While many character models were reused from Ocarina of Time for the development of Majora’s Mask, the buildings are surprisingly unique. In fact, many are more fantastical than those in Ocarina of Time, which adds to the peculiar feeling that its sequel has to offer.
Just look at the Marine Research Lab, and it’s no wonder there are so many theories suggesting that Link is dead or in a dream world.
Situated in the shallows just off the Great Bay Coast, this is the most incongruent building in the entire game. It looks like a steel bomb on stilts with an enormous hook on its roof. There’s a little barge floating on the water with a ladder you can climb to reach the main platform. Look closer and you’ll see that the sheets of steel are riveted together haphazardly, and there’s a little porthole about halfway up the wall. It kind of reminds me of Spongebob’s pineapple house.
I can’t help but wonder if it started off its life as a submersible. Inside there are wide pipes snaking the walls, steam escaping from the crank wheels. Are these part of a life-support system for a small submarine, or for buoyancy? Or could they simply they be for filling the tanks with water from the bay? There are very few clues as to what they’re truly for, but they give it a really industrial look totally unlike anything else in Majora’s Mask or Ocarina of Time.
Similar to the Lakeside Laboratory, there is a workbench with some jars and bottles full of colorful liquids, and the Professor looks the same as the character model was reused. Unlike the Lakeside Laboratory, there are Clocktown Clocks on the walls, the floor tiles look dirty, and the whole room is a little dank and dingy. It doesn’t look like a pristine lab at all.
There’s a tank with strange, toothy fish in it, and of course, a large aquarium which is empty until you put Lulu’s Eggs into it. I always thought the detail of having the ladder on the back wall double as music bars was really neat and unexpected on my first playthrough.
This is a weird little location, and while there’s not much to it, it’s still pretty memorable. With the Potion Shop music playing in the background, this funny little room out in the Bay is one I’ve definitely come back to many a time.
This column is part of a series on the various labs across the Legend of Zelda series. You can read the others here:
