Day 11: Bombers’ Notebook
All I did today was finish the Anju/Kafei sidequest, which completed my Bombers’ Notebook (finally). So since I don’t have anything else to talk about, I thought I’d discuss the Notebook for a bit.
At first I thought it was lame that the Bombers are in it, because it pretty much wastes a space that could’ve gone to Anju’s Mother or somebody. But then Martin rightly pointed out that it’s there to show what a completed entry looks like, so it didn’t bother me anymore. What did bother me, though, were that several of the entries WERE wastes of space.
Most of the entries fall into two categories, the first being the Anju/Kafei sidequest. These include Anju and Kafei (naturally), Mayor Dotour and Madame Aroma (Kafei’s parents), the Postman (delivers important letters to Anju, Kafei, and Madame Aroma), the Curiosity Shop Guy (harbors Kafei and deals with Sakon), Anju’s grandmother, and even the Bomb Shop Lady (introduces Sakon and helps complete the Anju’s Grandmother entry). That’s nearly half of the entries.
The second category is the ranch storyline, which inlucudes Romani (saves the ranch), Cremia (delivers the milk to Clock Town since the ranch is saved), the Gorman Bros. (try to steal the milk), and Gorman (gives you a mask that makes helping Cremia even easier).
Then there are…the others. These are all mostly self-contained entries that may be tangentially related to the main two categories in some cases, but don’t add anything to them. This includes Toto (you complete Toto’s and Gorman’s entries at the same time because they are exactly the same), the Rosa Sisters (who are in Gorman’s troupe and are staying at Anju’s inn), Kamaro (needed to complete the Rosa Sisters entry), ??? (a hand in Anju’s toilet), Grog (a guy who lives at Romani Ranch), Guru-Guru (a person in Gorman’s troupe), and Shiro (who’s not related to anything).
I’ll accept Guru-Guru, the Rosa Sisters, and Kamaro, but I don’t see any difference between ???, Shiro, & Grog and any other person in the game who gives you a heartpiece/mask. If they get to be in the Notebook, why don’t Evan, Tingle’s father, or the Deku Butler? I just don’t get it. These spots could’ve been used to make the stories (especially the ranch story) even deeper.
Day 12: Stone Tower Temple and The Moon
This is it, guys. This is the end. It’s been a good ride but I finally beat this sucker.
Since I’ve run out of important sidequests to do, I decided to go ahead and beat the final temple. There’s not much to say about it except that about halfway through you’re required to flip the world over in order to complete the rest of the temple (walking on ceilings and whatnot). It’s possible, I suppose that it could just be Link that’s flipped over, but since in Twilight Princess it showed Link walking on the ceiling, whereas here he’s walking on the “ground”, I’m forced to assume that he stayed the same and everything else flipped. That’s right: Link makes time AND space his bitch in this game.
This temple gave me the Light Arrows and the Giant’s Mask, which sounds awesome but is actually lame, since you can only use it in the Stone Tower boss room. Capturing all the Stray Fairies got me the Great Fairy’s Sword, which is pretty cool. It’s as big as Link is and 4x as powerful as the Kokiri Sword. It’s a c-button item, so it can doesn’t have a charged spin attack, but you can still use it if you’re jinxed by a Blue Bubble, so it’s pretty awesome.
Afterward, I had some time left, so I decided to go ahead and fight the Skull Kid. There was a confrontation at the top of the Clock Tower, but then Link called the Four Giants and they stopped the Moon, which pissed off Majora’s Mask something fierce. So it stopped playing games and not only showed that it was just using the Skull Kid’s body as a puppet, but it made the Moon go crazy. It’s eyes started glowing creepily and it said, “I want to consume. Consume. Consume…everything.” Then it sucked up Majora’s Mask and Link. And here’s where things get weird.
What do you imagine the inside of a moon to look like? I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess not this:
When you go closer to the tree, you’ll find four kids running around, all of whom look like miniature Happy Mask Salesmen, and each of whom are wearing a different Boss’s Remains mask. You’ll also find a fifth kid sitting by himself next to the tree wearing Majora’s Mask. If you talk to the four kids, they’ll ask you to play hide and seek and take some of your masks. You get sent to a course designed for a specific version of Link (Zora Link’s is super easy, Deku Link’s is easy but easily messed up, Goron Link’s is a pain, and Link Link’s is fighting a bunch of people) and when you find them, they ask for more masks. By the time you’ve found all four of them, all your masks are gone and so are they. If you talk to the fifth kid afterward, he’ll ask you to play good guys and bad guys and he’ll give you the Fierce Deity’s Mask. Something interesting to note: he gives you this mask because he asks you to play the bad guy.
So then you start fighting Majora’s Mask. The boss battle is ridiculously easy as Fierce Deity Link, so I can’t even really describe what his attack patterns are like. What I can do, though, is show you the different forms.
Majora’s Mask is the first incarnation. It’s like Majora’s mask, but bigger and with tentacles growing out of the back for whatever reason.
Majora’s Incarnation is the second form. As you can see, Majora’s Mask has inexplicably grown limbs and a head made out of a horned eyeball.
Majora’s Wrath is the final form and it’s basically a bulked up version of Majora’s Incarnation, but with an actual head this time. And tentacle whips.
Defeating him leads to the “Dawn of a New Day”. The moon gets sent back into the space and puts a rainbow in its place. The Skull Kid realizes the Four Giants still considered him a friend and kinda felt like a jerk for what he did. The Carnival goes off without a hitch. The Indigo-Gos get to play and Mikau is somehow back to life. Kafei and Anju get married. Everyone’s happy. Except for the Deku Butler, who, as it turns out, is the father of Deku Link. And, unlike Mikau, the Deku Butler’s Son didn’t get to come back to life. He’s still a tree.
It's hard to tell, but he's mourning his tree of a son in this picture.
Final Verdict
I definitely have a newfound appreciation for the game, as it is by far one of the deepest Zelda games to date (I want to say *the* deepest, but I'd have to replay them all to know for sure). I've made clear how dark it is and how much it relies on creepiness and oddity, but that's not all there is to it. All throughout the game are motifs of happiness, friendship, forgiveness, and love, and the ending is definitely the most fulfilling, as far as I can remember. A bunch of characters hanging out at Lon Lon Ranch can't hold a candle to watching several scenes of getting to see everyone you've gotten to know over the past three days get all the things they want and be able to celebrate the lack of world ending that just happened.
On the other hand, there are things that could be improved. The small number of dungeons makes the game feel short, even though it's not, and I think some more work could've gone into the side storylines and the masks. I've already discussed the Notebook, so I won't repeat myself, but the masks are exactly the same: there are a couple that are really useful (Bunny Hood, Blast Mask, and Great Fairy's Mask, for instance), but most of them are only used in one instance and never again.
The game was definitely innovative and one of the more original Zelda games, and I think that it serves as a good prototype should they ever want to do something similar in the future (which I would definitely recommend); it also introduced a lot of characters that would be used again and again in future Zelda games, such as Tingle, the Postman, and the Monkeys. I can't give it a definite ranking, but I will say that I think it ranks among the top 4 Zelda games, which I think include Twilight Princess, Ocarina of Time, and Wind Waker.
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