What does it mean for a work of art to be “dark”?
When you hear the word, what imagery does it conjure up for you? A cemetery? Old, run down cobblestone castles? A scream? Or silence?
Or perhaps you think of darkness in a more literal sense. Dark colors, black rooms, the unseen, the absence of light.
But if that's all it means to be dark, why do we hold dark art pieces in high regard? What does it really mean to have dark subject matter, dark tones, or dark atmosphere?
Moreover, why do we seem to celebrate the morose and macabre? Why do we enjoy things that are made to make us feel uncomfortable?
Majora's Mask has been described as “the dark Zelda game”. Even more than that, when the question “Are video games art” is asked, Majora's Mask is one of those games that exceeds the popularity of its own franchise. You've probably seen that moon or heard the game's music before you knew where it was from.
The strange thing is that it's not even the only dark Zelda game. The franchise is no stranger to delving into dark subject matter. Even in the first game, you must save a kingdom that's long been in ruins. Ocarina of Time is a story about the loss of innocence and the lack of ability to revisit childhood comforts. Wind Waker takes place in a flooded world and civilizations that have been separated, and Twilight Princess is themed around the concept of twilight, the last hours of night just before sunrise, and a race of people who will quite literally never see the light of day.
I believe that when people refer to Majora's Mask as “dark”, they mean that its tones and story beats are specific enough to feel deeply relatable to the player. In the beginning, we are told that this is Link's “secret and personal journey” after Ocarina of Time. These themes and topics feel secret and personal to us as well, establishing a connection between Link and the player.
Hello and welcome. I am Hero's Shade, and this will be my first among a series of Halloween-themed blogs I'll be releasing throughout the spooky season.
The last time I wrote about this game was nearly a decade ago, on a website that doesn't really exist anymore, and you'd probably be hard-pressed to find it using the Wayback machine.
Since then a remake has been released on the 3DS, allowing a new generation of people to experience it, and there have been two whole 3D open world Zelda games released on the Switch. For many, Breath of the Wild and by extension Tears of the Kingdom was the first Zelda game they played, pulling in a massive influx of fans to the series.
ppThe zeitgeist of the franchise and by extension Majora's Mask have shifted over the course of time. Even the Angry Video Game Nerd reviewed Majora's Mask, which at this point in internet culture is like the video game equivalent of having your song parodied by Weird Al, it's a badge of honor.
I will be discussing these changes, retrospective outlooks, and new ideas regarding Majora's Mask, and how it impacts us in the real world.
First, I wanted to point out how there have been two Super Smash Brothers games and a “Hyrule Warriors” crossover spinoff.
In all of these games, they each heavily pay homage to Majora's Mask. Smash Brothers has the Great Bay area from Termina as a playable stage, with the moon in the sky drawing ever closer until either it crashes or the Giants stop it. You can also summon Skull Kid as an Assist Trophy, who will summon the moon to crash on everyone. Fierce Deity Link is also a costume, even though it is no longer the Ocarina/MM incarnation of Link you are playing as for these games (unless you're playing as Young Link who is).
In Hyrule Warriors, you can play as the version of Link from Majora's Mask, and you can put on the Mask to transform into the Fierce Deity. During one of his Special Attacks, Skull Kid appears to throw the moon at him, which he then cuts in half. There is even an alternate Adventure Mode you can unlock where you travel around on a new overworld map that is based on Termina, in which you have to move to Owl Statues before time runs out and the world ends.
In A Link Between Worlds, even though the game is meant to be a love letter to A Link to the Past, there is a carving of Majora's Mask on the wall in Link's house.
In Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, Majora's Mask and the Fierce Deity form are obtainable. When you wear Majora's Mask, it doesn't seem to have any special abilities or adverse effects (which makes sense because its power was nullified at the end of the game), however monsters will not attack you and NPCs will have special dialogue and become scared of you. The Fierce Deity armor set and sword greatly increase your attack power, in addition to making you look cool as hell. I really like how it looks in the new engine, and I especially appreciate how the hat and hair now sway as Link moves, it gives a lot of flair and personality to the model that wasn't present or possible in the N64 version.
There also many homages in modern media that reference Majora's Mask. That moon is truly inescapable.
However, what I find myself really gravitating towards is these appearances in the official games and canonical lore. The fact that they not only appear as sort of references or easter eggs for older Zelda players to pick up on, but are also recognized by people and monsters across timelines is fascinating to me, and speaks to the impact this one game had on our popular culture, both internal and external to the series.
But why? Why is it so important?
To answer that we must look at how it came to be.
