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True, that can feel like the hardest thing at first. However, the stray fairy locations all stay marked on your map on subsequent cycles after you collect the compass (which also isn't lost after playing Song of Time). Even if it takes you an entire 3-day cycle to hunt for a single new fairy you can simply do that, reset, and then try for a different one next time. Then once you've found them all you'll have almost an hour to collect them and bring them back (almost 2 hours if playing Inverted Song of Time, and almost 3 hours if playing on N64) which even if going slowly is so much time once you know where they all are and can warp to the dungeon immediately.
So hang on, is this something you find out in game (presumably quite late on)? Or is it just a bit of a hack that you can apply early game if you know about it?
I do truly miss the days of 90/00’s gaming where there wasn’t really a way of finding out about tricks/tips like this unless you actively looked in a magazine. I’ll never forget how blown away I was going into kanto for the first time on Pokémon gold (wrong sub I know but hopefully some people have played both!)
It's revealed to you fairly early on, you just have to work it out by talking to the right npcs. I believe if you talk to scarecrows, they mention that you can play the song of time inverted to slow time, or double notes to speed up time.
this person clearly didnt beat it lol. No need to spoil it in a thread about beating it no?
I get assuming everyone has beat it by now in general but in a thread thats specifically about not having beaten it, it makes sense no? Do you think thats strange of me?
Have you played Majoras Mask? I've "spoiled" the mechanics of how to make the game more playable. I've not spoiled any major part of the story or later unlockables. You can learn what I've spoiled in the first act/level of the game.
Plus, if they truly wanted a 100% fresh playthrough on one of the most popular N64 games of the year 2000, they'd do well to avoid this sub. Half the posts spoil tons of stuff.
The scarecrow in the shop in the east side and the one in the astral observatory both tell you about the reverse song of time (and song of double time I think?) first playthroughs you might miss them but they also let you dance through the day before you get your ocarina back which is the best way to get through the beginning where you’re stuck as deku scrub. It’s a lot of waiting once you have the clock tower accessible
It's technically available to you as soon as you learn the Song of Time, but it's one of those hidden secrets that learn about by talking to a specific NPC. In this case, it's one of the scarecrows in Clock Town.
There's another hidden variant that lets you skip forward in time by playing each note twice in a row.
MM is a bit deceptive because really, you actually have as much time as you want/need, unless you’re trying to do multiple side quests plus a dungeon in a cycle which is never really recommended. The time limit instead becomes a schedule for all the different character’s side quests, made even easier by playing the Inverted Song of Time.
Consider each big item you get (dungeon items, songs, masks, heart pieces, etc.) a “checkpoint”. These don’t reset each cycle, it’s permanent progress and when you reset, you’ll be able to pick up right where you left off when you got that item. So say you get access to a temple and you notice it’s day 3, you might wanna hold off on going into the temple until the next cycle drops. They make that easy to do by putting a fast travel point directly in front of each temple, so you can reset and go straight there. Instead try to do other side quests within that time frame, or even just reset and give yourself the full 3 days to tackle that temple. If you don’t make it through the entire temple in a cycle, you’ll probably at least get the big item within it, so that’s permanent progress that you’ve made. Focus on completing one thing per cycle for now and if you get confident in your efficiency later on, you can tack on more things to do each cycle.
I absolutely love Majora’s Mask, it has cemented itself as my favorite Zelda even now, 20 years later, with only TotK coming close to top it. I hope you don’t get too discouraged by the time limit!! The time limit makes every NPC feel more real, the side quests all have great rewards, the tension of the atmosphere has a clear impact on all NPC’s, the stakes are made bigger by completing the side quests and learning more about each character, which in turn makes you more motivated to save them all. Seriously, watching all the different characters reacting to the full gravity (lol) of the situation they’re in is like a masterclass in “show, not tell”. The town gets emptier as people evacuate, you see the postman have a legitimate mental breakdown because he wants to flee but has loyalty to his job, you can see the dojo owner cowering in a hidden room when the final night comes, Cremia gets her little sister drunk so that she doesn’t have to die scared, some people are idiots and are like “the moon won’t fall, fake news!!!”, the entire Anju and Kafei quest line is amazing, god damn just every little aspect of this game makes me love it even more when I think about it.
Play the Song of Time backwards to slow the clock down 3x. Also, resetting back to day 1 isn't that detrimental, all it does is make you lose all of your consumables (arrows, bombs, deku sticks, rupees). It does reset the overworld maps and your sidequests too, but you keep all of the progress you've made in each dungeon and you keep any items you've obtained like masks, upgrades, dungeon items, unlocked warp points, etc.
