Zelda TOTK Countdown: The Maddening Maze of MAJORA’S MASK (Patreon)

I feel like everyone I know is excitedly getting ready for Tears of the Kingdom. For long-time fans of the Zelda series, the arrival of a new entry is just about one of the most important things imaginable. It’s a schedule-clearing event! And I’ve even been going back and playing a lot of the older entries in anticipation. But what I also love about this go-round is how many people I know who are going to buy it even though they’ve never played a Zelda game before. Why is this suddenly happening? Perhaps this is just anecdotal, but so many people I know bought a Switch / Animal Crossing at the start of the pandemic and suddenly they had their first modern console. And since then, they have started getting into more games like Fortnite, Hades, etc. And now, it’s time to get into that whole Zelda thing! Thus all of us have been talking about it (there’s even a massive group chat). But suddenly there’s these simple questions from newcomers and I’m suddenly trying to explain why this series has been so much fun..

What kind of game is it? (World Traveling Adventure!) Do you need to have played the others? (Nope!) Do you need to be good at fighting or aiming? (Kinda? You'll get the hang of it) What do I really need to know before jumping in!??!?! (Not much!) So don’t worry, this little essay isn’t going to be a beginner’s guide, especially as I’m sure someone else would do a much better job of that. No, this is a discussion of the core essence of the games. Specifically, how the Zelda series is probably the best working piece of fiction that examines the very tricky art of giving you “the same but different.” Which is actually an incredibly difficult thing to pull off well.

To get into it, at its core, there’s always the same hyper-general framework for the stories that have been repeating through time and different worlds. You don’t need to bring your left brain into it to figure out the continuity and timeline (especially as it will hurt). It’s more about repeating thematic motifs and the oral tradition. To wit, there’s always a hero named Link (that you can rename FART or something), who is some sort of hero of time (kinda). There’s always a Princess Zelda type in need of aid (kinda). And there’s always a great evil infecting the land (kinda). You travel around, sometimes on a horse or boat or glider. You encounter various people. You do dungeons. Collect items. And use all the things to save the literal day. Throughout the games, there are some tropes and iconographies that show up in repetition. You have Death Mountains, Dry Deserts, and Poisoned Ponds. You get familiar faces in Gorons and Garudos and Ganondorfs. Thus, every time a new game is coming us regulars go wonder what of these beloved aspects will make an appearance this time? Will there be Zoras? Will there be a master sword quest? And of course, what inane fetch quest or time challenge will drive us completely insane? For there are always the big similarities.

But the key to the success of the Zelda series is that something is always so crucially different.

It’s never just dragging you through the same tired beats. Nor is it never fully replicating the form or central strategy that worked last time, either. Instead, it branches out in a new direction. For instance, After the landmark success of the first game, 1987’s The Legend of Zelda, they could have easily just copied the successful top-down world format for its sequel. But instead they opted for a 2D side-scrolling structure and… it was bad and not well-liked! But that’s okay. What I love is how much this didn’t deter them from further experimentation. Instead, failure became a part of the series’ systematic approach because it was just a learning experience. Because then they fully rebounded with Super Nintendo’s classic entry A Link To The Past, then created some incredible Game Boy entries, and then crested into the stratosphere with much beloved Ocarina of Time for the N64, which was such a landmark development into the possibilities of 3D world adventure games. But it was the follow-up to the game that is probably my favorite example of this risky, ever-changing dynamic.

Because nothing seemed more different than 2000’s MAJORA’S MASK.

To be clear, it was a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time and I was so excited for what that meant. But at the time, I kept hearing weird things, probably due to the fact it seemed a little inaccessible to general gamers on first go. And I’ll admit… my first reaction to it was wholly embarrassing in retrospect. I was thrown by the difference. It was darker, weirder, far more open ended and confusing. I had this deep sense of “just tell me what to do!” And the 3 day time limit just gave this crippling sense of anxiety that I couldn’t really identify, I was just certain I was going to mess it all up (instead of realizing the same mechanic means you CAN’T mess it all up). In short, I never got comfortable with the core game loop. I don’t even remember how far I got. I just remember that I was confused and not willing to play something that felt so much less “epic” in scope… In short, I was a naive young man. And even though I already had multiple playthroughs of Ocarina, I was convinced I wanted more of that AKA nothing more than a nostalgic victory lap… I was everything I don’t like about artistic consumption nowadays. I didn’t grow with the art in front of me.

But as time went on, I heard more and more people talking about the game being great. And by the rise of popular online game journalism, it was regarded as nothing short of a stone-cold masterpiece, and easily one of the most influential games of all time... I would feel mortally embarrassed about the way I bounced off it as I kept hearing about its influence non-stop. And why was it so influential, anyway? As always, it’s about the central mechanic.

No, not running around collecting items (though you do do that), but genuine time travel. Where Ocarina used the familiar “going back and forth between two worlds” mechanic. Majora’s Mask is giving you a different, much more high-pressure task: in three days the moon is going to hit the earth. You have to stop it. Everything around you is happening on a scripted clock until that point. Townspeople. Their lives. Monsters. Various dooms abound. But what changes is the way you affect the world around you and WHEN you affect it. Because the timing so, so matters. It’s one of those things that sounds amazing in theory, but I assure you, it’s so, so hard to pull off. But in the end, Majora’s Mask is a masterful story about time loops and their often heartbreaking ends. Granted, it’s also a massive, often maddening puzzle. But going into this playthrough, I was determined to 100% this fucker. And I did. Every heart piece. Every mask. Every little nook and cranny. All of it done… And it was sometimes completely enraging!

Like I think I’d be doing the right thing or have the solution and so much trial and error. I’d look up the path and be like “wait, the answer is THAT?” Like the idea of doing Anju and Kafei quest twice to get the postman hat is just devious. But it’s also a reminder of how much games just used to be like this in general. Some of my favorites were the old LucasArts SCUMM engine games (Day of the Tentacle is probably the top spot). There was just this idea of patience built into what you were doing. Sure, sometimes, it amounts to a process of elimination clicking.  But when you start to see the seams of it all it can lead to these most miraculous places. And the EUREKA moment and the elation that comes from it, along with the realization of what the game designers were putting together like the punchline of a joke. Yes, you need to use the crowbar to get the gum. Yes that wine will age into vinegar, etc. But as is often the case in this particular game, it leads to some heartbreaking and poetic moments. Like the same Anju and Kafei quest with them staying in the room as the moon comes down is UGH, UGH, UGH. It’s that specific quest with its randomness, hidden moments, goofy bits, annoying wait times, even more annoying repetition, and hugely satisfying character moments that represents the full nature of what Majora’s Mask can really do. Because sometimes the success of games isn't about their moment to moment precision. Sometimes they’re about their capacity for the excellence of a given moment. And to this end, it’s no surprise that this simultaneously became one the most batshit and influential games ever made.

The thing about the Zelda series is that it’s made for these kinds of reaches. The follow-up for the GameCube, The Wind Waker - with its cell shading and sailing exploration mechanics - was another game who failed to make proverbial waves, but was still beloved and its classic reputation was further solidified years later with the HD remake. Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword were both hit and miss games (literally) that at least TRIED to take on the motion-control capacity that the Wii allowed, only to learn that path is carpal-tunnel level exhausting. But now, Zelda is finally coming off another mega hit in Breath of the Wild, arguably one of the greatest games ever made. For it’s a masterpiece of world design, fitting every little possible detail of interest into every nook and cranny. The question is always, what’s next? Where do you possibly go from here? What can we REALLY expect from Tears of the Kingdom?

I don’t know. But that’s the spirit of the whole thing. To wit, I’ve gotten a little into watching some Zelda-centric speed runs, but I’ve actually been more into randomized runs, particularly watching Griffin McElroy’s one-hit-kill, Guy Fieri-based attempts over on youtube and it speaks so well to the exact dynamic I keep talking about, in terms of what makes the series special. The randomized element means that you have to keep resolving the game’s larger puzzle in a way that no one ever has before. In that exact spirit, I can’t imagine Tears of the Kingdom will just be “more of the exact same.” Instead, it will hopefully be another great lesson of “the same, but different.” I just genuinely don’t know how it’s going to get there.

Isn’t that grand?

<3HULK