Introduction

This is the TAS of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. The run itself was 10 solid months in the making and is the result of many years of research into this game. I've had a reasonably free year, the chances of having another like it are low, and I really wanted to see a new Majora's Mask run. Since I'd finished my Gex 64 movie and AKA had given up on this I thought that I may as well do it. The route was far too interesting/exciting to waste, the run would be challenging (which is what I was looking for) and I'm a firm believer that if you really want to see a run made then you have to do it yourself.
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Abuses programming errors in the game
  • Manipulates luck
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Uses death to save time
  • No predefined saves
  • Genre: Action
  • Genre: Adventure
  • Due to the length of the movie I chose to include speed/entertainment tradeoffs although I only drop a couple of seconds throughout the run. I drop time to get better camera angles often (usually 3 frames, 1 input frame). I also drop about a second in Ikana Canyon to pick up a fairy to replenish my health, otherwise the last fifteen minutes of my movie would have been ruined by annoying bleeping.

Game Synopsis

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is much darker and more sinister than your average Zelda game. It is the story of one of Link's adventures after the events of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
After saving Hyrule from the evil Ganondorf and laying the Master Sword back to rest, Link's companion, Navi the fairy, flies away. He becomes lonely once again as 'the boy without a fairy' and sets out to find her. This is where The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask begins.
Whilst travelling through the forest upon his noble steed, Epona, he is attacked by Skull Kid and his two fairies, Tatl and Tael. Skull kid is lonely, like Link, and is usually harmless, but after attacking the Happy Mask Shop man he came to posess the evil Majora's Mask and is now ruled by it. He then steals Link's precious Ocarina of Time and horse and runs away. Link seldom takes shit from anyone and backwalks after him before falling down a huge hole in the ground into the parallel world of Termina.
The evil power of the mask turns Link into a Deku Scrub. Link pursues Skull Kid all the way to Clock Town (now with the help of Tatl the fairy, a more 'in yo face' version of Navi).
Link enters Clock Town at dawn of the first day. The evil power of the mask is pulling the moon towards Clock Town. Skull Kid has cursed the four surrounding areas and the Giant's that suffer there are the only one's who can save Termina. At dawn of the fourth day the moon crashes into Termina and everyone dies, can Link do it in time?
This run completes the game in three cycles, one cycle being over when Link returns to Dawn of the First day. The first two cycles are very short with the third being the main one.

