Majora's Mask: A New Look At An Old Game (Part The Last)

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.

Majora's Mask: A New Look At An Old Game (Part 6)

Day 9: Beneath the Well, Castle Ikana, and Anju/Kafei

As scary as Beneath the Well was in Ocarina, it should be at least ten times as scary in this horrorfest of a game.  But it’s not.  It’s lame.  Instead of Redeads, Gibdos, Floormasters, and Wallmasters around every corner, not to mention false floors and whatever else is in the Ocarina version, this is just a series of rooms connected by Gibdos asking for stuff – water, fish, bugs, etc.  It’s tedious and boring (mostly because I never knew what they would ask for, so have the time I didn’t have it and had to go get it), but you get the Mirror Shield out of it, which is pretty good, I guess.

The Mirror Shield is TOTALLY creepy.  This is what it looks like:

It didn’t have to look like that.  Majora’s Mask uses the same sprites as Ocarina, and there’s also a Mirror Shield in that game.  It looks like this:

So why the change?  I don’t know, but it definitely fits this game, that’s for sure.

The Well leads into Castle Ikana, which is another tedious place.  But at least it has Redeads, which are *always* scary.  Getting to the throne room of Castle Ikana gets you audience with King Igos du Ikana, the former leader of the Ikana Kingdom.  Or is that “leader of the former Ikana Kingdom”?  I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter, because by “gets audience with”, I mean he sends two Stalfos Knights to kill you and when they fail, he – also a Stalfos Knight, but more like a Stalfos General, if there were such a thing – tries to kill you himself.  When HE fails, the disembodied skulls of the Stalfos Knights and King Igos argue for a while and then the king teaches you the Elegy of Emptiness, which lets you leave behind statues of yourself.  Here’s more proof that Deku Link used to be a real person, because Zora Link and Goron Link leave behind statues of Mikau and Darmani, respectively, while Deku Link leaves behind a Deku that doesn’t look like Deku Link *or* a Deku Scrub.  It’s sad that we never get to learn this guy’s name.

One more thing: the Link statue has a weird-ass look on his face.  I don’t know why.

I don't know what's worse: the eyes or the mouth.

I didn’t feel like tackling the Stone Tower Temple today, so instead I went to the Stock Pot Inn and tried to take care of some things there.  I finally was able to get a room there, but the whole scenario is just awful.  You have to wait until a Goron mailman(…I think?) shows up and then talk to Anju right before he gets to the counter.  She’ll see your name is Link, the same as the Goron’s, and you’ll get his room.  Then, thanks to a Goron speech tic that makes them end every sentence with “-goro”, Anju thinks his name is “Link-goro” and he doesn’t get a room.  So he has to sleep outside.  In the rain.  What the hell.

Anyway, once you get the room you can spy on Anju and her mother through a crack in the wall – but just listening, no peeping, because that’s gross.  If you do, you get to learn that Anju’s mother is a bitch and she’s accusing Kafei of running off with Cremia, the owner of Romani Ranch and Anju’s best friend.  The mother also implies that she wasn’t happy being married to Anju’s father (who’s named Tortus for whatever reason) and that Anju shouldn’t make the same mistake she did.  Except that Kafei is pretty cool, whereas Tortus sounds really lame.

During all this, I got the Keaton Mask from the Curiosity Shop guy for helping out Kafei and the Postman’s Hat from helping the Postman deliver a letter from Kafei to his mom, Madame Aroma (the postmistress and wife of Mayor Dotour and, therefore, the reason the carnival is happening instead of getting everyone the hell out of Dodge.  But I digress).  I’ll have to do all of that again to check off Madame Aroma and Mayor Dotour in my Notebook, but it’s pretty easy stuff, so it’s not a big deal.  I missed my chance to help Kafei at Sakon’s, though, so I’d have to do it all again anyway.

Day 10: Finishing Up Some Stuff

I got a lot accomplished today.  It was all small stuff, but it added up to get a good-sized portion of the game out of the way.