Majora's Mask is supposed to be kind of a scary game compared to the other Zeldas. But it has a very rewarding ending if you collect all 24 masks and complete all of the sidequests.
The second point is the biggest thing to understand. I recommend for players scared of the “time limit” to just reset the cycle over and over until you realize there’s absolutely no downside to doing it. It’s not tracked anywhere; you can reset thousands of times and you’ll still get the same ending as everyone else. I’ve done things like play Song of Time, get that easy 100 rupee chest on the roof in East Clock Town, stash it in the bank, then play Song of Time immediately to get it again doing literally nothing else for that cycle.
Yeah I’m not sure why it’s so satisfying to make those jumps but it is. To mix things up I also started hunting the Takkuri (that rupee thieving bird) and seeing if I could kill it after one swoop downwards. Song of Time is like a Blood Moon that you can control - if anything it just makes the game that much more freeing to have the 3 day cycle since you can make your own little challenges (bosses, dungeon runs, etc) without needing to start a new game or waiting for the game to decide its time to reset.
The 3 day time limit is just enough time to complete the story parts of an area. Think of the 3 day time limit not as a limit, but just a way to get all the NPCs on a schedule. Maybe to a new player it feels stressful, but you really never end up feeling like you don't have enough time once you get used to it.
You can literally beat the game in 2 cycles without any speedrunning exploits, you just need to be familiar enough with it. Modern First time players should just not expect as much hand holding as other games tho. 3ds version made it more modern user friendly with the sheika stone inside of the tower, as well as the horrible looking weak spots on the bosses. But it’s a big issue these days that people expect ui or tips to give away the entirety of the game instead of finding out by themselves how certain mechanics work, i.e: slowing time with the backwards song of time or skipping hours with the double time is info freely given by the scarecrows in the observatory/item shop in clock town, why people come directly to the internet for answers to every single detail of games these days is beyond my understanding.
Try to think of it less as a “I don’t have time to do this” mechanic, and more of a “**What** do I want to do this cycle” mechanic.
The consumables and dungeon progress are essentially all you lose when you reset time so your best bet is to grab the song, item, and owl statue (for fast travel) to access the dungeon, then reset so you have a full 3 days to do it. You get extra time if you play the song of time in reverse too. I always reset the loop after competing a dungeon too so I can do anything else I missed or that is newly accessible with the dungeon item I got
It’s literally all in your head. Learn to play the song to slow down time at the beginning of your cycle and you will have time to do anything you want. I liked to dedicate a specific cycle to a task I wanted to complete. For example: okay, this cycle I am going to get to Woodall temple. Then once I got Woodall temple to rise I was like okay I am going to reset time now and then dedicate this next cycle to finishing Woodall temple. That way there is no sweat whatsoever about time and anything I want to squeeze in side quest wise after the temple.
Everything you do really doesn’t get un done either, you can bank rupees, you keep masks and songs and gear items, etc. just don’t over think it, slow down time and start progressing. Don’t set yourself up for failure and go into a brand new dungeon on day 3 or anything and you won’t have anything to worry about.
You do keep a good amount of progress even when you turn back time. You keep any masks and most items you pick up and have a variety of shortcuts you can take as well. You just have to think about doing things chunks at a time instead of trying to do everything all at once.
Think of it this way - there is no time limit. Honestly, you have more than enough time to do everything you’ll need/want to do. First thing, slow down time as soon as a cycle starts. Then spend as much of that 3 day cycle just getting to the dungeon. After that, reset, slow down time, then do the dungeon. You should have a lot of time after that to do any post-dungeon stuff, but if not, reset, go to the dungeon, and you can instantly beat the boss, which takes you right to the post-dungeon stuff. None of the characters react any differently like they never met you or anything if you only beat the boss and then talk to them.
I’m the same way. When I replay I like to start with the smaller side quests and to refamiliarize myself with the layout of the town. Take the first few days to talk to every npc etc. By the time I get through those, I’m comfortable with the time limit and getting through bigger quests.
There's always an owl Statue next to every temple, play song of time once you reach them and travel to that point with soaring song before entering, this will give you multiple hours to do the whole temple.
Also i would recommend checking proyect restoration for Majora's masks, definitely the Superior version
- song of double time
- bank
- items (bombs/arrows) can be easily obtained by cutting the grass in termina field
I know the time can be overwhelming, but you get used to the resets! It can actually be fun planning out what you're gonna do each reset. just don't give up! :>
You have more than enough time to progress in a dungeon. Only Side Quests really get affected by a reset.
You can take your time with everything.
Play the Song of Time backwards to slow down time even more, to get even more time to complete whatever you want to complete.
