. People barely register Link’s presence, as they see him as the the Deku, Goron or Zora he is disguised as. It makes his efforts meaningless almost as they attribute his efforts to the race he has transformed into.

It wasn’t all perfect though with the game, like most Zelda games there is always that one dungeon that is infamous for being irritating and this is in the form of the Stone Tower Temple. Now in concept it was a unique idea where you would have to flip the entire temple to get to certain areas, however it was the laborious nature of having to play The Elegy of Emptiness multiple times. This song would produce rather nightmarish versions of you in all forms to help way down switches, sounds rather standard but if you know what you are doing you would have to play this song over 30 times which I don’t need to tell you how annoying that is. Unfortunately they did not fix this in the 3DS version of the game, which is rather baffling as they fixed the issues with the Water Temple in the 3DS version of Ocarina of Time.

In terms of visuals Majora’s Mask looks much better than Ocarina of Time, considering the darker tone of its story the graphics have more colour to them. My favourite area being the swamps with the warm reds and pinks, everything is densely detailed and does not have that baron wasteland that is Hyrule field in Ocarina of Time. They do reuse a lot of assets but it works in the game’s favour as I said early with the whole parallel world concept. Everything just looks better, which is helped with the use of the Expansion Pak.

Majora’s Mask 20 years later still stands out as one of the most unique games within the Zelda series, yes certain mechanics can be rather tedious but it was bold for doing something different. The story had a dark tone and the world of Termina was more interesting than Hyrule. I would say give this a go if you can, but to experience it properly play the N64 original on native hardware or on the GameCube collection.