The fun little thing about the basement is recognizing that the stream is what is powering the clock tower and it's part of the same stream that pops up here and there throughout the town, at the laundry pool, in the kitchen of the stock pot inn, in the general store. A literal stream of time always under the surface, inescapable.
love love love this series. ever since watching the first one, i’ve been trying to look for more unremarkable and odd places in real life - i’ve been exploring on foot a lot and taking a lot of pictures of places i pass by every day but never actually noticed. weird corners of buildings, little gardens outside of stores, empty lots that turn out to be not as empty as i thought. it’s encouraged me to be more actively aware of my surroundings and it’s been really rewarding and fun. thank you for the inspiration!
that's awesome i need to start doing this. I think i take the repeating nature of my surroundings for granted. I see the same few places everyday and I just kind of take them for what they are
ive always done stuff like this irl & in video games and to see these videos and find out other people do it too is so special. i also feel this way about ceilings cause most people dont often look up unless theres some sort of ceiling design
One thing I get fascinated by is small spaces of walled off or otherwise inaccessible land, say a patch of grass that's in between a bunch of buildings that can't be accessed normally, or just weird lots of land that are 'in-between' areas that technically belong to someone but are otherwise too small or unfit to use as anything. So they get fenced off and are jsut left to the elements. It's hard to describe it really but they always get my attention and they give me the same 'liminal space' feeling a lot of what this video touches on.
That sort of unreal feeling at the edge of the maps is similar to the feeling you get at the edge of a theme park, where you just see walls, construction signs, and partially built rides.
The Rugrats game on ps1 has a level where you're locked in a theme park, and if you wander off the beaten path enough there's a really out of place warehouse with boxes/metal etc - you can even go in and it has a really dark looped machinery drone instead of the level music. It serves absolutely no purpose to the level and really creeped me out when I noticed it
@@BuiltbyFellony that's sick, sounded like one of the developers was trying to get artsy, or it's just a weird thing they thought made sense for some reason, but either way that's really cool
@@BuiltbyFellony Do you remember what the level was called by chance? I would love to see and hear more about this, it seems too spooky for a kid’s game
It’s always been weird to me that time doesn’t pass in the clock tower. I don’t know if they ever give an explanation for this in game but it certainly makes it feel like the clock tower doesn’t exist within the same dimension as termina or hyrule, that instead it’s some kind of interstice between the two
I always thought the same. Part of me believes that Happy Mask Salesman is some kind of deity or malevolent force in this universe, so I think that the clock tower is under his control. He's beyond the confines of time/space (at least in regards to Termina) because of some kind of dark magic he possesses. That's just my own head canon though. There are similar theories online that kind of support this in regards to the relationship between Majora and the whatever the Fierce Deity mask represents. I like to think Happy Mask Salesman plays into it somehow for no other reason than that he seems to pop up in places at random and the boys in the moon before the final boss fight share his resemblance.
Here's a trippy question for you. Know how at the beginning of the game when the Mask Salesman tells you to come back once you got your Ocarina? Since time doesn't pass in the Clock tower, I wonder how long he actually waits for Link to come back? Since the 3 day cycle begins as soon as you step outside the clock tower, and then you revisit him right at the very beginning of the 2nd cycle, does that mean (from Mask Salesman's perspective) Link exited the clock tower and then immediately reentered it, now with his Ocarina? If so, that's absolutely hilarious.
Okay that first section of the game when you're supposed to chase skullkid is actually pretty eerie, it feels almost like a purgatory if you stop to think and explore; this strange set of rooms with a couple miscellaneous objects and tree stumps, walls that imitate trees, and music that screams urgency and panic even though there is no time limit or deadline. It feels like forgetting something important, like a hazy memory you don't quite have a grasp on the details of
Seeing your comment made me stop and think about it like a play or a story being told. It's just a set and Link is the reluctant hero. If you assume this is s story being told to someone, maybe even a chapter book of connected stories, you see several different morals and mini-Hero's Journeys throughout.
My favorite thing about the first room of the game is subtle: there is no loading when you approach the first tree trunk tunnel. The game sets you up to expect a load screen because that's what there would be in OoT. But then it reminds you that you're playing the sequel and have twice the RAM by revealing the next room with no load screen. I had forgotten that feeling of astonishment I first felt playing this game as a child until watching this video tonight, 24 years later.
(Flashing light warning @ 7:32 and 8:51) as I continue to play Majora's Mask, I continue to find more even odder and unremarkabler places in the game. In particular, the place where the Gorman bros. try and carjack Romani's milk is accessible on foot for a brief period on the third day, and it's super uncanny. If I make another Majora's Mask video, are there any other spots you think I need to visit? anyway, help me quit my job: www.patreon.com/any_austin
At the top of my head, I say investigate the secret shrine at Ikana Canyon. Some of the rooms in there are spooky as hell, if you linger in them after the fights are over. And second, take a look at the shop inside of Goron Village. Nobody ever goes in there, so it's a pretty obscure room, but I remember it looking really cool, though I haven't seen it in awhile.
The Stock Pot Inn Kitchen was always my favorite place to stand when i was young. The sound of the bubbling Stock Pot and the lil bugs skittering along with the fish in the water. It all just felt like an area that wanted more attention than it actually got in the final game. Like it seemed lived in as much as you'd almost never really go back there save for meeting Anju that one time.
If you're looking for an interesting game with interesting music and skyboxes in an open world, you simply must try Drakkhen on SNES. I believe you would enjoy the aesthetic of this game I would like to hear you talk about it.
I feel like Twilight Princess would be a great game to check out for this series. It's known for being one of the largest games in the Legend of Zelda series but it's also known for being one of the most empty. Lake Hylia and Gerudo Desert in particular stood out to me because they're very open/flat areas where it seems easy to miss various things. The Cave of Ordeals in the desert is especially odd to me because it's a massive underground structure to which the only entrance is a small staircase in the ground which is located in an otherwise unremarkable corner of the desert.
That game unlocked quite a lucid dream out of me. It all started with a floating key glitch that looked like a twinkling star in the sky during the night (at the entrance to arbiters grounds) and when I fell asleep that key became an alternate world, like a hidden boss area with cities and towns and endless hills, it was wild. I also used to love watching the moonlight and sunrise in lake hylia from under the water with the metal boots on. Weird little memories like these are so nostalgic
Then with oot and mm i would always hang out in the caves. They always felt so comforting, like I almost wanted to jump in with a warm blanket and sleep on the grass, but it also felt eerie and mysterious.
@@Zeldafan1ify I had dreams as a child about a Super Mario 64 2 game that had a Big Bass in a moat in the basement of the castle, and what seemed like an extensive tunnel system to explore with very weird shortcuts running through rooms with other various non-Mario things. Seemed almost like a sewer system.
The organ that appears in the clock tower when you’re learning the song of healing is interesting because the first time I played it I assumed I just overlooked it but it’s just not there
My theory is that he just has another transformation mask that gives him the organ Or he just pulls it out his butt like link does with his fishbone guitar drums and deku pipes Mabe it's a power of transfomasks and the mask salesman is always wearing a mask of some kind
I was also obsessed by the moss balls in the water! I always thought they were some kind of algae/fungus rather than stones. It gave that room under the clock tower a different vibe because I believe that texture isn't used in any Zelda game anywhere else. The entire game is a masterpiece of odd places and moments. The entirely of the Deku Scrub maze felt like a kid's soft play area. One of my favourite locations was the small garden before you find Kafei, with a bridge and a single fairy flying over it. I loved it so much I made painting of that area for art class. I also found the Lost Fairy quests much more absorbing than finding Skulltulas or seashells in other games. It was the juxtaposition of seeing a pastel bubble with a cute fairy inside inside a brutal and dangerous dungeon that made everything so dreamlike. So much of the game had a collage/vaporwave aesthetic before that was even a thing. The milk bar also had that vaporwave pink-purple lighting with an odd sensation of being somewhere you're not supposed to be. All the places that are only accessible after the world has effectively already ended once give off that vibe.
the lighting in this game is so crazy in parts, I swear it was done deliberately after noticing some of the maybe unintentionally weird lighting in Ocarina.
I get tons of these weird "end of the dream" vibes from Majora's Mask. Maybe it is the palette that they chose or the surreal textures on top of odd geometric shapes that make up a majority of the terrain/building details. The weird sewer leading to the observatory is another bizarre place that seems absolutely non-sensical in its attention to detail and then it having an apparent lack thereof. The swamp is a very odd place too considering 90% of the water is non-traversable and so you only see particular angles and vistas that the designers intended you to see via the lily pads and boat tour.
Yeah, it's almost hard to believe how much detail is in this game on account of how rushed the development was. Goes to show how much more freedom creating low poly models gave developers on account of how much quicker the process was.
Life is but a dream, but when will we all wake. I suppose when it's over, how near is the end I wonder. If the earth is Koholint who will wake the wind fish.
Most everything you do in this game has very visible results. Beat the swamp dungeon, the water becomes unpoisoned. Beat snowhead, the area starts to thaw. And so on...OoT had something similar for the first 3 adult dungeons. Getting rid of monsters in the kokiri village, getting rid of the red ring over death mountain and releasing the gorons, refilling lake hylia.
As a kid, I was obsessed with the Clock Tower basement. I really liked the weird mossy stuff everywhere, it's unlike anything else you see in the game. It's surreal to see any sort of appreciation for that all these years later.
Hey sir, love your content. Those “weird rocks” in the water of the basement of the clock tower are actually blurry N64 controllers. You can see them better if you jump in the water and get close to them.