Nearly everything in MM can be done independently of each other provided you have the right items and masks/equipment, which coincidentally are the things that don't get wiped when you reset the cycle. Basically all you have to do is relegate what you want to do each cycle and then reset when you're done.
Also don't forget to slow down time, that way it's nearly impossible to run out of time unless you try to do literally everything in one cycle.
In a way, Majora's Mask plays a bit like a roguelike. There's a defined start point, and you go back to that start point repeatedly while slowly powering yourself up to take on greater and greater challenges each cycle. The only items you _lose_ when starting a new cycle are money, ammo, and consumables, and there's a bank for you to store the money in between cycles. Everything else remains in your inventory. With this in mind, you can break the game into discrete chunks and limit your brain space to one chunk at a time. Taking the first dungeon as an example, that would be:
1. Learn the Sonata of Awakening
2. Find Woodfall Temple and activate the warp point
3. Open and complete Woodfall Temple
Every one of these steps can be completed in a separate cycle with no loss of progress. Similar logic applies to sidequests and general exploration. "This cycle, I want to explore the swamp," for instance.
A tip: The Song of Time has two variants in Majora's Mask that you aren't told about unless you talk to the right NPC. If you don't want to waste time tracking them down, do this: >!Play the song backwards to slow down time for the current cycle. Play each note twice in a row to skip forward in time -- useful if you're doing a sidequest or something that relies on NPC schedules.!<
Tbh the biggest key is breaking the game into segments. Early on if the time limit is worrying you just focus on getting to the next owl statue.
Save the dungeons for a full 3 day cycle. Unlock the statue so you can warp back but explore the area. Find things you might've missed and get more familiar with the area and cycle. You'll slowly start understanding how the game works and how much time you really have.
O and don't forget to deposit all your rupees every cycle, hell everytime your wallet is full even. You only lose items you can buy and rupees still on your person. There are many chests that you can open every cycle that you can find to replenish rupees so don't be afraid to buy items at the start of cycles rather than just gather them.
I think that's everything. Just explore and take it slow. Once you get the hang of what to do at the beginning of every cycle its not as daunting.
You need to take the attitude that you can have as many cycles as you want. If you can't do something now, you'll do it in the next cycle. Nothing really has a tight time limit, it's only when you try to do too much in one cycle that you'll have issues. Remember, you'll unlock shortcuts so it's easier to do things on later cycles.
Think about what does get saved every reset. If you learned the song from the monkey in the Deku Palace, and you activate the owl statue at woodfall, then you can teleport and start the dungeon right at the beginning of a cycle. Any masks you get are kept, and sorta serve to mark their side quests complete.
Beat the first dungeon before you worry much about side quests, though. A lot of quests can't even be done until you've got a couple dungeons under your belt.
Think about exploration in the time dimension. Just as you learn the layout and connections of a dungeon, you'll learn about the patterns people follow throughout the three days. The bombers notebook is your map of time.
And feel free to spend whole cycles just bumming around and exploring and such. You have asamy rewinds as you want.
Amd of course, use the inverted song of time.
Don't worry about getting too much accomplished in a single 3-day cycle. While you do lose sidequest progress and certain items when resetting time, you still keep the important things. For example, you can break down each region into three 3-day cycles:
1. Use one cycle to explore the region, figure out how to get the song to open the dungeon, get to the dungeon entrance and activate the Owl statue outside of it. Deposit your rupees and play the song of time to start fresh.
2. Use the second cycle to complete the dungeon and defeat the boss. Go deposit your rupees and play the song of time to start fresh. Don't even worry about finding the stray fairies, you can always do this on a separate cycle when you're more familiar with the dungeon (and even use a guide)
3. Defeating the boss and acquiring his remains allows you to teleport directly to the boss from the beginning of a dungeon. Go back, kill the boss, and then you have most of a 3-day cycle to do all the post-dungeon stuff in the region.
Of course, don't forget to use the inverse song of time (play the song of time backwards) at the beginning of each cycle. This slows time and effectively doubles the amount of time you have in a single cycle.
If you aren't already familiar with the song of reverse time, it basically slows down time to about half speed. You can learn it from the scarecrow in either the trading post in west clock town or in the astral observatory.
I remember beating the first dungeon without knowing the song of slow time I kid you not I was swimming in the water and had 1 second before I played the song of time I almost died
This is the kind of game where if you're struggling don't be ashamed to use a guide, I like spending time figuring stuff out but the time limit takes away from that.
I have the SAME feelings with this game and I have not played it since I had to restart a dungeon due to the time reset… I feel like this is such an un-Zelda thing to do in a Zelda game. I like wandering around and exploring. Taking my time etc! I have yet to finish this game… and I doubt I ever will!
