There is a bunch of games where your task is to stop the end of the world, but instead of structuring the game as a corridor of events leading to the final showdown, it is open. You can go and do whatever you want. In these cases I invariably feel I can't just go about doing whatever. A big part of me always feels this need to finish the quest. I can't go screwing around when the world is ending!

Take Skyrim for instance. Alduin the World Eater is flying around waking up dragons. You are the only one who can stop him. On my first playthrough I did minimal of the sidequests, I really leaned into those main quests though. I just felt I couldn't mess around while Alduin is supposed to make things shittier by the minute. But you could fuck around for years in the game without anything really changing. It breaks some of the immersion for me, and so I need to stop the end of the world. Fast.

Morrowind was better at that. Your very first quest is to deliver a package. When you do so, the recipient Caius Cosades turns out to be a member of a spy network. The package contains a letter saying you are supposed to become a member of the network. The first mission he gives you? "Go out and do whatever. Join a guild or something, fight some bandits. Just do stuff to make an alibi, this spy network is secret." No "you have to stop Dagoth Ur fast or he will destroy the world!". In the context of the story of that game you are free to just do whatever you want. Hell, you are encouraged to!

This brings me to Majora's Mask. Recently remastered and released on 3DS, a lot of people have shouted out both in favor of it and against it. I am part of the crowd who love it. A part of the smaller subset who thinks it is the best Zelda game out there. And a part of the even smaller subset who thinks it is one of the ten best games I have ever played. One of the main gripes people have with the game is the "three day restriction".

The game works like this: You arrive in Termina three days before the moon is to hit the ground. You literally have exactly three in-game days to stop the end of the world. These three days pass on rather fast. A quick Google search yielded this chart:

1 Termina hour = 45 seconds

4 Termina hours = 3 minutes

12 Termina hours = 9 minutes

1 Termina day = 18 minutes

2 Termina days = 36 minutes

3 Termina days = 54 minutes

Inverted Song of Time - Triple the amount of real time

1 slow Termina hour = 2 minutes 15 seconds

4 slow Termina hours = 9 minutes

12 slow Termina hours = 27 minutes

1 slow Termina day = 54 minutes

2 slow Termina days = 1 hour 48 minutes

3 slow Termina days = 2 hours 42 minutes

So without messing with the time, which is easier to realize you can do in the 3DS version, you only get 54 minutes to save the world. I can see how people figure that out and think "hell no, this fucking sucks". Even with the Inverted Song of Time you only got 2 hours 42 minutes. Not that long time, right? Well, with that you can finish dungeons without any problems. I actually only learned about the Inverted Song of Time after beating the first two dungeons back in the day. And I was like... 12 years old or something. So it can be done on the normal time as well. How you say?

You don't have just 54 minutes/2 hours 42 minutes to beat the game. When you play the Song of Time you can travel back in time to the first day. Everything is reset, except certain items. You keep your bow, but your arrows disappear. You keep your bomb bag, but no bombs. Your upgraded wallet remains, but all your rupees poof. If you spent your last three day cycle getting to the entrance of a temple, finding the Owl Statue there, you can simply warp there right away. So the time constraint isn't "save the world in three days", it's "do whatever you want/need in three days". Want to beat a temple? You got three days. You want to roam around gathering rupees? You got three days.

And this is one of the reasons why I love this game. It has a time constraint that actually works. The world will end in three days. It actually will end, killing you and everyone else, forcing you to reload. In any other game I can think of the end of the world never happens, as it has not been scripted in to actually happen after a set amount of time (if there are any games I would love to hear about them! Ah, just remembered Fallout has that, so I can think of one game.).

If you only had those three days, the game would be super stressful. Even if those three days was real-time days. But with the Song of Time, a crucial part of the story, you sidestep the stress once you learn how it works. The first few cycles of days I was really stressed out. "Ok, I am at the beginning again, but I only have three days to beat this temple now! FUCK!". But you quickly figure out that you got plenty of time. Hell, you got all the time in the world. This also gives you an in-game reason why you can just fuck around for a long time. If you want you can spend a three-day cycle just unwinding. Taking in the sights. Have a vacation so to speak, without breaking the immersion. I know I would do that from time to time.

So the three-day cycle, one of the reasons why a lot of people dislike the game, is actually one of the main reasons why I love it so. It's like a perfect blend of "THE WORLD IS ENDING SOON" and "Eh, do whatever you want man, it's all good". And yet I understand why it turns people off the game. But for me, it is one of the greatest games out there.

Interesting piece, and it seems like the way Majora's Mask deals with this problem works well but if a game doesn't have some sort of time freezing/rewinding mechanic it would be hard to convey "the world is ending soon' without placing a lot of time pressure on the player or without making it seem trivial.

You've definitely convinced me to get it for my 3DS. However it'll have to wait until I've played through Link's Awakening, Link between Time and OoT...