Was surprised you didn’t mention pinnacle rock. That place gave me the creeps without even having to analyze deeply. You’re just in the middle of an ocean, quite isolated from the great bay shoreline and every other attraction in the area, and no music is playing. Just a dark isolated pit with those big creepy eels that only appear once in the game, and also the way they creepily emerge out their dens.
I remember back when I was too young to really *play* this game (dad made progress for me) I would just hang out and explore. Listen to the music, look for new things, make up stories. I basically used the game as a sandbox or dollhouse, so me saying that I’ve seen a lot of these places already is not an understatement. I always tried getting back through the clock tower door, to no avail. I always wanted to get back there again.
i love those memories of being a kid and not knowing how to progress in a game, but you still have fun because you’re totally content just exploring the world and seeing what weird things you can find! thanks for sharing your story.
Had a very similar experience, even more than Ocarina of time, this was the game I always booted up and played and explored so much of because of how easy it was to repeat things, and the two areas at the beginning were of particular interest of mine because of how little you see them in the main game
You can get passed the clock tower door with the bomb hover glitch. Once passed it, you can walk back along the twisted hallway Link walked in a cutscene, and just like in the Forest Temple, and like what was implied in the cutscene, the camera/gravity will shift to keep the floor of the twisted hallway at the bottom of the screen. From there, you can make it back to where Link was first turned into a Deku Scrub. Because it was never intended for the player to be able to go back to those areas, the cutscene where Link walks the twisted pathway and the door seals doesn't have its trigger disabled after playing the first time. So, if you go back to those earlier areas and then return to the clock tower, the cutscene will play again, including the door mysteriously being open, waiting to trap you in Termina all over again.
So glad to hear someone else had this experience. This game was essentially make-believe heaven for me. I played the CE version on gamecube for years and never beat it until I was older because I was creating my own stories in Clock Town and Termina. I miss having such a small grasp on the limitations of video games. It made my imagined world feel that much more real.
7:22 "Flirting with a new plane of existence." What a great statement of that feeling of knowing there is something beyond the contemporary state. These unremarkable and odd places certainly have these existential uncertainties, uncanniness in somehow existences…
The same thing was described during the spanish flu of 1918. Cities were empty because everyone was dead or gone. It created an Uncanny Valley sort of feeling. Places that should have people but don't
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life had this feeling in its entirety for me. I remember I first rented it from Hollywood Video, and had this incredible first play through where I was constantly getting cutscenes and feeling very immersed in the relationships of the town, but the second file I played, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I'd done to trigger all that the first time. The more I started looking into how the game worked, I realized how many things I'd missed. The heated debates online about secret pets, whether the Harvest Goddess existed, the glitches and mistranslations, just so many things that people claimed they saw and couldn't prove across all the versions. I remember, too, how you could go to Mineral Town, which I didn't have, so I always felt like I was stuck in this weird place I couldn't leave. Between an eerie pass I couldn't travel and the beach with that high trilling whistle, the debatable reality of what was actually possible all around, I felt its liminality for sure.
So happy to see someone mention this game specifically. Things like the dummied out shed, the snow monster in the woods, the random animals that could spawn in some places. None of it served any purpose besides flavor, but as a child I'd spend ages trying to interact with those kind of things, searching for some sort of meaning. Such a strange little valley.
Dude that's a really good way of putting it!! I was always in the same position regarding mineral town because I, even back then, felt like a boomer despite being in middle/high school when I played the game a bunch, and I didn't understand what I had to do to get it to work. But then yeah that feeling like you were stuck in some sort of happy prison almost because of it, it's strange man. On a side note, getting the relationships to have cutscenes work I think you just have to be at a certain heart level with everyone and walk in at a certain time, I don't think there's anything special you have to do? I think? Or they may just have to be in that area when you go there, like in the middle of their schedule.
I had HM Another Wonderful Life. The weird pyrotechnic brothers creeped me out along with that high thrilling whistle you mentioned. A lot of the characters looked friendly, but eerie at the same time. Very weird vibe overall. I loved that game though.
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life was full of this shit back in the day. Like it may be one of the weakest games in the series at a mechanical level and the unique ideas it tries to do aren't very fleshed out, but it had a ton of those rumors like you'd hear on the playground (except they spread on the internet instead.) Obscure stuff like getting the Strange and Weird Tools from people which required having them like you enough and enter their house at a specific time (sometimes being in at least a specific chapter.) You can even completely miss the Hybrid Crop system in its entirety if you never enter Takakura's house at the right time in chapter 2. And if you don't stumble into the right place at the right time you could even never get the Alarm Clock in a run. Or there's like certain items you get from befriending select characters that seemingly have no purpose other than Ruby's Spice (which is used for cooking.) It leaves you wondering if there's some purpose in the Tumtum, the Gold Medal, the Sheet Music, the Necklace or the Fireworks. We know now that their only purpose is gifting it to your kid to push him closer to liking that kind of stuff, but given Ruby's Spice had a use it made you wonder if anything else did. It's stuff like this that made rumors about the "secret" pets run rampant. There's a bunch of different animals that appear sometimes and don't appear to do anything and because of how cryptic some *actual* events in the game were it seemed plausible. Like the Chihuahua being a reward for finding all the tablets for Carter instead of each tablet just being a big friendship boost, it sounded plausible considering the tablets were made to be some kind of big deal and because you can't get the last tablet until very late game people never verified for a long time. Speaking of, one unremarkable detail I always liked as a kid was the little flower patch across the road from your farm. When you leave the main entrance to your farmland, straight ahead by some bushes next to the river is an area where wildflowers grow. In the Summer specifically you can go there and see one extra flower inside the brush that you can't actually reach to pick.
@@Robbie_Haruna Oh my god you just summed up like every one of my thought obsessions when I was a kid. A Wonderful Life was/is my favorite HM/SoS game, and there was so little concrete information about it on the internet. I spent hours on GameFAQs reading weird shit on the forums about it. I remember somebody said that if you raised your kid to be a farmer, they would take over your farm instead of moving out and you could unlock another chapter besides the Heaven chapter at the end. That might be true for all I know; I could never get a farmer kid cuz raising crops in that game was so useless and annoying so I didn't raise crops at all. The game itself was pretty obtuse and boring at times (I would "hibernate" and literally sleep through the winter season every year cuz I just wanted to see my kid grow up.) which I think led to a lot of people not wanting to really dig into it and document it online like other games. It's just so nice to see specific things like that one flower you couldn't pick mentioned by someone else. Like, AWL feels so isolated and small, it's hard for me to imagine other people growing up and playing it like I did, staring wistfully out at sea, looking up at the sky at the specific red and yellow stars that stood out uniquely. Trying to unlock that stupid chihuahua that magically stood on top of the tarp at the dig site so you couldn't touch it and the turtle that also serves no purpose besides like one cutscene I think. It's nice to know I wasn't the only one enthralled by the weird little world of AWL.
I think one thing I've realized is how Clock Town sort of becomes this *liminal space* during the final hours, like going to school at night, it's a usually bustling and busy area with happy feelings and excitement, that changes to dread and isolation during the final hours before the world comes to an end, because of how empty it becomes. The empty and somber music really drives it home too.
Couldn't agree more about the Ranch being my favorite place to see the moon fall. Part of it is the open nature of that area, but I think part of it is the sobering interaction you can have with Cremia and Romani where she's basically helping to comfort her sister as they near death. It's so macabre and somber even in comparison with an otherwise fairly dark game
I used to hang out in the Clock Tower basement and listen to the music; it was oddly soothing, not having to worry about the timer and being able to just sit there. For some reason, I get this weird feeling from the running water, exactly like you described about standing on the edge of another reality. I was always mystified about where that water came from and where it went; the whole premise of Majora’s Mask is that Link is stuck in Termina and needs to get out, but there might be a way out right there in the basement. I really wanted to get past the bars and hopefully escape Termina that way, instead of going to all the trouble of actually stopping the moon and being a hero and everything, even if it ment leaving everyone to die.
Majora's surprisingly tightly designed for a game that only had a year of development or so, Bringing up Romani Ranch is interesting since it's one of the few common areas with unused cutscene setups, though they're not super interesting aside from Stalchildren invading the shed instead of "Them". If you want to do more N64 games Goldeneye has a ton of odd spots due to the transition from rail shooter to FPS.
I absolutely LOVED all the weird unremarkable spots in Goldeneye. There was such a magic to wondering "what was this intended to be?" I don't think I've ever had the same feeling a videogame ever gave me than the first time I looked across the dam with the sniper rifle and realized something unfinished was over there. The idea of something being "unfinished" or "abandoned" in a videogame was just non existent to me before that.
The N64 was my first console and Majora's Mask remains ingrained in my imaginary and my art to this day, in quite subtle terms. I can also relate to this feeling of "end of a dream" in many locations of games of this era. Some people regard it as a weird combination of textures and primitive shapes giving an almost ethereal sensation, while still being tangible. This has been tapped into nowadays with the liminal spaces term and widespread videos. Really enjoyed this one. I think a nice addition to your exploration on this series would be the Banjo Kazooie series in the N64 as well, and ICO and Shadow of the Colossus on the PS2. Best regards!
03:43 As a game developer, I can almost guarantee that somebody agonized over that problem for hours or even days before giving up. They knew nobody probably would ever have noticed it. But they knew it was there and that's all that mattered. This hurts to the core lol
the other slide is in clocktown, ofc :) I used to spend a lot of final days at Romani ranch when I was too young to understand how to save her or reset the cycle, so she wouldn't be alone and scared when the moon fell. it's a highly nostalgic and haunting game. looking forward to the skybox video!