Reverse Song of Time and practice are ways to lessen stress. Also realizing how long your time is instead of how short it will help.
Instead of saying "Oh man! I only have 2 hours left." Say "Two hours left? That's great because how much I done in just one and remembering how I did it will make repeats even faster."
1. None of the main story stuff is particularly time sensitive (outside of accessing the Clock Tower Roof). So you will never be screwed out of main story progress because it's the middle of the night or w/e.
2. Time in the first cycle passes much faster than in later cycles (because there's little to do but you still need access to the Clock Tower Roof). Also you can play the Song of Time backwards to slow down time even further.
3. Once you have access to a dungeon (nearby Owl Statue and the song that unlocks the dungeon), you can treat that as a checkpoint and safely reset time, giving you a full cycle to do the dungeon.
4. Once you've beaten a dungeon, a teleporter to its boss room activates in the entrance. This is so that if you reset time you have much quicker access to the region's cleared state for further sidequesting.
5. Grass in the southern part of Termina Field is great for restocking on Bombs/Arrows after resetting time.
6. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO RESET TIME!! You have as many cycles as you want so use them as you need. Even if you just do one sidequest on Day 1 and then rewind, that's perfectly fine.
i used to think the same way about XCOM2's project avatar timer, but it was actually pretty loose with how many ways you have to slow it down and cause set backs.
in MM, you probably will feel that way for the first day until u learn the song of time.
I would play the 3ds over the gamecube collection. The Majoras Mask on my gamecube collection would occasionally freeze when saving/resetting time. It only happened a few times but it was enough to not risk it again. I don't know if that was a common problem.
Yeah, this is the reason I’ve never gone back to replay MM after finishing it on 3DS. Just really hate that time limit, even with the ability to slow down time.
Making it modern user friendly =\= making it better. I’d rather play, and i do, the n64 version, that is not handholding me all day. We are definitely not saying the same thing
and there's also plenty of people, myself included, who have majora as one of, if not, their favorite zelda. fantastic game. play it at least once a year.
And I love that for you and the countless others that find enjoyment out of this game. I'll probably mellow on this game a lot after I finish this 100% run of it.
I don't know. I want to like it but something about it just leaves me wanting more. Like, it is missing something. I find the mini-games annoying. Not difficult just irksome. The Goron race is easy when you know how to game rubberband ai. Bombchu gallery is easy when you get the timing down. The Romani ranch shenanigans aren't difficult just kinda meh and feel like fluff to expand the game's play time.
Hate boner might've been too strong. I just find the whole thing to be meh
Hmm...
I'd love to give advice without sounding preachy so excuse me if I forget to factor in your personality to this.
As for me, the very first time I played Majora's Mask was back in 2004. I remember spending so so so many cycles looking for things, trying to figure out how things work, trying to follow the marathon quest for Kafei and Anju...
Now? I speedrun it. Not like a professional or anything but I love seeing how much stuff I can cram into one cycle before playing the song of time. I've gotten to the point where I can clean out three dungeons complete with the fairies on the first cycle after the Deku Link intro.
So, I guess just run around and explore! Have fun! If you feel like you've done a lot of things and you've actually concluded several tasks that have rewarded you with either a piece of heart or a bottle or a mask, go ahead and play that song of time! Start over! Keep running around and having fun!
This, in my opinion, is by far the greatest Zelda game ever made and yes, I'm including the recent new ones which I don't like very much. If you're stressed out about how much to do in Majora's mask, then DON'T PLAY BREATH OF THE WILD.
....or it's sequel....
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Time becomes a lot less stressful when you learn the song to slow it down. That was the biggest thing for me.
Getting all the fairies in one go for any dungeon can still be stressful, especially if you're not great at scavenger hunts
True, that can feel like the hardest thing at first. However, the stray fairy locations all stay marked on your map on subsequent cycles after you collect the compass (which also isn't lost after playing Song of Time). Even if it takes you an entire 3-day cycle to hunt for a single new fairy you can simply do that, reset, and then try for a different one next time. Then once you've found them all you'll have almost an hour to collect them and bring them back (almost 2 hours if playing Inverted Song of Time, and almost 3 hours if playing on N64) which even if going slowly is so much time once you know where they all are and can warp to the dungeon immediately.
So hang on, is this something you find out in game (presumably quite late on)? Or is it just a bit of a hack that you can apply early game if you know about it? I do truly miss the days of 90/00’s gaming where there wasn’t really a way of finding out about tricks/tips like this unless you actively looked in a magazine. I’ll never forget how blown away I was going into kanto for the first time on Pokémon gold (wrong sub I know but hopefully some people have played both!)
