The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Developer(s)	Nintendo EAD
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Release date	April 27, 2000 October 17, 2000 October 26, 2000
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Rating(s)	ESRB: Everyone
Console(s)	Nintendo 64, Virtual Console (Wii, Wii U)
Mode(s)	Single player

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is the sixth installment of The Legend of Zelda franchise and was released for the Nintendo 64 in 2000, as a direct follow-up to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In 2015, the game received a remake for the Nintendo 3DS, titled The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D. This game has a very strong emphasis on sidequests not seen to the same extent in the series again until The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, to the point of only having five major dungeons. Similar to the fellow Nintendo 64 sequel Banjo-Tooie, the game has a markedly darker and more cynical tone than its predecessor.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is one of three games that requires the use of the Expansion Pak, with the other two being Donkey Kong 64 and Perfect Dark. Of the three games requiring the Expansion Pak, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is the only one which was not developed by Rare.

Story

The game starts with young Link atop Epona deep in the Lost Woods, as he searches for "a dear friend." Suddenly, two fairies named Tatl and Tael ambush him, causing him to be knocked off Epona and fall unconscious. Skull Kid then appears, wearing a sinister-looking mask, and finds the Ocarina of Time, which he plays with until Link wakes up, leading to a chase where Skull Kid poorly attempts to ride Epona and Link holds on to one of her legs, but eventually ends up kicked off near a large stump. Following further on foot, Link falls deep underground after going inside a large tree, before landing on a large flower. Skull Kid taunts him and tells him he got rid of Epona, but then his tone turns more sinister and he curses Link, turning him into a Deku Scrub (called "Deku Link"). He then laughs and leaves him like this, but accidentally leaves TTatl behind, forcing Link and Tatl into an uneasy alliance. After travelling underground and passing a withered tree closely resembling Deku Link, the two travel through a winding, warping tunnel and end up inside the bottom of a Clock Tower. As they leave the Clock Tower, they are met by the eccentric Happy Mask Salesman, who tells them that "a very important mask" was taken from him by the same imp that stole "a very important item" from Link, and that if Link recovers his "very important item," he will tell him how to restore his body, but he will be leaving town in three days.

Once they leave the Clock Tower, Link finds himself in a town called Clock Town in the land of Termina, where many of the inhabitants bear an uncanny resemblance to people he had met previously in Hyrule. Tatl suggests finding the nearby Great Fairy, but when they go to her, they find she has been split into Stray Fairies by Skull Kid. They also find that Skull Kid has caused trouble for many other people recently, compounded by the impending threat of an eerie-faced moon that seems to be growing closer each passing day. However, the things Link is able to do while as a Deku Scrub are highly limited, as many of the adults treat him as a small child, not even letting him leave town. After meeting a few people, such as the Bombers, Professor Shikashi, and a Business Scrub, Link is able to make it to the top of the Clock Tower where Skull Kid is, but only on midnight of the third day, when the Moon is dangerously close. Once he gets up to it, Skull Kid taunts them, while Tael tells them to find "the four" who are at the "swamp, mountain, ocean, canyon," for which Skull Kid insults and slaps him, to Tatl's shock. Skull Kid then screams, bringing the Moon down faster. Deku Link hits him with a bubble, causing him to drop the ocarina, and once Link picks it up, he remembers the Song of Time. While playing it as Deku Link, the ocarina changes into Deku Pipes, with the song itself reversing time for three days back to when they emerged from the Clock Tower, with only Link and Tatl remembering any of it. Realizing that the ocarina was the item the Mask Salesman spoke of, they return to him, and he teaches them the Song of Healing, turning the Deku curse into a removable mask, and thus restoring Link. However, once he realizes Link has not recovered the mask, he abruptly turns angry and frantic, telling them that the mask is of an evil power and will cause terrible things to happen, with an unwitting Skull Kid having stolen it while he was asleep.

Now restored, Link is able to leave town, and the game becomes vastly more open-ended regarding sidequest availability. He can find many masks by speaking to people around Termina, as it is an important tradition for their yearly carnival. Tatl urges him to go down to the Southern Swamp, like Tael said. Along the way, they find a drawing on a tree that Skull Kid, Tatl, and Tael made the day the two fairies met him, where he was crying over losing his best friends. Heading further south, they find the swamp's waters poisoned and filled with hostile Big Octos. Several monkeys direct Link to help an old hag, Koume, who takes Link via boat to the Deku Palace, where he learns the Deku King is holding a monkey prisoner on the false charge of killing his daughter. In reality, the monkey was helping her to try and find the source of the poison.

References

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