The story goes that during development of the N64 Disk Drive in 1999, head developers of the Zelda series Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma were discussing what ways it could be used to implement potential add-ons for Ocarina of Time. Miyamoto-san wanted to use the disk drive to enhance the dungeons to give returning players an additional challenge, an idea that eventually became Master Quest which was released in a promotional disc for the GameCube, and later implemented as a “New Game Plus” for the OoT 3DS remake.
But Aonuma-san had different ideas, and believed they should use the opportunity to create an entirely new story within the game, where Link would travel to a new world with four additional dungeons. Eventually though, the disk drive was scrapped, and the hardware was used to make a new console instead. However, Aonuma's team was still developing the game and didn't want their work to be unfinished, so development shifted back to making it its own separate game cartridge for the N64. They would have to hurry, because they were coming up on the new millennium and were going to announce the GameCube soon, with the next Zelda game, Wind Waker, already beginning development. So Aonuma and his team had to crank out a game in 18 months before the N64 became obsolete.
Now, this is a nightmare situation for how many bad games are made, and by all accounts it should have been a disaster. However, it being a direct sequel and parallel world to Ocarina allowed them to reuse models and other assets, rather than having to rebuild from the ground up. The dreadful atmosphere of crunch time also bled into their creation, making the world of Termina a place of crushing existential dread, themes that had only been lightly touched upon previously in the series.
The NPCs that were seen before as flat, one-dimensional quest-givers (I can write another entire essay on how that isn't the case and how OoT has a lot to say with its subtext, but it's been done to death and perhaps for another time) were now shown at their most vulnerable moments with the threat of death quite literally looming overhead.
This actually hit close to home as a kid living in the US during the 1999-2000 period, as supposedly “Y2K” was going to wipe out the power grid and end the world, so panic was widespread. For you Zoomer and Gen Alpha kids out there, yes, this was an actual thing that people were afraid would happen.
There was even this commercial that was released that nailed this feeling perfectly. It felt like more than a game. It felt personal.
And “personal” is key here too. With such a large scale undertaking as stopping the moon from falling, your quest hinges on forming connections with the people around you during their final hours. It can be something as simple as listening to someone offload their sorrows, or playing a song for someone. These small acts of kindness give you the tools you need to save them, which is something that always stuck with me. It was a very important lesson to me as an adolescent to take away from it, that when everything feels hopeless, a small act of kindness for the people around you can mean everything. I found myself aspiring to be more like Link as I grew older.
Now, there are plenty on whom this thesis was lost on. On some part, I can't say I blame them. The inclusion of a time limit and time travel mechanics made it too daunting, complicated, or frustrating for many players. I remember trying to talk about Majora's Mask with my friends, and they would always just say things like “Oh, is that the one with the time limit? Yeah, I prefer Ocarina where you can just explore and have fun.”
It can be difficult to describe to someone the reason you like something, when that same thing you like about it is the reason they dislike it.
For me, the time limit integrates the story into the gameplay in a clever way that really makes you connect with the characters and the world even more. I understand that most people don't want to play a game to feel anxious. But then again, horror games exist, and that's the main appeal behind them. Games reframe frightening scenarios to be more approachable, putting you in a scary situation while being in no real harm while you're safe in front of the screen.
The 3DS remake (I also want to discuss this later) did a lot to make these things clearer and more straightforward what the player was supposed to do, and new players tend to prefer it for that. They'd say things like “The original was too complicated, but I can beat this one.”
There's a certain younger, elitist part of me that wants to say “I took the time to appreciate the artistry of the original, these people want instant gratification, therefore I'M BETTER!” but I'm mature enough to not judge based on personal preference.
But when someone doesn't appreciate art for what it is, it can lead them to make the wrong conclusion about them.
Take AVGN for example. Now, I love James Rolfe. I like his reviews and his passion for media is infectious. But he said things like “The inclusion of a time limit is pointless” and “It's a game, not a movie, so there's no need to focus so much on the story”.
The former point I've discussed, the timer is a form of environmental storytelling, and I feel like the game is more than fair enough with giving you plenty of time to figure things out. The latter point really irks me, because how out of touch can you get? Games have been around for almost 50 years now, and have adapted and changed as time has progressed. You can actually tell compelling stories with video games, and believing you shouldn't is an incredibly regressive mentality that only damages the medium.
For example, Deltarune is a game that, despite me personally having no emotional connection to its predecessor Undertale, I find myself incredibly invested in the game's narrative, and I hungrily look forward to each new chapter for that reason.
