You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you? Let's Play Majora's Mask!

Uh... will do.



The Woods of Mystery are basically the budget Lost Woods — four paths, right one takes you forward, any others send you back to the exit — but it lacks the Lost Woods’ sense of scale and mystery. All of the rooms here are the same, there are no hidden items, and you spend maybe a real-time minute here in total, a far cry from the grandeur and secrets of Ocarina’s incarnation.

About the only wrinkle here is that the correct path changes from day to day. On the First Day, the correct route is left-right-right-straight-left-left, but the later two days are different. Still, follow the monkey and you’ll be able to make it through every time.

Don’t bother fighting the turtles. They can be killed, either with explosions or by erupting from a Deku Flower while they’re on top of it, but it’s not worth the trouble. You can be in and out before they can even react.





(Amusingly, Koume plays dead if you talk to her as any form other than the human.)

Koume can be found at the end of the path, injured and immobile. She fingers the Skull Kid as her assailant, and asks if we have anything that restores energy. We don’t, but...



...I think I know where to get some.





Kotake hands over a Bottle filled with life-restoring Red Potion. The Potion’s for Koume, but the Bottle’s ours to keep. If you have to re-do this event on a future cycle, you can save time by just buying a Red Potion and taking it directly to Koume.

It’s a bit odd that Majora’s Mask, being the Zelda game where Empty Bottles are at their least useful (since you can’t stick a fairy in there before the first boss and forget about it for the rest of the game), gives you so many. There are no fewer than six Empty Bottles in the game. You really need at least four for the runup to the third dungeon, but that begs the question of what you’re supposed to do with them the rest of the time, since they’re automatically emptied when you go back in time.




Returning to Koume, we hand over the Potion (make sure to wait until she asks for it before you press the button — you might accidentally drink it yourself otherwise, which means running back to Kotake for another, which you’ll have to pay for out of your own pocket), and she quickly quaffs it, imitating Blondie’s dramatic drinking animation.




As thanks for saving her, Koume invites us to take the Swamp Cruise, which was exactly what we were looking for in the first place.




On our way out of the Woods of Mystery, we’re accosted by the monkeys again, who have their own tale of woe to impart. It’s kind of hard to take them seriously when they’re bouncing around like they’ve been mainlining caffeine, though.

The monkeys have a proud and glorious tradition as side-characters in Zelda games. Kiki the monkey had to be bribed to open the Palace of Darkness back in ALttP, and a troupe of monkeys could be bribed into building a bridge for the low, low price of a bunch of bananas. And, of course, they had their own dungeon in Twilight Princess.

The monkeys’ leader (incidentally the only one of their number able to form a coherent sentence) was investigating Woodfall Temple, the source of the vile water that’s been poisoning the Southern Swamp. However, the Temple is a Deku holy place, and when the Dekus spotted him they captured him and tossed him in the clink at the decadent Deku Palace for his insolence. His fellow monkeys are at a loss as to what to do, so they hand the responsibility to Blondie and return to their lives of carefree frolicking. Thankless is Blondie’s lot in life.



Back at the Tourist Center, Koume owes us one, so this one time only, the cruise is free. (Gee, and all Blondie had to do to save 10 rupees was save her miserable life.)




Also, Koume gives us a Pictograph Box as part of the special promotion the Tourist Center has going. It takes pictures, but can only hold one at a time. If you take particularly impressive picture while on the cruise, you win a prize. More on that a little later.

The Picto Box only appears in two Zelda games, I think; this one and Wind Waker... It’s a much more important item in Wind Waker from the standpoint of the world, where it has its own sidequest and is an important part of establishing the world’s lore (specifically, the modernization of the Great Sea following the flooding of Hyrule). I don’t believe you actually need it for anything there, though, sidequests aside... In Majora’s Mask, you need it once during the main story (again as part of the runup to the third dungeon) and once for a sidequest, and that’s it. I can’t remember if the Pictograph is kept when you go back in time or not...



Anyway, the Swamp Cruise isn’t a particularly compelling ride, unless you’ve got a deep and abiding affection for jagged polygonal scenery.



About the only point of interest is when Koume flat-out kills this Big Octo by ramming the boat into him. A Pictograph of the Big Octo will net 20 rupees... but not the grand prize.