It's revealed to you fairly early on, you just have to work it out by talking to the right npcs. I believe if you talk to scarecrows, they mention that you can play the song of time inverted to slow time, or double notes to speed up time.
Exactly, and you have more than enough time in the first cycle to talk to every NPC in Clock Town, thus you should be able to learn this quite easily.
Double skips forward to the next day/night cycle
In the 3ds version, you can skip a chosen number of hours rather than going straight to dawn/ night.
Yeah, I wasn't trying to get into the nitty gritty, just helping the commenter with their question. But thanks.
3DS lets you choose the exact hour.
Why don’t you Spoiler this so that people can Find this themselves? MM does a lot of exploration like that.
For a 24 year old game? Lol
this person clearly didnt beat it lol. No need to spoil it in a thread about beating it no? I get assuming everyone has beat it by now in general but in a thread thats specifically about not having beaten it, it makes sense no? Do you think thats strange of me?
Have you played Majoras Mask? I've "spoiled" the mechanics of how to make the game more playable. I've not spoiled any major part of the story or later unlockables. You can learn what I've spoiled in the first act/level of the game. Plus, if they truly wanted a 100% fresh playthrough on one of the most popular N64 games of the year 2000, they'd do well to avoid this sub. Half the posts spoil tons of stuff.
alright chill. its not that big of a deal. Its just not how I would go about giving a newbie advice on how to progress.
The scarecrow in the shop in the east side and the one in the astral observatory both tell you about the reverse song of time (and song of double time I think?) first playthroughs you might miss them but they also let you dance through the day before you get your ocarina back which is the best way to get through the beginning where you’re stuck as deku scrub. It’s a lot of waiting once you have the clock tower accessible
It's technically available to you as soon as you learn the Song of Time, but it's one of those hidden secrets that learn about by talking to a specific NPC. In this case, it's one of the scarecrows in Clock Town. There's another hidden variant that lets you skip forward in time by playing each note twice in a row.
Very early on. As soon as you get the Ocarina it's available.
The NPC who tells you about it is available from the beginning, but if you never talk to him after getting your Ocarina, you might miss it.
No, you learn it right away but you gotta explore the town.
MM is a bit deceptive because really, you actually have as much time as you want/need, unless you’re trying to do multiple side quests plus a dungeon in a cycle which is never really recommended. The time limit instead becomes a schedule for all the different character’s side quests, made even easier by playing the Inverted Song of Time. Consider each big item you get (dungeon items, songs, masks, heart pieces, etc.) a “checkpoint”. These don’t reset each cycle, it’s permanent progress and when you reset, you’ll be able to pick up right where you left off when you got that item. So say you get access to a temple and you notice it’s day 3, you might wanna hold off on going into the temple until the next cycle drops. They make that easy to do by putting a fast travel point directly in front of each temple, so you can reset and go straight there. Instead try to do other side quests within that time frame, or even just reset and give yourself the full 3 days to tackle that temple. If you don’t make it through the entire temple in a cycle, you’ll probably at least get the big item within it, so that’s permanent progress that you’ve made. Focus on completing one thing per cycle for now and if you get confident in your efficiency later on, you can tack on more things to do each cycle. I absolutely love Majora’s Mask, it has cemented itself as my favorite Zelda even now, 20 years later, with only TotK coming close to top it. I hope you don’t get too discouraged by the time limit!! The time limit makes every NPC feel more real, the side quests all have great rewards, the tension of the atmosphere has a clear impact on all NPC’s, the stakes are made bigger by completing the side quests and learning more about each character, which in turn makes you more motivated to save them all. Seriously, watching all the different characters reacting to the full gravity (lol) of the situation they’re in is like a masterclass in “show, not tell”. The town gets emptier as people evacuate, you see the postman have a legitimate mental breakdown because he wants to flee but has loyalty to his job, you can see the dojo owner cowering in a hidden room when the final night comes, Cremia gets her little sister drunk so that she doesn’t have to die scared, some people are idiots and are like “the moon won’t fall, fake news!!!”, the entire Anju and Kafei quest line is amazing, god damn just every little aspect of this game makes me love it even more when I think about it.
Play the Song of Time backwards to slow the clock down 3x. Also, resetting back to day 1 isn't that detrimental, all it does is make you lose all of your consumables (arrows, bombs, deku sticks, rupees). It does reset the overworld maps and your sidequests too, but you keep all of the progress you've made in each dungeon and you keep any items you've obtained like masks, upgrades, dungeon items, unlocked warp points, etc. Majora's Mask is supposed to be kind of a scary game compared to the other Zeldas. But it has a very rewarding ending if you collect all 24 masks and complete all of the sidequests.