The first thing I did was take care of both Skulltula Houses.  The Swamp House wasn’t too bad; the only real scary part was that the Skulltulas would pop out from all sorts of places, sometimes when you least expect it.  But at least the place was brightly lit.  The Oceanside House, though – well, it would’ve been right at home in Resident Evil.  Poorly lit, poorly upkept (holes in the walls, broken bookcases, etc) – it definitely had a creepy aura about it.  Nevertheless, I got the Mask of Truth from one and a heart piece/Giant Wallet from the other, which is a pretty good haul, I’d say.

Since I was able to hold 500 rupees now, it was possible to buy the All-Night Mask from the Curiosity Shop.  But to do that, I had to keep Sakon from stealing the bomb bag from the Bomb Shop Lady.  And I did…by straight up KILLING HIM.  Not just killing him, but MAKING HIM EXPLODE.  I didn’t mean to, I swear.  He was running away with the bomb bag, and since I didn’t have a sword at the moment (more on that in a sec), I hit him with my hookshot.  Which blew him up.  This act right here singlehandedly makes this the darkest Zelda game ever made: You can kill a human.  A human that’s not an enemy or an archvillain, just a run-of-the-mill thief. And doing so makes a relationship end in ruin. And STILL prevents the Bomb Shop Lady from getting her wares to her shop, which was the whole point of trying to stop him in the first place.  It boggles the mind.

Another thing I did was make Snowhead turn to Spring again so that I could a) get a new sword from the Smiths and b) finally get the Goron Racetrack out of the way.  If you give them your sword and 100 rupees, they’ll give you the Razor Sword the next morning – that’s the kickass sword seen here:

Unfortunately, the Razor Sword only lasts 100 swipes before it turns back into the Kokiri Sword unless it gets re-reforged.  Which takes gold dust to do.  Fortunately, though, the prize for winning the Goron Race is a bottle filled with gold dust, so that’s pretty cool.  After another day of forging, the Razor Sword is turned into the Gilded Sword, which looks lame, but is actually pretty cool.

Finally, I noticed for the first time today that all the buildings are decorated on the inside with these huge, scary masks.  Like, with giants fangs and stuff.  I thought it was worth mentioning.  Also, Clock Town people are totally racist (the Treasure Chest shop charges you differently depending on what race you are, and the Curiosity Shop only sells to humans) and the Curiosity Shop guy and the Trading Post guy are so the same guy: they look the same, except one's bald and the other has hair that looks like a bad toupee, they wear the same clothes and itch all the time, the Trading Post closes at 10 pm, which is when the Curiosity Shop opens, and on the third day - when the Curiosity Shop guy is waiting in Kafei's room all day - the Trading Post is being run by the Part-Timer.  Not weird, not creepy, and not important, but an interesting tidbit that is just another example of how complex these characters' lives are.

To be honest, I was starting to get a little bored with these reviews because there hasn’t been super-creepy stuff in a while.  But Sakon’s death completely reinvigorated my interest.  And since I only have one temple and the moon left, I expect to get a full dose of weirdness soon.

Majora's Mask: A New Look At An Old Game (Part 5)

Day 7: Odds and Ends

I’m taking a break on the Great Bay Temple, otherwise I may shoot myself.  So instead, I went back to get the Stray Fairies from Snowhead Temple.  It’s pretty cool just how EASY it is to get through past dungeons if you have the right equipment (like a hookshot, for instance).  Not much to say about this, though.

Afterwards, I went to Ikana Graveyard to take care of the three “Beneath the Grave” sections.  I had tried them before, but the Iron Knuckles at the end of two sections were kicking my butt, so I stopped.  Now I have armored hearts, though (courtesy of the Great Fairy of Courage, who has blue hair, for some reason – and now that I’m on the subject, the Great Fairy of Wisdom has green hair; I feel like they probably should’ve been switched), so Iron Knuckles only do two hearts worth of damage instead of four.  I also discovered they’re susceptible to bombs, so that helped a lot.  I ended up getting the Song of Storms and a piece of heart for the trouble.

