As someone who always finishes an MM playthrough with a "Mr. Perfect" run (solving every character's problems in a single cycle before facing Majora), i always found it interesting that there is always at least one person you can't protect. If you want a good ending for Kafei and Anju, you have to stand by while an old lady gets mugged in the night. If you save the old lady you can't help Kafei get his mask back. I always thought it was a commentary on the struggles of heroism, how you can't always save everyone. If you try, you'll inevitably doom someone else by the simple fact that every person is connected and stopping every wrongdoing in the world means you _will_ eventually step on the toes of someone you meant to protect by nature of the big, tangled web of human interaction. You have to pick your battles and stay determined that while you cant fix everything, the things you _can_ fix are enough. Maybe you failed one or two people, but you saved countless others and that's what truly matters.
And yet, somehow, in the ending, everyone you helped in any pass through the time loop (at least those that rewarded you with a mask), is shown as having been helped, regardless of how many times you let them suffer instead.
I think in the end, the culmination of your efforts across all the timelines does achieve that perfect ending. It all fits together in the end due to time shenanigans.
So what does this "Mr. Perfect" run entail? Does it include restoring the Great Fairy of each dungeon, or simply to kill the bosses that you can jump straight to?
@@YamatoFukkatsu essentially: beating every boss, constantly warping around to assist the people whose problems aren't solved by completing the dungeon (for example, the goron who gives you the don gero mask will be fine as long as you clear snowhead, but the seahorse will be SOL unless you specifically do its quest to retrieve its brethren from the eels,) and collecting/restoring the great fairies. The list goes a lot deeper than that, but to keep it simple; the run has you solving any problems the temples are responsible for as well as any of the Bomber's Notebook issues that aren't covered by the main story resolutions. It's much easier in the 3DS version since youre able to skip forward exactly as much as you want to, but that fully-booked schedule is sure to keep you busy regardless
@dirrdevil I believe that is the case, as an interview somewhere with Aonuma does have him vaguely allude to all the masks that you obtain as containing the memories of the people you help. And it's why the Fierce Deity mask is so strong. It contains all the memories of those in Termina wrapped up in one. And the masks don't reset with time travel and some even illicit all kinds of interesting responses out of people if you talk to them while wearing them, so it's clear that having helped somebody during at least one of the cycles has a permanent like, residual effect that comes to once its all over
I've been working on a game concept with my wife for awhile now, and I've heavily considered just making the core mechanic be game that's like the sidequests of Majora's mask. Helping or interacting with NPCs that feel alive and living out their day to day lives. Do you feel like that is a concept that stands well by itself or still needs something more to be engaging? I was thinking of trying to shoehorn in some combat, but I honestly just found that maybe I'd like to go all in on this concept and just make it more engaging. Characters don't necessarily need "problems solved", and interactions can have lasting effects, and those effects, maybe even left on the environment, could even affect others' schedules and lives. I thought that maybe this could make an interesting interactive story that has many branches based on what you do with NPCs, who you observe, and how they interact with each other.
Majora's Mask is my all-time favorite game ever and to me it's because of the huge role that gratitude and love for strangers plays in the game. Showing love and kindness to people opens doors, rewards you, and allows you to save everyone and yourself, and recovering from trauma is the same situation. Link is isolated and traumatized, but by touching lives in a positive way he heals the world and himself.
I think you'd appreciate Okami. Since you play as a deity, your means of becoming more powerful is accumulating praise from the people, animals and even nature itself through your benevolent acts. There are so many tiny, easy to miss sidequests that net you praise in that game, and they're all based on the fact that you can understand whatever little plight an out of the way NPC has that they're venting to the little wolf friend who is wandering through the town and decided to hang around for a bit. You can even buy feed bags for animals you find and get praise from them as well.
@@gildedlink I think that game is very good and I used to play it from time to time when things would go well. Wish there were some days where I could just go and come back to life while playing Okami for fun. Was the golden days when I used to play that and I like the big nostalgia that came with playing it. Okami was one of those games that you had to play to enjoy to really encapsulate the feeling of getting lost and finding yourself in it. I highly recommend that everyone takes the time out of their day to even consider what it takes to play such a beautiful game like that.
MM's horror really hits a lot harder than most games trying to be scary because monsters and creepy sounds aren't really a realistic fear in these kinds of games. Seeing the undead in a Zelda game means almost nothing, you often have a holy sword specifically made to vanquish the forces of evil to swing at them. OoT's places can be unsettling, but they fit right in in a world where there is such thing as clear cut good and evil. MM on the other hand gives the player more realistic things to fear: schedules and deadlines, interpersonal drama, compromise, petty crime, and worst of all, the impact of the death of a person. Sure MM has a "good and evil" conflict, but that's something seemingly acknowledged only at the beginning and end of the game and practically only by the happy mask salesman - it's very out of focus in a game that put so much emphasis on side quests. In other words, MM instills very mature and mundane fears, something that feels so out of place in a Zelda game of all things that it becomes genuine and encourages meaningful introspection and discussion. That's what makes it such a "scary" Zelda game to many people, especially when compared to attempts at horror themes in the other games.
I’ve always loved the connection between the 2 biggest side quests in the game. Anju and Kafei and the Milk Road Quest. Now most would assume they aren’t connected but if you really payed attention there were actually rumors that Kafei ran away with Cremia (also Anju’s Best Friend). I find this very touching because while yes Anju is going through a tough time Cremia has it way worse. She’s stuck in milk road, she gets attacked by bandits while trying to deliver milk. She’s trying to act like everything is fine for her sister knowing that they’ll probably die, while the people of Termina think she is a bad person who stole her best friends soon to be husband Kafei. That’s why Cremia always stood out to me so much depth was put Into her character and how everything connects in this game is so amazing. Masterpiece!!
I love that you HAVE to spend time to wait for events to come up. It makes you just... walk around. Look at things. That's how people notice details and fall in love with their surroundings.
@@kaifreyleue5961sure but that's what I'm talking about. You still end up having to wait a minute or two for several events throughout the game offering an opportunity to check our the surroundings in detail
Or be like me and have a checklist to never have to wait I can do the first two dungeons the moment you get the ocarina and complete most of the side quests.Its fun replaying this game trying to minmax everything to cram as much into one cycle as possible.
I’ve seen a lot of people describe the 3 day time limit as being stressful, but as a kid, it was actually really comfortable. If I didn’t want to do the main quest, I could just spend three days fucking around, exploring and seeing what happens in different locations at different times. I usually rewound some time on day 2 because day 3 did stress me out a little bit, but it wasn’t like that’s hard to do or anything. There are a ton of dark aspects to Majora’s Mask, and I’ve seen some great video essays about why, but I didn’t fall in love with this game just because I’m an edgelord, I fell in love with this game because I’m a goofy edgelord
Same. The 3 days is comfortable because you never HAVE to do anything. You have infinite opportunities to do whatever you want and retry anything. Despite being a time limit it's incredibly freeing.
If you’re deep into a process of some sort of quest, or something you at least perceive as being a process, then the idea of losing all the steps you took to get there (potentially with a poor memory of the requisite parts leading to significant time spent just trying to recreate it) is easily a stressful situation for most people to be in. Each of the dungeons is a prime example where this can come into play, especially if you enter one of them without resetting to a fresh cycle. When I was younger, I don’t think I realized that almost everything leading up to the dungeons can be safely reset, to begin the dungeon at the beginning of the next cycle. So whatever lead up to the dungeon would compound with everything within the dungeon which actually DOES all reset. (except for the dungeons map, compass, and ‘ability’ item) Furthermore, it’s easy to take for granted the knowledge of what gets reset and what you take back with you after you’ve become familiar with the game. I now know that after beating a dungeon, you get a warp point straight to the boss on subsequent cycles, and the bosses aren’t really all that difficult. On a first-playthrough however, it’s easy to concern yourself with the idea of needing to redo an entire dungeon just to get another chance at racing the Deku butler, or other such tasks that are only accessible after clearing the dungeon. Yeah, just taking a cycle off to relax is fine, but that’s irrelevant to the source of stress which you’ll have to engage with at some level in order to advance in the game, once you decide your break is over.
This is fair, although personally I still find it stressful purely because I'm bad with this specific kind of timers in general. For example, I'll be completely fine with the main quest in Pikmin 4, because it doesn't have a set limit of days. I'm bad at the Olimar section because even with 15 days being a comfortable time frame and the ability to go back to whichever day I want, I get so stressed out I've never actually finished it. It's entirely a self made problem for me lol
But you could've just not had a clock? Lol. The source of stress isn't from people messing around. It's from them not fucking around trying to do a side quest and the clock runs out.
8:30 I did not know that was possible, it's hilarious! It's even more funny that the old lady just goes, "Oh well, we're out of stock" as if she didn't just witness something horrendous.
Honestly furthermore, I think that it’s totally the cozy elements of this game that accentuate the creepy stuff. Plenty of games come off as creepy and fill a game with disturbing implications or flavour texts, but it doesn’t ever stick quite the same as it does in Majora. In majora you get to become familiar and fall in love with this town and its people, making you all the more determined to save them, and it makes the moments of true terror from the NPCS, or the really disturbing places all the more unsettling
EarthBound also does this to great effect. 99% of the game has you traveling the world, seeing so many colourful (figurative and literal) locales. Meeting interesting people and experiencing funny things. But there are creepy moments scattered about, and the upbeat nature of the game only serves to place greater emphasis on these not-so-bright moments. The finale, especially, is where things get downright terrifying. The colour is quite literally drained from the game in the final hour. Our heroes get sent to the distant past, where the main villain truly resides. Everything is grey, monotone, and there's no humor. The "music" of the location can hardly be considered music either. It's mostly just bleak, almost hopeless ambience. And then you reach the final boss...You're absorbed into an abyss, a void of complete darkness. In this blackness, only the protagonists and the incomprehensible eldritch horror of the main antagonist remain. Nothing you've experienced in the game could prepare you for that.
Part of how alive all the characters in MM feel is the reason I despise all of the theories that "Link is dead! All a dream cooked up by Majora's Mask!" they all ring hollow. These are the most alive characters in a Zelda game, bar none. They included a secret scene of Anju's mother scolding her own daughter for waiting for her lover alluding that her own husband ran out on the both of them. A carpenter with a crush on Anju that you only find out when he reacts angrily to Kafei's Mask. The Deku Butler's sadness in realizing what became of his son, a whole civil war that destroyed a great and powerful kingdom with the ghosts *of their enemies* still wandering about. Termina has incredible lore and strong consistency that to handwave it as "not real" does a true disservice to the story the game is trying to tell. Link wants to save these people not to get home, but to see these people he legitimately grew to appreciate over his time stuck there. It's really all in the Bomber's Notebook where we get to see some of Link's feelings towards the individual NPC's, and as put in the video, Link records the emotion of allowing Anju to smile again.
What you and a lot of others are trying to describe can be summed up in one word, "uncanny". Much of the total content of the game is familiar and recognizable, especially to players familiar w OOT because of the reused assets... But in Majoras everythings meaning is basically distorted or kind of demented and bizarre.
This has always been one of my favorite Zelda games for this exact reason. I'm very fond of games that give you a reason to spend time within a space and connect with it beyond just a fleeting run through it. And letting you get to know all the random characters you meet, and see them change a little as you go on your adventures, is a great way to do that. Like you say in the video, it's something "cozy". It made me sad that the newer Zelda games don't enable that to quite the same extent despite being much bigger in other ways. There are quite a few RPGs I've played that take pains to give every random NPC a little story that plays out over the course of the game as the player progresses and the world state changes, and it's remarkable how much it makes you feel like you're a part of the world. There's a sense of familiarity, like it's become your home for a short while. Majora's Mask, in Clock Town at least, does a good job in pacing the character interactions around the progress in the rest of the game so you don't just "complete" the town, talk to everyone, and leave with no reason to return. I wish more games gave you a reason to keep spending time in their environments like that.
