Zelda: Majora's Mask

Things that Surprised Me

1. A moment where I jumped off one of the tallest cliffs to get to the bottom when coincidentally the Dawn cutscene interrupted me. I thought I did the impossible and the game was going to reward me with some unique cutscene.
   
   
2. I was fighting off some sort of wolf in the mountains. I couldn't strike it and I was having a hard time figuring out what to do as it circled me. The moment it turned around, I shot a fire arrow into its back. I had the biggest smile as it caught on fire; I don't know why.
   
   
3. After checking out the Great Bay area, I noticed a spot in the distance. I went through the back on accident and went through what appeared to be another generic cave. I had to take a moment to have everything sink in when the music changed, the lighting grew bright, and the entire atmosphere became surreal. I had entered into Zora Cape.
   
   
4. After playing a song for Lulu, there was a cutscene where she started to sing. My memory was a bit hazy, but all I remember doing is shouting "It's a turtle!" after the island behind me turned into a giant turtle. I was not expecting that.
   
   
5. I noticed a small shaking while trying to aim with my arrow. I thought it was part of the aiming mechanism built inside the game. Gradually, I learned it all had to do with how I was carefully holding up the 3DS. That was when I decided to sit down in my office chair and hold the 3DS up in front of me. It made things rather interesting while fighting Gyorg. I liked spinning around in my chair as my character turns around in a circular platform.
   
   
6. I always knew that the rain and the thunder came during the second day. What I didn't find out until much later is that actual lightning strikes through the sky a brief moment before the flash of light and sound of thunder comes through. I only discovered this while looking up into the sky while checking out Clock Town.
   
   
7. I liked the explicit details of all the maps. I liked how you could zoom in and see stray fairies, chests, and locked doors in the dungeon maps. Most importantly, I was really taken back when seeing colored lines demonstrating the pipes that traversed the Great Bay Temple.

Things that Scared Me

1. The moment I entered into an empty room with various urns and pots in each of the corners. The map clearly showed a treasure chest and I was not about to leave without it. I looked around the room by tilting the 3DS upward all the way around, but found nothing. I saw something black coming from the pipes on the wall and thought about shooting a fire arrow. Nothing happened. I then took my camera and looked upward when suddenly there was a cutscene of a giant eyeball.
   
   
2. I was in the process of obtaining more eggs at what I thought was going to be a cave filled with snakes. The pirates mentioned serpents and I couldn't quite figure out what they were talking about. The golden seahorse brought me to a site and showed me how to get to a giant pit. It stopped and told me to go on without him. I dropped down and started to sink to the bottom what I thought was going to be the entrance when a giant eel-like creature popped out of the hole behind me and grabbed hold of me. I was so at ease that the sudden rupture of this giant monster caught me off guard.

Things that Made Me Laugh

1. The twins were moving in sync in front of the Lottery place. I used my mask to dance with them when one of the bomber gang kids came over and shook its butt in anticipation of telling me a rumor. The whole time during the cutscene, the twins were staring at the kid's butt. It got even funnier when they liked what they saw and started saying "master."
   
   
2. My quest was to retrieve the eggs out of various fish tanks inside the Pirate Fortress. After clearing out the place, I went to the Research Facility to drop them in when I realized that one of my bottles had a fish in it. In my haste, I realized I grabbed a fish instead of an egg and had to go back.
   
   
3. There was a time while exploring the Great Bay area when I had come up with an amazing theory. I really wanted to know what the blue note spot in the song list did while I had interviewed the band members. My theory was that the song pushed the water back and it allowed certain areas to open up. After I learned what the song was really meant for, I couldn't help but laugh at my crazy theory. Still, the idea would have been pretty cool to explore.
   
   
4. I know it was entirely possible to transverse the swamp by skipping on lilypads over the water. However, I quickly learned that I could simple swim across like any other body of water as normal Link. I thought it mildly funny that wearing the Bunny Hood made him swim twice as fast. Once I obtained Zora Link, I thought that swimming through the river would be even faster. I was so wrong. Zora Link is so tall that his feet touches the ground and thereby travels slower than swimming with the Bunny Hood.
   
   
5. There was a Zora who dared me to break all the pots on display behind him. After taking a moment to think about it, I decided to just use a huge powder keg right in the middle. The explosion was large enough to take them all out. I don't think the reward was enough to cover the cost of the keg.

Things I Needed Help With

1. I traveled the entire mountainside looking for the next place to visit. I visited every place I could go to and couldn't find the next step. Everything was frozen - the forge, the elder, what appeared to be the great bomber entrance, goron in front of the shrine, and the water surrounding the area. Even the goron race track was blocked. I tried everything. I tried feeding the hungry goron with a bottle fish, bottling flame, completing mini games a dozen times in hopes of receiving a flamethrower, laying down multiple bombs at once in a circle. There was no answer to the crying kid in the cave and no resolution other than a frog hat from feeding the hungry goron. After consulting Sheikah Hint Stone video, I realized that I should have tried harder in finding that hot water spring underneath the shrine. Going around the shrine and dragging it back was the answer.
   
   
2. I wasted a lot of time at Snowhead Temple and didn't want to waste anymore. The moon was coming down and I couldn't figure out where to go next. I had to consult the Sheikah Hint Stone video to figure out that I needed to Punch the Pillars that were colored white in the center column. I honestly tried rolling into them and I thought I tried punching them. Only after approaching them a second time did Tatl mention anything special.
   