I got the Song of Storms from Flat, one of the Composer Bros.  He’s a Poe with a wicked mustache.  He also wants me to avenge him by killing his brother, Sharp.  His brother who’s already dead (he’s also a Poe).  Sharp, apparently, sold his soul to the devil and then killed Flat…in sacrifice, I guess?  It never really says.  It’s some mighty dark stuff, though.

Afterwards, I did the third section of the graveyard and it was BOGUS.  I had to lead Dampe around to different plots of dirt so he could dig them up and see if the Ikana Royal Family’s treasure was there.  If I moved too fast, he would lost the light from Tatl and return to where he started, but if I moved to slow, I was attacked by a Wallmaster.  Ridiculous.  Then, the treasure never showed up, but three flames did, which joined together into a giant Poe that I had to defeat.  Killing the Poe revealed a treasure chest that contained…a bottle.  All that for a freaking bottle.  Stupid.  On the plus side, you get to see Dampe hiding under his bed afterwards, so that’s almost worth it.  Sorta.

Day 8: Great Bay and Ikana Canyon (Once More), Plus Bombers’ Notebook Stuff

I beat Gyorg.  And you know what?  It was really easy.  I brought three fairies and didn’t need to use any of them.  It was kind of a bummer.  If I have a really hard time with a boss, I expect it to be because the boss really is hard and not because I suck.  Oh well.

Afterwards I figured out how to do the jam session with Japas, but I didn’t get anything for it, which makes me think I’m still doing something wrong.  I’ll figure it out later.

Speaking of figuring out things later, I got a new mask and helped two people out in my Notebook…which I could’ve done my first day of playing.  All I needed was the Song of Healing, which is the first song I got.  Kind of bogus.  It’s taken care of, though, so that’s good.

I also went deep into Ikana Canyon to the village there and it was scary.  There were Garos and Gibdos and the whole place was deserted except for one family stuck in the middle of it all.  There was also a Ghost Hut, which is pretty much the same as a Skulltula House, except lamer.  Anyway, after defeating Flat’s brother Sharp with the Song of Storms and refilling the Ikana River, Link is able to enter the family’s house, where you discover that the father is turning into a Gibdo.  He looks like this:

The N64 graphics just make him look scarier.

Healing him gets you the Gibdo Mask, which lets other Gibdos think you’re a Gibdo.  This’ll let me get into the carverns Underneath the Well, which I haven’t done yet.

Finally, I was able to talk to Kafei and get him in my Notebook, but I still have a long way to go on that subplot.  I still have one space in the Notebook, by the way, and I have no idea who it could be.  I’m really hoping it’s King Ikana, because if it’s not…well, I’m running out of characters fast.



I feel like I should be farther ahead in the game than I actually am.  I only have 10 hearts (out of 20) and I'm missing a lot of masks.  There's just a good bit of stuff in general that I know I should be able to do but can't figure out how (like getting a room at the Stock Pot Inn, for instance).  I'm working on it, though.  I'm still loving the game, but I'll hold off until the end to decide where it ranks in the grand scheme of things.

Majora's Mask: A New Look At An Old Game (Part 4)

Day 6, Part 2: Great Bay and Ikana Canyon (Again)

After a short break spent taking an exam and reading, Great Bay was a snap.  I figured out that the golden fish wasn’t necessary at all and I was able to get into the Gerudo Fortress through an underwater tunnel, which is where I got the hookshot, which made doing the rest of the stuff I needed to do a snap.

But let’s talk about that golden fish for a second.  There’s actually two of them, both seahorses, and one of them has been captured by a fisherman.  The fisherman, incidentally, is happy to give the fish to you as long as you get him a pictograph of a Gerudo Pirate.  What is with all the pervy people in Termina?  Seriously.  Anyway, reuniting the two fish will net you a piece of heart, which is always nice.

There’s not much to say about the Gerudo Fortress, except that Gerudos are the worst guards ever.  At least Hyrule Castle Guards and others have the excuse that Link is usually hiding behind shrubbery or whatever, whereas the Gerudos guard this wide open room and Link can pretty much go wherever he wants without getting caught.  It’s crazy just how LITTLE sneaking Link has to actually do.  I also learned, though, that Gerudos can be knocked out for a short time by getting hit with an arrow, which made sneaking around all the easier.

