When The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask was released twenty years ago last week, it was with less than a year before the N64 was to be replaced by the GameCube. Although technically a quickie sequel, created in a single year using the same (albeit upgraded) graphical engine as Ocarina Of Time, Majora responded to the question of how to follow one of the most important games in the medium's history by taking its predecessor's epic scope and making it smaller and more intimate.
Producing a masterpiece on your first attempt can be as dangerous in many ways as a failure: not only do you have to deal with massively disproportionate expectations of brilliance for your next work, but are also bound by how much of the original can be changed or replaced without attracting ire.
Producing a masterpiece on your first attempt can be as dangerous in many ways as a failure: not only do you have to deal with massively disproportionate expectations of brilliance for your next work, but are also bound by how much of the original can be changed or replaced without attracting ire.
Moreso than the Mario series, which has kept the same basic rules of play but drastically evolved the framework in which they are employed every few releases, the Zelda series struck gold with its first iteration and bar the inevitable enhancements that come with changing technology, has produced many masterpieces but few offering major evolutions of a tried-and-tested formula, with the most recent entry, Breath Of The Wild, going all the way back to the very first game from 1986 for inspiration.
Striking the right balance between new and the old
can strongly depend on the reception of your first entry, not just
in positive or negative terms, but how the scenario was received,
the specific mechanics and even whether the removal of one
poorly-received element of play can end up adversely affecting part of
the game that was universally beloved. Majora's achievements there mark it out as the greatest of all gaming sequels, a perfect example of how familiar gameplay can be made to feel brand new by employing it in a subtly different way. Majora uses its mask system to add subtle
variation and depth to its scenarios, despite sticking closely to the
Zelda formula of items, dungeons and sidequests. It is the context
in which it places those familiar mechanics where the difference is made.
Majora picks up shortly after Ocarina's end, where Zelda sent Link back to his childhood. The problem is that Link is not a child anymore: he has fought monsters and saved lives and worlds. Worse still, no-one around him is aware of the battles he fought to protect them. He goes in search of the friend with whom he shared his adventures, the only one who can understand what he has been through. From the very beginning, directors Eiji Aonuma and Yoshiaki Koizumi hold the events of Ocarina up to a mirror, revealing their opposite reflections. Ocarina's happy ending for the many of Hyrule becomes a tragedy for the individual who made it happen.
The use of these small reflections, showing us new sides to familiar things - remember that masterstroke of subversion when Link finally arrives for his final battle on the moon? - is key to how Majora escapes Ocarina's shadow while remaining true to the beloved elements at the series' core. Being forced to work under tight conditions has inspired many famous feats of creativity and in having to produce in under two years a sequel to a game considered one of the greatest in the medium's history, Aonuma and Koizumi managed something remarkable, taking everything beloved about Ocarina – its scale, its epic interpretation of the Zelda mythology, its sprawling dungeons – and turning them upside down. Where its predecessor told the story of one boy saving the world, Majora presented a boy discovering the stories of people who made the world worth saving. Each inhabitant of Termina is to their world what a dungeon was to Ocarina, yielding rewards for solving their mysteries.
Where in Ocarina those rewards were items to empower the hero, in Majora the rewards are masks, representative of the people who gave them to you as thanks for your benevolence. Majora has items too, of course, but most are recycled and feel more like recovering something lost than gaining something new. The game presents its masks in the way many tribal cultures see them, as a captured spirit whose face can be worn to gain their power and wisdom. When Link solves a puzzle using one of the masks he has acquired, it is no longer a solitary hero overcoming an obstacle, it is him drawing on his friends and memories for the strength to push forward on his quest to save them before their world ends.
This idea of heroes being built by their memories and friends is at the heart of the game's story: both Link and antagonist Skull Kid begin their stories as outsiders. But where Link goes in search of friends who can help him define himself, Skull Kid shuns his friends in search of glory. Where Link acquires power by forming bonds with those around him, Skull Kid is betrayed and used by the mask he thought would give him alone great power.
Even players are brought into this theme at the start of the game: when Link is transformed into a Deku scrub so early on, it is discomforting to see an old friend with whom so many adventures have been shared now transformed and weakened. Nintendo are asking: are you brave enough to push through that fear to save your friend? Will you turn off the console and leave Link to his fate, or show the real strength of your friendship in helping him no matter how he looks or how weak he has become?
