At the beginning of 2023, Javed Sterritt, known for his YouTube channel Good Blood and side channel The Hyrule Journals, reported on Majora’s Mask’s complicated localization process. This was finally brought to light by Jason Leung, the game’s head of English localization. The Line by Line documentary highlighted the incredible difficulty of the task, given the enormous increase in text compared to Ocarina of Time and the stifling time budget of the sequel. Because of the collaboration between Jason and Javed, Jason was able to share the notebook he used during his time working on Majora’s Mask, which is filled not only with little notes about translation quirks, but with insider details about its hidden lore and developer Easter eggs. Javed presents these never-before-seen findings in his latest Hyrule Journals video, seen below.
The details found in Jason’s notes range from the renaming of the Feather Sword to the Razor Sword, to the representation of certain developers’ real-life traits in the characters of Clock Town, to the true nature of the Skull Kid and Termina. All of these secrets and more can be found in the video, but Javed also transplanted Jason’s email communication and the contents of the notebook onto his website, in addition to the entire feature that Jason wrote for Nintendo Power regarding the week-to-week localization process, which is mentioned at the start of the video.
The excitement of rediscovering old information on a Zelda game is infectious. Show Javed and Jason some love for their contributions in the comments of the video. If you’d like to see more of the recent discoveries about Majora’s Mask, check out Javed’s Line by Line documentary, filled with a plethora of inside information about Jason’s personal experience on the game.