The Run

  • Pre Clock Town: A relatively small, mostly cutscene orientated, segment. Not much to note here other than that it is played supremely! Moving on...
  • The First Cycle:
    • The very first thing I do is visit Grandma in the Stock Pot Inn. The front door doesn't open until 8:00AM so I have to enter via the second floor. Each of Grandma's long stories takes a day to listen to. I listen to it twice to get quickly to the final day.
    • I then visit the scarecrow in West Clock Town and watch his dance. His dance takes us to night of the final day. This is when time stops becomming a factor since I'm waiting for midnight and so I'm deliberately unoptimised to make time spent in South Clock Town less.
    • I get the fairy from East Clock Town and 100 rupees from the Stock Pot Inn. The Great Fairy is visited, magic is gained and the green is deposited in the bank for usage later on...in the past.
    • In South Clock Town I move around for a while until it's near midnight. I then use a cool trick; I backflip onto the sloped wall beside the Clock Tower ledge and then quickly grab it. This trick skips the Bomber Hide and Seek game, the Observatory and moon's tear.
    • I then kill the rest of the time by playing around with the piece of heart. This is a good example of fast motion collision abuse :D I then skip a Tatl text before entering the tower by more fast motion abuse.
    • I get the Ocarina of Time, jam out the Song of Time and return to Dawn of the First Day.
  • The Second Cycle
    • First of all I go to ECT (East Clock Town from now on) and get 100 rupees from the chest there. In WCT I buy a bomb bag and some bombs from the bomb shop (ugh, the amount of trouble that caused). I deposit what's left and then head out into Termina Field.
    • I slide in a super way to the Mountain Village path. I use the Infinite Sword Glitch to glitch over the icicles blocking it. Normally you need the arrows to do this because Woodfall usually comes first (I go back for it later).
    • To save backtracking I hit the owl statue and then get the lens of truth. Although I don't really use it I have to get it otherwise Darmani doesn't appear by his grave.
    • I make my way to the grave, play song of healing, get Goron Mask, Song of Time, back to Dawn of the First Day.
  • The Third Cycle: Southern Swamp / Woodfall Temple 1
    • I once again get 100 rupees from ECT and use it to buy some bombs and chus for some glitchin'
    • On the way to Southern Swamp there is a long cutscene about Skull Kid's plight and emotions, but we don't care about that, so I use the bombchu hover glitch to skip it.
    • The Koume and Kotake section in the swamp is part of something much longer, but I only do as much of it as I need to get the bottle (for the Zora Egg Quest later). I then use my Goron Mask (which I shouldn't have at this point) to dodge my way past the Giant Octorok to get to Deku Palace.
    • This part is just plain awesome. I use a mid-air superslide to get past the guards. I then Goron Bomb jump onto the wall and backflip onto a platform and then into the chamber. This skips ~90% of the area :D
    • I then make my way to Woodfall (Deku Flowers here were another desync hotspot) and do the first half of the temple. I get the Bow and Arrows because it is all I need. Link then uses a bomb to kill himself (yes, the pressure had become too much).
  • Great Bay 1 / Pirate's Fortress 1
    • I buy more bombs and chus before heading to Great Bay. I Goron Bomb jump over the fence to skip Epona.
    • I get the Zora mask and head to Pirates Fortress. I use the bomb hover glitch to skip straight to the inside. This skips 50% of this area.
    • All I need is the hookshot and so I shoot the beehive from in front of the loading zone to skip the cutscene and then go down to open the chest. I pick up the first Zora Egg here, but I don't come back for the rest until later. I warp back to Snowhead.
  • Snowhead Temple
    • Okay, an hour into the run, better start taking out some bosses. The Goron Lullabye skip was a nightmare and easily the most difficult part of the run. It skips out the Elderly Goron/crying baby part of the game. Between the Zora mask and Goht I kept doing and redoing over a period of about 5 months. This wasn't helped by the fact that the lullabye skip is notoriously difficult to optimise and it desyncs every 3-6 frames, but after a while I got through!
    • Snowhead Temple was pretty easy with the Hookshot (I'm not supposed to have it) and I use it to get onto the upper levels of the dungeon without having to do all the crap in between.
    • Normally the player is to take care of Goht with Goron Rolling, but with some nice archery Human Link makes light work of him.
  • Goron Race / Romani Ranch / Smithy
    • I do the Goron Race because I need the bottle and the Gold dust inside it (to upgrade my sword). My race turned out 5 seconds faster than the world record.
    • Getting to the Ranch on time was troublesome to say the least. When inside I just have to keep then away from the barn until 5:15AM. Afterwards I get my final bottle.
    • I go to the smithy in mountain village and upgrade to the Gilded Sword which kicks everything's ass. To get this it has to be Dawn of the Final Day, which means I have 24 in-game hours to complete the game.
