The following interview comprises the first two pages of a September 2000 developer interview that appeared in The 64DREAM magazine’s Dream Hint Book 4, covering Majora’s Mask.

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This Is the Final Majora’s Mask Discussion — ZELDA STAFF INTERVIEW ENCORE!

Continuing from last month’s issue, all the development staff were kind enough to talk about Majora’s Mask with us. We’re sharing discussions we weren’t able to present last month, on the inside of the Moon, Anju’s wedding ceremony, the Fierce Deity Mask, and more… Please enjoy these secret stories from development, which are all the more fun to read because you’ve played the game!

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Participants

Yoshiaki Koizumi
Game System Director
Born in Shizuoka Prefecture in 1968

Mitsuhiro Takano
Script Director
Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1967

Takaya Imamura
Art Director
Born in Nara Prefecture in 1966

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The Anju’s Wedding Ceremony Event, Dreamed Up at a Staff Wedding Banquet

Koizumi: The wedding ceremony event came to us at the reception hall when one of our staff members (at the Entertainment Analysis & Development Division) was getting married.

Takano: The groom had a hairstyle like Kafei’s. When we saw that, we were like, “Hey, we can use this!” We were mostly ignoring the wedding, saying, “This is game material right here.” (Laughing)

Koizumi: Right around that time, there was a commotion about North Korea’s Taepodong missiles*, so Takano, Aonuma, and I were joking, “It sounds like a missile’s going to fall on us today. Should we really be having a wedding?” and getting excited, saying, “This plotline could actually work!”

*Translator’s Note: According to a Japanese government report, on August 31, 1998, shortly after midnight (JST), North Korea carried out a test that involved firing a ballistic missile towards the sea of Japan. The launch was carried out without any prior warning, and made it clear that North Korean possessed the technology to manufacture missiles capable of reaching Japan, provoking much anxiety.

All while ignoring the wedding? (Laughing)

Koizumi: You got it. Right as a missile could’ve been falling towards us. (Laughing)

Imamura: Right as I was trying my hardest to practice my performance for the banquet. (Laughing)

Koizumi: Our jokes, like, “Should we really be putting on happy faces and having a wedding ceremony? Isn’t a missile going to fall on us?” and the setting with the moon falling down were a perfect match.

Takano: You never know where stories will fall. (Laughing)

Imamura: Exactly. Takano’s getting married soon, you know!

Anju and Kafei’s Wedding

Congratulations! Please be careful that it doesn’t get turned into a plotline. (Laughing) Incidentally, I feel like the wedding ceremony during the ending can be interpreted in multiple ways. Was Kafei able to return to his adult form?

Koizumi: I’ll leave that up to your imagination. Maybe he turned back into an adult, maybe he’s still a kid… When I mentioned that I wanted to do a scene that could be taken either way in that sense, everyone agreed that it would be better.

Assuming that the position of the camera represents Kafei’s point of view, then I feel like he was able to become an adult again…

Koizumi: Or maybe he’s just wearing high-heeled boots! (Laughing)

*Translator’s Note: One might be tempted to think that they didn’t want to create a model for Adult Kafei, but it seems like they did. Remember the young man who works at the Kakariko Potion Shop in the Child Era of Ocarina of Time? An updated object for him goes unused in Majora’s Mask. In addition, the actor for this object is loaded in the room where Kafei and Anju meet to exchange masks. Coincidence?

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The Secret Story of Toto’s Creation

Koizumi: Originally, the Indigo-Go stuff was a setting in Aonuma’s scenario. If the band was that famous in Termina, though, we felt that it would be weird for them not to perform at the carnival, and decided on a setting where they’d put on a performance. Then, that turned into a setting where there were plans for a performance, but the manager would come by to say no. This meant that we suddenly needed to create a manager. At first, he was just going to be a regular guy in the business, but when we left it with the designers, they came back with this strange, portly guy. So, then, it was like, “Well, this wasn’t anything like what we were thinking of, but he’s interesting, so why not?” I guess most characters were created like that, going from “Let’s do it this way,” to “It’s like this now,” to “I guess that’ll do.”

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Majora’s Wrath, a Scene From a Staff Member’s Dream Recreated in the Game

Imamura: At the beginning, when I created Odolwa, I asked Morita, the boss programmer, whether we wouldn’t be able to give him a whip. At the time, he told me, “That would be kind of difficult.” However, at the end, when I created Majora’s Wrath, Morita had made a really great whip, and I was like, “This is awesome. Can you give him one for each hand?” and then it was like, “Oh, that’s even better!” Plus, Morita told me that he’d had a dream where a demon* was spinning a top, so in the end, we decided, “Oh, in that case, let’s put a top in too!”

*Translator’s Note: The Japanese name of Majora’s Wrath is ムジュラの魔人 (Mujura no Majin), which can translate to Majora’s Demon.

Koizumi: By the end of development, everyone was dreaming about game characters.

Link Is Hounded by Houseplants

Takano: Also, the cutscene at the beginning where Link’s attacked by Deku Scrubs was created by (cinema scene director Takumi) Kawagoe with no particular reasoning behind it, but when Aonuma saw it…

Imamura: He made a huge deal about that, didn’t he! Saying, “This happened in my dream!” (Laughing)

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The Vanishing Adult Link Mask and the Two Types of Giantifying Masks

Koizumi: The mask that let you become Adult Link stuck around till the middle of development. Being able to switch between child and adult forms was a plot point in the last game, which wasn’t the case this time; we’d decided that Majora’s Mask was a game in which you could transform from Child Link into various races. For that reason, even if you could turn into Adult Link, our intention was just to have it as a bonus feature. Those were our thoughts, anyway, but then I said to Imamura that it’d be boring if all you could do was turn into Adult Link, and he wouldn’t actually be powerful…

So, was the Fierce Deity Mask an expansion on the Adult Link material?

Imamura: The Fierce Deity’s Mask was originally Giant’s Mask material. We’d only decided on 19 masks, and we were told to create one more. It was right around then that Morita and I had been discussing how maybe it would be cool if Link turned into a giant and battled. That gigantified Link and Fierce Deity Link were the same material. When we created the Giant Fierce Deity Mask Link and were testing him out, we realized that he was too big and strong, which wouldn’t make for a good game, so we separated the two.

Why is it that just these two masks can only be used in boss rooms?

Imamura: Hey. (Laughing) When we were done with that, we proposed to Aonuma that since we’d gone to so much trouble, we should make them usable in the field, too. But when we did, he got mad at us and said, “What are you talking about?! Do you really think we’ll be able to pull that off now?” (Laughing) I didn’t know the situation with the schedule, so I was like, “I wonder why…?” (Laughing)

It seems like, with Giant Link, you wouldn’t even be able to enter Clock Town. (Laughing)

Koizumi: Fierce Deity Link would at least need an action for going through doors. Doors correspond to Adult Link’s height, but Fierce Deity Link is taller than Adult Link, so…

Translator’s Note: Fierce Deity Link gets crunched down at the knees when going through doors and performing other animations that require him to be smaller than his regular size. Some unused content hinting at a bigger role for Adult Link remains in the final game, such as messages (1, 2) that only display in the Japanese version if you’re Fierce Deity Link and soft-lock the other versions, a spawn point for him in the Town Shooting Gallery, and non-boss enemy reactivity to his beam attack.