Majora's Mask



The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is the sixth installment in the The Legend of Zelda series, released in 2000 for the Nintendo 64. It is preceded by Ocarina of Time and succeeded by Oracle of Ages. The Hero of Time is the main protagonist and Skull Kid is the main antagonist. Termina's monsters are the villainous faction.

It is the sixth game in the series, and the first in the Child Timeline, set very soon after the events of Ocarina of Time. In-game connections between the game and Ocarina of Time are relatively scarce, because of the different setting and story, and include recurring characters like Mask Salesman and Kaepora Gaebora, as well as some of the songs being remembered ("Song of Time", "Epona's Song" and the "Song of Storms"), rather than learned for the first time.

During a Nintendo Direct on November 5, 2014, a remake of the game was announced for Nintendo 3DS, titled Majora's Mask 3D. The remake was released in February 2015.

Synopsis
''The story of Majora's Mask takes place two months after the events of Ocarina of Time. It follows Link, who on a personal quest, ends up in Termina, a world parallel to Hyrule. Upon reaching Termina, Link learns that the world is endangered as the moon will fall into the world in three days and becomes embroiled into a quest to prevent the end of the world.''

Summary
Majora's Mask opens with a scene of Link leaving the land of Hyrule on a "personal quest," searching for his fairy friend, Navi, taking place a few months after the events of Ocarina of Time. His trip is interrupted by the Skull Kid, an imp possessed by a great evil contained in the magical Majora's Mask, which he wears after having stolen it from another traveler with the help of two Fairies: Tatl and Tael. They knock Link off his Horse, Epona, rendering him unconscious. The Skull Kid searches him for goods and finds the Ocarina of Time. When Link awakens, the Skull Kid takes off on Epona with the Ocarina and leads Link on a chase.

When Link catches up with the Skull Kid, he tells Link that he "got rid" of Epona, and uses the dark magic of Majora's Mask to transform Link into a Deku Scrub. He then leaves Link with Tael, while Tatl continues to bully Link; however, Tatl's delay causes her to be separated from her brother and the Skull Kid. She then insists that Link take her with him, so that they can work together to find the Skull Kid and Tael. With limited Deku abilities, Link follows the Skull Kid's path and finds himself inside the Clock Tower of Clock Town, where he meets the Happy Mask Salesman. The Happy Mask Salesman reveals that the Skull Kid stole the Majora's Mask from him and that he can return Link to normal if he finds the Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. He also warns Link that he must leave in 72 hours (three days) so Link must retrieve the items by then. Link then departs in his Deku form finding himself in the parallel world of Hyrule called Termina.

Link is not able to do very much around Clock Town, but with the help of the Great Fairy and Professor Shikashi, he manages to find the Skull Kid hanging around the top of the Clock Tower. Link also hears rumors of the Moon, which has a grimacing and ominous face, steadily coming closer to the Town as Skull Kid pulls it downwards. By midnight on the Final Day before the Mask Salesman's departure, Link manages to reach the top of the Clock Tower for a face-off with the Skull Kid. Upon arriving, Tatl reunites with Tael and asks Skull Kid to return the Majora's Mask. The Skull Kid ignores Tatl, but Tael delivers an enigmatic warning to find four beings from the swamp, mountain, ocean, and canyon.

The Skull Kid, in response to Tael's outburst, hits the Fairy aside. He then laughs about how even if "they" were to come, they would not be able to stop him. He then points Link and Tatl's attention toward the Moon and challenges them to stop it from falling. With an unearthly shriek, he begins to bring the Moon down to Termina faster. Link fires a magic Bubble Blast, a skill learned from the Great Fairy, at the Skull Kid, causing him to drop the Ocarina of Time. Upon picking it up, memories of Link's departure from Hyrule flood back to him. He remembers Princess Zelda, days after the ending of Ocarina of Time, bidding him farewell and telling him that the Goddess of Time is watching over him. After Tatl snaps him out of his trance, Link plays the "Song of Time" and is immediately thrown back in time to the morning he first entered Clock Town, 72 hours prior.