Just a note on the grief theory: It is also said that it could be processing the loss of Navi since that is what he set out to do in the beginning. He definitely didn't die since he grew up to have a family that leads to Twilight Princess Link (and his own appearance as a grown and deceased Hero's Shade)
I'm only 1:30 into the video and wanted to mention that those little things in the water below clock tower are supposed to be algea in the shape of n64 controllers. I used to hang out down here a lot as a kid because I was too afraid to venture outside where the enemies were. Love these videos as always!
I thought I was the only one who was afraid to leave the starting town in Zelda because it was too scary but you're the second person I saw say that here lol
Don’t forget the entire horse racetrack near Milk Road. We only visit it twice and one of those times is optional. Since the horseback race is so fast-paced that you don’t actually get to walk through and see it that well except for one occasion.
isn't the other slide the literal slide in clocktown? Also love these videos! I personally had I a lot of these places where I thought something was off or different when I was young playing games as well. Even now actually. One of these that I remember is in DK 64. To the right of chunky kong's golden banana on the back of DK isle is a texture that maybe is supposed to resemble a rock and it has some leaves on it. It always stood out to me as maybe a place a hubworld would open up, though it never did. Anyway, enjoy the serotonin boost and don't forget to look for these places in real life too, those are the best!
Rare games often had areas that were meant to open up to another level or some secret, but never did because they didn't have time to put something there.
I recently replayed through Twilight Princess, and the amount of things I missed when I was younger really surprised me. These videos made me want to go back again and looked around, and there are some neat areas. Especially the path to snowpeak with the icy lake, you never (or I never, at least) really look around that much because you're kind of meant to just run through as wolf link with your sense on. There are a few spots that overlook the whole area and its really interesting to just look at the distant mountains (and the closer, weird pixely ones).
I actually spent quite a while trying to get into that tiny creek on the left hand side (GC/WiiU) where the entrance to the Snowpeak area is, where all the floating pieces of ice are. I dunno how to explain it but it felt like it was calling my name and Even though I knew it would probably be impossible to get into, that there was hidden details for me to see if I could just get the camera close enough. It’s a whole little area that seems to lead to another loadable but unmapped zone, if only you could just make an extra big jump to make it to the floating ice chunks where the boundary lies.
I never thought about it until this video, but it really makes me wonder why the Happy Mask Salesman just stays under the clock tower for all 3 days. Like he really has no reason to. Generally everyone isn’t fixed to one set location, they’ll eventually stop what their doing and go home or settle down for the night. You would think he could just check into a room at the stock pot inn, put his bag down, and maybe go to the milk bar. But no he’s perfectly content staying still in one set place for 3 days. It’s a bit unusual to say the least.
im so so glad u did this series. I've been trying to describe the feeling for years. I get it mostly in mario 64 because I grew up playing that game especially, but describing it as "starring into the precipice of non-existence" that's literally what it is. for me the room with tik tok clock in nario 64 does it the best
This series embodies so much of what makes this channel a treasure. No one is making videos like this. Also: the Happy Mask Salesman standing, vibrating, alone in an empty room is way more unsettling than I realized.
I saw this on my recommended and I gotta say well earned sub. I absolutely love to appreciate games for the artwork they really are at this level of detail and most of the people I play with find that odd or annoying. I explore every room of every game available to me because I know the artists and developers took the time to make it. This game has an energy to it that I never found in any other. It's surreal and makes me somber. It's a journey into impending doom and despair, the darkest parts of the mind. I know that might not be the games actual intention, but that's what it feels like to me. There's SO much more here than any other Zelda title. This game captures loss, loneliness and anger so well through skull kids journey. And the music in this game is impeccable, it always enhances the energy they're going for. I have only come to love this game more and more as I've gotten older.
Your unique content always inspires me to see games in a new light. I think a video like this on Wind Waker would be interesting, I've noticed a lot of weird locations and NPCs while trying to get all the figurines. Keep up the good work, man!
Love these a whole lot. Taking the time to slow down and appreciate the absolutely smallest of things in games gives me a deep sense of inner peace for some reason. You can attach yourself to the world so much more if you stop to smell the roses, and accept those roses are weird two-dimensional images that always face you
One area in OoT that has that weird lighting we see a lot here in Majora's Mask is at the end of the Ice Cavern where you learn the Serenade of Water from Sheik. I always thought that room looked neat. It stood out so much from the rest of the rooms in the game.
He does a video featuring that room. I'm very happy he did because he got up close to the wall, which has always been my favourite texture in any Zelda game. The wall is actually multiple transparent layers with different geometric patterns overlaying each other on a black background, so when you move, you see different angles as if you are actually looking into ice.
Watching this, the music, the land and the ambience is giving me something resembling a sense of heartache, homesickness. I should replay this someday. My childhood was awesome because of OoT, and Majora. I miss the feeling of playing the first time, even tho I barely remember details, other than the feeling of pure joy and adventure
Loving this new series! I know everyone's been saying this, but it's amazing how perfectly you describe the feeling of seeing these odd places. I've been feeling this my whole life playing games and never truly thought about it until now. Also, your music is amazing! I listen to it all the time, there's nothing else quite like it! Honestly I can't describe the feeling it gives me, but I just don't want it to stop. Thank you for all your creations over the years! With Love, Ethan
I love that you mention the ranch as a place to watch the moon fall. When I was young playing this, that too was my favorite place to "give up" a run. And is also the spot of one of the sadder side stories (tho most of the side stories in MM are very depressing) involving Romani and Cremia where Cremia allows her little sister Romani to drink the "adult drink" milk from their ranch, which is heavily implied to be alcoholic, and then sleep together since it's the final night. God I love this game.
Discovered this channel the other day, and I love the way you're presenting our thoughts. It's got me inspired to get creating some new Waterworld content in the same vain...
The first forest room in MM has always stuck with me as being so odd and impactful. Actually, forest areas in both N64 Zelda games are enrapturing and terrifying at the same time. Kind of like an actual forest. It's interesting that they could evoke a similar emotion to the real location without really mimicking any of the reality of the location
This was great, I'm super into these weird, surreal spaces that give me a sort of melancholy that I can't really describe. Getting to see someone bring up and appreciate that feeling in my favorite game is even better!
Id suggest taking a look at some of the boss rooms after beating the bosses. Twinmold, Ghot, and the ikana castle skeletons in particular. Also have you considered looking at the same areas in the 3ds remakes?
As a kid when I first played major as mask I was literally scared to go anywhere after starting so I did explore the lost woods and just played around in there a lot. It does feel like some purgatory area for sure. Also, With such a saturation of video game content on RUclips it’s crazy how you could find something new and a different perspective for the beloved games. Keep up the great work man 👍🏽
Not worth bothering with the "Link is Dead" theory, anyway. Aonuma himself said that he thought it was a fun theory, but it was not something they had in mind while working on the game. Canonically, Termina itself does exist as a land that was created as a byproduct of the goddesses creating Hyrule. On a technical level, I don't know a ton about Majora's Mask (though there's a number of leftover systems that imply some very cool things they had planned for if there had been enough time in development). It wasn't really a focus on the communities I was a part of in the early 2000s, but some of the hinted lore is absolutely mental. A pretty decent writeup on this can be found in the 2006 Zelda Dungeon article "The Stone Tower: Why Termina was Doomed". Of course, there's a fair amount of speculation in that article (some that I agree with more than others), but they back it up fairly well with in-game information. The real downside of the Majora's Mask remake on 3DS isn't the gameplay changes, it's the bits of lore that were lost in the translation. Like the symbology of the Triforce. In the introduction of the game, the area you first become the Deku Scrub, there's a spotlight coming down that shows three triangles broken apart. The Triforce doesn't hold its form here, Termina is beyond the edges of the Goddess's protection. These triangles were removed in Majora's Mask 3D. One of, if not the *only* other occurrence of the Triforce is noted in the above article, and I believe that was also lost in Majora's Mask 3D. Okay, done ranting now. DIdn't intend to go beyond the first two sentences, but Majora's Mask is just fascinating.
@@any_austin I don't think it's bad, I agree with Aonuma that it's a fun theory and it absolutely makes sense. It's debunked a bit by Link being a stalfos in Twilight Princess, since that only happens to adults, but the implication is still that Link did get 'lost' in the Lost Woods later in his life. So, I like to think that they saw that theory and thought that it was a good end for OOT Link, and decided to work it into canon. Also a little sad, since it implies he never did find Navi in the end.
@@any_austin You are right, my friend. "Death of the Author" means, to crib the language of noted misogynist nutjob Friedrich Nietzsche, that _the author is dead, and we have killed him._ F's in the chat. At the very least, the grief narrative fits so well that it's clear they picked up on notes left by their self-admitted sources of inspiration
@@vincentjonesvrThe part about link being the golden wolf being confirmed is one of the weirdest parts of the lore honestly, it just doesn't make sense, if he was going to transform into something in the lost woods he would have turned into a skull kid long before oot even started
Oh wow, I didn't expect my comment to show up in the actual video. BTW I was surprised you didn't cover the room right after where the video ends, where Link gets turned into a Deku. The room is pretty barren, but definitely has a bit of mystery to it since you can never return to that room again once you pass through it. But notably, it does contain an odd floor texture that looks like a broken Triforce (it can be seen more clearly in one shot during the cutscene that plays in the room), and I've never seen anyone except for Oneyplays comment on this weird little detail. Another room that always weirded me out a bit is the miniboss challenge dungeon in Ikana Valley that you get to through that cave on the West end of the river. The rooms are mostly barren, but contain these strange little decorations that look like hearts with faces on them, which show up nowhere else in the game.