   
3. I decided to revisit Stonehead Temple again to collect all the fairies. However, I grew tired and restless after the initial dungeon run. I consulted the Sheikah Hint Stone and a screenshot of a crate above a pillar appeared. I found it immediately and tossed a bomb. That was the last fairy I needed in that dungeon.
   
   
4. After exploring nearly all of the Skulltulla House, I was still hearing a spider move in a room filled with five giant pots. I tried using Goron Link and rolling into them, but nothing happened. I punched them, (obviously) placed bombs everywhere, dropped seed bombs as Deku Link, and used the Lens of Truth. Despite all my efforts, I could not find the last spider. After searching online for an answer, I found out that you must roll directly into the center of the pot for it to pop out. I felt so ashamed. Coincidentally, the same thing happened in the second Skulltulla House. Three smaller pots were not covered up and you had to roll directly into them.
   
   
5. There was another occasion where I used most of my time exploring Great Bay Temple. Things got very complicated as I pressed through each of the colored pipelines. After clearing the red pipeline, I followed it back to the main room. This is where I hit a snag. I couldn't figure out how to cross the wide gap between the door and the water gushing out of the red fish. I tried skipping across as Deku Link, jumping across with Bunny Hood, and dolphin jumping with Zora Link. Only after using the Sheikah Hint Stone video guide did I discover that there was a hookshot on the ceiling directly above the water sprout. I stock this up with the multiple issues of not being able to look directly above you with using the lock tool. Only by using arrows, hookshot, or the photograph tool would you discover it up there.
   
   
6. While clearing out Stone Tower Temple, I had reached a point where I became utterly lost and confused. I had gotten the boss key and returned back to the beginning of the dungeon. I was pretty tired by that point and my time had come down to the last six hours. Only by consulting the Sheikah Hint Stone did I find out that the chest that appeared when pressing a button by the entrance spawned below another chest visibly seen in the center of the room. I felt embarrassed as I returned to the room and discovered my fallacy.

Things I Stumbled Across

1. I noticed a ramp that led up to an oddly shaped chandelier. I destroyed a couple before finding a giant slab of something interesting. Trying my hand in feeding the hungry goron anything, I figured I would throw this at him too. It worked.
   
   
2. I needed to reset time back using the ocarina when I decided to challenge myself. Instead of playing it directly from the music sheet, I wanted to try and memorize it. Because of my poor memory, I completely forgot what it was when I flipped the page. After stumbling around the notes, I accidentally discovered how to use Slow Time. It was only later I realized that the scarecrow mentions that alongside Double Time.
   
   
3. I was still wandering around the town when I discovered a mysterious fellow hiding in the back. It was right around midnight and just talked to him. Time quickly passed by when a new cutscene played out. I struck the burglar down and managed to save the elderly lady. It was rather nifty to find this event so early in the game without any sort of clue at all.
   
   
4. I found the man mining the giant rock at Milk Road very early in the game. I waited patiently to see if the man would actually break through the rock. While waiting, I stumbled across a man that gave me a dog mask. At the dawn of the third day, the man had been successful at breaking through the rock. I stumbled across Romani Ranch and the Chicken Coop in the back. I had the Guru-Guru mask and completed the challenge right away. I was so thankful I completed that challenge so early for the reward was the awesome Bunny Hood. It helped me get around Termina much easier.

Things I'm Proud To Figure Out All On My Own

1. As I ventured through the swamp, I stumbled across a monkey that led me to an old hag in the old forest. She needed energy, but I didn't have anything to give her. Her sister was nowhere to be found. I went to buy a red potion at the shop in Clock Town but he stated I needed a bottle first. I tried getting some milk at the farm but they also required a bottle. I tried different tactics in becoming a member at the Milk Bar in an attempt of getting a bottle. I even thought that passing some sort of test from the photography contest might do the trick. I went back into the forest and found the old lady flying around looking for her sister. Too bad she still didn't give me any assistance. After thinking about it, I found out that the one old hag held the shop on the first day and went searching for her sister on the second day. Only after finding her sister in the forest and returning on the first day did I receive a bottle pre filled with energy. This was a new addition to the 3DS version and made things a little confusing.
   
   
2. Very early in the game, I was given a task in finding the mayor's son. I used the Kafei mask that was given to me all over town. However since it was not the first day, Anju had already left the inn and went back to the ranch. The mayor didn't help at all being busy with the local feud and the mailman simply told me that it was supposed to be a secret. Not much later I found a bell in the middle of nowhere. Ringing the bell called forth a man with the same identical blue hair as the mask I was wearing. I tried everything to force him to talk to me. I talked to the frog, moved the frog, tried transforming the frog, thought about feeding the frog bugs, laying multiple bombs at nearly every location, tossing a bomb from a distance, searching for the bow and arrow, talking to Guru-Guru, talking to the man at the curiosity shop, and playing the couple songs I knew from my ocarina. After at least defeating the first dungeon boss did I stumble across the Postman giving Anju a mysterious letter. Only then did I try talking to the lady with the mask equipped. This prompted the beginning of a very long questline.
   
   
3. For the majority of the game, I had wondered how one would enter into the canyon area. There was only a long gated fence with a wooden board in between blocking the pathway. I had seen one very similar keeping my horse in at the ranch and another at Milk Road. At various moments in the game I had tried different types of masks, playing multiple songs on all instruments, finding an item (like a saw) to clear it, shooting the board with a flame arrow, shooting the small blue flame that was over it with a flame arrow, climbing over, using hookshot, using captain's hat, and eventually even wearing the captain's hat while riding on a horse. After messing around on my horse did I finally figure out that I could jump over the fence. The difference this time was the speed of the horse.

2-28-2015