  • Woodfall Temple 2
    • Now I return to finish what I started. I use the hookshot to skip all the Deku plant stuff. In the Gekko chamber I beat it with an obscure tactic using the Goron Mask, this is faster than using the Deku Mask version. As with Snowhead, having the hookshot allows me to skip virtually all of this temple.
    • Because I now have the fire arrows I can easily light the torch to open the door to the pre-Odolwa chamber.
    • Using the Zora Mask and hookshot I skip the lengthy Deku plant parts of this room.
    • I destroy Odolwa here. The Gilded Sword does huge damage to this weak boss. The arrow stops him jumping away and whilst he is frozen I hit him with three well placed attacks.
  • Great Bay 2 / Pirate's Fortress 2 / Pinnacle Rock
    • This is the egg quest. It is the only major quest part that resembles what Nintendo intended.
    • I begin with Pirate's Fortress. There are three eggs here to collect; before each egg there is a small espionage section and a battle with a pirate, but with creative use of the jumpslash ability I skip two of these. The third is skippable, but requires so many explosives that it is not worthwhile.
    • At Pinnacle Rock the swimming is strange because a set path has to be followed.
    • After depositing these eggs I head to North Bay for more money and then I go to Great Bay Temple.
  • Great Bay Temple
    • This temple is wonderfully broken. A lot is skipped, but this time without gratuitous use of the bomb hover glitch.
  • Ikana Canyon / Stone Tower
    • I use some nice Goron Bomb jumps in Ikana Access. I skip the Garo Mask with the seam walk.
    • I skip the Ice Arrows by using a tight hookshot to the tree on the cliff. This was difficult to get before the Octoroks hit me and required some cool luck manip.
    • Ascending Stone Tower with the Bomb Hovers skips the Castle of Ikana and the Elegy of Emptiness. Quite a large break.
  • Stone Tower Temple
    • I love how the countdown begins at the start of this temple. I couldn't ask for it to be more perfect.
    • It is possible to hover over the second sun block with one less explosive, however, all the Boes have to be killed which takes more time. I have the explosives to spare anyway.
    • My Deku flying may look slightly suspect because I don't hug the left corner. This is optimal however as Link turns very slowly and so hugging the corner would eventually put him into the far wall.
    • I found that Deku nuts are by far the fastest way to kill Garo Master and time saved more than saves for the time spent collecting/equipping them. Also, you have to spend three rounds with him at least. He has 15HP which suggests a jumpslash and a quickspin would suffice, however the game does not allow him to be killed in two attacks.
    • Hovering to the Armos Night platform is around 200 frames faster than Kazooie's method when optimised. I tried a whole bunch of ways to make Kazooie's faster but it just was not to be.
    • The gaps in between light arrowing Eyegore is mandatory. Light arrows cannot be fired in as quick succession as normal arrows.
    • I like what I've done with the Gomess battle. I hit with a light arrow and press B to take out my sword. This would normally cause a vertical slice, however I manipulate the bats so that one flies through me on the same frame I press B. This makes Link instantly take out his sword which means I can use a jumpslash very quickly. You also have to go four rounds with Gomess.
    • Twinmold was pretty straight forward to optimise. Jumpslashes do double damage while slashes and quickspins do normal. There wasn't much freedom to manipulate here since the starting positions are fixed and where they appear is only manipulable when they are underground. The battle is so quick I only have to do this once :P
  • Moon
    • I superslide because it is faster than rolling. I feel supersliding somewhat ruins the romance of the moment, however, rolling probably would still look worse. I also delay talking to Majora kid by 3 frames so that the camera doesn't get stuck behind the tree.
    • Majora's Mask was pretty straight forward. The angle to hit him with an arrow has to be very accurate. I use the first hit to knock him into the corner so that the following two rounds are much quicker. When he rises I have to wait until he reaches a certain hieght before shooting him again.
    • Majora's Incarnation was a nightmare to optimise. I shoot him so that he falls close to me. I then approach him and sidehop to between his legs. To stop him running away you have to quickspin him there. I tried it on every frame at several other areas around him but it never worked. The only way to approach him is by sideways walking. I can't get rid of Z-target because he'll jus target a mask instead. The only other way around this is to shoot him with an arrow normally but this turns out slower because Link can't move.
    • Majora's Wrath wasn't too bad. I couldn't keep him pinned down with quickspins so I stab most of the time. It may seem as though I could have used a quickspin insted of that last sword slash, however, since he is still invincible through most of the attack it won't kill him.