After getting the hookshot and bringing all seven of Lulu’s eggs (4 were in the fortress and 3 were elsewhere) to the Ocean Laboratory, they hatch and turn into musical notes, which teach Link the New Wave Bossa Nova.  This isn’t some fluke, either.  Apparently, these eggs had something in their genes that would let them teach the song that would cure their mother’s loss of voice.  Really.  The ocean scientist says so.  This is one wacky world.

So now with Lulu healed and hookshot in hand, I was able to go to Great Bay Temple.  But I didn’t.  Because I remember it being awful, so I put it off.  Instead, I went to talk to the Beaver Brothers, and they wanted me to race for a bottle.  But the race was bogus – like all minigames in Majora’s Mask so far – so I only tried twice.

Instead, I used the hookshot to get further into Ikana Canyon, where I was actually able to talk to Kafei…sorta.  He didn’t actually say anything and he wasn’t added to my Bomber’s Notebook, but at least he’s not just mysteriously missing anymore.  So that’s good.

One more thing: Yesterday when I played, I had a double magic meter despite having to redo the Snowhead Temple.  Today, however, I had a regular magic meter with doubled magic.  And once I used up that magic, it only let me refill the magic meter I had instead of the one I *should* have.  Which means I have to go through the Snowhead Temple AGAIN, which is megalame.

Day 6, Part 3: Great Bay Temple

Fuck this temple.  Fuck Gyorg.  I’m so pissed off right now.  And I’m gonna have to redo the whole thing tomorrow, which isn’t helping matters any.

That was written last night.  Now that I’ve had time to sleep on it, I can talk about it more calmly.  I know the word “Temple” can be thrown around a lot in Zelda games, but this one is by far the least temple-looking temple ever.  You can’t imagine people worshiping there by any stretch; it’s a factory, plain and simple. And it sucks.  It’s a water dungeon so it already has one strike against it, but this one takes the cake:  you can’t even control where you’re going have the time because you have to follow the current.  It gets a little better once you have the dungeon map, but it’s nearly impossible without one.  And I had to use a strategy guide to find Stray Fairies again, but I don’t care anymore; at this point, I’ve just accepted that I’m going to have to do that, and I’m ok with it.

Now, let’s talk about Gyorg.  He’s a giant armored shark.  You’re in a big room filled with water that has a small pedestal in the middle.  What you have to do is hit him with an arrow to stun him and then electrify him with Mikau’s electric shield, which is a lot harder than it sounds.  If he wakes up while you’re near him, he’ll eat you, which gets annoying fast.  And if there’s anything you have to do after that (there better not be, damn it!), I don’t know what it is yet.

I still like this game a lot so far, but I’d like it a lot better if Great Bay “Temple” wasn’t in it.

Majora's Mask: A New Look At An Old Game (Part 3)

Day 5: Various Errands

I didn’t get to play much today, so I didn’t get much accomplished.  First I went to Great Bay for a second to check things out.  I saw that they had another creepy-ass Skulltula House, so I’ll be avoiding that for awhile, and the water’s weird (but not poisonous like in Woodfall).  Swimming out a bit in the water, I found a Zora floating face down.  But he wasn’t dead, thank goodness.  He WAS dying, though, so…bummer.  I pulled him to shore and he just lay there until he wanted to tell me his story, at which point he jumped up and started dancing around and playing the guitar.  This game never ceases to amaze me.  He turned out to be Mikau, the guitar player for the Indigo-Gos, a famous Zora band.  Then he died.  I got a Zora mask out of the whole deal and also a sweet fishbone guitar.  So over the course of the game, I’ve gone from transforming into someone I don’t even know for sure actually died (even though he totally did) to transforming into someone whose ghost I talked to to transforming into someone who died right in front of me.  That’s quite the progression.

Afterward, I went to the Milk Bar and completed my tasks for the Indigo-Gos manager and Gorman.  To accomplish this, I had to get on stage four times – once as Link and once each for Deku Link, Goron Link, and Zora Link – and play different pieces of a song.  And then, SOMEHOW, all four versions of me appear and start playing together.  What --  that doesn’t --  I don’t even know what to say.  That’s crazy.

