I know many of us have Tears of the Kingdom on the brain, and I’m still working on 100%ing my first playthrough, but I’ve been thinking about game openings this week. So, naturally, I thought about my old favorite Majora’s Mask, and how the game’s opening location sets the game up perfectly.
Picture the scene: Link searching through the Lost Woods, looking for an ‘old friend’ we presume to be Navi. Even though he’s still in Hyrule, Link’s equipped for adventure, for challenges and battles. He’s covering known ground metaphorically, and is literally lost.
Enter Skull Kid, knocking Link to the ground, stealing his Ocarina, and then riding off on Epona. The game is now set in motion and your central goal remains the same throughout: get your belongings back and go home. Of course, more depth and complications will come, but from the outset you know what to expect. So you, as Link, get up off the ground and chase the thief through a portal in the woods.
This Portal area that you have entered has a dual role, as it sets Termina apart from Hyrule in terms of plot and location and it trains you in your new abilities.
First, you as Link, hop up some tree stumps, so nothing new here. This is a transitional area very similar to those inside the Lost Woods and the Great Deku Tree. This is the last few steps in the world you know as the player. This is the gamer’s transition from Ocarina of Time to Majora’s Mask.
Then you fall. And in the dark you see all your futures. All the Masks you’ll wear, drawn in bright colors as if by a child’s hand.
When you land, you’re transformed. Welcome to Majora’s Mask. Your landing point was a Deku Flower, and before you is a shallow pool. Beyond that, Skull Kid and his fairy companions. He changes you into a Deku Scrub and you gaze in horror at the reflection before you. The setting is perfectly designed for this moment-you’re trapped in this round room, with the only door shutting before you. Just you and your reflection…and a mean fairy. She tells you that you can open the door and the second phase of the tutorial begins.
The next room is a mirror of the first, but instead of jumping between stumps, you can fly now. The gaping voids contrast sharply with the potential falls of before. The room is more darkness than light. Everything is harder. You have to take the long way around, great roots cutting off your path.
This tonal shift culminates in you observing a gnarled tree that ‘looks like it could start crying any second now.’ It looks like you. It looks tragic.
This is your introduction to the game. Hyrule and Termina intersecting and contrasting while you learn how to play. It’s a very quick introduction to the game and it’s simplicity is it’s strength. It’s highly likely you played Ocarina of Time first, so all they had to do was refresh your memory a little before flipping your expectations on their head.
Emerge beneath the Clock Tower and begin anew with one thing for certain: we’re not in Hyrule anymore.