@@JackieJKENVtuberi have a wild fear of gore and specifially avoid gore in my media because of how sick it makes me feel. Isnt it lovely that we all have different fears and aspirations? 🙃
I think what sets Majora's apart is how personal it gets only to isolate you and leave you with deep burning questions at the end. In most of the other games the story is largely a nobody of no merit takes up the call and saves the day, there's spooky things and unsettling moments but its all in service to the hero story, few of the interactions in other games have you wondering about the fates of the characters afterward or how any of these experiences might relate to your real life. MM Mires itself in the odd and creepy but there's a soft but powerful undertone of hope and perseverance even in the face of certain doom. And no matter what an old lady gets mugged for the greater good.
Even when you help her, you never actually prevent the mugging. You might stop the thief and get her stuff back, but she still gets mugged regardless. Since you can’t even stop her from being mugged, she still goes through that trauma anyway, and I don’t get the impression that the bomb shop is struggling financially; so just letting it happen is the morally correct choice. (once you get the blast mask and expanded bomb bags, of course)
Link is smiling in most of this game's concept art. He's just chilling this whole game. Even at the beginning when Tatl tells him that she's coming along he just shrugs his shoulders is like "alright, I guess we're doing this again."
The horror and "cozy" elements compliment eachother super well. The game's characters and their imminent doom makes your struggle against Majora and its manifestations more endearing, and the despair and isolation of the dungeons make you better appreciate the comfort that the characters bring.
As someone who played this game as a kid (i was 9) and was terrified of it (I'm still scarred by that moon. I legit can't even look at it without looking away), and then played it again when my best friend passed away a few years after that, it hits the right spot of "I want to help these people. I want to learn more about them. I want to be their friends, their shoulder to cry on." I never understood why people were always upset and say there were too many side quests. The land of Termina was always about the people, their lives, this short window you get to view at the end of the world. It just feels so raw. Like, you're a little kid who has seen some shit, and you still wanna do good. You wanna help these people in their final hours. ...maybe that's why it helped me so much when my friend passed away. Huh. I never thought of it.
I was never under the impression that this game was supposed to be scary. I always thought it was quite serene in its tragic acceptance of the end. It's a common theme in French literature. Never meant to scare, but to give a soothing feeling of emptiness
I agree with the fact that the horror and spooky vibes are basically equal in OOT and MM, but to me, the reason why MM gets categorized in the Horror-Spooky Genre is because of the fact that the game starts and you know that the moon is gonna crash and everyone will die. It's the dread. It's the despair. You help these people come to terms with the end of the world in their own way. Carrying out unfinished business so they can leave this world in peace.
After playing over a hundred hours of Tears of the Kingdom, I was beginning to think it was my new favorite game of all time. Then this new perspective on Majora's Mask reminded me that it truly still is my favorite game. Thanks. Now I want to play Majora's Mask 100 more times.
@@k2geekd I wouldn't say it's insane. That's like me saying Twilight Princess being anyone's favorite is insane. It doesn't matter how mid I think Twilight Princess is. Their reason for it being their favorite are theirs alone, just like my reason for Majora's Mask being my favorite are mine. Nobody is required to have a favorite that others agree are the best or even good. There's probably someone somewhere who's favorite Zelda is The Wand of Gamelon or The Faces of Evil. And their reasons are not because it was bigger or grander but probably because it's funny and unique. So please, don't say anything like that again. Your choices for favorites and least favorites or feelings on what you think is mid is perfectly valid, but it is never okay to try to invalidate others' choices because you don't agree with it.
@@k2geekdno, it’s their opinion, nothing wrong with liking or disliking games. For me personally, I absolutely love WWHD, MM, Botw & Totk they’re all tied for my favourite Zelda game and for different reasons.
@@k2geekdAnyone's choice of their favorite Zelda title is their choice alone with reasons that are unique to their own experience, please do not use broad terms to express your own biases.
It was nice seeing you mention Jacob Gellers "Every zelda is the darkest zelda" as I was thinking, thisvideo and Jacobs make for a great reading list together. That aside, it's been a breath of freshair I ddn't think I needed to see someone talk about and focus on non Majoras Masks non scary/gloomy parts.
Part of what makes Majora's Mask's creepiness stand out is the contrast it has with the "cozy" elements. The super zoomed in perspective you and Link get into the lives of normal people make the horrors of that world feel more real. When everyone is going through it because Ganondorf is being a dick, you see Ganondorf as the start and end to their problems. Yeah, in MM, everyone's about to die, and they know it, but their problems and lives still exist and they're trying to make it all work. Also, not everyone's problems hit the same emotional level. Anju may have her wedding ruined and Romani gets a lobotomy, but the Rosa sisters just can't think of a new dance routine and Dotour is stuck in an annoying meeting. When you have to scale up and down the stakes, that's emotional movement. The movement itself, the contrast, makes both ends of that spectrum more compelling.
I think Majora's Mask is the game in the franchise most defined by the comfortable aspects. Like, the resolutions of a number of the side plots are so sweet, sometimes so bitter. It's a game filled with life and personality, more-so than most. It's a comfortable game because it's about resolving troubles at one point or another. One of the most important songs, and I think most reflective of MM as a whole, is the song of healing. Link can HEAL this community, he can HEAL the hearts of those he interacts with. Skull Kid is a despondent lost child, who fell so much deeper than anyone so young should, and like the rest of the town, he's largely a victim of something far beyond his understanding. Why is the moon falling? Early on in the cycle, some people think it's just anxiety, it's not actually falling. Majora is a great villain, and it makes sense that a God of Chaos is the one that plays as the villain in MM's story. He's a great power who slowly becomes more and more known to the people of Termina. It's not so much what DOES actually happen that makes MM so dark, it's that none of them truly KNOW what is happening. It's that not only does Majora likely know, but WE know. To get the Fierce Deity Mask, as far as I recall, you HAVE to get every mask. And thus show Majora that Link has this deep power, is acquainted with all he COULD do in those short 3 days. And unfortunately, what we can't do by proxy. So much power, yet still there are things beyond reach.
I don't agree that the game feels cozy because of all the masks and time resets. Link familiarizes himself with the community but he never becomes part of it so the game feels voyeuristic more than anything. You get to know others but others never get to know you and the 1 character you do grow close with abandons you in the end (Tatl). You mentioned how the masks make Link belong, but they don't really. How can Link belong if he has to trick people into thinking he's someone else? It's the personas that actually belong in Termina so after returning the masks to the salesman, Link ultimately rides off alone while everyone celebrates the carnival of time without him.
@@ShadowSkyX Tatl basically tells Link to gtfo because everyone's got a party to go to (without him). It's ice cold. And if we consider Twilight Princess's canon then this Link eventually becomes a regretful, forgotten zombie.
15:12 I think that perhaps the themes do cut that deep, or at least it would be a productive conversation to have. The idea of needing to wear a mask to be recognized as a part of community is a common feeling in my experience. Really enjoying this video, and I’m glad to see a different perspective on Majora outside of the “it’s the dark one” discussion. Great work! Just subbed and interested in seeing more
Honestly, you can make a pseudo perfect 3 day circle by saving everyone who will not be saved by beating Majora, or at least the majority pun intended. The video makes a perfect connection with the real meaning of the Fierce Deity mask shared around 2.014
Great video! Majora's Mask really emphasizes community and friendship, fleshing out the NPCs and even monsters to a degree no other Zelda game manages to pull off.
I love that you brought up routine and people watching. I ran around in this game daily as a child without even participating in the storyline because I was enamored with clock Town and its residents. I got to know everyone's routine and all of their problems. It was so comforting and in a strange way these NPC's felt like they were friends. I knew them and everything they did and everywhere they went. Majoras mask was never a scary game for me as a child. Sure, there was a generalized anxiety about the moon falling in game, but there was the comfort of being able to go back in time whenever it got to be too real. This game is still a comfort to me in adulthood, and I'll find myself playing it in some of the most difficult times in my life to return to that childlike comfort and wonder. My love for this game can never be understated. Yes, it can be dark and have scary imagery, but overall it's soothing and familiar. It's unchanging.
Funnily enough Majora's Mask was both one of the scariest and most comforting games to me in my teens. I tried it when I was 12 or so, but the dark room in Woodfall Temple with the glowy-eyed creatures made me too scared to go on. I went back and beat it a few years later, and after that, it became my weekend chillout to go stand in the laundry pool and take in the peaceful atmosphere. I also had a little 'routine' where I would farm rupees until the 1st night, enjoy a Chateau Romani, then clear out every boss as Fierce Deity before fighting Majora, sometimes repeating sidequests for fun or farming more things for the sake of it. It felt comforting always being able to go back and fix things up again. I feel that describing MM only as dark or scary doesn't capture the way it made many players feel. The atmosphere isn't strictly morbid or frightening. But there is a pervading sombreness over the world that I think accentuates the warmth of the characters and the contentment of healing their troubles. It's the interplay of the light and dark that makes it what it is. The moments of peace that stand out and so on.
Bruh... "It became my weekend chillout to go stand in the laundry pool and take in the peaceful atmosphere" Dude, you totally get it. I used to marinate in this game myself. I personally love hanging out at Stock Pot a lot. I'd go in the room where the twins was playing cards and chill with them, real cozy like.
I feel like a good chunk of the Zelda fandom has a fixation on like ... trying to box certain games as "serious" or "silly", disregarding the fact that these games cover a wide margin of emotions and themes. Twilight Princess having intense battle sequences (by Zelda standards) doesn't negate the fact that Link smiles and dabbles in sumo and has to use clown's cannon like some goofy ass cartoon character to advance the plot. I always thought MM was bizarre and unsettling, but the atmosphere of Clock Town was cosy. I love the combination of "cosy farm/life sim" aesthetics with the typical Zelda formula. And with a dash of survival horror to boot. MM combines these elements brilliantly.
if they ever remake this game, there should be a mechanic where Link can sit on a bench and enjoy his surrounds, and perhaps there are some NPC events that can only be observed if he’s sitting 👍
When I finally pushed through my fears of the 3 Day time limit some 13 years ago, and any time I go back through again now I can't really say that Majora's Mask is "scary" anymore. If anything, what I feel in this game... pain, sadness, and resolution.
People seem to forget that Link’s Awakening was also pretty dark. In that one, Link’s quest is to literally wipe an entire city off the face of the world, given how the island and all its inhabitants would disappear once the Moon Fish reawakens. And the Nightmare Creatures Link is fighting in that one merely just don’t want to be erased.
Majoras Mask is the Sonic CD of the Zelda Franchise. Take things slow and enjoy the sights. and i agree with this more so learning shinto and chinese philosphy (and metaphysics) for a zelda theory and yeah its so much more than "The Darkest Zelda" my entire time playin it back in the day was literally "Get the zora mask to get that guitar ASAP" didnt even get the first temple done. which honestly felt incredible.
I’ve watched a lot of videos on Majora’s Mask, and this immediately stands out as one of the best. You’re right, the coziness and humanity of the game is often overlooked. The beauty of MM is that existential dread combined with a certain cozy sweetness and focus on the little quirks of people. I think that’s why I love TOTK so much, there’s this lingering gloom, and that corrupted castle is always floating in the distance, but the world is full of quirky, kind people building a new world and going about their days.
Excellent video. People forget or don't realize the reason why all the darkness hits so hard in Majora is precisely because it has these comforts to contrast against the darkness. Majora really puts its all into making you care and give a shit about these people you're trying to help and save, it makes you love them, cry for them, cheer for them. It gives you so many ways to view different perspectives of their lives, allows you to fail them in various ways and kick yourself so youll try harder next time. Majora is a game about heartbreak, but also about healing. People forget about that healing aspect too much.
Both MM and OoT are the epitome of my childhood. I LOVE your analysis. Although I left OoT feeling fulfilled, MM was more comforting because of how intimate you get with the characters and how you heal them. I do believe MM has Link go through grief as well, and after going through my own trauma, both as a child and as an adult, post traumatic growth is real and Link goes through this and conquerors it all. ❤
Majora's Mask has probably the most humor out of any Zelda game. So much of it is just funny, from the Gorons being bad baby sitters, the Zoras all being fanboys for a band, the two kingdoms that have been at war for so long they're now all skeletons, or just really silly stuff like the Gorman brothers or the annoyingly cheerful sound the postman makes whenever you talk to him. I agree with you, people have really mischaracterized this game.
Whoa I havent had a rival since high school tennis! But im with it haha, sounds fun Love the way this all came together. Especially a fan of how you covered the way MM tells its story through mechanics and not just cutscenes. Definitely brought something new to the table with analysis of this game, which isnt easy, and I understand more now why I always felt Majora's Mask was ultimately an encouraging experience before anything else! And hey that was a very kind endorsement at the end there, didnt expect anything like that, thank you :')
This video expresses why this is my favorite game better than any other I've seen (even Matthewmatosis'). It's not that Majora's Mask is the darkest Zelda; it's the most adult Zelda. The most mature and deeply written, the most sentimental and emotional, and the most willing to not only depict horror but also humanity. There isn't a character in this game who is purely and simply evil, except maybe Majora's Mask itself. It's about love, friendship, time, death, forgiveness, growth, redemption, and supporting the people you love at their lowest lows. Its world and characters are so well realized and such a joy to experience not only for Zelda games, and not only for the time, but for video games in general. To this day I still think it's way ahead of its time.
I love it, its poetic.The game is only so miserable because it has to be so it can be about helpng people find happiness. The fear of death creates the opportunity to grant absolution. This is why ive always loved this game
Interesting video! I've never actually played Majora's Mask (i skipped straight from Link to the Past all the way to Tears of the Kingdom) but it is interesting to see how they took great care to create investment in NPCs that definitely wasn't present in the older games
As somoene who has a video in my head already, poised to make the argument that Botw and TotK are more inspired by 2D than 3D zelda forebears when it comes to a lot of things, I may have to antagonize you into exploring the perspective going from LttP to the contemporary games brought.
If anyone who sees this wants to play the game. There is a mod for the 3ds version that fixes a lot of the very weird changes the they made while keeping the good ones, and adding even a few more really good extras like binding the masks to the dpad. its called "project restoration" and it's the best way to play this great game imo. The 3Ds emulator also has come a long way, and it works with the mod.
It had 1-4k for the first month it was out and just "exploded" in the last week before quieting down again and has genuinely tested my sense of how youtube works lol.
I acctually like the premise of the video and the video because the discord around majoras mask is "oh dude majoras mask is the spooky Zelda game" Sometimes I feel that like 50% of zelda fans havent played majoras mask and just talk out of their ass. I only played it for like 10 hours and I really feel that you make a good point in this video.
(Haven't watched the video yet) For lack of a better way to put it, the atmosphere majora's mask set has affected me far more than any other zelda game has. It's the only zelda game where I was actually made to think a bit about the story and the events that occurred. It's too bad it's so hard to actually _play_ it. The gamecube version has _horrendous_ fps issues, the switch has uncomfortable input delay, and the N64 is impractical to get access to.
I always kind of tilt my head when people say that this game is about gloom and doom and stuff like that. Sure the game is more upfront with its darker elements than OoT's more nuanced approach, but at the end of both games you're saving the day. The dreariness of Termina isn't the point, it's the obstacle. By the end of a thorough playthrough, Link's returned spring to the mountains, purified the swamp, united a couple, defended the ranch, rescued babies, soothed the undead, restored the fairies, resolved political discourse, cured a spider curse, and literally saved the world. And even if you don't do it all in the final cycle, the ending treats itself like you did. And with such an emphasis on the Bomber Notebook (especially in the remake), one thing is clear: this game is about helping people. The salesman's line at the end: "my, you've certainly made a lot of people happy" always stuck with me for that.
I'm not gonna lie, I love horror and spooky things so that's part of the reason I love MM. But I can't deny that its lasting impact as my favorite Zelda game is because of all the characters. The only time I've ever referred to the the "Cucco Lady" as that was before I ever played MM. Since playing it, she's always Anju. Even when I replay OoT, it's always Anju. It's always Guru-Guru. -To this day I await a new iteration of Kafei- For as much as I love how creepy this game can get, the impact the people of Termina have is profound. In a constant three day cycle, it's so easy to just dismiss all of them. What does helping them matter if it just gets undone? But somehow, that never really happens. Even if it all gets undone, I can help and give them happiness for this short time. I just can't bring myself to stop caring for them. It really shows you should be nice to everyone you meet because you never know the kind of impact it can have on someone's life.
Tingle inflation Also, I think the juxtaposition of a real world with real people and the creepiness of the game is a good insight on what makes things truly unsettling and scary to begin with.
Currently playing Majora's Mask for the first time so I won't watch in case of spoilers. But I'm commenting and liking anyway. You're making a great job so far in your analysis. Thanks for posting this.
@@gabe5918 I'm emulating N64 on PC. Really enjoying the game and themes, but I find some mechanics kinda clunky (I still have to figure out the notebook thing). Currently I am on the Zoras' region, but I think I will do some side quests...
The Zelda team knocked it out the park with MM. I just wish they were given more time, if I recall they said it was rushed for a deadline. Imagine what else they could’ve done
i would say three of the six masks you marked as "one use" hardly even qualify. the mailman mask actually has a couple of things it enables, since it allows you to get the letter from kafei's mother, as well as look inside mailboxes. the keaton mask has a couple of different interactions, but the quiz you receive when you summon keaton can pull from many different questions, so there's an element of reusability there (if you really want to test your majora's mask knowledge, i suppose). the don gero mask is almost comparable to kafei's mask in that it involves a complicated quest that requires you to visit two of the game's dungeons to complete, in addition to tracking down the other two frogs that aren't minibosses. while there might be singular discrete rewards for these masks, they require a lot of experimentation to actually get that reward (plus, who doesn't like to dance while waiting for boss animations?)
Looking inside mailboxes gets you a heart one time and then after that 1 green rupee per checking. It doesn't do anything with Kafei's mother to my memory. You're giving a letter *to* her, not getting one from her, and that can be done without the hat. And yeah, the Keaton one is "content" but it is one reward and one conversation if done "right" My main point in circling them was that they give a single reward and don't have an "adventure function" like the bomb mask or bunny hood. The Don Gero one is one I was more hesitant to add, but most of what you do with it is revisiting things you'll expressly do otherwise, like fighting the dungeon frog minibosses. If anything, it incentivizes a particular path through one of the cycles, and I suppose that is more content. I probably lean toward your argument for that one.
As a child, I was extremely scared of the horror elements in this game, but unlike other games they never deterred me from carrying on with the game because the interpersonal interactions, characters themselves and their communities were in the end truly the things that made the game so special for me. Not to say the horror is bad, quite the opposite, but as a kid who hated horror I think it really is something that the game made me jump over my own shadow and fight through the horror just to see these characters finally prosper
I have played this game many times but your narration makes it seem all new again. Well written and you have a great voice for videos! I never thought to think of this as cozy but it’s definitely a comfort game so it makes sense. This is my favorite Zelda game next to OoT.
15:09 hard disagree, one of the final lines in the game, and one that really stood out to me is the lunar kid asking "Your true face... What kind of... face is it? I wonder... The face under the mask... Is that... your true face?" That line is the entire key to one of the central themes, hence why its so cryptic and significant
Ah this game gave me shivers as a kid. I remember how I followed Anju on the 2nd day and you know cut animations be... she suddenly whipped out kafei's mask on me and that gave me sudden chills lol I always used to run up to kafei, get in his path and go in first person so as he's walking towards me, I could clip through his mask to see what he looked like when I first was curious as to who he was. Hell, I thought it was a girl at first!
I think the great thing about majora‘s mask is that all the characters whether you interact with them, or not have such well written behavioral patterns that they feel like real people in a lived in world that could exist without your interference, which makes it all the more important to the player to stop the moon from crashing because the people in the game feel all the more real
I didn't have an n64 growing up so when I got a 3ds as a teenager, I picked up MM3D. I absolutely loved it. It was such a fun experience, I did all of the masks not knowing about fierce deity and kafei and anju's quest made me cry. I watched them get married and be with each other as the world ended.
I adore majora's mask! But while i do think its unsettling sometimes, and i dont like that i have a time limit or that everything i do is erased once i go back... But i understand wholeheartly why it is that way on lore wise, but i also felt connected with these characters as well, i wanted them to succeed, to thrive and to be happy! Much more than any other zelda characters in other games!
29:15 If I were in Link's shoes and I just saw the Great Deku Tree die after being the last one inside I would probably run away as fast as possible too.
Majora's Mask has always been my favorite, even when I was a kid and couldn't figure out how to do the first three days (wasn't a bright kid I guess), I'd just watch that intro over and over and wonder around, mystified at the world. It was always just more intriguing than OoT (although the adult timeline did intrigue me, as I never made it to Jabu Jabu's belly as a 6 year old)
"Metroidvania-esque" that's adventure games in general. Zelda is an action adventure and have this kind of progress since the first game. This video sums up why Majora is fascinating, nowadays a lot of games have NPCs with schedules, but most of them fail at making me care about them, while Majora makes me love almost all of them, even the ones with small problems are charismatic enough for you to really want to help them.
I disagree, only in that there are plenty of adventure games that have no backtracking or items/abilities that concretely alter one's ability to reach areas, but I will concede there's probably a better term out there, or at least one that isn't as malleable.
on the topic of the "perfect" cycle, if you resolve mutually exclusive events with "which results in the largest positive outcome" then you actually can do everything in a single cycle. It's pretty rare for an event to 100% overlap with another with no time to spare in the time it would take for you to resolve one, especially with the inverted song of time. You can't do everything, sure, but you can get pretty close
I don't even know how many 3-day cycles I spent as a kid just mooching around Clock Town like I lived there lol. I think it was that 'downtime' element that brought me back to the game- Clock Town was always like this haven in the middle of all the chaos that felt like home, and no other location in any other game had given me that same feeling before. After every dungeon I always looked forward to coming back home to Clock Town and just existing there for a bit. The cozy side is suck a good juxtaposition to such a melancholy game because it really drives home just how much is at stake. You can't help but build up a connection with this world and feel a need to protect it, not just because you're the hero on a quest but because you grow to love this place and these people and that Game Over screen of the moon crashing into Clock Town is SO much more harrowing when you know every person in that town by name and face and have followed them and learned their troubles and solved them.
The eerie feel of the game keeps you on your toe but that's the fuzzy feeling of helping those people that really keeps you coming back. There are a lot of nice moments created by the cycle thing like knowing the result of the abduction from early cycles or seeing Mutoh raging against the moon alone as the fatal hour is coming that really make you feel for these npcs. I never 100% games but with the masks being such a nice and refreshing reward and the town being so fleshed out getting to do the perfect three final days seeing the good ending of all the plotlines I can solve before going to the moon and beating the boss was one of my most rewarding video game experience.
I agree with majority mask, being “”cozy ocarina of time was my first Zelda title and my first scary memory in ocarina of time was when I was in the lost Woods looking for Saria to learn Sarria’s song and right when I walked into the hidden Meadow, a wolf popped up right in front of me. I was about seven years old at the time, and that scared the Jesus out of me. For the next couple of years, I was scared every time I went through a door in any dungeon in majora’s mask I got over my fear of redeads like likes mummies and those hands that get you in the ceiling when I did the ikana canyon stage to get the mirror shield 🛡️
Just to interject briefly, at about 6:40 - I had NO idea, after 23 years, that you could give a letter to the weird toilet man. I thought you had to give a land deed from one of the Deku Scrub merchants to him.
I've always thought the ending of MM had a lot more joy and hope than the ending of OoT. The joyful dancing in the OoT credits is undercut with so much sadness. Link, the Sages, King Zora, and Mido are so separate from the happiness. Navi's departure and Link getting sent to the past are so heartwrenching. In MM, while Link is separate from so much of the joy once again, I getba stronger feeling that he's part of it. Having him carved into the tree with his friends reminds me that even though Link is moving on, he's made lifelong friends in Termina. Also, the disappearance of the moon, the wedding, the festival, and the simple relief of finally having a new day is an amazing release of tension after all the stress of MM. Anyway, for a long time I've broadly thought of OoT as "the lighter game with a sadder ending" and MM as "the darker game with the happier ending." I really appreciated that you are highlight the emotional depth present in this duology. The games are such masterpieces that painting them with broad strokes really undersells the creativity and emotional nuance within their narratives. Thank you!
@struttux5156 Yes, I agree that's a huge part of the difference between the endings. And one of many reasons I don't want Termina to be a dream world that disappears when Link leaves. 😭
@@narutardednerd I said it for the longest time but Link should've STAYED in Termina. Not only for his hero status but he has actual friends there unlike in Hyrule where he just have Saria who is permanent child and Zelda who is a royal. Those other girls who liked him just seemed interested in him as a boyfriend. I really have no idea why he was in such a hurry away from there
@struttux5156 If I were to write a post-MM fic, it would be that Link goes back to Hyrule and defeats Ganondorf again when he grows up, that after his travels he was able to embrace his remaining childhood and deal with som of his trauma. I would probably have him get together with Zelda (even if that's not realistic LOL). I would want a portal between Termina and Hyrule to be open around the time of the festival every year so Link could visit. I do like the idea of Link staying in Termina, and I would definitely read a fic like that (or maybe even write one as a separate AU of I wasn't so lazy). He made so many genuine friends around Clock Town. I think he and Romani could be cute together, too, with a strong basis in friendship. Basically, I see Romani/Link the way most people see Mal/Link, but I prefer Romani a lot. I could also imagine a story where Link goes back to Hyrule, becomes Zelda's personal knight, defeats Ganondorf again, and then moves away to Termina when Zelda marries. I guess one of the fun things about the game ending with Link leaving is it leaves room.for fans to imagine Links adventures after the game. Just as an aside, I'm a huge ZeLinker, but I like a lot of other Zelda ships, and I respect people who don't care about ships. 😅 Hoepfully that explains my tangents LOL.
@@narutardednerd Only thing we DO know is he somehow becomes the hero shade in Twilight Princess. There is a fan made alternate ending to Majora here on RUclips which has a time skip and shows him in the same armor he wears as the shade. Being allowed to imagine things on your own is always great but it would've also been so nice if they had done just one more game about him on the N64 back then
Three of my favourite games - Majora's Mask, Vintage Story and Rain World - all take place in dark settings, but they're all also super cozy to me. I think it's because any safety and warmth in such worlds is amplified by the fact that it offers genuine safety and warmth against the terrors of the world. Whether you're wandering Clock Town on the first day, you've just constructed your first house and are sitting by the fire cooking stew, or are resting in a shelter you managed to get into before the rain arrived, they all feel very cozy in certain scenarios where the game truly feels 'safe'.
The main thing I always think about when I think about Majora's Mask (as opposed to the conversations around MM) has always been the Bombers Notebook. I spent to much time as a kid trying to do Notebook stuff that I hadn't advanced far enough to finish because I didn't really want to do the main quest I just wanted to do that stuff..
for real when i come back to majora's mask, it's not for the "main quest". it's fun but the part that always stands out in my mind and the reason i come back to it is because of all the side quests that bring you around the world to see what everyone's up to and be a part of their lives
I'm surprised that you taught me something new about this game after all these years. I have 100% completed everything in Majoras Mask right down the very last heart piece, but I never knew that you could blow Sakon up before.
I played the narrel Hd texture pack, and when i saw the sun go down on yhe first day at romani ranch , seeing the colors of the sky shift to dark blues, watching the sun settle behind the surrounding trees, and the birds and sounds of nature all around.. probably one of the most I’ve ever been immersed in a video game. I just stared at the sky for maybe an hour.
Majora was my very first Zelda. I got the gamecube collection disk for a birthday and as I scrolled through the selection of games I could play on it, I was almost immediately enamored by the logo of Majora, and upon booting it up I was forever in love with it. It's still my favourite despite having completed almost every other zelda and even being able to play oot around the same time. Majora was also the first zelda I ever completed, sadly I couldn't get the romani mask so I ended up having to do it the hard way as a kid haha
I think something that definitely helped my first time experience with Majora’s Mask (and yes specifically an experience not an actual playthrough because to this day I still do not own a single console that would allow me to play and finish the entirety of Majora’s Mask) was my tendency to just stumble upon random instalments in a series, like how before knowing what the Percy Jackson or the Harry Potter series were, I stumbled upon the fifth book in both series and got really confused but really invested because they honestly just kinda seemed well made at the time. In the same way, discovering Majora’s Mask while having no clue about the EPIC JOURNEY you go on in OoT really helped make Majora’s Mask feel a lot less like something that was trying to outdo what came before. And because of that, moments like going into the moon just became the most inspiring moments for me creatively.
This is something I have been trying to put into words about MM for a while now, and what makes it unique in the series. I do wish more Zelda games would explore this kind of character development in storytelling again.
In all the other games(atleast the 3d ones) when things get dark it gives you the sense that the sun will come out again even if we the hero have to make it come out. Ikana kingdom is literally the beksinski panting region. And even the resolution is about as happy as the psych movie when the ying yang killer is begging to get into heaven during a dream sequence as she's dieing in real life and being told no.
I just wanted to say that I really appreciated this kind of fresh look at this game. I think I was also really caught in the "Scary/Eeriness" of MM as well. I used to really enjoy playing MM, but one thing now that bugs me that didn't is that it's timed. It didn't used to bother me, it just made it feel more insistent that you get things done. Now, as an adult I really struggle with the timed aspect, it honestly just makes me feel extremely overwhelmed because there's so much to do in the game and literally so little time to do it. Couple that with the parts where you need other items to get farther and it would just ruin the experience of it for me. I do still love the music though, and it still gives me a sense of nostalgia because this game was on N64 and I played on that console when I was little. it's like remembering a piece of my childhood. I don't think I ever have fully 100% the game. I've beaten it, but not with the Fierce Diety Mask, and haven't gotten all the skutulas.
the final turn in mario party reminds me a lot of majoras mask and its final day. all the shops are locked down, most things dont properly work, and almost all that you do won't matter in the long run (since theres no long run), its really unsettling (to me at least)
Finished this game only last year for the second time. Considering I've been playing it since my brother gave it to me in 2002 I was sorry I never gave It a proper go. To someone thinking of giving it a go, make it your mission to find all the masks. That's where half the story is. Sad game. Emotional game, but one of the best in the series. That's coming from an OOT fan. ❤
I agree with basically everything in this video, I just wanted to add, this game really did scare the crap out of me when I was kid. That was part of why I loved it so much, I was always fascinated by games (or any kind of storytelling medium, really) that could creep me out like that. It wasn't just -scary-, Majora's Mask could really get under your skin.
I love this video so much- it explains why I've always had people referring to this entry as the "darkest", or even hearing that from Eiji Anouma when he proposed remaking the "darkest" entry of the zelda series. I always had fond memories of a kid playing this game because of how in-tune I became with everyone's schedules. I can't tell you how many times I would see Anju walking around during the rainy day, walk next to her, and try to cheer her up when she sat by the bench. To me, it always has been the most "human" zelda. Nothing else comes close to the sense of how connected you feel with... everyone. People talking about how dark and scary it was always made me feel like they had missed the point- like they hadn't understood the game like I did. By the time I had gotten through those events, I was able to remove myself from those feelings because of the depth to the storytelling. That's why Ikana Canyon was always my favorite area. They took the things I was most afraid of as a kid and made them sympathetic. It's beautifully done, and I'm so happy to hear someone else appreciating the game from that level to.
The Gibdo mask scene was the equivalent of fighting deadhands for me as a child, considering I was only eight at the time of the game coming out. I was able to fully appreciate the complexity of this game by the age of 10 and my love for it just grew as the years went on. It's truly sad that many people see it as a Zelda game not worth playing simply because of the complexity, but I can see where they're coming from. Compared to almost every other Zelda game before and after it, it really does make you remember key locations and events, leading to a confusing mess if you don't use the bomber notebook. Regardless, it's still one of my favorite Zelda games to date, only slightly outshined by Twilight Princess and Ocarina Of Time. I've been playing OOT randomizers since the first build was released and I'm slowly starting to play more MM randomizers to get myself reacquainted with the game itself. It really does give the games more life and replayability.
As someone who always finishes an MM playthrough with a "Mr. Perfect" run (solving every character's problems in a single cycle before facing Majora), i always found it interesting that there is always at least one person you can't protect. If you want a good ending for Kafei and Anju, you have to stand by while an old lady gets mugged in the night. If you save the old lady you can't help Kafei get his mask back. I always thought it was a commentary on the struggles of heroism, how you can't always save everyone. If you try, you'll inevitably doom someone else by the simple fact that every person is connected and stopping every wrongdoing in the world means you _will_ eventually step on the toes of someone you meant to protect by nature of the big, tangled web of human interaction. You have to pick your battles and stay determined that while you cant fix everything, the things you _can_ fix are enough. Maybe you failed one or two people, but you saved countless others and that's what truly matters.
And yet, somehow, in the ending, everyone you helped in any pass through the time loop (at least those that rewarded you with a mask), is shown as having been helped, regardless of how many times you let them suffer instead.
I think in the end, the culmination of your efforts across all the timelines does achieve that perfect ending. It all fits together in the end due to time shenanigans.
So what does this "Mr. Perfect" run entail? Does it include restoring the Great Fairy of each dungeon, or simply to kill the bosses that you can jump straight to?
@@YamatoFukkatsu essentially: beating every boss, constantly warping around to assist the people whose problems aren't solved by completing the dungeon (for example, the goron who gives you the don gero mask will be fine as long as you clear snowhead, but the seahorse will be SOL unless you specifically do its quest to retrieve its brethren from the eels,) and collecting/restoring the great fairies. The list goes a lot deeper than that, but to keep it simple; the run has you solving any problems the temples are responsible for as well as any of the Bomber's Notebook issues that aren't covered by the main story resolutions. It's much easier in the 3DS version since youre able to skip forward exactly as much as you want to, but that fully-booked schedule is sure to keep you busy regardless
@dirrdevil I believe that is the case, as an interview somewhere with Aonuma does have him vaguely allude to all the masks that you obtain as containing the memories of the people you help. And it's why the Fierce Deity mask is so strong. It contains all the memories of those in Termina wrapped up in one. And the masks don't reset with time travel and some even illicit all kinds of interesting responses out of people if you talk to them while wearing them, so it's clear that having helped somebody during at least one of the cycles has a permanent like, residual effect that comes to once its all over
This video explains why majora is my favourite game, ever. Sightseeing and peoplewatching is 80% of any playthrough of mine.
I've been working on a game concept with my wife for awhile now, and I've heavily considered just making the core mechanic be game that's like the sidequests of Majora's mask. Helping or interacting with NPCs that feel alive and living out their day to day lives. Do you feel like that is a concept that stands well by itself or still needs something more to be engaging? I was thinking of trying to shoehorn in some combat, but I honestly just found that maybe I'd like to go all in on this concept and just make it more engaging. Characters don't necessarily need "problems solved", and interactions can have lasting effects, and those effects, maybe even left on the environment, could even affect others' schedules and lives. I thought that maybe this could make an interesting interactive story that has many branches based on what you do with NPCs, who you observe, and how they interact with each other.
sounds good man@@TayoEXE
nothing is more fun and cozy than a giant moon staring at me aggressively
But seriously, it is a well-crafted world
Same, sometimes I just put slow mode one and spend my hours chilling inside the observatory or inside the clock tower if I’m not people stalking
People watching?
Honestly the scariest part of Majora's Mask is the existential dread and self-doubt those kids on the moon give you
Every turn is MM was a left, and I love it for that.
Fr, and their lines hit really hard knowing links story with oot.
Not really scary. But i like existentialism. It's not scary to me, it's interesting.
It terrified me lol
Naw, spooky aliens that spook moo-moos
Majora's Mask is my all-time favorite game ever and to me it's because of the huge role that gratitude and love for strangers plays in the game. Showing love and kindness to people opens doors, rewards you, and allows you to save everyone and yourself, and recovering from trauma is the same situation. Link is isolated and traumatized, but by touching lives in a positive way he heals the world and himself.
Try Nino kuni and it will blow your mind, friend
it's so SCARY I WANT TO RUNAWAY
I think you'd appreciate Okami. Since you play as a deity, your means of becoming more powerful is accumulating praise from the people, animals and even nature itself through your benevolent acts. There are so many tiny, easy to miss sidequests that net you praise in that game, and they're all based on the fact that you can understand whatever little plight an out of the way NPC has that they're venting to the little wolf friend who is wandering through the town and decided to hang around for a bit. You can even buy feed bags for animals you find and get praise from them as well.
@@gildedlink I think that game is very good and I used to play it from time to time when things would go well. Wish there were some days where I could just go and come back to life while playing Okami for fun. Was the golden days when I used to play that and I like the big nostalgia that came with playing it. Okami was one of those games that you had to play to enjoy to really encapsulate the feeling of getting lost and finding yourself in it. I highly recommend that everyone takes the time out of their day to even consider what it takes to play such a beautiful game like that.
Great comment
MM's horror really hits a lot harder than most games trying to be scary because monsters and creepy sounds aren't really a realistic fear in these kinds of games. Seeing the undead in a Zelda game means almost nothing, you often have a holy sword specifically made to vanquish the forces of evil to swing at them. OoT's places can be unsettling, but they fit right in in a world where there is such thing as clear cut good and evil. MM on the other hand gives the player more realistic things to fear: schedules and deadlines, interpersonal drama, compromise, petty crime, and worst of all, the impact of the death of a person. Sure MM has a "good and evil" conflict, but that's something seemingly acknowledged only at the beginning and end of the game and practically only by the happy mask salesman - it's very out of focus in a game that put so much emphasis on side quests.
In other words, MM instills very mature and mundane fears, something that feels so out of place in a Zelda game of all things that it becomes genuine and encourages meaningful introspection and discussion. That's what makes it such a "scary" Zelda game to many people, especially when compared to attempts at horror themes in the other games.
I’ve always loved the connection between the 2 biggest side quests in the game. Anju and Kafei and the Milk Road Quest.
Now most would assume they aren’t connected but if you really payed attention there were actually rumors that Kafei ran away with Cremia (also Anju’s Best Friend).
I find this very touching because while yes Anju is going through a tough time Cremia has it way worse. She’s stuck in milk road, she gets attacked by bandits while trying to deliver milk. She’s trying to act like everything is fine for her sister knowing that they’ll probably die, while the people of Termina think she is a bad person who stole her best friends soon to be husband Kafei.
That’s why Cremia always stood out to me so much depth was put Into her character and how everything connects in this game is so amazing. Masterpiece!!
You forget also that literal aliens steal her cows and traumatize her sister
@@vumasster man what a great side quest, Cremia deserves the most love.
I love that you HAVE to spend time to wait for events to come up. It makes you just... walk around. Look at things. That's how people notice details and fall in love with their surroundings.
Or you play the song of Double Time and skip ahead lol
@@kaifreyleue5961sure but that's what I'm talking about. You still end up having to wait a minute or two for several events throughout the game offering an opportunity to check our the surroundings in detail
Or be like me and have a checklist to never have to wait I can do the first two dungeons the moment you get the ocarina and complete most of the side quests.Its fun replaying this game trying to minmax everything to cram as much into one cycle as possible.
facts!!! thats why i remember this game so precisely since i played as a kid
I’ve seen a lot of people describe the 3 day time limit as being stressful, but as a kid, it was actually really comfortable. If I didn’t want to do the main quest, I could just spend three days fucking around, exploring and seeing what happens in different locations at different times. I usually rewound some time on day 2 because day 3 did stress me out a little bit, but it wasn’t like that’s hard to do or anything.
There are a ton of dark aspects to Majora’s Mask, and I’ve seen some great video essays about why, but I didn’t fall in love with this game just because I’m an edgelord, I fell in love with this game because I’m a goofy edgelord
Same. The 3 days is comfortable because you never HAVE to do anything. You have infinite opportunities to do whatever you want and retry anything. Despite being a time limit it's incredibly freeing.
If you’re deep into a process of some sort of quest, or something you at least perceive as being a process, then the idea of losing all the steps you took to get there (potentially with a poor memory of the requisite parts leading to significant time spent just trying to recreate it) is easily a stressful situation for most people to be in.
Each of the dungeons is a prime example where this can come into play, especially if you enter one of them without resetting to a fresh cycle. When I was younger, I don’t think I realized that almost everything leading up to the dungeons can be safely reset, to begin the dungeon at the beginning of the next cycle. So whatever lead up to the dungeon would compound with everything within the dungeon which actually DOES all reset. (except for the dungeons map, compass, and ‘ability’ item)
Furthermore, it’s easy to take for granted the knowledge of what gets reset and what you take back with you after you’ve become familiar with the game. I now know that after beating a dungeon, you get a warp point straight to the boss on subsequent cycles, and the bosses aren’t really all that difficult. On a first-playthrough however, it’s easy to concern yourself with the idea of needing to redo an entire dungeon just to get another chance at racing the Deku butler, or other such tasks that are only accessible after clearing the dungeon.
Yeah, just taking a cycle off to relax is fine, but that’s irrelevant to the source of stress which you’ll have to engage with at some level in order to advance in the game, once you decide your break is over.
This is fair, although personally I still find it stressful purely because I'm bad with this specific kind of timers in general.
For example, I'll be completely fine with the main quest in Pikmin 4, because it doesn't have a set limit of days. I'm bad at the Olimar section because even with 15 days being a comfortable time frame and the ability to go back to whichever day I want, I get so stressed out I've never actually finished it. It's entirely a self made problem for me lol
But you could've just not had a clock? Lol. The source of stress isn't from people messing around. It's from them not fucking around trying to do a side quest and the clock runs out.
8:30 I did not know that was possible, it's hilarious! It's even more funny that the old lady just goes, "Oh well, we're out of stock" as if she didn't just witness something horrendous.
That old lady is an ice cold bitch and I love it LOL
She's an old woman who sells bombs, I guarantee she's used to it
Honestly furthermore, I think that it’s totally the cozy elements of this game that accentuate the creepy stuff. Plenty of games come off as creepy and fill a game with disturbing implications or flavour texts, but it doesn’t ever stick quite the same as it does in Majora. In majora you get to become familiar and fall in love with this town and its people, making you all the more determined to save them, and it makes the moments of true terror from the NPCS, or the really disturbing places all the more unsettling
So it’s one thing to see that guard dying in the alley of castle town in OOT, but it’s a whole other thing to see the fate of characters you befriend
I always found the spiderhouses to be extremely cozy. I wish there were one of those for each area.
EarthBound also does this to great effect. 99% of the game has you traveling the world, seeing so many colourful (figurative and literal) locales. Meeting interesting people and experiencing funny things. But there are creepy moments scattered about, and the upbeat nature of the game only serves to place greater emphasis on these not-so-bright moments.
The finale, especially, is where things get downright terrifying. The colour is quite literally drained from the game in the final hour. Our heroes get sent to the distant past, where the main villain truly resides. Everything is grey, monotone, and there's no humor. The "music" of the location can hardly be considered music either. It's mostly just bleak, almost hopeless ambience. And then you reach the final boss...You're absorbed into an abyss, a void of complete darkness. In this blackness, only the protagonists and the incomprehensible eldritch horror of the main antagonist remain. Nothing you've experienced in the game could prepare you for that.
Part of how alive all the characters in MM feel is the reason I despise all of the theories that "Link is dead! All a dream cooked up by Majora's Mask!" they all ring hollow. These are the most alive characters in a Zelda game, bar none. They included a secret scene of Anju's mother scolding her own daughter for waiting for her lover alluding that her own husband ran out on the both of them. A carpenter with a crush on Anju that you only find out when he reacts angrily to Kafei's Mask. The Deku Butler's sadness in realizing what became of his son, a whole civil war that destroyed a great and powerful kingdom with the ghosts *of their enemies* still wandering about. Termina has incredible lore and strong consistency that to handwave it as "not real" does a true disservice to the story the game is trying to tell. Link wants to save these people not to get home, but to see these people he legitimately grew to appreciate over his time stuck there. It's really all in the Bomber's Notebook where we get to see some of Link's feelings towards the individual NPC's, and as put in the video, Link records the emotion of allowing Anju to smile again.
What you and a lot of others are trying to describe can be summed up in one word, "uncanny". Much of the total content of the game is familiar and recognizable, especially to players familiar w OOT because of the reused assets... But in Majoras everythings meaning is basically distorted or kind of demented and bizarre.
This has always been one of my favorite Zelda games for this exact reason. I'm very fond of games that give you a reason to spend time within a space and connect with it beyond just a fleeting run through it. And letting you get to know all the random characters you meet, and see them change a little as you go on your adventures, is a great way to do that. Like you say in the video, it's something "cozy". It made me sad that the newer Zelda games don't enable that to quite the same extent despite being much bigger in other ways. There are quite a few RPGs I've played that take pains to give every random NPC a little story that plays out over the course of the game as the player progresses and the world state changes, and it's remarkable how much it makes you feel like you're a part of the world. There's a sense of familiarity, like it's become your home for a short while. Majora's Mask, in Clock Town at least, does a good job in pacing the character interactions around the progress in the rest of the game so you don't just "complete" the town, talk to everyone, and leave with no reason to return. I wish more games gave you a reason to keep spending time in their environments like that.
I agree. The new Zeldas have lost something, in my opinion. Some kind of magic, and by "new" I mean BotW and TotK.
If you’re freaked out by body horror like me that initial deku scrub transformation is bone chilling
Today i learned that people actually get freaked out by body horror and that it wasn't just a mild discomfort
@@JackieJKENVtuberi have a wild fear of gore and specifially avoid gore in my media because of how sick it makes me feel. Isnt it lovely that we all have different fears and aspirations? 🙃
I never used to let my son watch those. I always made him skip it 😆
@@JackieJKENVtuberbody horror is fucking disgusting, I can tolerate it in games and books but I can't watch it in movies
literally how
there's no body horror in it
it's just "voila you're a deku now"
I think what sets Majora's apart is how personal it gets only to isolate you and leave you with deep burning questions at the end. In most of the other games the story is largely a nobody of no merit takes up the call and saves the day, there's spooky things and unsettling moments but its all in service to the hero story, few of the interactions in other games have you wondering about the fates of the characters afterward or how any of these experiences might relate to your real life. MM Mires itself in the odd and creepy but there's a soft but powerful undertone of hope and perseverance even in the face of certain doom. And no matter what an old lady gets mugged for the greater good.
