[Editor's note: Charles Sharam talks about Majora's Mask's evil Moon for his Monthly Musing piece. Also, be sure to watch the videos Charles included. I never saw them before and they are extremely creepy. -- CTZ]
What if, when we glanced up at the night sky, the moon grimaced back at us, and the darkened sockets of its eyes burned fear into our conscience?
Hair-raising chills would creep down our backs and crawl up our spines. And I very much doubt that folks would be keen to go star gazing any more. Even though this looming terror is not an affliction of our earth, it's a component of everyday life for the inhabitants of Termina. They cower in the shadows of a terrible moon on a crash-course with their world, and they are doomed unless a brave individual ascends to save them (which makes one wonder why the world's inhabitants aren't all that concerned with securing their own salvation, but whatever).
Yes, I'm talking about The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
Before we dig into the meat of moon-fear, I have a declaration to make that steely-eyed Ocarina of Time zealots will probably find perverse and ultimately get stiff about. If you're not already clenching up your ass cheeks and preparing to submerge my inbox in "oot roolz ur stoopid" subject lines, read this: Majora's Mask is my favourite Zelda game. I'm fascinated with it. The offbeat atmosphere is perfectly realized and the overarching sadness and dark themes set it apart from the rest of the franchise. Although Ocarina of Time featured a grand adventure sprawled across a massive Hyrule, Majora's Mask (still featuring an epic quest) placed a much greater emphasis on fleshing out the characters, locations, and plot lines within its new vista, Termina. And I really like that. We can save the praise for another day, though. For now let's answer this question: what does Majora's Mask succeed at best of all? In short, it truly succeeds at instilling players with a fear of the moon. What moon? This moon:
Yeah, this moon is pretty damn scary and will make the majority of players uneasy for a number or reasons. Firstly, dig out your thesaurus and thumb for the word "malicious". Majora's moon can be described with this word and all of its synonyms (except perhaps "poisonous", a poisonous moon would be too frightening even for virtual reality). It's evil, it's obsessed with consuming everything, and it's out to take a moon-shit on Clock Town's fireworks festival. Secondly, it is the symbolic center-point of stress and pandemonium in the game. Set to collide with the world in three days, it lays down a fierce time restriction that ramps up the player's adrenaline with every passing minute. Thirdly, the tumult surrounding the moon is built up to extremity not only by in-game factors but by Nintendo itself in a apocalyptic marketing campaign. Here, take a look at this for starters:
Grim military officers, throngs of concerned onlookers, tattoo-drenched Yakuzas -- even the dogs are losing their minds in this commercial. I remember walking past the entrance to my living room when this originally aired across television networks back in 2000 and stopping in my tracks to stare onward as the bizarre promotion crept out of my aging CRT set. The ad captured a sense of disconcerting paranoia similar to what people may have felt after reading news coverage on controversial UFO reports a la
Roswell and the
Kenneth Arnold sighting in our dearly departed 20th century. That is to say that it's a wee bit unnerving. This tense atmosphere soon reverberates into one of fear and panic as the crimson moon descends upon earth in the last twenty seconds or so of the commercial.
Paranoia and panic are a quirky blend for a video game commercial, wouldn't you say? The moon-fear is just beginning. Check this out:
What you just watched is a compilation of two parts from an extension of Nintendo's viral marketing campaign for Majora's Mask, posted on zeldaradio.com (site is now closed, you will be redirected to Nintendo.com). ZeldaRadio was depicted as an underground news company following the exploits of a
Majora's Mask player known as "The One", who would supposedly stop the moon from plummeting into Earth if he completed the game in time. I guess he did, seeing as our vaporized limbs are not floating in space. All in all, the site's work succeeded in establishing an eery, pre-apocalyptic atmosphere for the game. There's bound to be at least a couple non-gamers who've stumbled upon these videos by accident and freaked out, no doubt heading to their basements to reinforce their bomb-shelter and prepare to spend the next
thirty-five years underground.
Fright-focused marketing campaign aside, what makes
Majora's moon a realistic source of fear to me is that it actually does pose a serious threat to gameplay. So much so that the player's actions are wholly dictated by its impending touchdown. Let's be blunt: you are the moon's bitch up until the end of the game. Every time the three-day countdown to destruction approaches its end you must play the Song of Time to rewind to the beginning of the seventy-two hour cycle. It's that or witness the end of the world and see Link burnt up in a shock wave of flame and ruin.