The song gets Gorman out of his funk and he gives me the Circus Leader’s Mask, which I’m supposed to wear when talking to his brothers, but I did and nothing worth mentioning it happened, so I feel like I’m missing something.  This mask does need talking about, though, because it *cries*.  And when you run while wearing it, the tears trail behind you.  So weird.

Day 6, Part 1: Great Bay and Ikana Canyon

I didn’t get much done again today, though this time it was mostly because I couldn’t figure out what to do.

I went to Great Bay to see what’s up, and right away I got hit with two objectives: rescue Lulu’s eggs from the Gerudo Pirates and find a golden fish.  Lulu is the lead singer of the Indigo-Gos and her eggs have been stolen, which has caused her to lose her voice.  And if the eggs aren’t retrieved and put in a special tank in time, they’ll die.  Good family-friendly fun from the good people at Nintendo.  But to get into the Gerudo Fortress (and pretty much everywhere else in Great Bay) I need the Hookshot…which I don’t know how to get.  I *think* I get from going to Pinnacle Rock, which is what I need the golden fish for, but I looked EVERYWHERE for that thing and couldn’t find it, so I’m stuck.

While I was searching for the golden fish, I decided to do some other things around Great Bay.  So first I went to Zora Hall and talked to the Indigo-Gos.  Two things to note here: first, there is TOTALLY someone trying to spy on Lulu in her room, except that she’s not in there.  Creepy.  Then, a fan asks Link if he can get a pictograph of one of her “private moments”, so Link goes and takes a picture of her looking all sad and gets 20 rupees for it.  Way to profit from her misery, dick.  So Lulu’s sad, but I don’t know how to cheer her up (I’m pretty sure it has something to do with her eggs) and Japas, one of the band members, wants to have a jam session, but nothing I play is good enough for him.  Zora Hall is a bust.

One last thing to do in Great Bay for right now: I went to the Ocean Lab and saw two fish in a tank.  So I started feeding them fish, hoping that something would happen, and it did: one fish eats all of the fish I put in the tank and continuously gets bigger until it’s big enough to eat its tankmate.  And then it gives you a heart piece.  WTF.

Since I’m stuck on Great Bay, I decided to go to Ikana Canyon just to see what would happen.  Apparently all I needed to get in was Epona, which was kind of surprising, and then to get further into the canyon, I needed the Garo’s Mask, which I also got from the ranch (which just helps prove my point at how much of a lynchpin the ranches are in this game).  Unfortunately, I *also* needed the hookshot to get in, which I didn’t have.  But I *could* go to the Ikana Graveyard, so I did.

Dampe was there, being as weird as ever.  There was also a giant Stalfos there named Skull Keeta who wanted me to race him.  And he’s a cheating bastard.  But if you win, he gives you the Captain’s Hat, which prevents other Stalfos from attacking you.  Pretty cool.  It also lets you give Stalfos orders, so I get them to destroy a gravestone so I could get in the caverns underneath.  It was going pretty well for a while, but then I got to an Iron Knuckle that I just can’t beat (each hit by him takes away four hearts and I only have eight) so I’m at an impasse.  Hopefully I’ll be able to figure some of this stuff out the next time I play.



(The next time I play, by the way, was two more sessions today, so they will have their own post tomorrow.)

Majora's Mask: A New Look At An Old Game (Part 2)

Day 3: Southern Swamp and Woodfall

My first thought when entering Southern Swamp was, “hey, maybe this game isn’t as dark as I thought.”  The place was brightly colored, and it even has a tourist board.  But boy, was I wrong.  First there were the monkeys that had their brother kidnapped and asked me to rescue him.  Not too bad, but then there was the poisonous water(!) and the Skulltula House, a building filled to the brim with giant spiders, where the first thing you see upon entering is a half-man-half-spider-thing.



Southern Swamp is home to the Deku Palace, home of the Deku Royal Family.  They've kidnapped - and plan to kill - the monkey, because they think he has something to do with the disappearance of the Deku princess.  It's important to note that all evidence points to the Deku king planning to not just kill the monkey, but to roast him.  At least that's what I got from the huge fire in the middle of the throne room. (They're made of wood, so that can't be a normal thing.)  Long story short, Link has to go to rescue the princess from Woodfall Temple.

Woodfall is creepy, not like Southern Swamp at all.  It's very dark and the whole place is out to get you.  Woodfall Temple, on the other hand, isn't creepy at all (except for one room that's pitch dark and filled with enemies called Boes that are black puffs with glowing eyes).  It's also a lot smaller than I remember, and a lot easier too.  Unfortunately, it's also the reason I had to look at a strategy guide for the first time, so that's lame.  And for stupid reasons, too: there was a room that I hadn't been to and couldn't figure out how to enter (you ended up going to it after you beat the boss) and there was a stray fairy that I couldn't find (that I really should've been able to).

Speaking of the boss, Odolwa is straight crazy.  He looks like a jungle warrior, which is crazy enough, but then he jumps around and convulses and does all sorts of weird things.  I don't even know the strategy for beating him; he periodically called down giant bugs and swarms of...something, so I just hit him with my sword whenever I got a chance.  That seemed to work, though.

Other things to discuss:

1. When you rescue the princess, you have to carry her back to the palace in a bottle.  A bottle!  How is that even possible?

2. Thanks to the openness of the game, I was able to have five hearts when I started the Woodfall Temple, instead of the usual three.  It helped considerably.

3. After returning the Princess, the Deku Butler decides to give you a gift.  To get it, you have to do the chase-him-through-a-series-of-complicated-corridors-while-he-floats-past-all-the-obstacles nonsense that originated with Dampe in Ocarina.  I had to do it at least a dozen times, until I realized that it was much easier as regular Link.  I figured since I was in Deku Country and following a Deku, that I should be a Deku to do it, but apparently that was not the case.

4. After beating the Woodfall Temple, you get to meet the first of the Four Giants.  Here's a picture.  This game is so weird.

Day 4: Snowhead and Romani Ranch

There's not much to do in Snowhead, but there's plenty of oddity to go around.  The first real objective you accomplish is getting the Lens of Truth, which allows you to see the ghost of Darmani III (Dead Person #2); after you follow him to his grave and play the Song of Healing, you get the Goron Mask.  And here's a perfect place to talk about something that I forgot to mention last time: whenever you put on a Transformation Mask, it plays a cinematic of you/dead person/both screaming in agony.  Luckily, it's skippable...eventually.  The first time you put on the mask, you HAVE to watch Link or whoever go through that torture.  What the heck?  Here's what it looks like:

This is actually from the third Transformation Mask, and Darmani's is actually more painful to watch, but this was the only one I could find.

After becoming Goron Link, you can get the Goron Lullaby and go to Snowhead Temple.  But to do that, you have to stop a baby Goron from crying incessantly.  And to do THAT, you have to talk to the Goron Elder who moves so slow the cold freezes him in place.  What.  Once you get the Lullaby, you have to play it to make the Biggoron sitting in front of Snowhead Temple fall asleep.  When he falls asleep, he falls over into what appears to be a bottomless cavern.  Does he die?  Who cares?  Link certainly doesn't.  Fortunately, in this game it doesn't really matter whether he does or not because once you go back to the first day, he'll be back to life again.  Still, that's some pretty crappy behavior on the part of our hero.

Snowhead Temple is pretty easy, but it can be frustrating.  Several parts rely on rolling on precarious paths that are easy to fall off of.  But it's pretty quick to get through if you don't care about getting anything (I'll get to that in a bit).  I did have to use a strategy guide again, but only to find two fairies - one of them I should've been able to find, but the other was impossible, so I only feel half bad.  You get the Fire Arrow, which definitely come in handy, but not against the Boss for whatever reason.  The boss, Goht, is just as weird as Odolwa.  He's a giant mechanical goat that runs around in circles.  Strange.  He's easy to beat, though; Goron Link has to chase him by rolling and run into him a bunch of times.  Basic stuff.