Deku Palace time!

After being monsters in Ocarina of Time, the Dekus have graduated to full race status this time around, meaning they’ve got their own little society here. With underrated music.



The guards won’t let a human through the gate, but...




...While they’re none too welcoming of fellow Dekus either, they will at least allow Deku Blondie to enter, to see the fate of the unfortunate monkey who dared anger the king.

Note: Blondie can change shape right in front of NPCs without them commenting on it. I think about that every time Midna makes me hide in a corner to transform into a wolf in Twilight Princess. Realism’s fine, but come on now.




The Deku King’s sycophants are convinced of the monkey’s guilt, accusing him of the kidnaping of their missing princess.

After talking to all the Dekus, the King (who appears to have received a voice from the Yoshi’s Island sound file by mistake), and the monkey himself, it should be obvious that diplomacy isn’t going to be the solution here. Blondie will have to channel his inner Solid Snake, sneak into the cage, and save the monkey the old-fashioned way.



Oh, and the grand prize Pictograph is one of the Deku King himself. Hint: Don’t try and do this with a D-Pad, because the Pictograph Box has that annoying Rare auto-centering thing that makes it difficult to keep him in the frame.

You can also get the grand prize by turning in a photo of Tingle, who is the contest manager’s wayward son, but that’s kind of out of the way, so you might as well snap the King.




The monkeys return with a bit of advice: The cage has a hidden entrance that can be accessed from the expansive Palace Gardens. Onwards, then.



The Deku Palace is the first (of two) stealth sequence in the game... but like most Zelda stealth sequences (Wind Waker notwithstanding), it’s pretty easy. Just stay out of the guards’ direct line of sight and you’ll be fine. If you’re having trouble, skip ahead to night, when the guards’ vision is represented as a line of white dots to make up for their indistinct-in-the-dark faces.



Heart Piece count: 10/52

Start by heading west and you can get some easy practice dodging the guards, with a Heart Piece at the end. After collecting it, allow yourself to be thrown out, re-enter, then head east this time.




Weave your way through the guards on this side until you see a small pit, flanked by torches. Head down it.





Down that pit is the gluttonous Bean Seller from back in Ocarina, who is still selling Magic Beans. You kind of have to wonder, though... in Ocarina he was at least sitting astride (what was implied to be) a fairly well-traveled road. I doubt he’s got much of a clientele sitting at the bottom of a pit in the middle of a palace inhabited by xenophobic plant-people, though...

As in Ocarina, Magic Beans will grow into Magic Flowers if planted in Magic Bean Patches...



Unlike in Ocarina, however, Blondie doesn’t have seven years to wait around for his Magic Flowers to grow. Thankfully, though, there is a workaround: Splash a planted Bean with Spring Water (which doesn’t have to be from a spring — you can find it anywhere), and it will mature instantly. Dtsund pointed out upthread that the rain on the Second Day will cause them to grow as well, and while I’ve never tried that myself, I see no reason to disbelieve him.

You need six Beans to beat the game, but you only have to plant one. The Seller will give you that one for free. You’ll need two more to complete a sidequest. There are also a number of Magic Bean Patches scattered around Termina Field and elsewhere which lead to small amounts of rupees and... uh, that’s about it, really.

Thankfully, you don’t need to delve into the Deku Palace again if/when you need more Beans in future cycles; you can buy them from that Business Scrub we talked to at the beginning of this update, who is parked right next to a warp point.

The purpose of this particular Magic Flower is to allow us to access the upper portions of the Deku Palace, where the aforementioned secret entrance is located.




So we plant, water, and voila! Instant elevator.



To get anywhere in the upper part of the Deku Palace, you’ll need to use the Deku Flowers to fly from point to point. If you fall, you’ll drop back into the gardens and likely be caught by the guards. Some of the platforms are moving, but none of them should pose a threat to anyone who’s toppled the Deku Scrub Playground.

Some of the ledges are guarded by Mad Scrubs, who spit Deku Nuts at you. There are two ways to deal with these guys: You can dive bomb them with your own Deku Nuts, or pick them off at a distance with snot bubbles. The latter is a bit easier (Deku Nuts fall at kind of a weird arc that takes a little getting used to), but the former saves magic power, which you’ll most likely want to conserve for later. Your choice.

