November 23,
1998. A pivotal date in Zelda history. And my only good memory of Grade 8. The
world was introduced to
The Legend of
Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It was a beautiful masterpiece, and it still is
today. Two years after was the direct sequel
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. The pivotal item in both games
was a musical instrument called the Ocarina of Time. In OoT, it played the role
of traveling between key locations in Hyrule as well as opening up the Door of
Time in the Temple
of Time. In MM, it was
used to manipulate time itself. I feel certain elements in OoT were improved
upon in MM. Following are what I feel MM did that OoT didn’t do. This is purely
an opinion.
Song
of Time: You would think that a tune named the Song of Time would allow for
time travel. That wasn’t offered in OoT. MM, however, allowed for that. The
Song of Time had 2 additional versions aside from the original, which allowed
you to restart to the Dawn of The First Day: The Song of Inverted Time, which
slowed the flow of time 3 times; and the Song of Double Time, which let you
jump 12 hours ahead.
Masks:
The mask side quest in OoT, along with the Happy Mask Salesman, allowed you to
sell certain masks, make some money, and return the earnings back to the
Salesman. Except for the Mask of Truth, no other mask had any special effects,
particularly the Bunny Hood, purported to make you run faster. Well, MM had
masks as its primary focus. Each mask had a special effect, be it
transformation properties or other effects. And, yes, the Bunny Hood did allow
you to run 1.5 times faster than normal. I’m sure many of us had that
permanently assigned to a C-Button.
Epona: I’m sure a lot of us wanted to ride
Epona as Young Link. Traveling Hyrule as a child was hard until you learned
certain songs to warp you anywhere. MM allowed you to ride Epona as Young Link.
And they made acquiring her a requirement for the game. Right at the opening
cutscene, you see the Skull Kid steal your horse as you grab onto her leg to
get her back.
Time Element: Time only played a role in OoT
when you needed to go back & forth between Young Link & Adult Link.
Yes, if you hit a Gossip Stone, you got the current time in Hyrule, but that
was more of an FYI. MM played up the time element so well, right down to the
hour. A prime example is completing your Bomber’s Notebook and helping all 20
of those entries. This is the primary reason why I love MM so much.
These are the reasons I feel The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was created.
It’s a great game. Say what you want about the lack of dungeons. What it lacks
in dungeons it more than makes up for in all the side quests. There’s more than
enough to keep you busy. Feel free to sound off on other things I may have
missed in comparing the 2 N64 titles.
