It all starts when you’re lying in bed, waiting for a bus, or counting the freckles in an office-room ceiling tile: you begin to think about the abstract. What does 4D look like? You wonder, as your mind turns into mush. Speaking of the word ‘mush’ (you then ponder), why does it sound and feel funny when I keep saying it?
And then the headache.
Abstractions are weird and painful, but they’re also beautiful. Problem is, people would rather block them out. It’s far much easier to just take a step across the street rather than considering some flux or infinite regress or theoretical change in gravity to prevent you from doing so. And it’s this kind of easygoing nature that prevented millions, including myself, from ever completing the game Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.
Majora’s Mask is weird in that it seems like it’s not a Zelda game. It seems entirely abstract, unlike any Zelda game before it. It has the least linearity of the series, it’s character-based (not exactly a staple), and it repeats the same three days over, and over, and over. Oh, and it’s also extremely macabre and depressing: an evil-looking black moon inches towards you and other townsfolk, and the people seem well-aware of their existential worthlessness, their impending death. Look-see… it’s not quite cute:
Zelda games have the precedent of Linear Adventure in Which Forest Elf Saves Princess. And then there’s Majora’s Mask, in which you begin looking for a friend (let’s assume Navi), and get distracted. No princess. THEN you’re placed in a loop of a world with little to go on, and with the controls entirely, literally, in your hands. And, it’s kind of horrifying. At first. (Only at first.)
And this is why Majora’s Mask wasn’t a hit, although it should have been. It’s why I didn’t play it back in 2000, and watched my friend Brandon play through my purchased copy instead. I didn’t even care, at that point. I hardly even watched him play, because thinking of trying to understand what was happening (the abstraction) was too much for me.
There’s something a little more unsettling about a video game straying from its roots than a film or novel or television show doing so. It’s a little more unnerving (and in this case, creepy) because we feel, quite clearly, not in control. Gamers are a sort of specialized control freak whether they admit it or not, carefully tweaking the world in which they’ve been placed. And they’re changing it for the better: equipment gets upgraded, characters “gain levels” (whatever that means), and cute little Pokemans get caught-did. And, yeah, Majora’s Mask seems to puts a damper on that progression. Those rupees and arrows and bombs you just collected? They’re gone after the in-game three days. One would assume that the dungeons, as well, need to be completed again and again to get that bow, again. Get that hookshot, again, just to get a piece of heart you missed.
But no, no. It’s not like that.
Playing it now in ‘09 I get a feeling that it’s almost too Zelda-y. I mean, I love it, but I thought I gave up on this title for a reason in the past. I expected to have a love/hate relationship with it; I expected a bizarre experience full of stress and painful time limits. But the game allows for a pretty simple, tolerable Zelda experience early on. You can slow time, for one, but most importantly, all your items stick with you expect for the petty ones (the aforementioned rupees, even, can be saved in a time-defying bank, meaning only your petty bombs and arrows are what you have to retrieve again).
So. Majora’s Mask? Not so abstract. Pretty normal in game mechanics… just utterly strange thematically, with a lot more content than usual as far as characters and abilities. It’s kind of weird to find I’m playing a “Zelda” game rather than a “non-Zelda” game, what with all the hype that it was some horrible altered experience. rather, it feels like the best of the franchise quite clearly. It’s full of heart, too — there’s a real purpose as you help people whom you’ve seen struggle and mourn their death.
I haven’t finished it yet, but so far it’s a damn good black sheep. If you’d like to join a ridiculously intelligent play-through discussion, check out the Vintage Game Club that Brainy Gamer is hosting. It’s quite good! The people there are very unique and thoughtful and weird.
And oh hey — I just described the game: unique, thoughtful, weird.