After you beat Snowhead Temple, Snowhead turns to Spring.  This is a good example of the fluidity of time in Termina.  Only one region seems to have seasons, and it can change seasons without any of the other regions being affected.  You can slow time, but no one seems to notice but you; in effect, it just gives you superspeed, but you're not actually moving any faster than normal, and the other characters aren't moving any slower (except for one thing where slowing time DOES make the characters move slower).  And there are other examples that I can't think of at the moment. 

Once Snowhead turns to Spring, you can get Powder Kegs and go to the Goron Racetrack.  The Goron Racetrack, by the way, sucks.  It's incredibly difficult to win, and if you happen to be in the middle of a race and there's 14 gametime minutes before the world ends, you can't pull out your instrument to go back through time.  You're just stuck.  This did, however, let me see what happens if the world DOES end, and it's not pretty.  The moon, which is suddenly ON FIRE, crashes into Clock Town and destroys everything.  In slow motion.  It's not pretty.  And since I wasn't able to go back to the first day on time, I had to completely redo the entire Snowhead Temple.  But since I got to keep my double magic meter (a gift for collecting all the stray fairies), all I was interested in getting from the temple were the Fire Arrows and Boss Key; I was able to ZOOM through the dungeon that way.  Goht was just as easy the second time.

Now that Link has access to Powder Kegs, he can blow up the boulders in front of Romani Ranch, which allows him access at any point, not just on the third day.  Which is good, because I didn't realize just how KEY the Ranch was to so many parts of the game.  It gets you two masks (at least), Epona, access to the Milk Bar (which gets you more masks and accomplishments), and so many other things.  You also get to find out why Romani was catatonic on the third day, and it is not pretty.  Here's what went down:

According to Romani, every year before the Carnival, these aliens show up and steal all the cows.  This year, she plans to fight them off, but no one will help her because they think she's making it up.  So we have this eight-year-old girl setting out to single-handedly save her family's ranch from invading aliens.  That's pretty impressive.  By the way, the aliens look like this:

Freaky.

And the next night, you have to help Romani's older sister Cremia deliver milk.  This is one of the few things in the same that's scary without being balls-out bizarre.  The path from Romani Ranch to Clock Town is blocked off, so Cremia has to drive through Gorman's Ranch.  Once there, the Gorman Bros. chase her on horses and try to destroy all of her milk.  That's messed up, especially since having your livelihood destroyed by bandits is the best possible outcome of the woman's-path-diverted-into-nonfriendly-territory-where-she's-attacked-by-two-strange-men scenario.  Thankfully, this game is Rated E For Everyone.

And that's it for now.  I'm still a fan of the game so far and I'm glad it's craziness is getting to shine through better than ever.  I'm still on the fence about the dungeons, though; I feel like they could be better, but I'm not sure how.  Next time I'll tackle Great Bay and...other stuff.  Sidequests, probably.

Majora's Mask: A New Look At An Old Game (Part 1)

Ocarina of Time is widely regarded as one of the best made video games of all time, scoring perfect 10s in nearly all of its reviews.  It's certainly the most well known Zelda game of my generation, owing both to its greatness and to the fact that it came out in 1998, just as we were moving to more adult games (while still being on the kid-friendly side for the most part).

Its sequel, though, Majora's Mask, is not nearly as well regarded.  Most people I know have never played it all the way through, and it's generally regarded as a love-it-or-hate-it game.  It's certainly a lot darker than Ocarina - and possibly all the other Zelda games as well - and sidequests, while an ever-present part of Zelda gaming, were a major part of the game, almost to the point of being a misnomer; it's arguable that the "sidequests" are the main point of the game and the actual plot is just a McGuffin to give those sidequests some context.  A lot of people also disliked the time travel aspect of the game, for varying reasons.

Personally, I've never had much an opinion about the game, but recently I realized that that was probably because I played the whole game with a strategy guide (which is definitely NOT the way one should play Zelda; guides are an absolute last resort).  Furthermore, I hadn't played the game in a decade, so my memories were fuzzy at best.  With this in mind, I decided to replay the game, sans guide, and see if my opinion of it changed.  And, of course, I decided to chronicle the whole thing.