Special Thanks

Of course, I couldn't have done this alone! Here is everyone who made this run possible.
In no particular order
Petrie911: A lot that is in this is stuff that I learned from his many (awesome) videos. He also wrote up the route and discovered many tricks. He also provided criticism where due and helped me touch up many parts of the run.
Raiscan: He saved the project early on by discovering that bomb shop desyncs were caused by a corrupt mupen64.ini file. If it were not for him we'd still all be watching Link roll into the shop's doorframe. He also encoded a few WIPs, commented on progress and motivated me all the way through.
mwl: Very helpful in finding ways to improve the run and for helping me out with the aspects that troubled me.
AKA: Many useful tricks were discovered by him. He also helped scrutinise WIPs with keen interest from the start.
bkDJ: For providing support all the way and for encoding my WIPs to .mkv so that other could watch and comment.
Comicalflop: Providing great motivation and enthusiasm to progress. He also managed to persuade me into redoing my second cycle on which I managed to save several seconds.
Yautja Elder: For pointing out some good improvements in the earlier parts of the run.
DLH112: For pointing out the hookshot to torch in Snowhead (which went forgotten until DaShiznawz brought it up) and for advising me on Pirate's Fortress 1.
Swordless Link: His Snowhead and Great Bay videos were immensely helpful and saved me a large amount of work. He also gave useful and constructive critism.
pyh: For occassionally sharing his expertise in the early stages. I also used his speedrun to get a good idea of the Ikana Canyon seam walk.
VANDAL: For informing us that Rice's plugin worked. This brought the movie to more people that wanted to see it.
Dragorn: For helping plan reaching the ranch on time.
Halamantariel: For helping others to sync the movie with his Rice's guide :)
Okaygo: For patching the emulator so that those with name entry screen desyncs could watch the movie.
AngerFist: For posting in the thread something along the lines of "..it's so annoying that it's impossible to TAS this game..." which finally coaxed me into doing this as the challenge I was looking for.
L.Spiro: For MHS which was useful for watching enemy HP values etc.
If I've forgotten you just PM me and I'll throw you in or if you're in here and want out then do the same.

