Why Majora’s Mask is the Best/Worst Zelda Game

Almost as divisive as The Wind Waker, the game we’re examining this week is a Zelda title that inspires partisanship amongst the fandom. There are those who will insist that Majora’s Mask changed Zelda in all of the right ways for the better and that no game since has bested it, but there seems to be an equal side who feel that Majora’s Mask strayed too far from the familiar formula for the worse. Like The Wind Waker, this game leads many people claim it as their favorite/least favorite for the exact same reasons, once again showing that we each have a different “recipe” as far as what makes a Zelda game.

This week I’ll cobble together some quotes from the forums and comments that have appeared on this editorial series about Majora’s Mask and try to show how the very same things that Person A loves about the game are what Person B think make it “un-Zelda”.

From the perspective of “the best”
Majora’s Mask came out about a year after Ocarina of Time. This hadn’t happened in the Zelda series since the first two games–The Adventure of Link released a mere year after The Legend of Zelda. There would be a four year gap between the next two games (The Adventure of Link to A Link to the Past) and then another two year gap until Link’s Awakening, and then another five year gap until Ocarina of Time. So for Majora’s Mask to come out so quickly on the heels of Ocarina of Time was a welcome treat. And not only did Majora’s Mask bring a brand new story to the table with the same revolutionary 3D combat style of Ocarina of Time, but it innovated on the series. It brought a new Groundhog Day-esque structure where each three day period would end in disaster, so you had to make sure to return to the first day before it all went wrong. Adding a ticking clock onto Zelda created a brand new experience. You actually felt the urgency of saving the world because you had a specific period of time to do so or else it was game over. The game also brought the NPCs to life for once. No longer were they mere cardboard cutouts simply telling you where to go or what to do next, they actually daily lives for each of those three days. You could watch a simple townsperson live out an entire 72 hour span as if they were a living/breaking human being. But you could be certain that they had some sort of secret or some part of their routine held some piece of a puzzle you needed to figure out. This was altogether new for Zelda, and–sadly–the series has not since returned to this level of detail with regards to the NPCs. Also, leaving Hyrule behind with all of its usual tropes (Princess Zelda, Ganon, the Triforce, the Master Sword, etc.) meant we could truly experience a brand new story and not know which plot point to expect coming down the turnpike.

From the perspective of “the worst”
After the successful transformation of Zelda into a 3D style game, fans were left with their expectations high. Ocarina of Time provided so much of what fans wanted: rescuing princesses, more lore about the Triforce and the creation of Hyrule, more history about the major villain of the series, and a brand new style of gameplay. It was the ultimate Zelda game of its era, not only having all of the important pieces of what makes Zelda “Zelda” to so many fans, but then improving upon those pieces. So when Majora’s Mask came around a mere year later, it was only natural that some fans would be disappointed. Here was a game which simply recycled Ocarina of Time–engine and graphics and all–adding nearly nothing visually new. It just felt “cheap” to some fans, like Nintendo didn’t care enough to actually make a brand new game and instead just reused the stuff the’d already made. And then the things that the game actually did change were things that should not have been changed. Forcing the player to start out playing as a Deku Scrub ruined the fun of playing as the adventurous Link; part of what makes a Zelda game is knowing that you get to go around attacking enemies with your sword. Forcing the player to spend most of the game as people other than Link diluted the “Zelda-ness.” Also, a major feature of Zelda up to this time was the dungeon crawling. Discovering and exploring a large quantity of dungeons was a staple of the series. But not so in Majora’s Mask–here the usual 9+ dungeons were reduced to a mere four (or five if you’re being generous). Instead the focus was on following NPCs around and learning all of their daily routines to solve side quests–many fans were simply not interested in this as it had never been important to a Zelda game before and took away from the usual sword-fighting fun. Also, dropping Link off in a new land with no Princess Zelda, no Triforce, and no Ganon felt alienating–these were some of the things which created the Zelda “flavor”, and they were totally missing.

Conclusion
The very same things that one person loves about Majora’s Mask are the exact same things that another person dislikes about that game. Some fans really appreciate that Majora’s Mask made an effort in breaking the usual formula and avoided the usual Zelda tropes, whereas other Zelda fans feel that in so doing it caused the game to feel “un-Zelda” to them. This is a prime example of the fact that none of us agree complete on what is “Zelda”.

Let me know in the comments below which game I should research for next week.