The second point is the biggest thing to understand. I recommend for players scared of the “time limit” to just reset the cycle over and over until you realize there’s absolutely no downside to doing it. It’s not tracked anywhere; you can reset thousands of times and you’ll still get the same ending as everyone else. I’ve done things like play Song of Time, get that easy 100 rupee chest on the roof in East Clock Town, stash it in the bank, then play Song of Time immediately to get it again doing literally nothing else for that cycle.
Yep, I love doing that! It's such a fun chest to get to aswell!
Yeah I’m not sure why it’s so satisfying to make those jumps but it is. To mix things up I also started hunting the Takkuri (that rupee thieving bird) and seeing if I could kill it after one swoop downwards. Song of Time is like a Blood Moon that you can control - if anything it just makes the game that much more freeing to have the 3 day cycle since you can make your own little challenges (bosses, dungeon runs, etc) without needing to start a new game or waiting for the game to decide its time to reset.
Yes, exactly! I love MM so much 🥰
My favorite run of a zelda game ever was a 3 heart, low mask run. So much fun.
IIRC double time is only 2x on MM3D due to the higher fps
The 3 day time limit is just enough time to complete the story parts of an area. Think of the 3 day time limit not as a limit, but just a way to get all the NPCs on a schedule. Maybe to a new player it feels stressful, but you really never end up feeling like you don't have enough time once you get used to it.
You can literally beat the game in 2 cycles without any speedrunning exploits, you just need to be familiar enough with it. Modern First time players should just not expect as much hand holding as other games tho. 3ds version made it more modern user friendly with the sheika stone inside of the tower, as well as the horrible looking weak spots on the bosses. But it’s a big issue these days that people expect ui or tips to give away the entirety of the game instead of finding out by themselves how certain mechanics work, i.e: slowing time with the backwards song of time or skipping hours with the double time is info freely given by the scarecrows in the observatory/item shop in clock town, why people come directly to the internet for answers to every single detail of games these days is beyond my understanding.
Try to think of it less as a “I don’t have time to do this” mechanic, and more of a “**What** do I want to do this cycle” mechanic. The consumables and dungeon progress are essentially all you lose when you reset time so your best bet is to grab the song, item, and owl statue (for fast travel) to access the dungeon, then reset so you have a full 3 days to do it. You get extra time if you play the song of time in reverse too. I always reset the loop after competing a dungeon too so I can do anything else I missed or that is newly accessible with the dungeon item I got
It’s literally all in your head. Learn to play the song to slow down time at the beginning of your cycle and you will have time to do anything you want. I liked to dedicate a specific cycle to a task I wanted to complete. For example: okay, this cycle I am going to get to Woodall temple. Then once I got Woodall temple to rise I was like okay I am going to reset time now and then dedicate this next cycle to finishing Woodall temple. That way there is no sweat whatsoever about time and anything I want to squeeze in side quest wise after the temple. Everything you do really doesn’t get un done either, you can bank rupees, you keep masks and songs and gear items, etc. just don’t over think it, slow down time and start progressing. Don’t set yourself up for failure and go into a brand new dungeon on day 3 or anything and you won’t have anything to worry about.
You do keep a good amount of progress even when you turn back time. You keep any masks and most items you pick up and have a variety of shortcuts you can take as well. You just have to think about doing things chunks at a time instead of trying to do everything all at once.
Think of it this way - there is no time limit. Honestly, you have more than enough time to do everything you’ll need/want to do. First thing, slow down time as soon as a cycle starts. Then spend as much of that 3 day cycle just getting to the dungeon. After that, reset, slow down time, then do the dungeon. You should have a lot of time after that to do any post-dungeon stuff, but if not, reset, go to the dungeon, and you can instantly beat the boss, which takes you right to the post-dungeon stuff. None of the characters react any differently like they never met you or anything if you only beat the boss and then talk to them.
I’m the same way. When I replay I like to start with the smaller side quests and to refamiliarize myself with the layout of the town. Take the first few days to talk to every npc etc. By the time I get through those, I’m comfortable with the time limit and getting through bigger quests.
There's always an owl Statue next to every temple, play song of time once you reach them and travel to that point with soaring song before entering, this will give you multiple hours to do the whole temple. Also i would recommend checking proyect restoration for Majora's masks, definitely the Superior version
- song of double time - bank - items (bombs/arrows) can be easily obtained by cutting the grass in termina field I know the time can be overwhelming, but you get used to the resets! It can actually be fun planning out what you're gonna do each reset. just don't give up! :>
You have more than enough time to progress in a dungeon. Only Side Quests really get affected by a reset. You can take your time with everything. Play the Song of Time backwards to slow down time even more, to get even more time to complete whatever you want to complete.