Link heads back to the Happy Mask Salesman, who teaches him the "Song of Healing". Playing this song with the Ocarina of Time returns Link to normal, with the only remnants of his time as a Deku being a Mask, which he can wear to become Deku Link once again at will. After aiding Link, the Mask Salesman asks that Link uphold his part of the bargain and return the Mask that the Skull Kid stole. Upon learning that Link could not recover the Mask, the Salesman grows furious, berating Link and wildly informing him that the Mask, known as Majora's Mask, is an ancient artifact that possesses an apocalyptic power. He once again requests that Link must recover the Mask, stating that he believes that Link can do it.

The Four Giants
To stop the Skull Kid, Link and Tatl work on the only clue they have; the four places stated by Tael. The two decide to head to the Southern Swamp first. Upon arriving at the swamp, Link finds the area's water poisoned, presumably due to the disappearance of the Swamp's guardian god. After venturing through the Deku Kingdom and Woodfall Temple, Link battles the dark being Odolwa. Upon defeating the foe, Link frees an "innocent spirit" from the Mask worn by the monster. Link and Tatl find themselves facing a sorrowful and powerful Giant that promptly sings to them. Tatl then surmises that the Giant was one of the "four" that Tael spoke of, as Link learns the "Oath to Order".

The two head to Snowhead Mountain, a place that has experienced a longer-than-usual period of winter, to save the next Giant. Link learns that the mountain and its surrounding areas are doomed to become an uninhabitable, eternally frozen wasteland unless he can save the Giant. While in the Goron Village, Link meets the spirit of a heroic Goron warrior named Darmani III who tried to find a way to save his people, but died in the attempt. Link plays the "Song of Healing" to heal the spirit's sorrows and house him in a Goron Mask for Link to wear. This enables Link to inhabit Darmani's body and disguise himself as the deceased Goron warrior. After learning the "Goron Lullaby", Link gains access to Snowhead Temple by lulling its guardian Goron to sleep. Link manages to free the second Giant from Goht, the evil monster of Snowhead Temple, and quell the region's eternal winter.

Link requires a horse to get to the ocean, where Great Bay is located, due to a tall gate barrier blocking the path. He discovers that Epona had been found and taken in by the sisters Romani and Cremia at Romani Ranch. However, to recover Epona, Link must arrive on the First Day, so that he can find the younger sister Romani in a well-enough state to give him back his horse. After reclaiming Epona, Link heads to the cursed Great Bay, where the ocean is in disorder due to calamity at the Great Bay Temple. He finds a Zora named Mikau floating near the shore and near death. After Link pushes him to shore, Mikau tells him that he is the guitarist of a Zora band and that the band's vocalist Lulu laid some strange eggs. Mikau also reveals that Gerudo Pirates stole these eggs from Lulu and that he was fatally wounded when he tried to retrieve them for her. Using his last strength to play his guitar, he asks Link to fulfill his final request: to retrieve Lulu's eggs from the Gerudo Pirates and heal his soul. Mikau then collapses, and Link plays the "Song of Healing" to house his soul in a Zora Mask, which he dons to inhabit Mikau's body. Finding the stolen eggs in the Pirates' Fortress and at Pinnacle Rock, the young hero brings them to the aquarium in the Marine Research Lab, where they hatch. The baby Zoras that hatch from the eggs teach Link the "New Wave Bossa Nova", and the Professor there tells him that he must play this newly learned song to Lulu. Link heads to Zora Hall and plays the song for her. This restores her voice and awakens the Giant Turtle in Great Bay, who offers to take Link to the Great Bay Temple. Link makes his way through the Temple and defeats the evil aquatic creature Gyorg, freeing the third Giant in the process.

Link ventures east to Ikana Canyon, where the fourth and final Giant is located. However, the Poe Collector will not let him pass unless he possesses the Garo's Mask. Link heads to the Gorman Track and acquires this Mask from the Gorman Brothers after he and Epona defeat them in a horse race. He heads back to Ikana Canyon wearing the Garo's Mask, and the Poe Collector lets him pass. Link ventures to the Ancient Castle of Ikana and battles the undead king of the Ikana Kingdom, Igos du Ikana. After Link defeats him, the king explains that the Skull Kid released a curse onto Ikana when he opened the doors of the Stone Tower, resulting in the dead to linger. He tells Link that he must seal the doors of the Stone Tower to dispel the curse. To this end, he teaches Link the "Elegy of Emptiness" to enable him to enter the Temple before departing to the afterlife. Link makes his way to the Stone Tower and uses the "Elegy of Emptiness" to scale it. He traverses the Stone Tower Temple and defeats the evil Twinmold, removing the curse from Ikana Canyon and freeing the last of the Four Giants.