Anyway, let’s go talk to our monkey friend...





The monkey is surprised to see us, but quickly recruits us to cut the rope holding him in place. This doesn’t work, though, as the rope is too high for Blondie to reach.



Ever the man with the plan, though, the monkey will ask us if we’ve got any really loud instruments on our person. The Ocarina isn’t quite manly enough for him, it seems, but when we pull out the pipes...





Amusingly, Blondie’s face fault attracts the immediate attention of everyone in the room.





The monkey tells us the sob story about how he and the princess were working together trying to solve the Mystery of the Poisoned Swamp when the princess was captured by the monster living in Woodfall Temple. The monkey managed to escape, but was captured by the Deku King, who was so enraged by the loss of his daughter that he refused to listen to the monkey’s story. The monkey is obviously in no position to help the princess himself, so he asks Blondie to do it instead.

The Sonata of Awakening is the first of three racially aligned songs. In addition to revealing Woodfall Temple, it has the power to wake things from sleep. However, it only works when the Deku plays it. That is, if you play it as any other race, the song will be recognized and the cutscene will play... but nothing will happen. If you’re exploring around and find a place that makes you think “Hm, maybe the Sonata of Awakening would be useful here”, make sure you change into the Deku before you try it, or you might not get the desired effect. This is true for the other two race-based songs as well.





Unfortunately for the monkey, he was evidently not singing quietly enough, because the Deku King takes his knowledge of the song as an admission of guilt and begins the execution. Blondie is tossed out, and the King isn’t kidding about punishing the monkey, either...





...Because head back in and you’ll see the monkey being boiled alive! Don’t let yourself get distracted by the aroma of... hot, juicy... boiled... monkey... and head back outside. Use a Deku Flower to get to the upper level of the palace wall and head back into the Swamp...



...Where you can use more Deku Flowers to drift over to the ledge where the entrance to Woodfall proper is situated.



On the way, though, take a look at the cave covered in web down below. This is the entrance to the Swamp Skulltula House, a small mini-dungeon that can be tackled at any time. There’s no boss, no enemies, and no real puzzles; the idea is to kill 30 Gold Skulltulas and collect their tokens within a single cycle.




Back on track, Blondie finds himself stopped by that pesky owl from Ocarina of Time. He’s just as long-winded as ever, and after all but begging Blondie to give up, tells him about a useful tune.




Hilariously, this is the very last appearance of the owl in the Zelda series to date (unless you count Four Swords Adventures, which I don’t suggest you do). Apparently Nintendo decided that three straight games of being bossed around by know-it-all birds was enough, as they retired the device from this point forward.

Anyway, the song in question is the Song of Soaring, Majora’s Mask’s warp song. Ocarina had half a dozen warp songs which sent you to fixed points, but Majora’s Mask has only one, which will send you to any Owl Statue you’ve unlocked. That’s a better way to do it, I think, even though Ocarina’s warp songs are all classics. The Song of Soaring is probably the most-played song in the game; you’ll play it at least once almost every cycle (to Clock Town to deposit your rupees before playing the Song of Time), twice most cycles, and even more than that occasionally.

It might be tempting to give it a whirl right away and fly back to Clock Town or something, but fight the instinct — if you press on, you’ll be able to activate the Woodfall Owl Statue, and never have to bother with Koume, the Swamp Cruise, or the Deku Palace ever again.



Woodfall’s water is entirely poisoned, as you’d expect. The Deku can hop on poisoned water just as easily as clean, but safe spots are few and far between in this muck. Instead, Blondie will have to negotiate long planks guarded by Dragonflies, Mad Scrubs, and Helmasaurs (inexplicably called by their Japanese name, Hiploops, here). This is among the most difficult combat areas in the game, largely because you have so little life and magic at your disposal and so little room to maneuver. Snot bubbles are invaluable at clearing a path, but you’d better be a good shot, because you don’t have much room for error.



Eventually you’ll be able to fly to a small raised platform near the center. This contains the Owl Statue, a pot containing a fairy, and...



The Deku Scrub seal.



Play the Sonata of Awakening while standing on this seal and, magically...




Woodfall Temple rises out of the swamp.

