Dawn Of The Final Day: Majora's Mask 22 Years Later

[Ron Maels Moustache]

"If it's something that can be stopped, just try to stop it!"

Just on a whim I started playing this again after many years and it made me think some thoughts.

This is often described by fans as "the darkest Zelda" because it has a lot of disturbing elements that aren't necessarily in keeping with the series as a whole, and while that's true I think it goes a lot deeper than just aspects of the story being grimmer and more unsettling than you would usually expect from a Zelda game. I think it's certainly heavier thematically than any other game in the franchise, which is unusual considering that the series exists mainly in an escapist space where reality never intrudes.

What strikes me now most of all, and I'm sure can't be the only one, is the biggest threat you face in MM is something much more existential than just fighting an evil wizard pig-man for the hundredth time - the looming threat of global annihilation literally hovering over the heads of everyone on the planet, something that everyone cannot help but be constantly aware of throughout every moment of every day but are powerless to stop...well, let's just say this definitely feels a lot more apt two decades after the game was released.

One of the cruellest twists on the formula in this game is how it robs you of a sense of progress, as your efforts to repair the damage that has been done to the world are always undone, as you have to go back to beginning of the cycle and start over again. Your heroic actions in the grander narrative are essentially futile in the face of something beyond your control, but maybe that's the game trying to show you that trying to fix things that cannot be fixed is not always the best way to live your life, and ultimately the parts of the game that feel like they matter the most are just the quests where you help out people you've met, solving their small problems for them and trying to make their lives better for how long they left to live them.

This is exemplified in the Kafei and Anju quest, which is possibly the hardest subquest in the whole game to actually beat, and your only physical reward is a mask that you don't need to complete the game, but the emotional catharsis of reuniting these two characters for what little time they have left together is the real reward and it feels worth every effort it takes to get there.

This all really resonates with me at the moment as it chimes so much with conversations I've had recently - it often feels like, in the face of everything collapsing and the world appearing to be trapped in a doom spiral, all you can really do is just to carry on and live as best as you can in the circumstances, spend time with people you love, do some of the things you've meant to do while there's still time. However much running around you do you'll never be able to finish everything you think you need to, and worrying too much about it is ultimately counter-productive - that's definitely something I've had to accept in my own life. You do what you can in the time you have.

Thank-you for reading my essay on Zelda, sorry it went a bit Thought For The Day at the end there.

[C_Larence]

I cracked my 3DS few months ago with the intention of obtaining this, as I've never played it but always presume to call it my favourite Zelda game (when I'm not saying it's "Okami" like a total prick) but since then I haven't touched it. Maybe I'm scared it won't live up to my own hype? I just bought Dragon Quest 11 definitive edition (after getting 40 hours into the original version, then reading up on it and realising I was missing out on a lot of extra stuff) so that's going to occupy most of my free time, but maybe MM can be a bedtime game, assuming it won't give me existential nightmares.

[Crenners]

Great OP. I've never actually played it because time pressure/min-maxing side quests in games doesn't do much for me, I also don't like time loop stuff full stop. Nevertheless, the themes and so on sound great.

[oggyraiding]

I played it a lot as a kid, but never made it past the snow dungeon. I feel like it's the hardest of the 3D Zeldas, even if you don't take the time limit into account. I personally get very anxious about time limits in games, and I know with MM you can slow time or go back in time, but it still stresses me out. I liked the reuse of the OoT assets, done in such a way that it doesn't feel like laziness on the dev's part. Structurally different from ALttP and OoT. Way more non-dungeon shit to do to progress, rather than the general dungeon > travel to next dungeon > dungeon with the odd bit of overworld content. Probably one of the more ambitious Zeldas, up there with Breath of the Wild, Wind Waker and Skyward Sword.