I get it though. Majora's Mask was incredibly daunting to me my first playthrough, but I remember playing it with my cousin and him showing me the tricks he discovered and items he collected on his save, which encouraged me to find these things for myself. In Clock Town, there is a group of children called the Bomber Gang. A misleading name, because their cause is ultimately altruistic. From them, you can get the Bomber Notebook, which is incredibly helpful in keeping track of the townspeople and where they are at what times. You can tell which person has a quest because that person will have an entry in the notebook, clueing you in that they might be able to help you progress.
And with the Song of Time, you literally have all the time in the world.
And if you think about it, all games are kind of time sensitive. Even if you don't have school or work, you still have to stop playing eventually. The three days in-game are equivalent to three real-world hours, which is about how long it takes to do a long mission or a dungeon, then play the Song of Time to save and lock in your progress. When you break it down like that, it's really not that different than your average play session, it's just the presence of a timer that makes it seem more pressing.
Something as insurmountable as stopping the moon from falling seems like an impossible task, but then you complete a series of small tasks that make it slowly seem more manageable over time. This changed my approach to stressful scenarios; by replacing a falling into despair from a feeling of being overwhelmed into a problem solving response, I can divide one overwhelming problem into several smaller ones, and anxiety diminishes after removing each one from the list.
Where AVGN saw each obstacle and challenge as an annoyance, I saw it as exposure therapy, teaching me to adjust and adapt to high-anxiety environments. Where he saw the story as “getting in the way” of gameplay, I saw the emotional catharsis as a reward for completing each challenge.
I see video games as more than just fun little distractions. There is nothing wrong with escapism as a coping mechanism, but I'm a firm believer that our art should also make life better, and our imagination and creativity can take us to places that transform us into better people.
I don't feel at all silly for saying this about video games, and frankly neither should anyone.
Nerrel does an excellent video on this, but the 3DS remake did a lot to make the game much easier and clear for newcomers. And that's great for them, I'm elated that a new generation of players can experience the game at their own pace.
But now that you know where I'm coming from, I'm always going to prefer the original. Actually, I should specify. I prefer the original with certain modifications, like with a GameCube controller on the Virtual Console, or on PC with romhacks that add little quality of life improvements like assigning the Ocarina and transformation masks to the D-pad.
I'll be watching out my window now waiting for Nintendo to send their assassins after me.
The 3DS version is probably the best way to experience for a casual audience, but they changed the mechanics and physics of a few things which personally messes with my muscle memory as an experienced player.
Again, we run into the issue where one person sees an improvement, and another sees a regression.
Nerrel also brings this up, but the remake changes unique mechanics like how saving and the owl statues originally worked. He cites this as a negative, for removing the unique aspects of the original game. Funnily enough, AVGN sees the original mechanics as another obstacle, making the game more frustrated and convoluted for nor reason. I lean more on Nerrel's side with this, because I admire the original game for taking risks and innovating, but I also understand the changes made to make it more familiar and approachable.
Again, I hate to sound like an elitist but when I was young Nintendo didn't take this approach when making the game originally, and there's no real difference in “gamer skill” overall between generations of children. I beat the game as it was presented to me and my cousin and therefore I believe the modern gamer also can.
In other words, skill issue.
Ok, half joking, but a lot of the issues critics have the original game can be boiled down to the player, not the actual game.
Speaking on its uniqueness, I really like the world of Termina and Skull Kid/Majora as characters, and vastly prefer them to Hyrule and Ganon. Don't get me wrong, I still love OoT and Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were both great, but I'm really getting tired of the Resurrection Cycle aspect of the story. You can only recycle the same characters and ideas so much, and hot take but I'm getting really fed up with Ganondorf, for me his character arc ended with Twilight Princess and Wind Waker. I get that he's a popular character, but just once I'd like Nintendo to tap into that weird creative place once again, exploring new worlds and new characters detached from Hyrule, Zelda and Ganon.
All that being said, Nintendo thankfully still seems to highly respect Majora's Mask. The inclusion of the armors from the game such as the Fierce Deity set and Majora's Mask itself in the new games means that they want to preserve its legacy. Whether you prefer either version, Majora's Mask still stands as a monument in gaming history, and it's genuinely impressive how both N64 Zelda games did so despite the time and technology restrictions.
To bring this full circle I'd like to bring up the question I brought up in the intro: What does it mean for a work of art to be dark?
The subject matter of Majora's Mask is dark; dealing with existential dread, despair, depression, anxiety, mourning, and hopelessness.
However, the fact that we confront these things and adapt to overcome them is incredibly optimistic, and makes it an even more hopeful and uplifting artwork than Ocarina of Time in my honest opinion.
I hope you all enjoyed taking this trip down memory lane as much as I did with all of you, and I'm excited for you to see what I've got cooking up for next time:
