The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2001)

Author: Akira Himekawa | Illustrator: Akira Himekawa | Page Count: 208

"As long as I see that in the sky, I can’t rest."

Majora's Mask continues the story told in Ocarina of Time (2000).  Link enters a mysterious forest searching for his missing fairy, Navi.  Trouble ensues and Link ends up in a situation wherein he has just three days to stop a major disaster or everyone caught in the impact will be killed.

The way the N64 game is structured* doesn't make any kind of linear adaptation easy, so Akira Himekawa took the only sensible route open, which was to focus on the acquisition of those masks that directly effect Link and ignore all but the most pertinent side-quest, i.e. the one that offers the most opportunity to pluck at the heartstrings.  You can likely guess which one that is.  Consequently, a lot more changes have been made to the story than was made to OoT, but in most cases they were unavoidable and as before they're respectful.

MM had some very dark themes; some of which make it onto the page.  The Happy Mask Salesman is wiggins and the main antagonist is somewhat disturbing in ways that I won’t mention.  What’s even stranger is that, while they’re innocuous enough to be overlooked, the inclusion of a small number of questions asked by some of the characters can be interpreted in such a way that they lend credence to the theory that sprung up amongst fans to explain how Link got from Hyrule to Termina in such a short space of time.  It's interesting, to say the least.

MM is one of the few Legend of Zelda games in which Princess Zelda doesn't play an active role, so it seems fitting that the bonus story that comes after the main story has no Link; but it’s connected nonetheless, so don’t skip it.

3½ shtump steps out of 5

*You can read a review of the N64 game on our sister site, Nut Load.