Even when you help her, you never actually prevent the mugging. You might stop the thief and get her stuff back, but she still gets mugged regardless.
Since you can’t even stop her from being mugged, she still goes through that trauma anyway, and I don’t get the impression that the bomb shop is struggling financially; so just letting it happen is the morally correct choice. (once you get the blast mask and expanded bomb bags, of course)
Link is smiling in most of this game's concept art. He's just chilling this whole game. Even at the beginning when Tatl tells him that she's coming along he just shrugs his shoulders is like "alright, I guess we're doing this again."
The horror and "cozy" elements compliment eachother super well. The game's characters and their imminent doom makes your struggle against Majora and its manifestations more endearing, and the despair and isolation of the dungeons make you better appreciate the comfort that the characters bring.
While yes, the symbolism of Grief is there, all these small stories you help with are also the next best step: To Heal.
Beautiful 😭
As someone who played this game as a kid (i was 9) and was terrified of it (I'm still scarred by that moon. I legit can't even look at it without looking away), and then played it again when my best friend passed away a few years after that, it hits the right spot of "I want to help these people. I want to learn more about them. I want to be their friends, their shoulder to cry on."
I never understood why people were always upset and say there were too many side quests. The land of Termina was always about the people, their lives, this short window you get to view at the end of the world. It just feels so raw. Like, you're a little kid who has seen some shit, and you still wanna do good. You wanna help these people in their final hours.
...maybe that's why it helped me so much when my friend passed away. Huh. I never thought of it.
I was never under the impression that this game was supposed to be scary.
I always thought it was quite serene in its tragic acceptance of the end.
It's a common theme in French literature. Never meant to scare, but to give a soothing feeling of emptiness
I agree with the fact that the horror and spooky vibes are basically equal in OOT and MM, but to me, the reason why MM gets categorized in the Horror-Spooky Genre is because of the fact that the game starts and you know that the moon is gonna crash and everyone will die. It's the dread. It's the despair. You help these people come to terms with the end of the world in their own way. Carrying out unfinished business so they can leave this world in peace.
After playing over a hundred hours of Tears of the Kingdom, I was beginning to think it was my new favorite game of all time. Then this new perspective on Majora's Mask reminded me that it truly still is my favorite game. Thanks. Now I want to play Majora's Mask 100 more times.
totk being anyone’s favorite zelda is insane
@@k2geekd I wouldn't say it's insane. That's like me saying Twilight Princess being anyone's favorite is insane. It doesn't matter how mid I think Twilight Princess is. Their reason for it being their favorite are theirs alone, just like my reason for Majora's Mask being my favorite are mine. Nobody is required to have a favorite that others agree are the best or even good. There's probably someone somewhere who's favorite Zelda is The Wand of Gamelon or The Faces of Evil. And their reasons are not because it was bigger or grander but probably because it's funny and unique.
So please, don't say anything like that again. Your choices for favorites and least favorites or feelings on what you think is mid is perfectly valid, but it is never okay to try to invalidate others' choices because you don't agree with it.
@@KTSpeedruns dawg shut up i can say what i want
@@k2geekdno, it’s their opinion, nothing wrong with liking or disliking games.
For me personally, I absolutely love WWHD, MM, Botw & Totk they’re all tied for my favourite Zelda game and for different reasons.
@@k2geekdAnyone's choice of their favorite Zelda title is their choice alone with reasons that are unique to their own experience, please do not use broad terms to express your own biases.
Sakon getting absolutely sniped and variations of will never not amuse me
It was nice seeing you mention Jacob Gellers "Every zelda is the darkest zelda" as I was thinking, thisvideo and Jacobs make for a great reading list together. That aside, it's been a breath of freshair I ddn't think I needed to see someone talk about and focus on non Majoras Masks non scary/gloomy parts.
Part of what makes Majora's Mask's creepiness stand out is the contrast it has with the "cozy" elements. The super zoomed in perspective you and Link get into the lives of normal people make the horrors of that world feel more real. When everyone is going through it because Ganondorf is being a dick, you see Ganondorf as the start and end to their problems. Yeah, in MM, everyone's about to die, and they know it, but their problems and lives still exist and they're trying to make it all work. Also, not everyone's problems hit the same emotional level. Anju may have her wedding ruined and Romani gets a lobotomy, but the Rosa sisters just can't think of a new dance routine and Dotour is stuck in an annoying meeting. When you have to scale up and down the stakes, that's emotional movement. The movement itself, the contrast, makes both ends of that spectrum more compelling.
I think Majora's Mask is the game in the franchise most defined by the comfortable aspects. Like, the resolutions of a number of the side plots are so sweet, sometimes so bitter. It's a game filled with life and personality, more-so than most. It's a comfortable game because it's about resolving troubles at one point or another. One of the most important songs, and I think most reflective of MM as a whole, is the song of healing. Link can HEAL this community, he can HEAL the hearts of those he interacts with. Skull Kid is a despondent lost child, who fell so much deeper than anyone so young should, and like the rest of the town, he's largely a victim of something far beyond his understanding.
Why is the moon falling? Early on in the cycle, some people think it's just anxiety, it's not actually falling. Majora is a great villain, and it makes sense that a God of Chaos is the one that plays as the villain in MM's story. He's a great power who slowly becomes more and more known to the people of Termina. It's not so much what DOES actually happen that makes MM so dark, it's that none of them truly KNOW what is happening. It's that not only does Majora likely know, but WE know. To get the Fierce Deity Mask, as far as I recall, you HAVE to get every mask. And thus show Majora that Link has this deep power, is acquainted with all he COULD do in those short 3 days. And unfortunately, what we can't do by proxy. So much power, yet still there are things beyond reach.
I don't agree that the game feels cozy because of all the masks and time resets. Link familiarizes himself with the community but he never becomes part of it so the game feels voyeuristic more than anything. You get to know others but others never get to know you and the 1 character you do grow close with abandons you in the end (Tatl).
You mentioned how the masks make Link belong, but they don't really. How can Link belong if he has to trick people into thinking he's someone else? It's the personas that actually belong in Termina so after returning the masks to the salesman, Link ultimately rides off alone while everyone celebrates the carnival of time without him.
At least he draws a picture with Skull Kid in the end :3
It still is a cozy game.
@@Valstrax420 It's both creepy and cozy.
No she doesn't? Link willingly leaves
@@ShadowSkyX Tatl basically tells Link to gtfo because everyone's got a party to go to (without him). It's ice cold. And if we consider Twilight Princess's canon then this Link eventually becomes a regretful, forgotten zombie.
15:12 I think that perhaps the themes do cut that deep, or at least it would be a productive conversation to have. The idea of needing to wear a mask to be recognized as a part of community is a common feeling in my experience. Really enjoying this video, and I’m glad to see a different perspective on Majora outside of the “it’s the dark one” discussion. Great work! Just subbed and interested in seeing more
I would just hang around the stockpot inn for hours because the atmosphere is warm and welcoming
Yeah, sometimes hanging out in that game just feels good and interesting. Talking to randos
Honestly, you can make a pseudo perfect 3 day circle by saving everyone who will not be saved by beating Majora, or at least the majority pun intended.
The video makes a perfect connection with the real meaning of the Fierce Deity mask shared around 2.014
Great video! Majora's Mask really emphasizes community and friendship, fleshing out the NPCs and even monsters to a degree no other Zelda game manages to pull off.
I love that you brought up routine and people watching. I ran around in this game daily as a child without even participating in the storyline because I was enamored with clock Town and its residents. I got to know everyone's routine and all of their problems. It was so comforting and in a strange way these NPC's felt like they were friends. I knew them and everything they did and everywhere they went. Majoras mask was never a scary game for me as a child. Sure, there was a generalized anxiety about the moon falling in game, but there was the comfort of being able to go back in time whenever it got to be too real. This game is still a comfort to me in adulthood, and I'll find myself playing it in some of the most difficult times in my life to return to that childlike comfort and wonder. My love for this game can never be understated. Yes, it can be dark and have scary imagery, but overall it's soothing and familiar. It's unchanging.
Whenever I played as a kid, I spammed the start button to get past the "woosh" part as fast as possible because it scared me.
The fact that this game is both scary and cozy is why it's the GOAT!!
Funnily enough Majora's Mask was both one of the scariest and most comforting games to me in my teens. I tried it when I was 12 or so, but the dark room in Woodfall Temple with the glowy-eyed creatures made me too scared to go on. I went back and beat it a few years later, and after that, it became my weekend chillout to go stand in the laundry pool and take in the peaceful atmosphere.
I also had a little 'routine' where I would farm rupees until the 1st night, enjoy a Chateau Romani, then clear out every boss as Fierce Deity before fighting Majora, sometimes repeating sidequests for fun or farming more things for the sake of it. It felt comforting always being able to go back and fix things up again.
I feel that describing MM only as dark or scary doesn't capture the way it made many players feel. The atmosphere isn't strictly morbid or frightening. But there is a pervading sombreness over the world that I think accentuates the warmth of the characters and the contentment of healing their troubles. It's the interplay of the light and dark that makes it what it is. The moments of peace that stand out and so on.
Bruh... "It became my weekend chillout to go stand in the laundry pool and take in the peaceful atmosphere" Dude, you totally get it. I used to marinate in this game myself. I personally love hanging out at Stock Pot a lot. I'd go in the room where the twins was playing cards and chill with them, real cozy like.
I feel like a good chunk of the Zelda fandom has a fixation on like ... trying to box certain games as "serious" or "silly", disregarding the fact that these games cover a wide margin of emotions and themes. Twilight Princess having intense battle sequences (by Zelda standards) doesn't negate the fact that Link smiles and dabbles in sumo and has to use clown's cannon like some goofy ass cartoon character to advance the plot.
I always thought MM was bizarre and unsettling, but the atmosphere of Clock Town was cosy. I love the combination of "cosy farm/life sim" aesthetics with the typical Zelda formula. And with a dash of survival horror to boot. MM combines these elements brilliantly.
if they ever remake this game, there should be a mechanic where Link can sit on a bench and enjoy his surrounds, and perhaps there are some NPC events that can only be observed if he’s sitting 👍
When I finally pushed through my fears of the 3 Day time limit some 13 years ago, and any time I go back through again now
I can't really say that Majora's Mask is "scary" anymore.
If anything, what I feel in this game... pain, sadness, and resolution.
Awesome video!! Community is often undervalued and it is awesome to see a spotlight on how it was built into this game in such a rare and lovely way!
People seem to forget that Link’s Awakening was also pretty dark. In that one, Link’s quest is to literally wipe an entire city off the face of the world, given how the island and all its inhabitants would disappear once the Moon Fish reawakens. And the Nightmare Creatures Link is fighting in that one merely just don’t want to be erased.
Majoras Mask is the Sonic CD of the Zelda Franchise. Take things slow and enjoy the sights.
and i agree with this more so learning shinto and chinese philosphy (and metaphysics) for a zelda theory and yeah its so much more than "The Darkest Zelda" my entire time playin it back in the day was literally "Get the zora mask to get that guitar ASAP" didnt even get the first temple done. which honestly felt incredible.
I’ve watched a lot of videos on Majora’s Mask, and this immediately stands out as one of the best. You’re right, the coziness and humanity of the game is often overlooked. The beauty of MM is that existential dread combined with a certain cozy sweetness and focus on the little quirks of people. I think that’s why I love TOTK so much, there’s this lingering gloom, and that corrupted castle is always floating in the distance, but the world is full of quirky, kind people building a new world and going about their days.