As a kid I spent a lot of time in the Clock Tower basement. So chill and serene and time stops down there so the stresses of the looming, impending doom just wash away with the soothing repetitiveness of the gears and the beautiful Koji Kondo piece... These videos are so cool, thank you!
Been watching your videos and really enjoying the chill vibe, even for games I've not played. I have covid so I'm just trying to chill at home instead of stressing and it's really helping, thanks man
As a child, i remember, I'd stop racing in Mario kart to look around to my heart's content. I had done that with a lot of games as a kid, but with the swing of daily life swept me into forgetting the magic of video games completely. Thank you for this series, for reopening these memories of carefree exploration.
Can’t believe you didn’t include my favorite one; that one room right before entering astral observatory! There were also a few spots you could jump out in the beaver mini game area (if my memories serve correctly) that had odd vibes, and the logs/flowers in the swamp by the frog you have to talk to with the frog mask? Idk, I’d love to see a sequel to this!
I'm sure someone's said it before, but the area underneath the clock tower is also the only place in the game (other than the end) where time doesn't pass. And that always felt remarkable to me. Definitely spent a lot of time gazing at that area and thinking when I was a kid. Also notable for playing the best song in the game.
I’ve always really enjoyed the Twinrova boss room, once you beat Twinrova it essentially just becomes a giant open desert. Rolling around as a goron there is pretty fun.
And, aren't they already linked? Nostalgia is a yearning for a time that is already gone, a time where you were further from death, a time that was mortal while you lived it but is immortal and eternal in your memories.
Blessing you with some seratonin 🙏 My game suggestion would be Donkey Kong 64 - it's an enormous game with loads of personality-filled areas and uses everyone's favourite $40 N64 add-on
I don't care about the Link is dead theory but the beginning of the game and under the clock tower just has such a great way of making you feel like you're on the precipice and threshold of another world. Deeper and deeper into the woods, falling in a hole and crossing the underground lake... it's all very dream like. I never thought of boundaries in games like how you compare them to dreams either, that's really interesting.
These videos are so chill (and good inspiration for poems for a poetry class im taking) Love em a lot, and you deserve the success you've been getting recently :)
Love this! And you should do more! And also, even though I’m sure this will be lost in the abyss of comments, I would love to watch you do a full playthrough on this game!
I’m kind of curious about the sentient grass in the starting area that moves around on its own. I know that when you get the Keaton mask and you cut the moving grass in the playground or on milk road, one will appear and quiz you. If you hack the game where you get the mask in the starting area, will a Keaton appear?
I actually just saw a video on this. It's called "One of the Best Kept Secrets in Majora's Mask - Zelda Myth-busting #8" by NewBornKilik. In it, he hacks the game to get the items he needs at the right time and tests it. I won't spoil it for you either way, go watch it yourself and see what happens!
I dont understand why I love and appreciate these videos. There's just something so therapeutic about hearing a guy say things like "huh... I never really looked at this before" and proceeds to enjoy every contour and colour of the insignificant details of a game. When he says he never "really looked at it before" he means he never stared into its soul for any more than a passing glance and then proceeds to do so. There's something wildly unique and interesting about that.
This series is easily one of my favorites on RUclips. Thank you so much for making it. It has made me incredibly aware of digital spaces in retro videogames and how they're built.
Man I just found one of my favorite RUclipsrs hahah. Binging all of your content. Appreciate you’re realness and casualness to this content. It’s deeper than the surface but not so deep that it’s overwhelming
I've been watching your videos and you're quickly turning into one of my favorite channels. Your Skyrim unemployment report was one of the first video I watched from you but I am really appericating your other videos especially this series. great content 👍
I don't know if they're used anywhere else in MM, but the weird conglomerate of wood sprites or whatever they are originated in OoT. If you stand still in the forest areas (Kokiri Forest and the Lost Woods) for long enough, a bunch of them will start circling Link, either in a small number of long chains or a larger number of two-sprite chains like the ones in MM. As soon as you move, they scatter.
i would absolutely adore more content like this. utterly fascinating, and you have such a great way of presenting it. i think i would pretty much be up for any more 'weird area' videos in any game at all, but as a majoras mask fan this specifically scratched an itch.
There's this one place in Majora that also fits into this category perfectly, it's when you chase after Captain Keeta at the Ikana Graveyard. Once you are done with that little "boss fight" you can just hang out in that weird curve that's on the far edge of the map of the game. It was always interesting to me.
I stumbled upon your videos tonight and you have brought me back to what I enjoyed about games in childhood, going to those strange lonely places and just absorbing them, feeling the music sink into you like water into fabric. I am not sure if there is a word for what you seek other than vibes, but I thank you for finding them.
Yes! I love the last video. I am glad to see the series continue. Also, I used to watch your egg buster videos. I have a lot of fond memories of those.
I don't drink much, but I'm unbelievably drunk currently, and this series is perhaps the best content to consume. Thank you, any Austin. We all love you
LOVE THIS SERIES SO MUCH, before I put play my first thought was inside the clock... and bam, it was the first place you show, I was really excited. Thank you
Man this video reminded how much I loved chilling in the Clock Tower basement. Definitely a vibey little room. I have a theory that the two rooms of the Lost Woods at the beginning of the game were actually a little dev room, like a sandbox for them to test a few new features for Majora's Mask and then they ended up using it as a first room for the game almost incidentally, realizing that those same new features would be a good first impression. The grass circle that starts moving when you cut it, Link's sick new jump moves, the fairy particles everywhere, hell even those trees you pointed out along the wall, all kind of make it seem like any time they wanted to see a new feature or interaction or just map design process, they'd stuff it in this room.
As you were going through the first space and mentioning the Link is Dead Theory, it occurred to me that the water represents the River Styx. We know that Link grows up and has kids, but imagining that as the River Styx gives nice weight to the theory.
I love your series. I am currently also playing through Majoras mask and there are so many spots I have found that there is just... nothing. The cliffs above the pirate hide out is one that stands out to me because it leads you to go up the cliffs but there are only pots to break in that area.
I really like this video and i also like how you approach the video too. It's like listening to a friend ramble onto something that they enjoy and its genuinely really interesting when you actually stop, and take a minute to observe the game. It's really interesting and i hope you do more videos like these!
I'm so happy to know there are more people like me who just have these weird feelings when exploring these worlds. Have never been able to explain the vibes you're describing and am just so thankful. I will happily watch more of this. Great, great editing and vibes.
The fun little thing about the basement is recognizing that the stream is what is powering the clock tower and it's part of the same stream that pops up here and there throughout the town, at the laundry pool, in the kitchen of the stock pot inn, in the general store. A literal stream of time always under the surface, inescapable.
Thats a cool reading
That is a very creative interpretation of it. I like it.
This is one of my favorite comments I’ve ever read.
At some point as a kid I mapped out its exact route.
Inshallah, brother
I am gonna watch every one of these videos this absolutely slams
super underrated right? i don't get it how this is still so obscure
Huge praise
Whoa it'a thallasophobia guy
FACTS bro. This is the commentary I’ve been looking for for years on this game. Incredible and relatable
Same. Good underrated channel. Good to see you here too
love love love this series. ever since watching the first one, i’ve been trying to look for more unremarkable and odd places in real life - i’ve been exploring on foot a lot and taking a lot of pictures of places i pass by every day but never actually noticed. weird corners of buildings, little gardens outside of stores, empty lots that turn out to be not as empty as i thought. it’s encouraged me to be more actively aware of my surroundings and it’s been really rewarding and fun. thank you for the inspiration!
that's awesome i need to start doing this. I think i take the repeating nature of my surroundings for granted. I see the same few places everyday and I just kind of take them for what they are
ive always done stuff like this irl & in video games and to see these videos and find out other people do it too is so special. i also feel this way about ceilings cause most people dont often look up unless theres some sort of ceiling design
Lol balls
it's always nice to notice and appreciate the tiny details in life!
One thing I get fascinated by is small spaces of walled off or otherwise inaccessible land, say a patch of grass that's in between a bunch of buildings that can't be accessed normally, or just weird lots of land that are 'in-between' areas that technically belong to someone but are otherwise too small or unfit to use as anything. So they get fenced off and are jsut left to the elements. It's hard to describe it really but they always get my attention and they give me the same 'liminal space' feeling a lot of what this video touches on.
That sort of unreal feeling at the edge of the maps is similar to the feeling you get at the edge of a theme park, where you just see walls, construction signs, and partially built rides.