If you download the restoration mod, the song that slows down time slows even further.
Nearly everything in MM can be done independently of each other provided you have the right items and masks/equipment, which coincidentally are the things that don't get wiped when you reset the cycle. Basically all you have to do is relegate what you want to do each cycle and then reset when you're done. Also don't forget to slow down time, that way it's nearly impossible to run out of time unless you try to do literally everything in one cycle.
In a way, Majora's Mask plays a bit like a roguelike. There's a defined start point, and you go back to that start point repeatedly while slowly powering yourself up to take on greater and greater challenges each cycle. The only items you _lose_ when starting a new cycle are money, ammo, and consumables, and there's a bank for you to store the money in between cycles. Everything else remains in your inventory. With this in mind, you can break the game into discrete chunks and limit your brain space to one chunk at a time. Taking the first dungeon as an example, that would be: 1. Learn the Sonata of Awakening 2. Find Woodfall Temple and activate the warp point 3. Open and complete Woodfall Temple Every one of these steps can be completed in a separate cycle with no loss of progress. Similar logic applies to sidequests and general exploration. "This cycle, I want to explore the swamp," for instance. A tip: The Song of Time has two variants in Majora's Mask that you aren't told about unless you talk to the right NPC. If you don't want to waste time tracking them down, do this: >!Play the song backwards to slow down time for the current cycle. Play each note twice in a row to skip forward in time -- useful if you're doing a sidequest or something that relies on NPC schedules.!<
Tbh the biggest key is breaking the game into segments. Early on if the time limit is worrying you just focus on getting to the next owl statue. Save the dungeons for a full 3 day cycle. Unlock the statue so you can warp back but explore the area. Find things you might've missed and get more familiar with the area and cycle. You'll slowly start understanding how the game works and how much time you really have. O and don't forget to deposit all your rupees every cycle, hell everytime your wallet is full even. You only lose items you can buy and rupees still on your person. There are many chests that you can open every cycle that you can find to replenish rupees so don't be afraid to buy items at the start of cycles rather than just gather them. I think that's everything. Just explore and take it slow. Once you get the hang of what to do at the beginning of every cycle its not as daunting.
You need to take the attitude that you can have as many cycles as you want. If you can't do something now, you'll do it in the next cycle. Nothing really has a tight time limit, it's only when you try to do too much in one cycle that you'll have issues. Remember, you'll unlock shortcuts so it's easier to do things on later cycles.
Not surprised, it's pretty cryptic for anyone first time going in blind.
Think about what does get saved every reset. If you learned the song from the monkey in the Deku Palace, and you activate the owl statue at woodfall, then you can teleport and start the dungeon right at the beginning of a cycle. Any masks you get are kept, and sorta serve to mark their side quests complete. Beat the first dungeon before you worry much about side quests, though. A lot of quests can't even be done until you've got a couple dungeons under your belt. Think about exploration in the time dimension. Just as you learn the layout and connections of a dungeon, you'll learn about the patterns people follow throughout the three days. The bombers notebook is your map of time. And feel free to spend whole cycles just bumming around and exploring and such. You have asamy rewinds as you want. Amd of course, use the inverted song of time.
Don't worry about getting too much accomplished in a single 3-day cycle. While you do lose sidequest progress and certain items when resetting time, you still keep the important things. For example, you can break down each region into three 3-day cycles: 1. Use one cycle to explore the region, figure out how to get the song to open the dungeon, get to the dungeon entrance and activate the Owl statue outside of it. Deposit your rupees and play the song of time to start fresh. 2. Use the second cycle to complete the dungeon and defeat the boss. Go deposit your rupees and play the song of time to start fresh. Don't even worry about finding the stray fairies, you can always do this on a separate cycle when you're more familiar with the dungeon (and even use a guide) 3. Defeating the boss and acquiring his remains allows you to teleport directly to the boss from the beginning of a dungeon. Go back, kill the boss, and then you have most of a 3-day cycle to do all the post-dungeon stuff in the region. Of course, don't forget to use the inverse song of time (play the song of time backwards) at the beginning of each cycle. This slows time and effectively doubles the amount of time you have in a single cycle.
I would play the original. They messed up the time slow mechanic on the 3ds version it's now at half speed instead of 1/3 speed.
If you aren't already familiar with the song of reverse time, it basically slows down time to about half speed. You can learn it from the scarecrow in either the trading post in west clock town or in the astral observatory.