Excellent video. People forget or don't realize the reason why all the darkness hits so hard in Majora is precisely because it has these comforts to contrast against the darkness. Majora really puts its all into making you care and give a shit about these people you're trying to help and save, it makes you love them, cry for them, cheer for them. It gives you so many ways to view different perspectives of their lives, allows you to fail them in various ways and kick yourself so youll try harder next time. Majora is a game about heartbreak, but also about healing. People forget about that healing aspect too much.
Both MM and OoT are the epitome of my childhood. I LOVE your analysis. Although I left OoT feeling fulfilled, MM was more comforting because of how intimate you get with the characters and how you heal them. I do believe MM has Link go through grief as well, and after going through my own trauma, both as a child and as an adult, post traumatic growth is real and Link goes through this and conquerors it all. ❤
Majora's Mask has probably the most humor out of any Zelda game. So much of it is just funny, from the Gorons being bad baby sitters, the Zoras all being fanboys for a band, the two kingdoms that have been at war for so long they're now all skeletons, or just really silly stuff like the Gorman brothers or the annoyingly cheerful sound the postman makes whenever you talk to him. I agree with you, people have really mischaracterized this game.
Holy crap dude. This is one of the most in depth and "deep" videos I've ever watched, hats off to you.
Whoa I havent had a rival since high school tennis! But im with it haha, sounds fun
Love the way this all came together. Especially a fan of how you covered the way MM tells its story through mechanics and not just cutscenes. Definitely brought something new to the table with analysis of this game, which isnt easy, and I understand more now why I always felt Majora's Mask was ultimately an encouraging experience before anything else!
And hey that was a very kind endorsement at the end there, didnt expect anything like that, thank you :')
This video expresses why this is my favorite game better than any other I've seen (even Matthewmatosis'). It's not that Majora's Mask is the darkest Zelda; it's the most adult Zelda. The most mature and deeply written, the most sentimental and emotional, and the most willing to not only depict horror but also humanity. There isn't a character in this game who is purely and simply evil, except maybe Majora's Mask itself. It's about love, friendship, time, death, forgiveness, growth, redemption, and supporting the people you love at their lowest lows. Its world and characters are so well realized and such a joy to experience not only for Zelda games, and not only for the time, but for video games in general. To this day I still think it's way ahead of its time.
I love it, its poetic.The game is only so miserable because it has to be so it can be about helpng people find happiness. The fear of death creates the opportunity to grant absolution. This is why ive always loved this game
Interesting video! I've never actually played Majora's Mask (i skipped straight from Link to the Past all the way to Tears of the Kingdom) but it is interesting to see how they took great care to create investment in NPCs that definitely wasn't present in the older games
As somoene who has a video in my head already, poised to make the argument that Botw and TotK are more inspired by 2D than 3D zelda forebears when it comes to a lot of things, I may have to antagonize you into exploring the perspective going from LttP to the contemporary games brought.
If anyone who sees this wants to play the game. There is a mod for the 3ds version that fixes a lot of the very weird changes the they made while keeping the good ones, and adding even a few more really good extras like binding the masks to the dpad. its called "project restoration" and it's the best way to play this great game imo. The 3Ds emulator also has come a long way, and it works with the mod.
How tf does this only have 24k views. It's a well structured, well written, and thought-provoking video
It had 1-4k for the first month it was out and just "exploded" in the last week before quieting down again and has genuinely tested my sense of how youtube works lol.
@@Rosencreutzzz I honestly thought it was going to be well over 100k before I saw the view count
@@yeet76231 Well... uh... wish granted?
I acctually like the premise of the video and the video because the discord around majoras mask is "oh dude majoras mask is the spooky Zelda game" Sometimes I feel that like 50% of zelda fans havent played majoras mask and just talk out of their ass.
I only played it for like 10 hours and I really feel that you make a good point in this video.
(Haven't watched the video yet) For lack of a better way to put it, the atmosphere majora's mask set has affected me far more than any other zelda game has. It's the only zelda game where I was actually made to think a bit about the story and the events that occurred.
It's too bad it's so hard to actually _play_ it. The gamecube version has _horrendous_ fps issues, the switch has uncomfortable input delay, and the N64 is impractical to get access to.
I realize this might have been more fitting as a general comment than a reply but, alas, here I am lol
Or maybe they did in fact play it, did in fact find it as disturbing as the devs intended, and just don't share your opinion.
@@ElFreakinCid Every zelda is the darkest zelda game
I always kind of tilt my head when people say that this game is about gloom and doom and stuff like that. Sure the game is more upfront with its darker elements than OoT's more nuanced approach, but at the end of both games you're saving the day. The dreariness of Termina isn't the point, it's the obstacle.
By the end of a thorough playthrough, Link's returned spring to the mountains, purified the swamp, united a couple, defended the ranch, rescued babies, soothed the undead, restored the fairies, resolved political discourse, cured a spider curse, and literally saved the world. And even if you don't do it all in the final cycle, the ending treats itself like you did. And with such an emphasis on the Bomber Notebook (especially in the remake), one thing is clear: this game is about helping people. The salesman's line at the end: "my, you've certainly made a lot of people happy" always stuck with me for that.
Each time you randomly shoot Sakon in the video i burst out laughing way harder than I should
I'm not gonna lie, I love horror and spooky things so that's part of the reason I love MM. But I can't deny that its lasting impact as my favorite Zelda game is because of all the characters. The only time I've ever referred to the the "Cucco Lady" as that was before I ever played MM. Since playing it, she's always Anju. Even when I replay OoT, it's always Anju. It's always Guru-Guru. -To this day I await a new iteration of Kafei-
For as much as I love how creepy this game can get, the impact the people of Termina have is profound. In a constant three day cycle, it's so easy to just dismiss all of them. What does helping them matter if it just gets undone? But somehow, that never really happens. Even if it all gets undone, I can help and give them happiness for this short time. I just can't bring myself to stop caring for them.
It really shows you should be nice to everyone you meet because you never know the kind of impact it can have on someone's life.
Tingle inflation
Also, I think the juxtaposition of a real world with real people and the creepiness of the game is a good insight on what makes things truly unsettling and scary to begin with.
Currently playing Majora's Mask for the first time so I won't watch in case of spoilers.
But I'm commenting and liking anyway. You're making a great job so far in your analysis.
Thanks for posting this.
N64 or 3DS? Also, how’s it going so far?
@@gabe5918 I'm emulating N64 on PC. Really enjoying the game and themes, but I find some mechanics kinda clunky (I still have to figure out the notebook thing). Currently I am on the Zoras' region, but I think I will do some side quests...
I wish i was you
Hope you completed it by now?
Aww, you changed the thumbnail. I loved the old cutesy one.
The Zelda team knocked it out the park with MM. I just wish they were given more time, if I recall they said it was rushed for a deadline. Imagine what else they could’ve done
28:25, okay you got a good laugh out of me there, Rosencreutz
Thanks it came to me in a dream.
Yet, you’ve never been the ruler of your own dreams.
i would say three of the six masks you marked as "one use" hardly even qualify. the mailman mask actually has a couple of things it enables, since it allows you to get the letter from kafei's mother, as well as look inside mailboxes. the keaton mask has a couple of different interactions, but the quiz you receive when you summon keaton can pull from many different questions, so there's an element of reusability there (if you really want to test your majora's mask knowledge, i suppose). the don gero mask is almost comparable to kafei's mask in that it involves a complicated quest that requires you to visit two of the game's dungeons to complete, in addition to tracking down the other two frogs that aren't minibosses. while there might be singular discrete rewards for these masks, they require a lot of experimentation to actually get that reward (plus, who doesn't like to dance while waiting for boss animations?)
Looking inside mailboxes gets you a heart one time and then after that 1 green rupee per checking. It doesn't do anything with Kafei's mother to my memory. You're giving a letter *to* her, not getting one from her, and that can be done without the hat.
And yeah, the Keaton one is "content" but it is one reward and one conversation if done "right"
My main point in circling them was that they give a single reward and don't have an "adventure function" like the bomb mask or bunny hood.
The Don Gero one is one I was more hesitant to add, but most of what you do with it is revisiting things you'll expressly do otherwise, like fighting the dungeon frog minibosses. If anything, it incentivizes a particular path through one of the cycles, and I suppose that is more content. I probably lean toward your argument for that one.
As a child, I was extremely scared of the horror elements in this game, but unlike other games they never deterred me from carrying on with the game because the interpersonal interactions, characters themselves and their communities were in the end truly the things that made the game so special for me. Not to say the horror is bad, quite the opposite, but as a kid who hated horror I think it really is something that the game made me jump over my own shadow and fight through the horror just to see these characters finally prosper
I have played this game many times but your narration makes it seem all new again. Well written and you have a great voice for videos! I never thought to think of this as cozy but it’s definitely a comfort game so it makes sense. This is my favorite Zelda game next to OoT.
15:09 hard disagree, one of the final lines in the game, and one that really stood out to me is the lunar kid asking "Your true face... What kind of... face is it? I wonder... The face under the mask... Is that... your true face?"
That line is the entire key to one of the central themes, hence why its so cryptic and significant
Ah this game gave me shivers as a kid. I remember how I followed Anju on the 2nd day and you know cut animations be... she suddenly whipped out kafei's mask on me and that gave me sudden chills lol I always used to run up to kafei, get in his path and go in first person so as he's walking towards me, I could clip through his mask to see what he looked like when I first was curious as to who he was. Hell, I thought it was a girl at first!
Majoras mask video essays are my favorite category of youtube videos
I think the great thing about majora‘s mask is that all the characters whether you interact with them, or not have such well written behavioral patterns that they feel like real people in a lived in world that could exist without your interference, which makes it all the more important to the player to stop the moon from crashing because the people in the game feel all the more real
I didn't have an n64 growing up so when I got a 3ds as a teenager, I picked up MM3D. I absolutely loved it. It was such a fun experience, I did all of the masks not knowing about fierce deity and kafei and anju's quest made me cry. I watched them get married and be with each other as the world ended.
I adore majora's mask! But while i do think its unsettling sometimes, and i dont like that i have a time limit or that everything i do is erased once i go back... But i understand wholeheartly why it is that way on lore wise, but i also felt connected with these characters as well, i wanted them to succeed, to thrive and to be happy! Much more than any other zelda characters in other games!
This game tought me the importance of time management - something that you hate as a kid but learn to appreciate and work with as an adult
29:15 If I were in Link's shoes and I just saw the Great Deku Tree die after being the last one inside I would probably run away as fast as possible too.
It's awesome to see that other people get why this has been my favorite zelda game since childhood, thanks for this one.
Majora's Mask has always been my favorite, even when I was a kid and couldn't figure out how to do the first three days (wasn't a bright kid I guess), I'd just watch that intro over and over and wonder around, mystified at the world. It was always just more intriguing than OoT (although the adult timeline did intrigue me, as I never made it to Jabu Jabu's belly as a 6 year old)
"Metroidvania-esque" that's adventure games in general.
Zelda is an action adventure and have this kind of progress since the first game.
This video sums up why Majora is fascinating, nowadays a lot of games have NPCs with schedules, but most of them fail at making me care about them, while Majora makes me love almost all of them, even the ones with small problems are charismatic enough for you to really want to help them.
I disagree, only in that there are plenty of adventure games that have no backtracking or items/abilities that concretely alter one's ability to reach areas, but I will concede there's probably a better term out there, or at least one that isn't as malleable.