The Rugrats game on ps1 has a level where you're locked in a theme park, and if you wander off the beaten path enough there's a really out of place warehouse with boxes/metal etc - you can even go in and it has a really dark looped machinery drone instead of the level music. It serves absolutely no purpose to the level and really creeped me out when I noticed it
@@BuiltbyFellony that's sick, sounded like one of the developers was trying to get artsy, or it's just a weird thing they thought made sense for some reason, but either way that's really cool
@@isaiahromero9861 this video covers that one and the pyramid one pretty well. ruclips.net/video/fZlT56Xg0Nk/видео.html&ab_channel=Joyless
@@BuiltbyFellony Do you remember what the level was called by chance? I would love to see and hear more about this, it seems too spooky for a kid’s game
@@ukemi- I don't, but it's featured in the video I linked. I think it's Reptarland or something
It’s always been weird to me that time doesn’t pass in the clock tower. I don’t know if they ever give an explanation for this in game but it certainly makes it feel like the clock tower doesn’t exist within the same dimension as termina or hyrule, that instead it’s some kind of interstice between the two
clocc tower built different
I always thought the same. Part of me believes that Happy Mask Salesman is some kind of deity or malevolent force in this universe, so I think that the clock tower is under his control. He's beyond the confines of time/space (at least in regards to Termina) because of some kind of dark magic he possesses. That's just my own head canon though. There are similar theories online that kind of support this in regards to the relationship between Majora and the whatever the Fierce Deity mask represents. I like to think Happy Mask Salesman plays into it somehow for no other reason than that he seems to pop up in places at random and the boys in the moon before the final boss fight share his resemblance.
Here's a trippy question for you. Know how at the beginning of the game when the Mask Salesman tells you to come back once you got your Ocarina? Since time doesn't pass in the Clock tower, I wonder how long he actually waits for Link to come back?
Since the 3 day cycle begins as soon as you step outside the clock tower, and then you revisit him right at the very beginning of the 2nd cycle, does that mean (from Mask Salesman's perspective) Link exited the clock tower and then immediately reentered it, now with his Ocarina?
If so, that's absolutely hilarious.
Probably to make Link's entrance to Termina more smooth
Would be odd to have the HUD clock show up during the early tutorial
@@SpongeBobaFett he definitely is some deity cause bro vanishes into thin air at the end
Okay that first section of the game when you're supposed to chase skullkid is actually pretty eerie, it feels almost like a purgatory if you stop to think and explore; this strange set of rooms with a couple miscellaneous objects and tree stumps, walls that imitate trees, and music that screams urgency and panic even though there is no time limit or deadline. It feels like forgetting something important, like a hazy memory you don't quite have a grasp on the details of
Seeing your comment made me stop and think about it like a play or a story being told. It's just a set and Link is the reluctant hero. If you assume this is s story being told to someone, maybe even a chapter book of connected stories, you see several different morals and mini-Hero's Journeys throughout.
My favorite thing about the first room of the game is subtle: there is no loading when you approach the first tree trunk tunnel. The game sets you up to expect a load screen because that's what there would be in OoT. But then it reminds you that you're playing the sequel and have twice the RAM by revealing the next room with no load screen. I had forgotten that feeling of astonishment I first felt playing this game as a child until watching this video tonight, 24 years later.
(Flashing light warning @ 7:32 and 8:51)
as I continue to play Majora's Mask, I continue to find more even odder and unremarkabler places in the game. In particular, the place where the Gorman bros. try and carjack Romani's milk is accessible on foot for a brief period on the third day, and it's super uncanny.
If I make another Majora's Mask video, are there any other spots you think I need to visit?
anyway, help me quit my job: www.patreon.com/any_austin
never stop exploring austin. we love you. i love today's song!!!!
you definitely gotta check out the other areas in the game, so many weird places. the beaver racetrack is one place thats chill to walk around in
At the top of my head, I say investigate the secret shrine at Ikana Canyon. Some of the rooms in there are spooky as hell, if you linger in them after the fights are over.
And second, take a look at the shop inside of Goron Village. Nobody ever goes in there, so it's a pretty obscure room, but I remember it looking really cool, though I haven't seen it in awhile.
The Stock Pot Inn Kitchen was always my favorite place to stand when i was young. The sound of the bubbling Stock Pot and the lil bugs skittering along with the fish in the water. It all just felt like an area that wanted more attention than it actually got in the final game. Like it seemed lived in as much as you'd almost never really go back there save for meeting Anju that one time.
If you're looking for an interesting game with interesting music and skyboxes in an open world, you simply must try Drakkhen on SNES. I believe you would enjoy the aesthetic of this game I would like to hear you talk about it.
I feel like Twilight Princess would be a great game to check out for this series. It's known for being one of the largest games in the Legend of Zelda series but it's also known for being one of the most empty. Lake Hylia and Gerudo Desert in particular stood out to me because they're very open/flat areas where it seems easy to miss various things. The Cave of Ordeals in the desert is especially odd to me because it's a massive underground structure to which the only entrance is a small staircase in the ground which is located in an otherwise unremarkable corner of the desert.
I used to go around exploring every area of that game, as wolf link. Nostalgia.
That game unlocked quite a lucid dream out of me. It all started with a floating key glitch that looked like a twinkling star in the sky during the night (at the entrance to arbiters grounds) and when I fell asleep that key became an alternate world, like a hidden boss area with cities and towns and endless hills, it was wild.
I also used to love watching the moonlight and sunrise in lake hylia from under the water with the metal boots on. Weird little memories like these are so nostalgic
Then with oot and mm i would always hang out in the caves. They always felt so comforting, like I almost wanted to jump in with a warm blanket and sleep on the grass, but it also felt eerie and mysterious.
@@Zeldafan1ify I had dreams as a child about a Super Mario 64 2 game that had a Big Bass in a moat in the basement of the castle, and what seemed like an extensive tunnel system to explore with very weird shortcuts running through rooms with other various non-Mario things. Seemed almost like a sewer system.
This
The organ that appears in the clock tower when you’re learning the song of healing is interesting because the first time I played it I assumed I just overlooked it but it’s just not there
I think they put it there permanently in the 3DS version, which I always thought was a choice.
It's a very large piano, not an organ.
@@ar_xiv I always thought that was Ganondorfs power. But I was less than 10.
@@ar_xiv The whole room actually transforms into a different shape when the battle starts.
My theory is that he just has another transformation mask that gives him the organ
Or he just pulls it out his butt like link does with his fishbone guitar drums and deku pipes
Mabe it's a power of transfomasks and the mask salesman is always wearing a mask of some kind
I was also obsessed by the moss balls in the water! I always thought they were some kind of algae/fungus rather than stones. It gave that room under the clock tower a different vibe because I believe that texture isn't used in any Zelda game anywhere else. The entire game is a masterpiece of odd places and moments. The entirely of the Deku Scrub maze felt like a kid's soft play area. One of my favourite locations was the small garden before you find Kafei, with a bridge and a single fairy flying over it. I loved it so much I made painting of that area for art class. I also found the Lost Fairy quests much more absorbing than finding Skulltulas or seashells in other games. It was the juxtaposition of seeing a pastel bubble with a cute fairy inside inside a brutal and dangerous dungeon that made everything so dreamlike. So much of the game had a collage/vaporwave aesthetic before that was even a thing. The milk bar also had that vaporwave pink-purple lighting with an odd sensation of being somewhere you're not supposed to be. All the places that are only accessible after the world has effectively already ended once give off that vibe.
the lighting in this game is so crazy in parts, I swear it was done deliberately after noticing some of the maybe unintentionally weird lighting in Ocarina.
Oh I actually know this one! They're marimos!
@@Fungo4 wow i actually never knew about these. thanks!
The answer is weirder than you'd expect, they're blurry N64 controller textures.
Not to mention the astral observatory. Insane amount of vibes in there
I get tons of these weird "end of the dream" vibes from Majora's Mask. Maybe it is the palette that they chose or the surreal textures on top of odd geometric shapes that make up a majority of the terrain/building details. The weird sewer leading to the observatory is another bizarre place that seems absolutely non-sensical in its attention to detail and then it having an apparent lack thereof. The swamp is a very odd place too considering 90% of the water is non-traversable and so you only see particular angles and vistas that the designers intended you to see via the lily pads and boat tour.
Yeah, it's almost hard to believe how much detail is in this game on account of how rushed the development was. Goes to show how much more freedom creating low poly models gave developers on account of how much quicker the process was.
Life is but a dream, but when will we all wake. I suppose when it's over, how near is the end I wonder. If the earth is Koholint who will wake the wind fish.
The water's all traversable after you beat the dungeon
@@baconstrip7762 I forgot about that part.
Most everything you do in this game has very visible results. Beat the swamp dungeon, the water becomes unpoisoned. Beat snowhead, the area starts to thaw. And so on...OoT had something similar for the first 3 adult dungeons. Getting rid of monsters in the kokiri village, getting rid of the red ring over death mountain and releasing the gorons, refilling lake hylia.
As a kid, I was obsessed with the Clock Tower basement. I really liked the weird mossy stuff everywhere, it's unlike anything else you see in the game. It's surreal to see any sort of appreciation for that all these years later.
Hey sir, love your content. Those “weird rocks” in the water of the basement of the clock tower are actually blurry N64 controllers. You can see them better if you jump in the water and get close to them.
I was gonna say this it’s honestly a really cool easter egg
holy shit
Was surprised you didn’t mention pinnacle rock. That place gave me the creeps without even having to analyze deeply. You’re just in the middle of an ocean, quite isolated from the great bay shoreline and every other attraction in the area, and no music is playing. Just a dark isolated pit with those big creepy eels that only appear once in the game, and also the way they creepily emerge out their dens.
I remember back when I was too young to really *play* this game (dad made progress for me) I would just hang out and explore. Listen to the music, look for new things, make up stories. I basically used the game as a sandbox or dollhouse, so me saying that I’ve seen a lot of these places already is not an understatement. I always tried getting back through the clock tower door, to no avail. I always wanted to get back there again.
i love those memories of being a kid and not knowing how to progress in a game, but you still have fun because you’re totally content just exploring the world and seeing what weird things you can find! thanks for sharing your story.
Had a very similar experience, even more than Ocarina of time, this was the game I always booted up and played and explored so much of because of how easy it was to repeat things, and the two areas at the beginning were of particular interest of mine because of how little you see them in the main game
Same, I spent months stuck in Kokiri Forest and my idea of adventure was running around the Lost Woods 👀
You can get passed the clock tower door with the bomb hover glitch. Once passed it, you can walk back along the twisted hallway Link walked in a cutscene, and just like in the Forest Temple, and like what was implied in the cutscene, the camera/gravity will shift to keep the floor of the twisted hallway at the bottom of the screen. From there, you can make it back to where Link was first turned into a Deku Scrub. Because it was never intended for the player to be able to go back to those areas, the cutscene where Link walks the twisted pathway and the door seals doesn't have its trigger disabled after playing the first time. So, if you go back to those earlier areas and then return to the clock tower, the cutscene will play again, including the door mysteriously being open, waiting to trap you in Termina all over again.
So glad to hear someone else had this experience. This game was essentially make-believe heaven for me. I played the CE version on gamecube for years and never beat it until I was older because I was creating my own stories in Clock Town and Termina. I miss having such a small grasp on the limitations of video games. It made my imagined world feel that much more real.
7:22 "Flirting with a new plane of existence." What a great statement of that feeling of knowing there is something beyond the contemporary state. These unremarkable and odd places certainly have these existential uncertainties, uncanniness in somehow existences…
The same thing was described during the spanish flu of 1918. Cities were empty because everyone was dead or gone. It created an Uncanny Valley sort of feeling.
Places that should have people but don't
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life had this feeling in its entirety for me. I remember I first rented it from Hollywood Video, and had this incredible first play through where I was constantly getting cutscenes and feeling very immersed in the relationships of the town, but the second file I played, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I'd done to trigger all that the first time. The more I started looking into how the game worked, I realized how many things I'd missed. The heated debates online about secret pets, whether the Harvest Goddess existed, the glitches and mistranslations, just so many things that people claimed they saw and couldn't prove across all the versions. I remember, too, how you could go to Mineral Town, which I didn't have, so I always felt like I was stuck in this weird place I couldn't leave. Between an eerie pass I couldn't travel and the beach with that high trilling whistle, the debatable reality of what was actually possible all around, I felt its liminality for sure.
So happy to see someone mention this game specifically. Things like the dummied out shed, the snow monster in the woods, the random animals that could spawn in some places. None of it served any purpose besides flavor, but as a child I'd spend ages trying to interact with those kind of things, searching for some sort of meaning. Such a strange little valley.
Dude that's a really good way of putting it!! I was always in the same position regarding mineral town because I, even back then, felt like a boomer despite being in middle/high school when I played the game a bunch, and I didn't understand what I had to do to get it to work. But then yeah that feeling like you were stuck in some sort of happy prison almost because of it, it's strange man. On a side note, getting the relationships to have cutscenes work I think you just have to be at a certain heart level with everyone and walk in at a certain time, I don't think there's anything special you have to do? I think? Or they may just have to be in that area when you go there, like in the middle of their schedule.
I had HM Another Wonderful Life. The weird pyrotechnic brothers creeped me out along with that high thrilling whistle you mentioned. A lot of the characters looked friendly, but eerie at the same time. Very weird vibe overall. I loved that game though.
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life was full of this shit back in the day.
Like it may be one of the weakest games in the series at a mechanical level and the unique ideas it tries to do aren't very fleshed out, but it had a ton of those rumors like you'd hear on the playground (except they spread on the internet instead.)
Obscure stuff like getting the Strange and Weird Tools from people which required having them like you enough and enter their house at a specific time (sometimes being in at least a specific chapter.) You can even completely miss the Hybrid Crop system in its entirety if you never enter Takakura's house at the right time in chapter 2. And if you don't stumble into the right place at the right time you could even never get the Alarm Clock in a run.
Or there's like certain items you get from befriending select characters that seemingly have no purpose other than Ruby's Spice (which is used for cooking.) It leaves you wondering if there's some purpose in the Tumtum, the Gold Medal, the Sheet Music, the Necklace or the Fireworks. We know now that their only purpose is gifting it to your kid to push him closer to liking that kind of stuff, but given Ruby's Spice had a use it made you wonder if anything else did.
It's stuff like this that made rumors about the "secret" pets run rampant. There's a bunch of different animals that appear sometimes and don't appear to do anything and because of how cryptic some *actual* events in the game were it seemed plausible. Like the Chihuahua being a reward for finding all the tablets for Carter instead of each tablet just being a big friendship boost, it sounded plausible considering the tablets were made to be some kind of big deal and because you can't get the last tablet until very late game people never verified for a long time.
Speaking of, one unremarkable detail I always liked as a kid was the little flower patch across the road from your farm. When you leave the main entrance to your farmland, straight ahead by some bushes next to the river is an area where wildflowers grow. In the Summer specifically you can go there and see one extra flower inside the brush that you can't actually reach to pick.
@@Robbie_Haruna Oh my god you just summed up like every one of my thought obsessions when I was a kid. A Wonderful Life was/is my favorite HM/SoS game, and there was so little concrete information about it on the internet. I spent hours on GameFAQs reading weird shit on the forums about it. I remember somebody said that if you raised your kid to be a farmer, they would take over your farm instead of moving out and you could unlock another chapter besides the Heaven chapter at the end. That might be true for all I know; I could never get a farmer kid cuz raising crops in that game was so useless and annoying so I didn't raise crops at all. The game itself was pretty obtuse and boring at times (I would "hibernate" and literally sleep through the winter season every year cuz I just wanted to see my kid grow up.) which I think led to a lot of people not wanting to really dig into it and document it online like other games.
It's just so nice to see specific things like that one flower you couldn't pick mentioned by someone else. Like, AWL feels so isolated and small, it's hard for me to imagine other people growing up and playing it like I did, staring wistfully out at sea, looking up at the sky at the specific red and yellow stars that stood out uniquely. Trying to unlock that stupid chihuahua that magically stood on top of the tarp at the dig site so you couldn't touch it and the turtle that also serves no purpose besides like one cutscene I think. It's nice to know I wasn't the only one enthralled by the weird little world of AWL.
I think one thing I've realized is how Clock Town sort of becomes this *liminal space* during the final hours, like going to school at night, it's a usually bustling and busy area with happy feelings and excitement, that changes to dread and isolation during the final hours before the world comes to an end, because of how empty it becomes. The empty and somber music really drives it home too.
Couldn't agree more about the Ranch being my favorite place to see the moon fall. Part of it is the open nature of that area, but I think part of it is the sobering interaction you can have with Cremia and Romani where she's basically helping to comfort her sister as they near death. It's so macabre and somber even in comparison with an otherwise fairly dark game
I used to hang out in the Clock Tower basement and listen to the music; it was oddly soothing, not having to worry about the timer and being able to just sit there. For some reason, I get this weird feeling from the running water, exactly like you described about standing on the edge of another reality. I was always mystified about where that water came from and where it went; the whole premise of Majora’s Mask is that Link is stuck in Termina and needs to get out, but there might be a way out right there in the basement. I really wanted to get past the bars and hopefully escape Termina that way, instead of going to all the trouble of actually stopping the moon and being a hero and everything, even if it ment leaving everyone to die.
Majora's surprisingly tightly designed for a game that only had a year of development or so, Bringing up Romani Ranch is interesting since it's one of the few common areas with unused cutscene setups, though they're not super interesting aside from Stalchildren invading the shed instead of "Them".
If you want to do more N64 games Goldeneye has a ton of odd spots due to the transition from rail shooter to FPS.
I absolutely LOVED all the weird unremarkable spots in Goldeneye. There was such a magic to wondering "what was this intended to be?" I don't think I've ever had the same feeling a videogame ever gave me than the first time I looked across the dam with the sniper rifle and realized something unfinished was over there. The idea of something being "unfinished" or "abandoned" in a videogame was just non existent to me before that.
The N64 was my first console and Majora's Mask remains ingrained in my imaginary and my art to this day, in quite subtle terms. I can also relate to this feeling of "end of a dream" in many locations of games of this era. Some people regard it as a weird combination of textures and primitive shapes giving an almost ethereal sensation, while still being tangible. This has been tapped into nowadays with the liminal spaces term and widespread videos. Really enjoyed this one. I think a nice addition to your exploration on this series would be the Banjo Kazooie series in the N64 as well, and ICO and Shadow of the Colossus on the PS2. Best regards!
The off-center spinning wheel/mill in the clock tower represents the erratic nature of this entire world being off-center/off-kilter.
It's also spinning counter-clockwise. Coincidence??
03:43 As a game developer, I can almost guarantee that somebody agonized over that problem for hours or even days before giving up. They knew nobody probably would ever have noticed it. But they knew it was there and that's all that mattered. This hurts to the core lol
the other slide is in clocktown, ofc :) I used to spend a lot of final days at Romani ranch when I was too young to understand how to save her or reset the cycle, so she wouldn't be alone and scared when the moon fell. it's a highly nostalgic and haunting game. looking forward to the skybox video!
Just a note on the grief theory:
It is also said that it could be processing the loss of Navi since that is what he set out to do in the beginning. He definitely didn't die since he grew up to have a family that leads to Twilight Princess Link (and his own appearance as a grown and deceased Hero's Shade)
I'm only 1:30 into the video and wanted to mention that those little things in the water below clock tower are supposed to be algea in the shape of n64 controllers. I used to hang out down here a lot as a kid because I was too afraid to venture outside where the enemies were. Love these videos as always!
