The final confrontation with the Skull Kid starts more or less the same way the previous one did, with Tael telling Link and Tatl what they need, and the Skull Kid bopping him. When the Skull Kid accelerates the moon’s descent, Link plays the Oath to Order on the ocarina, and the giants come and hold up the moon. In the moment of peace, Tael says it wasn’t really the Skull Kid’s fault, illustrated when Majora’s Mask comes to life, abandons the Skull Kid, possesses the moon, and starts pushing against the giants. Tatl wants Link to reset time again, but Link intends to go through the portal to confront the Mask. Tatl is reluctant to join him, but when Tael says he’ll go instead, she agrees to go with him.
On the moon, there are five kids gathered around a tree, four who wear masks based on the game’s four other bosses. These lead to micro-dungeons for Link to solve. Odolwa’s involves Dekucoptering, Goht’s goron rolling, Gyorg’s zora swimming through tunnels, and Twinmold’s a miniboss gauntlet followed by the only bombchu puzzles in the game. Three of these are easy enough at this point – even iron knuckles buckle when Link charges at them, hacking away with the Great Fairy’s Sword – but goron rolling, yeesh. Each micro-dungeon has a piece of heart, which when all four are earned makes the 20th and final heart container.
The kids all demanded masks from Link, one set to start the game, one afterward. I started out giving out things with low usefulness and sentimental value, like the Mask of Scents that I’m pretty sure I never used, but by the end, all but the three transformation masks had to go. The last kid, the one wearing Majora’s Mask, notices Link’s all out of normal masks, and so to prepare him for their final game, gives him the 24th mask: the Fierce Deity’s Mask. It’s aptly named, because this thing puts Link into god mode. There’s no strategy needed for the final fight: put on the mask, and then Z-target the boss, shoot sword beams at it until it triggers a cutscene, rinse, repeat. Eventually, the boss dies.
The moon turns into a rainbow as the people below watch and cheer, and a new day dawns. Link wakes up to see the giants saying goodbye to the Skull Kid before returning to their homes. The Skull Kid asks if Link will be his friend too, then comes over and smells him, and he recognizes Link – it’s the same Skull Kid Link sold the skull mask to in Ocarina. The mask salesman has Majora’s Mask, so he bids Link farewell. As he walks away, he stops to suggest that Link return to Hyrule. And he stops one more time to say, “But, my, you sure have managed to make quite a number of people happy. The masks you have are filled with happiness. This is truly a good happiness.” Then, after a few more steps, he vanishes. Finally, Tatl says goodbye to Link, and as Link gets on Epona and rides away, she calls after him to say thank you.
As the credits roll, we see scenes from around Termina as the festival starts, which highlight just how much Link has made things better. There are sad scenes, like the Deku who said Link reminded him of his son discovering his son’s remains – that was Link’s Deku form. But overall, things are good: the Gorman troupe and zora band get to entertain at the milk bar (with Zora Link standing in for Mikau one last time), Romani continues to practice her archery, Anju and Kafei are married (we don’t get to see Kafei restored to his adult form, though), and in general life goes on in Termina. As Link passes through a forest on his way out of Termina, he stops when he notices a carving of him with some of the friends he’d made: the giants, Tatl and Tael, and the Skull Kid. The first notes of Saria’s Song play as the game comes to an end.
That was… an odd one. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, because of what made it odd. The sidequests feel almost more important than the main quest; I think the best way I can put it is it’s like if BioWare made a Legend of Zelda game. I loved the people and enjoyed making their lives better. The Anju/Kafei story was excellent, and I enjoyed everything about Romani Ranch, too. Despite one of my few complaints about Ocarina being too many minigames and this game having even more (even with a time limit that should really make such frivolities even more jarring), I didn’t mind so much, aside from four separate archery games. All in all, it’s a solid contender for my favorite game in the series.