Art is meant to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed -i forgot where this quote came from
on the topic of the "perfect" cycle, if you resolve mutually exclusive events with "which results in the largest positive outcome" then you actually can do everything in a single cycle. It's pretty rare for an event to 100% overlap with another with no time to spare in the time it would take for you to resolve one, especially with the inverted song of time. You can't do everything, sure, but you can get pretty close
I don't even know how many 3-day cycles I spent as a kid just mooching around Clock Town like I lived there lol. I think it was that 'downtime' element that brought me back to the game- Clock Town was always like this haven in the middle of all the chaos that felt like home, and no other location in any other game had given me that same feeling before. After every dungeon I always looked forward to coming back home to Clock Town and just existing there for a bit. The cozy side is suck a good juxtaposition to such a melancholy game because it really drives home just how much is at stake. You can't help but build up a connection with this world and feel a need to protect it, not just because you're the hero on a quest but because you grow to love this place and these people and that Game Over screen of the moon crashing into Clock Town is SO much more harrowing when you know every person in that town by name and face and have followed them and learned their troubles and solved them.
The eerie feel of the game keeps you on your toe but that's the fuzzy feeling of helping those people that really keeps you coming back. There are a lot of nice moments created by the cycle thing like knowing the result of the abduction from early cycles or seeing Mutoh raging against the moon alone as the fatal hour is coming that really make you feel for these npcs. I never 100% games but with the masks being such a nice and refreshing reward and the town being so fleshed out getting to do the perfect three final days seeing the good ending of all the plotlines I can solve before going to the moon and beating the boss was one of my most rewarding video game experience.
I agree with majority mask, being “”cozy ocarina of time was my first Zelda title and my first scary memory in ocarina of time was when I was in the lost Woods looking for Saria to learn Sarria’s song and right when I walked into the hidden Meadow, a wolf popped up right in front of me. I was about seven years old at the time, and that scared the Jesus out of me. For the next couple of years, I was scared every time I went through a door in any dungeon in majora’s mask I got over my fear of redeads like likes mummies and those hands that get you in the ceiling when I did the ikana canyon stage to get the mirror shield 🛡️
Glad Im not the only one who avoided the forest temple when I was a kid as long as humanly possible because of the music and atmosphere
Just to interject briefly, at about 6:40 - I had NO idea, after 23 years, that you could give a letter to the weird toilet man. I thought you had to give a land deed from one of the Deku Scrub merchants to him.
I've always thought the ending of MM had a lot more joy and hope than the ending of OoT. The joyful dancing in the OoT credits is undercut with so much sadness. Link, the Sages, King Zora, and Mido are so separate from the happiness. Navi's departure and Link getting sent to the past are so heartwrenching.
In MM, while Link is separate from so much of the joy once again, I getba stronger feeling that he's part of it. Having him carved into the tree with his friends reminds me that even though Link is moving on, he's made lifelong friends in Termina. Also, the disappearance of the moon, the wedding, the festival, and the simple relief of finally having a new day is an amazing release of tension after all the stress of MM.
Anyway, for a long time I've broadly thought of OoT as "the lighter game with a sadder ending" and MM as "the darker game with the happier ending." I really appreciated that you are highlight the emotional depth present in this duology. The games are such masterpieces that painting them with broad strokes really undersells the creativity and emotional nuance within their narratives.
Thank you!
In Termina Link will actually be remembered as a hero unlike in Hyrule.
@struttux5156 Yes, I agree that's a huge part of the difference between the endings. And one of many reasons I don't want Termina to be a dream world that disappears when Link leaves. 😭
@@narutardednerd I said it for the longest time but Link should've STAYED in Termina. Not only for his hero status but he has actual friends there unlike in Hyrule where he just have Saria who is permanent child and Zelda who is a royal. Those other girls who liked him just seemed interested in him as a boyfriend. I really have no idea why he was in such a hurry away from there
@struttux5156 If I were to write a post-MM fic, it would be that Link goes back to Hyrule and defeats Ganondorf again when he grows up, that after his travels he was able to embrace his remaining childhood and deal with som of his trauma. I would probably have him get together with Zelda (even if that's not realistic LOL). I would want a portal between Termina and Hyrule to be open around the time of the festival every year so Link could visit.
I do like the idea of Link staying in Termina, and I would definitely read a fic like that (or maybe even write one as a separate AU of I wasn't so lazy). He made so many genuine friends around Clock Town. I think he and Romani could be cute together, too, with a strong basis in friendship. Basically, I see Romani/Link the way most people see Mal/Link, but I prefer Romani a lot.
I could also imagine a story where Link goes back to Hyrule, becomes Zelda's personal knight, defeats Ganondorf again, and then moves away to Termina when Zelda marries. I guess one of the fun things about the game ending with Link leaving is it leaves room.for fans to imagine Links adventures after the game.
Just as an aside, I'm a huge ZeLinker, but I like a lot of other Zelda ships, and I respect people who don't care about ships. 😅 Hoepfully that explains my tangents LOL.
@@narutardednerd Only thing we DO know is he somehow becomes the hero shade in Twilight Princess. There is a fan made alternate ending to Majora here on RUclips which has a time skip and shows him in the same armor he wears as the shade. Being allowed to imagine things on your own is always great but it would've also been so nice if they had done just one more game about him on the N64 back then
“Well, that one took a while to make”
That line had me actually saying, “NOO” out loud. What an investing video! I wasn’t ready for it to end.
Three of my favourite games - Majora's Mask, Vintage Story and Rain World - all take place in dark settings, but they're all also super cozy to me.
I think it's because any safety and warmth in such worlds is amplified by the fact that it offers genuine safety and warmth against the terrors of the world.
Whether you're wandering Clock Town on the first day, you've just constructed your first house and are sitting by the fire cooking stew, or are resting in a shelter you managed to get into before the rain arrived, they all feel very cozy in certain scenarios where the game truly feels 'safe'.
When I was a kid, I used to go fight all the bosses as quickly as possible so I could enjoy “perfect “ termina
The main thing I always think about when I think about Majora's Mask (as opposed to the conversations around MM) has always been the Bombers Notebook.
I spent to much time as a kid trying to do Notebook stuff that I hadn't advanced far enough to finish because I didn't really want to do the main quest I just wanted to do that stuff..
for real when i come back to majora's mask, it's not for the "main quest". it's fun but the part that always stands out in my mind and the reason i come back to it is because of all the side quests that bring you around the world to see what everyone's up to and be a part of their lives
I'm surprised that you taught me something new about this game after all these years. I have 100% completed everything in Majoras Mask right down the very last heart piece, but I never knew that you could blow Sakon up before.
I played the narrel Hd texture pack, and when i saw the sun go down on yhe first day at romani ranch , seeing the colors of the sky shift to dark blues, watching the sun settle behind the surrounding trees, and the birds and sounds of nature all around.. probably one of the most I’ve ever been immersed in a video game. I just stared at the sky for maybe an hour.
Majora was my very first Zelda. I got the gamecube collection disk for a birthday and as I scrolled through the selection of games I could play on it, I was almost immediately enamored by the logo of Majora, and upon booting it up I was forever in love with it. It's still my favourite despite having completed almost every other zelda and even being able to play oot around the same time. Majora was also the first zelda I ever completed, sadly I couldn't get the romani mask so I ended up having to do it the hard way as a kid haha
I think something that definitely helped my first time experience with Majora’s Mask (and yes specifically an experience not an actual playthrough because to this day I still do not own a single console that would allow me to play and finish the entirety of Majora’s Mask) was my tendency to just stumble upon random instalments in a series, like how before knowing what the Percy Jackson or the Harry Potter series were, I stumbled upon the fifth book in both series and got really confused but really invested because they honestly just kinda seemed well made at the time. In the same way, discovering Majora’s Mask while having no clue about the EPIC JOURNEY you go on in OoT really helped make Majora’s Mask feel a lot less like something that was trying to outdo what came before. And because of that, moments like going into the moon just became the most inspiring moments for me creatively.
As in, you watched a Let’s Play, or you used an emulator?
Did I just get Uriel flashed? A video about my number two favorite game and I get memed on with my favorite game? Subbed
This is something I have been trying to put into words about MM for a while now, and what makes it unique in the series. I do wish more Zelda games would explore this kind of character development in storytelling again.
In all the other games(atleast the 3d ones) when things get dark it gives you the sense that the sun will come out again even if we the hero have to make it come out.
Ikana kingdom is literally the beksinski panting region. And even the resolution is about as happy as the psych movie when the ying yang killer is begging to get into heaven during a dream sequence as she's dieing in real life and being told no.
I just wanted to say that I really appreciated this kind of fresh look at this game. I think I was also really caught in the "Scary/Eeriness" of MM as well. I used to really enjoy playing MM, but one thing now that bugs me that didn't is that it's timed. It didn't used to bother me, it just made it feel more insistent that you get things done. Now, as an adult I really struggle with the timed aspect, it honestly just makes me feel extremely overwhelmed because there's so much to do in the game and literally so little time to do it. Couple that with the parts where you need other items to get farther and it would just ruin the experience of it for me. I do still love the music though, and it still gives me a sense of nostalgia because this game was on N64 and I played on that console when I was little. it's like remembering a piece of my childhood. I don't think I ever have fully 100% the game. I've beaten it, but not with the Fierce Diety Mask, and haven't gotten all the skutulas.
the final turn in mario party reminds me a lot of majoras mask and its final day. all the shops are locked down, most things dont properly work, and almost all that you do won't matter in the long run (since theres no long run), its really unsettling (to me at least)
Finished this game only last year for the second time. Considering I've been playing it since my brother gave it to me in 2002 I was sorry I never gave It a proper go. To someone thinking of giving it a go, make it your mission to find all the masks. That's where half the story is.
Sad game. Emotional game, but one of the best in the series. That's coming from an OOT fan. ❤
I agree with basically everything in this video, I just wanted to add, this game really did scare the crap out of me when I was kid. That was part of why I loved it so much, I was always fascinated by games (or any kind of storytelling medium, really) that could creep me out like that. It wasn't just -scary-, Majora's Mask could really get under your skin.
When I played Oot in my youth, I too was scared of the forest temple music to the point of going back to child link for months just to explore around.
I love this video so much- it explains why I've always had people referring to this entry as the "darkest", or even hearing that from Eiji Anouma when he proposed remaking the "darkest" entry of the zelda series. I always had fond memories of a kid playing this game because of how in-tune I became with everyone's schedules. I can't tell you how many times I would see Anju walking around during the rainy day, walk next to her, and try to cheer her up when she sat by the bench. To me, it always has been the most "human" zelda. Nothing else comes close to the sense of how connected you feel with... everyone. People talking about how dark and scary it was always made me feel like they had missed the point- like they hadn't understood the game like I did. By the time I had gotten through those events, I was able to remove myself from those feelings because of the depth to the storytelling. That's why Ikana Canyon was always my favorite area. They took the things I was most afraid of as a kid and made them sympathetic. It's beautifully done, and I'm so happy to hear someone else appreciating the game from that level to.
The Gibdo mask scene was the equivalent of fighting deadhands for me as a child, considering I was only eight at the time of the game coming out. I was able to fully appreciate the complexity of this game by the age of 10 and my love for it just grew as the years went on. It's truly sad that many people see it as a Zelda game not worth playing simply because of the complexity, but I can see where they're coming from. Compared to almost every other Zelda game before and after it, it really does make you remember key locations and events, leading to a confusing mess if you don't use the bomber notebook.
Regardless, it's still one of my favorite Zelda games to date, only slightly outshined by Twilight Princess and Ocarina Of Time. I've been playing OOT randomizers since the first build was released and I'm slowly starting to play more MM randomizers to get myself reacquainted with the game itself. It really does give the games more life and replayability.
I’m so happy I found your channel, I’m excited to watch your pentiment video too
Keep up the good work