Now. Thanks to the Inverted Song of Time I haven’t even reached the Night of the First Day yet. No doubt I could complete the Woodfall Temple in the time remaining in the cycle, and if this was a normal playthrough, I certainly would. But... I kind of want to give each of the four dungeons their own cycle so that I can discuss them more in-depth, without anything else distracting from them. Although Majora’s Mask only has four dungeons, I really do believe that all four are peak Zelda dungeons, and I don’t want to give them short shrift by squeezing them into updates that are already running too long as it is.

Note also that if I hadn’t played the Inverted Song of Time, we’d be looking at something along the lines of the Night of the Second Day right about now. Woodfall Temple is probably doable in half a cycle, but the other dungeons probably wouldn’t be, so in a normal playthrough we’d be thinking about turning back the clock anyway.

Still, two whole days is a lot to waste. So, rather than heading into the dungeon or playing the Song of Time, I’ll poke around a few other places and collect a few more items before ending this update.



Heart Piece count: 11/52

Our first stop is right here in Woodfall, where a chest containing another Heart Piece is just a Deku Flower flight away.



Next, we’ll Soar back to the Southern Swamp.





Heart Piece count: 12/52

There we can turn in our shot of the Deku King and win the grand prize: A Heart Piece.



Skulltula House? Normally I’d wait til later, but I’ve got some time to kill. This Skulltula House is easier with multiple Bottles and the Hookshot, but it’s doable as long as you’ve got the Deku Mask, the Sonata of Awakening, an Empty Bottle, some manner of explosive, and two Magic Beans.

The man inside is inflicted by the Skulltula curse, which won’t be cured unless Blondie enters the House and slaughters all 30 Skulltulas hidden inside. As in Ocarina, each defeated Skulltula leaves behind a Token as prove of your kill, and the presence of a Skulltula can be determined by the skritching noise they make.



The Skulltulas aren’t too hard to find. I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow, as there are only five rooms in the House (a map is conveniently painted on one wall), and they’re all over the place.



To find them, check the usual Skulltula hiding spots... on the walls...



... in pots and crates...



In some rooms, you can find them in hives on the ceiling. (Graphical touch: Blondie’s snot sticks to the walls and ceilings for a few seconds.)



In others, you’ll need to release bottled bugs into Magic Bean Patches on the walls.




The more difficult Skulltulas are the ones that require short puzzles to get at. For example, you’ll need to use the Sonata of Awakening to rouse a Deku Scrub hogging the gold flower.



You’ll also need to raise Magic Flowers in a few places if you don’t have the Hookshot.



Lastly, be sure to check in high grass; Skulltulas like to hide there where they’re entirely concealed from view.





The grateful man hands over the Mask of Truth as a reward for curing him.



Mask count: 06/24

As a veteran Ocarina of Time mask, you likely have an idea of what this mask can do — namely read the minds of Gossip Stones. There aren’t as many Gossip Stones in Majora’s Mask as in Ocarina, but they’re more helpful as a general rule — Ocarina’s Gossip Stones mostly told you little bits of trivia about the world, like Gerudo reproduction and the origin of Ganondorf’s horse, but the ones in Majora’s Mask instead give you hints regarding the location of masks and the schedules of NPCs. Bizarrely, there are two Gossip Stones that tell you how to find the Mask of Truth, even though you need the Mask of Truth to speak to them in the first place.

The Mask of Truth has also added dog mind-reading to its repertoire.



Speaking of Gossip Stones, there are four pits in Termina Field containing four Gossip Stones arranged in a row. If you play the same racial song in all four pits in a single cycle...



Heart Piece count: 13/52

...You’ll earn a Heart Piece.




Heart Piece count: 14/52

You can win another Heart Piece in Termina Field by tangling with a pair of Dodongos in a pit to the north. The Dodongos seem larger than they were in Ocarina, but maybe that’s just the small size of the arena playing tricks with me. At any rate, Dodongos, as usual, Dislike Smoke, but I didn’t have any bombs on me, so I killed them with my sword and some fancy dodging.





Finally, if you’re kicking around the northern part of Termina Field around midnight, you might here a strange tune reminiscent of Majora’s Mask’s theme. If you investigate, you’ll find a half-naked dancing ghost.