So many of Majora's stories offer similar vignettes of humanity: an ignored, wounded soldier looking for validation. An old lady being mugged on her way home. An overworked postman, a dancer's spirit needing to pass on his art before he can rest in peace, star-crossed lovers divided by a cruel twist of fate. Ah, Kafei and Anju, whose final act on the eve of the world's end was to affirm their love for each other. In how many of our cold gamers' hearts are they still sitting in wait for the morning together?
Majora picks up shortly after Ocarina's end, where Zelda sent Link back to his childhood. The problem is that Link is not a child anymore: he has fought monsters and saved lives and worlds. Worse still, no-one around him is aware of the battles he fought to protect them. He goes in search of the friend with whom he shared his adventures, the only one who can understand what he has been through. From the very beginning, directors Eiji Aonuma and Yoshiaki Koizumi hold the events of Ocarina up to a mirror, revealing their opposite reflections. Ocarina's happy ending for the many of Hyrule becomes a tragedy for the individual who made it happen.
The use of these small reflections, showing us new sides to familiar things - remember that masterstroke of subversion when Link finally arrives for his final battle on the moon? - is key to how Majora escapes Ocarina's shadow while remaining true to the beloved elements at the series' core. Being forced to work under tight conditions has inspired many famous feats of creativity and in having to produce in under two years a sequel to a game considered one of the greatest in the medium's history, Aonuma and Koizumi managed something remarkable, taking everything beloved about Ocarina – its scale, its epic interpretation of the Zelda mythology, its sprawling dungeons – and turning them upside down. Where its predecessor told the story of one boy saving the world, Majora presented a boy discovering the stories of people who made the world worth saving. Each inhabitant of Termina is to their world what a dungeon was to Ocarina, yielding rewards for solving their mysteries.
Where in Ocarina those rewards were items to empower the hero, in Majora the rewards are masks, representative of the people who gave them to you as thanks for your benevolence. Majora has items too, of course, but most are recycled and feel more like recovering something lost than gaining something new. The game presents its masks in the way many tribal cultures see them, as a captured spirit whose face can be worn to gain their power and wisdom. When Link solves a puzzle using one of the masks he has acquired, it is no longer a solitary hero overcoming an obstacle, it is him drawing on his friends and memories for the strength to push forward on his quest to save them before their world ends.
This idea of heroes being built by their memories and friends is at the heart of the game's story: both Link and antagonist Skull Kid begin their stories as outsiders. But where Link goes in search of friends who can help him define himself, Skull Kid shuns his friends in search of glory. Where Link acquires power by forming bonds with those around him, Skull Kid is betrayed and used by the mask he thought would give him alone great power.
Even players are brought into this theme at the start of the game: when Link is transformed into a Deku scrub so early on, it is discomforting to see an old friend with whom so many adventures have been shared now transformed and weakened. Nintendo are asking: are you brave enough to push through that fear to save your friend? Will you turn off the console and leave Link to his fate, or show the real strength of your friendship in helping him no matter how he looks or how weak he has become?
So many of Majora's stories offer similar vignettes of humanity: an ignored, wounded soldier looking for validation. An old lady being mugged on her way home. An overworked postman, a dancer's spirit needing to pass on his art before he can rest in peace, star-crossed lovers divided by a cruel twist of fate. Ah, Kafei and Anju, whose final act on the eve of the world's end was to affirm their love for each other. In how many of our cold gamers' hearts are they still sitting in wait for the morning together?
The three-day
cycle takes a familiar criticism of the series (NPCs repeating
themselves over and over again) and gives us the chance to break them
free of that loop. The world is not
saved by conquering dark warlords, but helping each vulnerable citizen,
one at a time. Here, the symbolism of the city at Termina's heart being
represented by a giant clock becomes all too apparent. One of Nintendo's
greatest skills is in putting little human frailties into even the most
peripheral of their characters, but never before have we been allowed
to explore and help them overcome those vulnerabilities.
Modern gamers may snort at the game's N64-era graphics - even when slightly improved for the 2015 3DS remaster - but no HD technology
can make a cast of characters as warm and affecting as Majora. This is a series which has never been defined by its technology. Ocarina Of Time was a masterpiece for being the ultimate expression of the fantasy quest themes underpinning its gameplay. Majora is a perfect sequel for being a story of a hundred stories, reminding that even if there can only be one Hero Of Time, every life is a quest unto itself.
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