I thought I was the only one who was afraid to leave the starting town in Zelda because it was too scary but you're the second person I saw say that here lol
Don’t forget the entire horse racetrack near Milk Road. We only visit it twice and one of those times is optional. Since the horseback race is so fast-paced that you don’t actually get to walk through and see it that well except for one occasion.
isn't the other slide the literal slide in clocktown?
Also love these videos! I personally had I a lot of these places where I thought something was off or different when I was young playing games as well. Even now actually. One of these that I remember is in DK 64. To the right of chunky kong's golden banana on the back of DK isle is a texture that maybe is supposed to resemble a rock and it has some leaves on it. It always stood out to me as maybe a place a hubworld would open up, though it never did. Anyway, enjoy the serotonin boost and don't forget to look for these places in real life too, those are the best!
Yep. Right near Tingle.
Rare games often had areas that were meant to open up to another level or some secret, but never did because they didn't have time to put something there.
It’s empty as hell until the Happy Mask Salesman voids an organ into existence
I recently replayed through Twilight Princess, and the amount of things I missed when I was younger really surprised me. These videos made me want to go back again and looked around, and there are some neat areas. Especially the path to snowpeak with the icy lake, you never (or I never, at least) really look around that much because you're kind of meant to just run through as wolf link with your sense on. There are a few spots that overlook the whole area and its really interesting to just look at the distant mountains (and the closer, weird pixely ones).
Do it! These videos made me do the same for other games and it's so much fun.
I actually spent quite a while trying to get into that tiny creek on the left hand side (GC/WiiU) where the entrance to the Snowpeak area is, where all the floating pieces of ice are. I dunno how to explain it but it felt like it was calling my name and Even though I knew it would probably be impossible to get into, that there was hidden details for me to see if I could just get the camera close enough. It’s a whole little area that seems to lead to another loadable but unmapped zone, if only you could just make an extra big jump to make it to the floating ice chunks where the boundary lies.
I never thought about it until this video, but it really makes me wonder why the Happy Mask Salesman just stays under the clock tower for all 3 days. Like he really has no reason to. Generally everyone isn’t fixed to one set location, they’ll eventually stop what their doing and go home or settle down for the night. You would think he could just check into a room at the stock pot inn, put his bag down, and maybe go to the milk bar. But no he’s perfectly content staying still in one set place for 3 days. It’s a bit unusual to say the least.
yea he could be out there HELPING OUT with the MOON
im so so glad u did this series. I've been trying to describe the feeling for years. I get it mostly in mario 64 because I grew up playing that game especially, but describing it as "starring into the precipice of non-existence" that's literally what it is.
for me the room with tik tok clock in nario 64 does it the best
I’m kind of getting addicted to these videos. They’re weirdly relaxing yet unsettling. Such a nice feeling
This series embodies so much of what makes this channel a treasure. No one is making videos like this.
Also: the Happy Mask Salesman standing, vibrating, alone in an empty room is way more unsettling than I realized.
I saw this on my recommended and I gotta say well earned sub. I absolutely love to appreciate games for the artwork they really are at this level of detail and most of the people I play with find that odd or annoying. I explore every room of every game available to me because I know the artists and developers took the time to make it. This game has an energy to it that I never found in any other. It's surreal and makes me somber. It's a journey into impending doom and despair, the darkest parts of the mind. I know that might not be the games actual intention, but that's what it feels like to me. There's SO much more here than any other Zelda title. This game captures loss, loneliness and anger so well through skull kids journey. And the music in this game is impeccable, it always enhances the energy they're going for. I have only come to love this game more and more as I've gotten older.
Your unique content always inspires me to see games in a new light. I think a video like this on Wind Waker would be interesting, I've noticed a lot of weird locations and NPCs while trying to get all the figurines. Keep up the good work, man!
Love these a whole lot. Taking the time to slow down and appreciate the absolutely smallest of things in games gives me a deep sense of inner peace for some reason. You can attach yourself to the world so much more if you stop to smell the roses, and accept those roses are weird two-dimensional images that always face you
One area in OoT that has that weird lighting we see a lot here in Majora's Mask is at the end of the Ice Cavern where you learn the Serenade of Water from Sheik. I always thought that room looked neat. It stood out so much from the rest of the rooms in the game.
He does a video featuring that room. I'm very happy he did because he got up close to the wall, which has always been my favourite texture in any Zelda game. The wall is actually multiple transparent layers with different geometric patterns overlaying each other on a black background, so when you move, you see different angles as if you are actually looking into ice.
@@Levacque exactly! I do that every time I play OoT, it looks so cool
Watching this, the music, the land and the ambience is giving me something resembling a sense of heartache, homesickness. I should replay this someday.
My childhood was awesome because of OoT, and Majora. I miss the feeling of playing the first time, even tho I barely remember details, other than the feeling of pure joy and adventure
Loving this new series! I know everyone's been saying this, but it's amazing how perfectly you describe the feeling of seeing these odd places. I've been feeling this my whole life playing games and never truly thought about it until now. Also, your music is amazing! I listen to it all the time, there's nothing else quite like it! Honestly I can't describe the feeling it gives me, but I just don't want it to stop. Thank you for all your creations over the years!
With Love,
Ethan
I love that you mention the ranch as a place to watch the moon fall. When I was young playing this, that too was my favorite place to "give up" a run. And is also the spot of one of the sadder side stories (tho most of the side stories in MM are very depressing) involving Romani and Cremia where Cremia allows her little sister Romani to drink the "adult drink" milk from their ranch, which is heavily implied to be alcoholic, and then sleep together since it's the final night.
God I love this game.
Discovered this channel the other day, and I love the way you're presenting our thoughts. It's got me inspired to get creating some new Waterworld content in the same vain...
You're expressing some unsettling things I felt deep in my gut as a kid when encountering the boundaries of existence in these video game worlds.
The first forest room in MM has always stuck with me as being so odd and impactful. Actually, forest areas in both N64 Zelda games are enrapturing and terrifying at the same time. Kind of like an actual forest. It's interesting that they could evoke a similar emotion to the real location without really mimicking any of the reality of the location
This was great, I'm super into these weird, surreal spaces that give me a sort of melancholy that I can't really describe. Getting to see someone bring up and appreciate that feeling in my favorite game is even better!
Id suggest taking a look at some of the boss rooms after beating the bosses. Twinmold, Ghot, and the ikana castle skeletons in particular. Also have you considered looking at the same areas in the 3ds remakes?
I love the effect you put on the gameplay video, it makes it seem very authentic. Like I'm looking directly at a CRT TV playing a N64 game
As a kid when I first played major as mask I was literally scared to go anywhere after starting so I did explore the lost woods and just played around in there a lot. It does feel like some purgatory area for sure. Also, With such a saturation of video game content on RUclips it’s crazy how you could find something new and a different perspective for the beloved games. Keep up the great work man 👍🏽
I love watching the moon crash down at the top of the Waterfall Rapids area (where you beat the Beaver Bros.)
Not worth bothering with the "Link is Dead" theory, anyway. Aonuma himself said that he thought it was a fun theory, but it was not something they had in mind while working on the game. Canonically, Termina itself does exist as a land that was created as a byproduct of the goddesses creating Hyrule. On a technical level, I don't know a ton about Majora's Mask (though there's a number of leftover systems that imply some very cool things they had planned for if there had been enough time in development). It wasn't really a focus on the communities I was a part of in the early 2000s, but some of the hinted lore is absolutely mental. A pretty decent writeup on this can be found in the 2006 Zelda Dungeon article "The Stone Tower: Why Termina was Doomed". Of course, there's a fair amount of speculation in that article (some that I agree with more than others), but they back it up fairly well with in-game information.
The real downside of the Majora's Mask remake on 3DS isn't the gameplay changes, it's the bits of lore that were lost in the translation. Like the symbology of the Triforce. In the introduction of the game, the area you first become the Deku Scrub, there's a spotlight coming down that shows three triangles broken apart. The Triforce doesn't hold its form here, Termina is beyond the edges of the Goddess's protection. These triangles were removed in Majora's Mask 3D. One of, if not the *only* other occurrence of the Triforce is noted in the above article, and I believe that was also lost in Majora's Mask 3D.
Okay, done ranting now. DIdn't intend to go beyond the first two sentences, but Majora's Mask is just fascinating.
A lot of great allegory in art is unintentional. I still think it’s worthwhile.
@@any_austin I don't think it's bad, I agree with Aonuma that it's a fun theory and it absolutely makes sense. It's debunked a bit by Link being a stalfos in Twilight Princess, since that only happens to adults, but the implication is still that Link did get 'lost' in the Lost Woods later in his life. So, I like to think that they saw that theory and thought that it was a good end for OOT Link, and decided to work it into canon. Also a little sad, since it implies he never did find Navi in the end.
@@any_austin You are right, my friend. "Death of the Author" means, to crib the language of noted misogynist nutjob Friedrich Nietzsche, that _the author is dead, and we have killed him._ F's in the chat.
At the very least, the grief narrative fits so well that it's clear they picked up on notes left by their self-admitted sources of inspiration
@@vincentjonesvrThe part about link being the golden wolf being confirmed is one of the weirdest parts of the lore honestly, it just doesn't make sense, if he was going to transform into something in the lost woods he would have turned into a skull kid long before oot even started
@Lukas von das Eis But why the hell would he die to the lost woods anyway, no matter when it happened it still doesn't make much sense
Keep it up! I can’t explain exactly why, but I absolutely love watching these
Oh wow, I didn't expect my comment to show up in the actual video.