Day 1: Beginning

The game is certainly dark.  Right off the bat, the game starts with Link looking for his fairy, Navi, who has gone missing.  He meets a new pair of fairies, Tatl and Tael, and a Skull Kid, who's wearing a weird mask.  The Skull Kid kidnaps Link's horse, Epona, and turns Link into a Deku scrub.  He also kidnaps Tael, so to speak, which forces Tatl to team up with Link so she can find her brother.

Link finds himself in an alternate universe called Termina, which is three days from being destroyed by the Moon falling.  So, yeah, his only two friends get taken from him and he finds himself in a place he knows nothing about.  Heavy stuff.  The Moon, by the way, looks like this:

See? Creepy.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you: the Deku scrub that Link turned into?  He used to be alive, but is now dead.  There are three people Link turns into in this game, and they're all dead.  At first, I wasn't sure that the Deku scrub was actually a real person, but no; the deceased scrub is actually the first denizen of Termina that you meet (you pass a Deku-shaped tree and Tatl says something like "this tree looks like a Deku scrub?  How weird, I wonder what happened?"  The Skull Kid killed him, that's what.)

As for gameplay, I was surprised at how old-school Majora's Mask was in terms of plot advancing.  When you first enter Termina, you're told to find the Great Fairy and she'll help you turn back into your good old Hylian self.  But you aren't told where the Great Fairy is or how to get her to help you or anything.  You're just thrust into this town and have to figure everything out on your own. It can be frustrating at times, but I think it's a lot better than the "go here, go here, go here" design of some other Zelda games.

One last thing: the Happy Mask Salesman (who asks you to get Majora's Mask back for him, because the Skull Kid stole it from him) is effing crazy.  He's purposefully not animated smoothly, so his movements are very jumpy - very unsettling.  And when he finds out you DIDN'T get the mask back, he freaks the fuck out. Watch (with the sound off):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnzrm1NKgnA  (And it continues in that vein for a while, with him getting increasingly manic.)

Day 2: Bombers' Notebook

Today, all I did was go around and try to find everyone in the Bombers' Notebook.  The Bombers' Notebook is this thing where you keep track of people and their schedules, with the goal of helping them all in some way.  This is that whole sidequests-being-the-main-part-of-the-game thing I talked about in the last section.

The Bombers' Notebook is also one of the greatest things about the game.  These twenty characters are all having problems of different sorts, which means they all have to have lives to have problems in.  This creates the need for a world where the plot is happening to every character in the game and not just Link.  The citizens of Clock Town aren't just window dressing.  Each of them are leading their own lives, and you can even follow them over the three day period to see all the stuff they do.  They don't just show up wherever they need to be, they actually walk from place to place just like Link has to do.  This allows for a more realistic world, and, coupled with the good deeds you have to do, creates a world that you actually WANT to save, not because it's the goal of the game but because such interesting people live in it.

Despite just going around and meeting people today, more darkness was encountered: the best example would probably be Romani (a little girl) being left catatonic after aliens invade Romani Ranch.  Why is she catatonic?  I don't know, because at the moment I can only get to the ranch for the aftermath on the Third Day (boulders are blocking the path on the first two days).

There are also storylines that, while not being dark, per se, are more mature than Zelda tends to deal with.  One of the major subplots is the called-off engagement of Anju and Kafei; there are rumors all over town, but the only thing anyone knows for sure is that Kafei is missing and nobody knows why.  Another story is the fight between the Carpenters and the Town Guards over whether they should still have their annual festival despite the fact that the Moon is literally just a few miles over Clock Town (and moving ever closer).

I'm about five or six hours into the game so far and have not gotten anywhere NEAR the first dungeon, completely by choice.  And I like that the game lets me do that.

Coming up: Part 2 (which I assume will be published on Wednesday) will cover Woodfall and Woodfall Temple, among other things.

Verdict so far:  I'm impressed.