The Final Battle
Link returns to the Clock Tower at the end of the Final Day to confront the Skull Kid once and for all. The Skull Kid begins to bring the Moon down to Termina once more, but this time, Link summons the Four Giants with the "Oath to Order" to stop its descent. The Four Giants successfully halt the Moon's fall and knock the Skull Kid unconscious. Tatl and Tael reunite, and Tatl chastises the Skull Kid for lacking the strength of will and heart to withstand the power of the Majora's Mask. Now seeing the Skull Kid as useless, Majora's Mask separates itself from him and warps inside the Moon. There, the Mask now possesses the Moon and attempts to consume all of Termina. Link and Tatl follow the Mask inside, finding a surreal field, in which there is nothing but a tree and five children wearing the masks of the bosses of the game. After talking to the child who wears Majora's Mask, Link is transported to another dimension, where the Mask itself is waiting for him to face Link once and for all. After a harsh battle, Link destroys the Mask's evil, and the Moon returns to the sky for good.

Dawn of a New Day
After Link awakens to the "Dawn of a New Day", he learns that the Skull Kid and the Four Giants had once been friends. With the crisis averted, the Four Giants return to their respective regions of Termina. The Skull Kid happily remarks how Link smells like "the kid who taught him a song in the forest", clearly implying that this is the same Skull Kid to whom Link taught "Saria's Song" in Ocarina of Time. Upon finally getting it returned, the Happy Mask Salesman states that the evil has at last left Majora's Mask, and then mysteriously disappears, bidding Link a fond farewell. Tatl tells Link that he should get back to his original quest, and the two part ways. In a post-credits scene, Link returns back into the forest on Epona searching for Navi once more, back to square one. However, he spots a bright light and takes a look, and sees a tree stump. "Saria's Song" echoes as a carving of Link, the Skull Kid, the Fairy siblings, and the Four Giants is shown, ending the game.

Trivia

 * Along with the Kokiri Sword, Tunic, Boots and Ocarina of Time, the Stone of Agony is one of the few items that Link preserves from Ocarina of Time, since the game will still rumble near a secret area. No reference to it is ever made, unlike the other items. Also, Link can pick up Bomb Flowers, suggesting he also kept the Goron's Bracelet, although it is not seen on his model.
 * Sakon is the first non-playable character that can be murdered by Link. This can be done with an Arrow or Hookshot targeting at the stolen Bomb Bag.
 * Majora's Mask contains the least amount of main dungeons in any Zelda game, being 4 in total. In addition, all items obtained in main dungeons pertain to the Bow.
 * The impermanent flow of time in the first three-day cycle as Deku Link is 1.66 times faster than normal. When the time is altered to be at this rate during the first cycle, no enemies or NPCs will appear in Termina Field. This cannot be seen normally in gameplay as Link is confined to Clock Town during the first three-day cycle, which is almost entirely scripted.
 * Flat, a Poe appearing in Ikana Canyon, mentions that his brother Sharp "sold his soul to the devil". This is interesting considering that there is no known deity in Zelda who is directly referred to as "the devil." It is possible that only Terminians believe in this deity. Nonetheless, "the devil" plays some sort of role in Terminian media. He may not be referring to a god at all.
 * The Wii Virtual Console version uses fewer blocks than Ocarina of Time, as data compression for Virtual Console games had been improved since the release of Ocarina of Time on the Wii Virtual Console. However, the Wii Virtual Console release of Majora's Mask uses three blocks for save data, which is three times the amount of space that the Wii Virtual Console release of Ocarina of Time uses.

Continuity

 * Majora's Mask was the first Zelda game released outside of Japan to impose a persistent time limit during normal gameplay.
 * It is the first game in the series where Tingle and a Postman appear. The latter character, by extension, also marks the first time a mail system is portrayed in the series.
 * This is the first Zelda game (not including Zelda's Adventure and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon) to allow the player to control a character other than Link - Kafei. Controlling characters beside Link would reappear in The Wind Waker.
 * It is the first Zelda game to allow the player to rematch bosses.
 * It received representation in Super Smash Bros. Melee, in the form of a stage, music tracks, and several trophies. The stage would reappear in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.