The ghost’s name is Kamaro, and evidently his leaving the realm of the living does not preclude his being added to the Notebook. Unfortunately, there’s only one kind of help Blondie knows how to give to the restless dead...






Mask count: 07/24

And that’s binding their souls into mask form.

Kamaro’s Mask replaces Blondie’s sword with the ability to do Kamaro’s sexy dance. Shockingly, this ability is nigh-useless on the battlefield... as well as off the battlefield.

I can't wait to explain this one at the next Bombers meeting.

Still, there’s one person in Termina who is interested in advances in the dancing frontier.



Or, rather, two people.





But the price is great: Blondie’s terrifying, faceless gyrations will give you nightmares for weeks.




Still, I could get used to this.




Heart Piece count: 15/52

This is all the Rosa Sisters need for their Happy Sticker. If you talk to them during the day, you can learn a little bit more about them (including their first names).

Gonna call it there, I think...



Next time: How much wood would a Woodfall fall if a Woodfall would fall wood

if you do the deed trading sidequest you can still get into the top of the clock tower. There's a ramp on the right side that leads up to it. The ledge to get up after the ramp is too high for the deku scrub but as a human you can climb up it to get to the door.

I had no idea Tingle had a father. Weird that something like that would even be established.

And I'm pretty sure the Dodongos come in a variety of sizes, from small to really huge.

Yeah, the deal with the cavern in OoT is that you are basically going through and slaughtering a nest of them in various stages of growth. The smallest ones don't even have their legs, yet (though apparently the ones in MM are a bit bigger).

Oh god, I remembered this mask being creepy, but not THIS creepy. It looks like he stapled his face to the top of your head.

Best scene of the game, hands down.

I love this music. The first time my girlfriend spent the night, her alarm woke us up the next morning, and she had it playing the Deku Palace music.

We are still dating, of course.

I've got a deep and abiding affection for jagged polygonal scenery. At least, for this game's jagged polygonal scenery.

Oh no! Bandwidth exceeded!

Well, this seems like as good a time as any to tell my Majora's Mask story. I got the N64 pretty late. I was in college at the time and didn't have a lot of money to spend on much of anything, let alone games that had come out some time previous. So I rented the game over Thanksgiving break at my parent's house.

Try as I might, I couldn't get farther than halfway through before I had to return it and go back to college. A month later I was back for Christmas break and I thought I'd rent it again. Thinking I knew how to do everything in the first half I was pretty sure I'd be able hurry through the parts I'd seen before and get to some new dungeons.

Fortune smiled upon me though. I managed to rent the exact same copy with my game still saved on it. I was able to pick exactly up where I left off and beat the everyloving hell out of the game.

I still need to get my own copy.

How many images do you have up? I'd like to know what the max for Photobucket is.

Having to repeatedly rent this game seems appropriate

With the Bandwidth icons we are currently seeing this seems really sarcastic!

A similar thing happened to me with Link's Awakening DX on GBC.

Whats with the bandwidth exceeded thing? i thought my windstream internet was freaking out again >.>

Photobucket has a maximum amount of bandwith Free Users can use. If you go over it, well, I think you can see what happens.

It's one of the more understandable reasons Photobucket is so annoying, and why some people prefer to make Video LPs.

ahh.. so hows he gonna fix this? o.o

By waiting for my bandwidth to renew itself. As my mom always said, patience is a virtue, and a virtue is a very very good thing.

It appears to be a function of the larger screenshot sizes -- it happened a ton in Skies, but it never came up during the Fire Emblem/Mario RPG days. For future updates I'm going to try and trick it, but that may or may not work. We'll see how it goes.

It might be an idea to try a different service. For example, ImageShack doesn't have a bandwidth limit, I think, as long as you have a (free) account.

Skies? What is this "Skies" you speak of?

How fitting.

You're probably joking, but if you're not, "Skies" refers to "Skies of Arcadia" AKA "The Most Annoying Game To Play Ever Because ARGH ANOTHER RANDOM ENCOUNTER".

(I was busting his chops for his unfinished LP.)

Someone already played the photobucket resetting song of double time, right?

I think he's looking to warp to a new cycle. Unfortunately he's got to go to photo bucket's head quarters at midnight and hit a small child with a snot bubble first.