It was always weird to me that people never find out about the reversed Song of Time, when it supposed to be one of the first things you learn. You get to the observatory, talk to the scarecrow there because... well... It's a damn TALKING DANCING SCARECROW ! And he tells you how to use the Song of Time. But I guess they probably should have put it right in your face in an unskippable dialogue or something, to make sure you don't miss it because it is so important. The weirdest part is that they didn't change that in the 3DS version. Where they give you the Bombers' Notebook as soon as you go back in time instead of when you find the kids a second time in human form, or the Song of Soaring the moment you enter the swamp instead of just before you enter the first dungeon, they still make the scarecrow conversation missable. Bummer.

Anyway, I always loved Majora's Mask, and like you I really enjoy the fact that the 3 days cycle is more of a indicator of what is going on right now and the subquests you can do more than an actual time limit. Replaying the game recently on the 3DS though, I realized the cycle gets in the way of the game way too much. I mean, while there are events that DO use the 3 days cycle and do something interesting with it (like the Anju-Kafei quest, or the Romani Ranch) there are a lot of subquests that don't really change depending on the day. It's more of a "show up at this specific time" or "show up these specific days". Worse, a lot of the game doesn't even use that system AT ALL. I mean, the entire part where you figure out the area and then get the song to open the dungeon and explore said dungeon, the main quest basically, does nothing with the 3 day cycle. On one hand, it's understandable, because you should always be able to do the main quest, but on the other, it make the entire 3 days look like a time limit and nothing else. Not that I have a problem with running out of time (I can do the first 3 dungeons in around 1,5 slowed days each) but it makes me wonder why the cycle is omnipresent in the first place from a gameplay perspective. Why have me go though 3 days when the dungeon doesn't change depending on the day ? Why not have a "the place exist outside of time" or something and remove that entire component during the exploration of the dungeon ? Why not make the quests leading to the dunegons be active only at specific times, forcing the player to use the Song of Time, basically teaching them it's OK to go back in time before doing subquests, because it's the way the game was designed : use the Song of Time whenever you need !

I still absolutely adore Majora's Mask, but recently I realized that as soon as you get out of Clock Town, the entire 3 day cycle system becomes way more of a hindrance and an arbitrary time limit, than an interesting game mechanic.

I shall join you in the small group that's thinks MM is the best Zelda & one the best games ever. The three day cycle always made me want to help all those doomed people more, not less.

Great write-up. I think you're spot on. Also Link is frequently referred to as "The Hero of Time" but in Ocarina of Time he kind of jumps back and forth between two time states purely because he was "too young" to be the hero of time. It didn't really make sense, not that it had to for the game to be good. Majora's Mask makes "Hero of Time" actually mean something though. Link actually manipulates time to do the impossible and, to me, that gives the ultimate satisfaction for the player.

I understand the gripes of the original but I think this new version is worth playing for the people who dismissed the first, purely due to the refinement of the way the time system works and the tools you now have to make it less frustrating.

@thenine: I've been trying to figure out another way to do this, but I don't think I am clever enough. That is a problem, if every game who want to make a balance between "Oh, fuck we are all going to die" and "do whatever!" must have a way to either freeze time or rewind time. And freezing time kinda won't work the same way.

Ah, going through all of them? I really want to do that some day. But to do so I would have to resort to emulators, and I don't want to do that.
OoT is almost mandatory to play before MM. So much cool stuff they do with characters and such. Like the Gerudo, who are desert dwellers in OoT. But in the parallel reality of Termina they are pirates.

@jamesjeux007: Huh, I have only done one dungeon so far on the 3DS version, and I cannot remember if the Scarecrow mentions the Reversed Song of Time in the observatory. He says he can dance dance dance the night/day away, but I don't think he mentions the song. Unless you actually do dance with him. My 12 year old self didn't realize it because of my grasp of the English language. Being Norwegian a lot of things was lost to me. But I don't feel the Inverted Song of Time is that mandatory. As I said, I did beat half the game without it when I was a kid. It does make the game better though, so having it even more upfront would be better.

I'm not sure if it needed to be even more integral to the main quest to be honest. The thing I like is that the time of day, or which day it is, is very important to all the side quests. It is after all the same days moving along. Nothing changes unless you change them. Having time move while inside temples should happen, as it makes sense, and having parts of it locked up unless you where there at the right time would just be frustrating.
I feel they do a good job with introducing the song, making it feel like a natural thing to do. When you first get it, which is right at the end of your first cycle, you must use it. When you do you realize it only helped you. It is a tool to use just as everything else.
I see where you are coming from, but to me the way it is implemented is the best way, immersion wise.

@panelhopper: It always made me happy when I managed to save or help someone. But then time is rewound, and they are back to needing rescue. And you can never do that. So many of them are doomed, even if you stop the moon and save the world. I have to admit, the darkness of the story is also one of the reasons why I like it.

@lunnington: Thanks! His title of "Hero of Time" does make a lot more sense in this game, yeah. If you care about the whole "timeline" thing as well, which I kinda do since I love shit like that, it makes sense in many ways.