This considered, a few disconcerting points are struck into being. You can't escape the moon. You can't fight the moon. You can't hurt the moon's feelings. You can't
devastate the moon with light arrows. You can't beat the moon at anything. Your only way to progress through the game is to travel back in time repeatedly, gradually attaining the means to put an end to its catastrophic descent. All the while, players must withstanding the moon's menacing stare and languish in the anxiety of approaching destruction. The paranoia of losing a few hours of game data in addition to suffering the presence of an adversary that can't even be seriously confronted is scary indeed.
It turns out that some big naked guys are the only creatures capable of stopping the moon's descent. Pardon me, four sky scraper sized giants who are
fucking awesome looking. However, players spend most of the game under the moon's terrifying gaze and by the time these giants come to the rescue there will have been plenty of moon-fear to go around. All the inhabitants of Termina are afraid of this plummeting red sphere and you will also be afraid as the hour of impact draws near. One youtube commenter, "yamatovergil3", had this to say about the menacing moon:
"I remember the first time I played this game and made link look up. I swear I fucking shit myself when I saw that moon." And there you have it: this moon will induce shitting. In conclusion, any moon that causes people to take a crap in their own pants is as scary as the blood-soaked spectre of Genghis Kahn screaming into your face from hell. But not as scary as
this.
Contest:
6:01 PM on 10.31.2008 | 
No kidding. There were a few things I edited out of the article to keep it streamlined. For example, do you remember the Clock Town swordsman? I was going to add in a little blurb about how badly the whole situation freaks him out as it's quite funny, really. Couldn't get the screenshots to make it worthwhile though (boo @ not owning a capture card).
@ Garison
Pretty cool, aren't they! I'm a sucker for crazy commercials like this and have a lot more to show if you'd like. Also, as I mentioned in the article, RadioZelda was only one component of Nintendo's online marketing campaign. Can anyone remember the other big site they had? It was really cool. ;]
@ Buddha
For sure, Buddha. I remember getting stuck in the Great Bay Temple on my first play through and deciding to restart the game because I was so mixed up. Damn those underwater Zelda temples. You know, like this one:
http://www.destructoid.com/feel-the-hatred-the-water-temple-102024.phtml
Despite the fact that I loved Ocarina of Time, I've never played Majora's Mask. Someone gave me a copy a few years after it came out, but I ended up selling it to Gamestop when I was dead broke. Bummer. Is it worth going back to try it, or has the game not aged very well?
As for Majora's Mask, it's definitely worth it for you to track down a copy of the game. From a graphical standpoint, it's held up by powerful art direction and the unique Zelda-typical approach to character and world design. Looks great for an eight year old game. Likewise, the gameplay and soundtrack are right up there. I'd definitely recommend scoring a cart at a used gamestore for $20-$30 or downloading the invevitable Virtual Console iteration.
Holy damn. I didnt even try The Water Temple on my own. The minute I got in there I looked up a walkthrough online, even with that it was still a bitch. I couldnt imagine trying to get through it without a walkthrough.
Bang up job dude!
The atmosphere of the game was different from any other Zelda game, and i think that this is one of the top reasons it was so good. I never saw any of these commercials on tv, since i'm brazilian and they didn't air here, but someone linked me to them a few months ago, and i can just say this:
I wish i could save the freakin world by playing Zelda.
good article.
The game is great, I was an avid fan of Ocarina of Time when I played it, and that did nothing to hamper my opinion.
Sure, it may be a tad more difficult (Especially when you were a little kid,) but if that's your reason for disliking it/not playing it, you're a little noobie.
And when that moon is moments from crashing down, the whole world is shaking, and the sky is nothing but it, hell yes that's scary.
Great write up.
Also, that Zelda Radio stuff is mega rad. I wish Nintendo would run more ad campaigns like that (and take more chances with legendary IP like MM even if I was not enamored with it).
Majora's Mask is easily my favorite Zelda game.
(Also, who else remembers what the moon was actually like once you got to it? Awesome.)
@ Dr Milkdad
The moon in Ducktales is certainly the polar opposite of MM's moon. You are totally right about that. Really, the music alone is so cheery that we as players are obligated to enjoy the level!
@ Gunslap
I think he's a really cool character, but the little freak-out visualized above is pretty disturbing.
@ Buddha
No kidding, hey? I eventually tried to work through it with Nintendo Power's official player's guide but still got screwed at some point. I swear, it felt like I'd encountered a game-ending glitch, Fable II style.
@ Poopface Morty
Damn, glad to hear you agree with me on that! I recall hearing someone describe OoT as macrocosmic and MM as microcosmic and I think that's a great way of putting it, wouldn't you say?
@ The-Excel
Haha! Termina's moon needed a big STFU just like that.
@ Mirax
Woohoo, it's all about the ambience. I really dig games that nail down an immersive atmosphere. Yakuza and Shenmue are a couple other games which are stunning in this regard. It's cool that you've only recently been exposed to these commercials. Once a person sees aspects of a title's marketing campaign that contribute to the game's atmosphere, I think they can develop new insights into the game world itself. In this case, MM's commercials really focus our attention on the stress and pandemonium that I tried to emphasize in the article.
Okay, I've got to skip away for a few minutes but I'll be back with more replies in a little while. I promise!
Hehe not really... it's all about Frank Sonatra. =]
@ Mxyzptlk
You've gotta play it; this is a REQUIREMENT.
@ DibbityDan
I'm right there with you on holding off aliens overnight at the ranch. That is seriously memorable stuff. The easiest (but lengthiest) way to deal with the invaders was to bust out the ocarina and slow down time as it greatly decreased the speed at which those buggers could move, giving Link a big advantage over them. The events of the following morning were also pretty intense. I won't say much -- in case some peeps actually go out and snag a copy of the game after reading this article -- but getting a hug from Cremia (this doesn't happen every time) for your troubles was a truly beautiful moment in gaming! Oh, the tears stream down my cheeks.
@ Grasshopper7
Melancholy is a great word to pair with Clock Town and surrounding Termina. It describes the overarching mood not just in terms of the popular discontent accompanying the moon's descent but also in terms of the more earthly (no pun here) troubles of the townsfolk. The entire Bomber's Notebook quest deals with relieving others of their problems and alleviating melancholy across Termina. It's great stuff.
@ Sheyon
Me too, Sheyon, me too. I'm not dissing OoT here because that game was absolutely phenomenal, refreshing, and stands high on the podium of my personal favourite games list. What MM accomplishes more effectively than that game is to really dig into the relationships, emotions, and interactions that hold up its network of characters.
I felt that when Twilight Princess was released, the Zelda series once again put these microcosmic elements on the backburner. I know that TP is essentially an expansion of OoT's quest-grandeur approach to gameplay, but I still found it disappointing that some of MM's impressive achievements were dropped in wake of that narrative style. To me, TP felt somewhat hollow as a result. Sorry to neglect The Wind Waker here; I think that game sits somewhere in between MM and OoT/TP on the microcosmic-to-macrocosmic scale.
Exactly my thoughts. Games don't always have to be serious but when they create an emotional impact on the player they can be a potent medium. It's all about the player-to-world interaction and the unique way in which video games can develop characters. I think that Majora's Mask is great at this. =]
@ Funktastic
For sure. People huff about the three-day limit but it's really not a big deal; it adds a lot more than it takes away. In exchange for "unlimited" time, players get a complex system of character development and interaction plus plot/subplot development all wrapped up into a unique package. The 72 hour cycle adds pressure, of course, but if you slow down time then any section of the game can be easily completed with many hours to spare.
@ Harukai
I'm glad you enjoyed it. The ONE DAY LEFT screen can be maddening indeed if you've been loafing off too much to complete a certain task.
@ GohanGVO
For sure. The other viral component of MM's marketing campaign, "z-science", was equally interesting. A good example among some of the most clever internet advertisements out there.
@ The White Light
Again, I'm pleased to see there are so many people who are as intrigued by Majora's Mask as I am. It's as immersive as it is quirky. The fact that everyone in the game had their own schedule and corresponding story to get involved in was awesome. And yes, the moon itself made for an interesting place to explore.
Thanks for all the great comments, everyone. =]