Opinion: Why Majora's Mask Was Created

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.