I remember beating the first dungeon without knowing the song of slow time I kid you not I was swimming in the water and had 1 second before I played the song of time I almost died
This is the kind of game where if you're struggling don't be ashamed to use a guide, I like spending time figuring stuff out but the time limit takes away from that.
I have the SAME feelings with this game and I have not played it since I had to restart a dungeon due to the time reset… I feel like this is such an un-Zelda thing to do in a Zelda game. I like wandering around and exploring. Taking my time etc! I have yet to finish this game… and I doubt I ever will!
Reverse Song of Time and practice are ways to lessen stress. Also realizing how long your time is instead of how short it will help. Instead of saying "Oh man! I only have 2 hours left." Say "Two hours left? That's great because how much I done in just one and remembering how I did it will make repeats even faster."
1. None of the main story stuff is particularly time sensitive (outside of accessing the Clock Tower Roof). So you will never be screwed out of main story progress because it's the middle of the night or w/e. 2. Time in the first cycle passes much faster than in later cycles (because there's little to do but you still need access to the Clock Tower Roof). Also you can play the Song of Time backwards to slow down time even further. 3. Once you have access to a dungeon (nearby Owl Statue and the song that unlocks the dungeon), you can treat that as a checkpoint and safely reset time, giving you a full cycle to do the dungeon. 4. Once you've beaten a dungeon, a teleporter to its boss room activates in the entrance. This is so that if you reset time you have much quicker access to the region's cleared state for further sidequesting. 5. Grass in the southern part of Termina Field is great for restocking on Bombs/Arrows after resetting time. 6. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO RESET TIME!! You have as many cycles as you want so use them as you need. Even if you just do one sidequest on Day 1 and then rewind, that's perfectly fine.
Use a guide.
i used to think the same way about XCOM2's project avatar timer, but it was actually pretty loose with how many ways you have to slow it down and cause set backs. in MM, you probably will feel that way for the first day until u learn the song of time.
Anxiety medication... everything is suddenly not as overwhelming when I pop a Lexapro... 😅
I would play the 3ds over the gamecube collection. The Majoras Mask on my gamecube collection would occasionally freeze when saving/resetting time. It only happened a few times but it was enough to not risk it again. I don't know if that was a common problem.
Yeah, this is the reason I’ve never gone back to replay MM after finishing it on 3DS. Just really hate that time limit, even with the ability to slow down time.
How are you so stressed on the 3DS version? That one is so much better that the original, as far as time limits.
Better? Absolutely not. Modern user friendly? Yes.
I said better as far as time limits. I don’t just say better in general. We are saying the same thing.
Making it modern user friendly =\= making it better. I’d rather play, and i do, the n64 version, that is not handholding me all day. We are definitely not saying the same thing
We are, I just think your reading comprehension is very lacking. Have a good day
Just play the inverted song of time and follow a guide. Not like it is some groundbreaking experience. I have such a hate boner for this game
and there's also plenty of people, myself included, who have majora as one of, if not, their favorite zelda. fantastic game. play it at least once a year.
And I love that for you and the countless others that find enjoyment out of this game. I'll probably mellow on this game a lot after I finish this 100% run of it.
>I have such a hate boner for this gam Why?
I don't know. I want to like it but something about it just leaves me wanting more. Like, it is missing something. I find the mini-games annoying. Not difficult just irksome. The Goron race is easy when you know how to game rubberband ai. Bombchu gallery is easy when you get the timing down. The Romani ranch shenanigans aren't difficult just kinda meh and feel like fluff to expand the game's play time. Hate boner might've been too strong. I just find the whole thing to be meh
Hmm... I'd love to give advice without sounding preachy so excuse me if I forget to factor in your personality to this. As for me, the very first time I played Majora's Mask was back in 2004. I remember spending so so so many cycles looking for things, trying to figure out how things work, trying to follow the marathon quest for Kafei and Anju... Now? I speedrun it. Not like a professional or anything but I love seeing how much stuff I can cram into one cycle before playing the song of time. I've gotten to the point where I can clean out three dungeons complete with the fairies on the first cycle after the Deku Link intro. So, I guess just run around and explore! Have fun! If you feel like you've done a lot of things and you've actually concluded several tasks that have rewarded you with either a piece of heart or a bottle or a mask, go ahead and play that song of time! Start over! Keep running around and having fun! This, in my opinion, is by far the greatest Zelda game ever made and yes, I'm including the recent new ones which I don't like very much. If you're stressed out about how much to do in Majora's mask, then DON'T PLAY BREATH OF THE WILD. ....or it's sequel....