Sunday Morning Game Majora's Mask Part 7

It doesn't look like a Temple? No, I agree, but the monkey and the owl said this was the way to the temple so I have to believe them, don't I? Trusting the owl has never failed me so far.

First obstacle, these "Hiploop" things. They're not as mean as they sound, and two bubbles make them go all poof and vanish, so eh.

Deku Scrub Mark? I guess it is supposed to be a Temple, so them worshipping here actually makes a lot of sense. That's the first time a "Temple" in these games have actually had religious importance in the world! Neat.

There's also one of those owl statues that said to "leave a mark" on them.

And, okay, I'll admit I accidentally cheated on this. I saw what you were supposed to do in the guide while looking something else up. But I don't mind because I'm not sure I would've thought of this, really?

It means hitting it with a sword.

As I said in Ocarina, I don't think I'm built for the kind of logic these games run on. And this will soon prove to be incredibly useful, so I'm glad I did it.

But then the statue begins describing what you can do with it.

Right, cool. Not that it matters since I'm just using Emulation save-states, but okay. (Also what it doesn't say is that it will save at the current time and location, so I'd reload exactly to here, on the 3rd day, instead of the time reset).

What? If I Reopen the "Owl File", THEN reset without saving at an owl statue (but I just did, didn't I then?) I'll lose all progress. What? I don't... understand. Isn't that just a normal reset at that point? Why describe it so weirdly?

Then it gives a prompt whether I want to save and quit now, to which I say hell no, I just got here.

Anyways, there's a cave.

So I go back out and look for the fairies.

I'm sorry but NUTTY LINK is my favourite addition to the canon so far. Everything Link does as NUTTY LINK is just adorable.

And I can't find the fairies anywhere. They're not in there at all. I go back and check, that sure enough, the fairies said in "Woodfall Temple" which is where I thought I was.

Soooo, I look it up. And turns out I'm completely off track: I need to go play a song on the Deku Scrub Mark!

Which, hey, this is me just forgetting how zelda games work. My bad. Playing the song you recently got on a symbol is a very common thing, and I should've remembered it. Well. That's what happens when you spend a week in-between play-sessions.

BUT THEN

It's a Temple in the Water!

now THAT'S a temple! 

Now it all makes sense! I head inside and the first thing I see is

WAIT

A Majora's Mask Symbol?

HOLD ON

What's that doing in the Deku Scrub Temple? Was it THEIR MASK originally? Are they "The Ancients" the story talked about?

Hmm, something fishy going on here.

Anyways, it's time for some proper dungeoning, presented in Montage Form

These plants that definitely aren't plants but just regular platforms you can stand on, sure. (You actually can stand on them, like, it's fine. I never stood on them long enough for them to do something, so shrug.)

Uh oh. Not this thing. Getting bad flashbacks.

(Which, okay, a way you can kill the turtles is to pop inside a flower and pop up right as it goes over it, which is pretty great.) Also, look at their eyes. They're funny.

The Majora Symbol AGAIN. Yeah, something's rotten in the state of De....ku. (hey, it was close)

This sure is a zelda dungeon. I'm running through the motions. Now, what was I doing he-

15 FAIRIES?! 15?? Lord. They did NOT need to add a bad collectible to their dungeons.
Getting a bad feeling about this.

But oh, shit. Look at the timer. The 3 days are almost up. I got 1 minute 47 seconds...

I... neeed to reset the days.

But I'm in a dungeon?

All right, let's figure out how this goes.

I do it, I'm back in Clocktown, as expected. First Day, everyone's happy and chill. But In Clocktown. Not where I need to be.

BUT, now I have the owl song, which was supposed to do something like...

Fast travel!

And voila! We're back in the... oh, the temple is below water again... That's annoying.

A quick jingle later and the Temple realizes what's up and I go in and check my progre--

Oh, I have to collect all the fairies again. That's... very annoying. I have the compass and the map at least?

So I run through it and find that the locked doors are also locked again, so I need to go do some stick-fire-running but

I don't have any sticks. I had 3.

That's ....

Ok. So. Link, when resetting time, keeps his Ocarina, the compass and dungeon map, his masks and his general wherewithall (memories are still in question, to be honest), but he loses his money, his fairies and his sticks?

Where's the logic in that? Why does he keep some things and lose other things? It makes sense that the world state resets, but if Link keeps some of his belongings, shouldn't ALL of his belongings stay?

Unless... it's like a secret packmule thing where Link has an always-off-camera-cow that carries all his extra equipment like sticks and rupees, and then brings them out when he needs them. But the cow resets on time, because it's not Link! Makes perfect sense. Is the only explanation.

Anyways, time to go find some sticks. Sigh.

A bit of stick hunting later, I go back and, whoops, jumped wrong, now I'm in the poison water as non-NUTTY Link and now I'm dead.

Death, though, does not make you lose the sticks! I'm just put at the beginning of the Dungeon, inventory intact!

See, this just leads further credence to my cow-off-camera-theory! The Cow just runs back to the entrance! Let's give the cow a name. His name is Barry.

Barry the Bearer of Sticks.

Sooo... what follows is a long series of me trying to kill flowers to get sticks, them being unwilling to drop sticks, me forgetting my way and going in the wrong room, jumping in the water and dying again, getting sticks and finally getting through to the spot I was at before, and we've already spent the day part of the first day! Great.

The... "evil" Tatl mentioned before in the dark corridor turns out to just be a dark room with those smudge-slimes with orange eyes from before who just die in one hit and you have to do some more fire-lighting to run to the next room.

And... that's where I left it for now. I needed a break after that clusterfuck.

So I need to complete a Temple in a fixed amount of time, starting without ANY consumable items each time. This is going to be hell. I'm already dreading it.

Well, for your sake I'll skip over all the boring redoings so you can just sit and wonder why the fuck there's Majora Symbols in the Temple the Dekus worship inside! And wonder how Barry the Cow looks. Bet he's... beefy.

Sorry. See you next time! Hopefully I'll have some progress to write about!