BTW I was surprised you didn't cover the room right after where the video ends, where Link gets turned into a Deku. The room is pretty barren, but definitely has a bit of mystery to it since you can never return to that room again once you pass through it. But notably, it does contain an odd floor texture that looks like a broken Triforce (it can be seen more clearly in one shot during the cutscene that plays in the room), and I've never seen anyone except for Oneyplays comment on this weird little detail.
Another room that always weirded me out a bit is the miniboss challenge dungeon in Ikana Valley that you get to through that cave on the West end of the river. The rooms are mostly barren, but contain these strange little decorations that look like hearts with faces on them, which show up nowhere else in the game.
Great vid, you don't talk too much it's perfect like that, just helps getting lost in that vibe and to appreciate it.
Definitely make more.
As a kid I spent a lot of time in the Clock Tower basement. So chill and serene and time stops down there so the stresses of the looming, impending doom just wash away with the soothing repetitiveness of the gears and the beautiful Koji Kondo piece... These videos are so cool, thank you!
Been watching your videos and really enjoying the chill vibe, even for games I've not played. I have covid so I'm just trying to chill at home instead of stressing and it's really helping, thanks man
As a child, i remember, I'd stop racing in Mario kart to look around to my heart's content. I had done that with a lot of games as a kid, but with the swing of daily life swept me into forgetting the magic of video games completely. Thank you for this series, for reopening these memories of carefree exploration.
Also the rooms in which you meet the final moon kids in their little daycare rooms are super weird and off putting. I love them.
Can’t believe you didn’t include my favorite one; that one room right before entering astral observatory! There were also a few spots you could jump out in the beaver mini game area (if my memories serve correctly) that had odd vibes, and the logs/flowers in the swamp by the frog you have to talk to with the frog mask? Idk, I’d love to see a sequel to this!
I'm sure someone's said it before, but the area underneath the clock tower is also the only place in the game (other than the end) where time doesn't pass. And that always felt remarkable to me. Definitely spent a lot of time gazing at that area and thinking when I was a kid. Also notable for playing the best song in the game.
I love these. They're so mystical and relaxing, and Austin's awkward energy really brings it all together. Keep em coming.
I loved the way you described the end of dreams, great work! You got neat vibes!
I’ve always really enjoyed the Twinrova boss room, once you beat Twinrova it essentially just becomes a giant open desert. Rolling around as a goron there is pretty fun.
Twinmold 🙂
Any Austin is good at mixing nostalgia with existentialism, good work, keep it up!
And, aren't they already linked? Nostalgia is a yearning for a time that is already gone, a time where you were further from death, a time that was mortal while you lived it but is immortal and eternal in your memories.
Blessing you with some seratonin 🙏
My game suggestion would be Donkey Kong 64 - it's an enormous game with loads of personality-filled areas and uses everyone's favourite $40 N64 add-on
This guy is so awesome. This scratches an itch i didn’t know i needed scratched
I don't care about the Link is dead theory but the beginning of the game and under the clock tower just has such a great way of making you feel like you're on the precipice and threshold of another world. Deeper and deeper into the woods, falling in a hole and crossing the underground lake... it's all very dream like. I never thought of boundaries in games like how you compare them to dreams either, that's really interesting.
These videos are so chill (and good inspiration for poems for a poetry class im taking)
Love em a lot, and you deserve the success you've been getting recently :)
May I suggest places in Golden Eye? Especially the snow levels. Walking off the paths and going by the Tree walls always gave me a crazy feeling
Love this! And you should do more! And also, even though I’m sure this will be lost in the abyss of comments, I would love to watch you do a full playthrough on this game!
A few of us down here in the abyss
@@YnEoS10 fr but you never know. 😂
Is the other slide the one in North Clock Town?
This content is really good Austin. You are very underrated
I’m kind of curious about the sentient grass in the starting area that moves around on its own. I know that when you get the Keaton mask and you cut the moving grass in the playground or on milk road, one will appear and quiz you.
If you hack the game where you get the mask in the starting area, will a Keaton appear?
Wait yeah what why is that grass moving?! I remember something like it in the SNES or Gameboy game too
Just tried it on PJ64 - doesn't seem like anything happens when cutting the rustling grass at the beginning of the game while wearing the Keaton Mask.
I actually just saw a video on this. It's called "One of the Best Kept Secrets in Majora's Mask - Zelda Myth-busting #8" by NewBornKilik.
In it, he hacks the game to get the items he needs at the right time and tests it.
I won't spoil it for you either way, go watch it yourself and see what happens!
@@tinobassi59 Keatons like to play tricks after all
I dont understand why I love and appreciate these videos. There's just something so therapeutic about hearing a guy say things like "huh... I never really looked at this before" and proceeds to enjoy every contour and colour of the insignificant details of a game. When he says he never "really looked at it before" he means he never stared into its soul for any more than a passing glance and then proceeds to do so. There's something wildly unique and interesting about that.
Every place in majoras mask is weird!
But not every place in Majora's Mask is unremarkable!
:0
@@DmitriDmitri words to live by
This series is easily one of my favorites on RUclips. Thank you so much for making it. It has made me incredibly aware of digital spaces in retro videogames and how they're built.
proud to be one of the first people to notice the wheel
Man I just found one of my favorite RUclipsrs hahah. Binging all of your content. Appreciate you’re realness and casualness to this content. It’s deeper than the surface but not so deep that it’s overwhelming
Awesome video aside, do you post your music anywhere else on the internets to be enjoyed in it's entirety??
Soon I will release it under “The Excellent Man from Minneapolis” on streaming services so you can follow that profile if you want
Lol kinda weird just spotting DGR in the wild.
@@any_austin thanks for the reply, and yes I will be following that account 👍
I've been watching your videos and you're quickly turning into one of my favorite channels. Your Skyrim unemployment report was one of the first video I watched from you but I am really appericating your other videos especially this series. great content 👍
12:25 a kiss on the lips?
I don't know if they're used anywhere else in MM, but the weird conglomerate of wood sprites or whatever they are originated in OoT. If you stand still in the forest areas (Kokiri Forest and the Lost Woods) for long enough, a bunch of them will start circling Link, either in a small number of long chains or a larger number of two-sprite chains like the ones in MM. As soon as you move, they scatter.
i would absolutely adore more content like this. utterly fascinating, and you have such a great way of presenting it. i think i would pretty much be up for any more 'weird area' videos in any game at all, but as a majoras mask fan this specifically scratched an itch.
There's this one place in Majora that also fits into this category perfectly, it's when you chase after Captain Keeta at the Ikana Graveyard. Once you are done with that little "boss fight" you can just hang out in that weird curve that's on the far edge of the map of the game. It was always interesting to me.
That section also has a constellation shaped rock formation on the wall, which is kinda neat.
One of my favorite games since I was 12, and this is one of my favorite aspects of it. Keep up this style of videos please!
I stumbled upon your videos tonight and you have brought me back to what I enjoyed about games in childhood, going to those strange lonely places and just absorbing them, feeling the music sink into you like water into fabric. I am not sure if there is a word for what you seek other than vibes, but I thank you for finding them.
Yes! I love the last video. I am glad to see the series continue.
Also, I used to watch your egg buster videos. I have a lot of fond memories of those.
Love this series, keep up the good work Austin :)
I don't drink much, but I'm unbelievably drunk currently, and this series is perhaps the best content to consume. Thank you, any Austin. We all love you
based. drink some water.
I'd love to see a video like this for either of the Banjo games! I got a lot of these surreal feelings exploring those games as well.
This guy needs to be a philosopher
LOVE THIS SERIES SO MUCH, before I put play my first thought was inside the clock... and bam, it was the first place you show, I was really excited. Thank you
Man this video reminded how much I loved chilling in the Clock Tower basement. Definitely a vibey little room.
I have a theory that the two rooms of the Lost Woods at the beginning of the game were actually a little dev room, like a sandbox for them to test a few new features for Majora's Mask and then they ended up using it as a first room for the game almost incidentally, realizing that those same new features would be a good first impression. The grass circle that starts moving when you cut it, Link's sick new jump moves, the fairy particles everywhere, hell even those trees you pointed out along the wall, all kind of make it seem like any time they wanted to see a new feature or interaction or just map design process, they'd stuff it in this room.
As you were going through the first space and mentioning the Link is Dead Theory, it occurred to me that the water represents the River Styx. We know that Link grows up and has kids, but imagining that as the River Styx gives nice weight to the theory.
I clocked that bit about the water wheel under clock tower as a wee lad.
He's not dying. His grip with reality is slipping as he is becoming a skullkid/stalfoe after becoming lost in the forest.
Majora's Mask is a weird game to talk about Odd places in since the whole game feels like an odd place
I love your series. I am currently also playing through Majoras mask and there are so many spots I have found that there is just... nothing. The cliffs above the pirate hide out is one that stands out to me because it leads you to go up the cliffs but there are only pots to break in that area.
I really like this video and i also like how you approach the video too.
It's like listening to a friend ramble onto something that they enjoy and its genuinely really interesting when you actually stop, and take a minute to observe the game. It's really interesting and i hope you do more videos like these!
I'm so happy to know there are more people like me who just have these weird feelings when exploring these worlds. Have never been able to explain the vibes you're describing and am just so thankful.
I will happily watch more of this. Great, great editing and vibes.