[Thursday]

Played it emulated years ago, which did mean I could circumvent the main threat of the timeloop mechanic. Not quite sure that's bad because I didn't get to truly experience it properly or I simply saved a lot of time and avoided a lot of frustration.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

Great OP. I've never actually played it because time pressure/min-maxing side quests in games doesn't do much for me, I also don't like time loop stuff full stop. Nevertheless, the themes and so on sound great.

Yeah to be honest I used a guide to complete most of the side quests when I played it, it didn't really detract from the experience that much. The 3DS version has some QoL improvements that make keeping track of all that side of things much easier, and although it has a couple of issues it's definitely the most accessible way to experience the game, if only because being portable means you can actually take a break during long gameplay sections, which was a bit of a nightmare on the N64.

I remember how crazily tense it would get trying to finish the bigger dungeons with the clock ticking down, the worst was getting to the Stone Tower boss just as the five minute warning kicked in, probably the most adrenalin I've ever felt playing a game.

[FredNurke]

I adore Majora's Mask - probably prefer it to Ocarina of Time, although OoT oozes nostalgia and good memories so it's hard to pick a favourite. I never, ever play it without turning the last three-day cycle into a victory lap of fixing absolutely everything (apart from the one bad thing that has to happen in order to reunite Kafei and Anju).

[Pink Gregory]

Would it be mad to think that you can trace Dead Rising back to Majora's Mask

[lazyhour]

Does anyone play MM without slowing down time with the Inverted Song Of Time? Seems unthinkable to me.

[Kelvin]

Bizarre to say this about a Nintendo game, but I'd argue that thematically it's one of the most ambitious and consistent games ever made. It's not just got several themes running through its main storyline, they're literally running through everything; every character, every side-quest, every mask, every region. It's up there with games like Silent Hill 2 in terms of being a wholly cohesive piece in that way - and I reckon it's probably the only first-party Nintendo game that could actually be described as having a great story on that basis.     

[Kelvin]

A few cool extras.

Majora's Mask has one of those rarest of things; a genuinely great fan-film:   

Would love to see a full Zelda film made in that style. The ending still gives me chills.


There's also two decent covers of the soundtrack. Not every track is great, but the good ones are really good. 

This is one of the best songs, a cover of the Deku Palace theme: 

[Shaky]

I'd count many of the Zelda games among my favourite things ever but for some reason I just cannot get into Majora's Mask. Over the years I've made it as far as the Deku Palace and always thought, "Fuck this." Tried again with the Switch N64 emulator and it just leaves me cold. It's the only Zelda I've not perservered with. I probably played one of those fucking Phillips games more thoroughly.

I realise this is a very deep, personal flaw.

[Mr Vegetables]

The mayor's office scene in particular feels to me like something which reads as a satire of the world today, but is also somehow two decades old.

It was always a very eerie game anyway, but more so now in how it accurately depicts that dread. Everyone preparing for a fun time that they know will never happen, as the end gets larger and larger in the sky. All these characters you knew in these roles that are slightly wrong, this familiar world warped into something sinister. I think it feels real because the game itself is slightly dissociative from its franchise, and, well, so is the real world, when your assumptions about its safety crack apart.

[madhair60]

Yeah to be honest I used a guide to complete most of the side quests when I played it, it didn't really detract from the experience that much. The 3DS version has some QoL improvements that make keeping track of all that side of things much easier, and although it has a couple of issues it's definitely the most accessible way to experience the game, if only because being portable means you can actually take a break during long gameplay sections, which was a bit of a nightmare on the N64.

I remember how crazily tense it would get trying to finish the bigger dungeons with the clock ticking down, the worst was getting to the Stone Tower boss just as the five minute warning kicked in, probably the most adrenalin I've ever felt playing a game.

thanks for making this worthless garbage the five millionth post. jesus fucking christ.

[madhair60]

that came off as sincere and i feel bad now.

[Kelvin]

This doesn't really deserve a new thread, but here's a little documentary about the translation process for Majora's Mask. Mostly from the perspective of one of the English language translators. 

[bgmnts]

Never played it but fucking hell I want to cunt that moon into deep space. Get it away from me.