Bisqwit: Test audience (i.e. those who watch submissions) seems to be satisfied; accepting for publication and I'm taking the task of encoding it.


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Joined: 7/26/2006
Posts: 1215
Xkeeper wrote:
it's just a gigantic time paradox.
It's ok, the godess of time is protecting him.
kwinse wrote:
Except that his mom was mugged, meaning his section of the credits was very bland, and that made him sad. :(
Assuming you've beaten the game and have the important items, is it still even possible to make everyone happy within one cycle?
Dwedit
He/Him
Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 692
Location: Chicago
bkDJ wrote:
Assuming you've beaten the game and have the important items, is it still even possible to make everyone happy within one cycle?
You're not going to get the postman's hat and finish Anju & Kafei's story in the same cycle.
Former player
Joined: 8/20/2005
Posts: 643
Location: Mikkeli,Finland
Awesome job. This is my favorite Zelda game =) Yes vote.
Current Projects: ???
Joined: 10/23/2006
Posts: 10
Warp wrote:
Btw, does the game even try to explain the paradox of Link preserving all if his inventory when the day is reset, and it seems that quite inconsistently some stuff is removed from the timeline and given to Link (such as the ocarina) while other stuff isn't (like the rupees in that chest)?
Just repeat to yourself, "It's just a game; I should really just relax"
Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4042
What always amuses me is that when Link goes back in time he loses the rupees he's carrying but keeps the ones he kept in the bank, when really it should be the other way around.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Joined: 9/5/2006
Posts: 61
Patashu wrote:
What always amuses me is that when Link goes back in time he loses the rupees he's carrying but keeps the ones he kept in the bank, when really it should be the other way around.
They actually explain the bank thing, though, though it still doesn't really make sense. For some reason the bank stamps his current balance on his hand.
Joined: 4/30/2007
Posts: 150
so i just finished watching this movie published and i really had to appreciate the ridiculous amount of planning that went into this i mean, getting to the moon with about 1 hour of game time left? wow, you must have been sweating bullets or really confident after all the nes platformers, seeing this and glover back to back makes you appreciate how much 3d brings to this tas stuff...
Former player
Joined: 10/6/2007
Posts: 330
Location: B.C Canada
Majora's Mask has always been one of my favourite games, although not for it being fun to play. The Atmosphere of the game is what draws me to it. The sad, creepy, scary, depressing feeling I experience while playing or watching it make me love this game. On to the run. I really loved this run for several reasons, but I can't think of them all off the top of my head. This was the very first time I had seen the Bomb glitches, (except for bomb goron jump) so that was the big reason. I loved how everything was planned out so perfectly since this is a very hard game. The Romani Ranch "them" sequence it the scariest part of the game, and is the scariest part of any game I've played. (I play non scary games) I loved how casually they were delt with. I always slow time for that because I always fail if I don't. Not only was it done in fast mode, but was done so recklessly (let the thing go (most likely) to the last possible frame before "them" got to the barn) that I was almost frustrated by it. I'm always franticly running around during that part, so that was something I was impressed by. I loved how quickly boss and mini bosses died (those mini bosses that you actually fought) I loved how many of the necessary items were skipped. The things I did not like about the run (though granted, unavoidable) were how the credits didn't have any of the happy endings, and I found the part were you got past the goron without the lullaby to actually be long and boring. I hope you continue to make runs as awesome as this one! It's one of my favourite runs on this site!
Post subject: Re: Sync Instructions
Former player
Joined: 12/1/2007
Posts: 425
Bisqwit wrote:
To play the movie without downloading the AVI, follow these steps. 1. Download the Direct64 plugin v0.5.03.25 from http://www.emutalk.net/showthread.php?t=26677 2. Download the TAS input plugin from http://tasvideos.org/forum/t/4200 3. Go to your mupen's root directory. -- Delete romsettings.ini there if it exists -- Delete mupen64.cfg there if it exists (do not delete mupen64.ini however) -- Extract the two plugins into the "plugin" directory. -- Remove everything that is in the "save" directory. 4. Launch mupen64 5. Go to Options|Settings, select the following plugins: -- Video plugin: Direct64 v0.5.03.25 -- Input plugin: TAS Input Plugin 0.6 -- Audio plugin: Jabo's DirectSound 1.6 -- RSP plugin: RSP emulation Plugin 6. Click the Config button under Video plugin -- Ensure both "N64 Color" and "N64 Depth Image" are set to "Ignore" -- Check "Enable fog", do not check "Simulate Overscan" -- Settings in "Enhancement" may be left as is 7. Load ROM 8. Load movie 9. Once it desyncs (inputs "AA" on name entry screen), load the movie again. (Yes, this is necessary.) Enjoy. If you need to interrupt the movie for some reason, remove the file in the "save" directory and restart from step 7. If these instructions don't help, then the instructions that worked for me don't work for you and I am unable to help further. Thanks to Raiscan for resolving many of these issues.
ty!!!! you saved me =D one question, how do i go into full screen mode in mupen64?
Skilled player (1649)
Joined: 7/25/2007
Posts: 299
Location: UK
Alt+Enter?
Post subject: Absolutly AWSOME !
Joined: 6/5/2008
Posts: 6
Seriously your run is absoulutly awsome .... i can't describe how i feel when i whatch that ... it remember me alot of thing and cause me to restart playing this game :P This is a BIG YES ... i heard about a second run and i really don't know how you could do better but you are the expert here and if you do another run ... ill be really happy to watch it ... this is definitly my favorite video on TASvideo.org .... ZELDA rules !
Joined: 1/22/2008
Posts: 319
Location: Brasil
this tas is amazing, its not fair i cant wacth propely when i use the jabos 1.5.2 its works very slow, when i use jabos 1.6 works fast , too fast , wich i go desync i tryed mudlord rice video, looks better, but stll got problems on speed, its very slow some scenes anyone knows how can i fix my codec ?
Run..Run...Run.....
Post subject: Faster time posted on SDA
Joined: 11/20/2009
Posts: 21
As an avid viewer of both SDA and TAS, SDA recently published a run that beats this one: http://speeddemosarchive.com/ZeldaMajorasMask.html I think it'd be worth while trying out this run again using some of the tricks used in that run. If anything, it's worth a view. P.S. I loved your video!
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
This is already known, since a lot of TASVideos users also follow SDA updates. If you wish to continue discussing it, it would be preferable to do it in the game's own thread.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Experienced player (828)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Is there a major route change, or is it just due to those damn timing differences, which seem to crop up every month or so?
Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
Route change/new tricks, AFAIK.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 11/20/2009
Posts: 21
It was a major path difference. He finishes on the second day and never gets the goron mask. Just watch it and see for yourself. I was quite amazed!
Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
This was taken from [URL=http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=267&start=2180]the proper thread to discuss this[/URL]:
Slowking wrote:
Btw. it's not like this comes as a suprise to us. Jijos route is heavily based on our TAS-route and we helped him planing here and there. We also saw this run when it was being made, through live streaming. ;)
Experienced player (603)
Joined: 2/8/2009
Posts: 656
I don't know, if you guys have noticed it yet, but 99% of the new tricks shown in that run were discovered here and not on SDA, so we obviously know all the new tricks, because we discovered them I'm currently doing a new TAS, that aims to sub 1 hour and 30 minutes
Active player (304)
Joined: 8/8/2005
Posts: 296
Location: NSW, Australia
MrGrunz wrote:
I don't know, if you guys have noticed it yet, but 99% of the new tricks shown in that run were discovered here and not on SDA, so we obviously know all the new tricks, because we discovered them
I hate to do this, but when your sig looks like this...
MrGrunz's sig wrote:
Majora's Mask in 2:27:44 World Record
...it's not too difficult to understand why some people might have the wrong idea. ;)
Experienced player (603)
Joined: 2/8/2009
Posts: 656
changed it for you ;)
Former player
Joined: 8/15/2005
Posts: 77
Fullfilling, entertaining, fast paced and with lots of surprises, this run is by far the best i have seen, i agree with all the others that say that. Congratulations on making the most entertaining TAS on this site.
Experienced player (603)
Joined: 2/8/2009
Posts: 656
chupapi wrote:
Fullfilling, entertaining, fast paced and with lots of surprises, this run is by far the best i have seen, i agree with all the others that say that. Congratulations on making the most entertaining TAS on this site.
hmm, you know, that this TAS is 2 years old and is not that good at all for today standards?
Player (79)
Joined: 7/7/2008
Posts: 873
Location: Utah
It was back then though.
Experienced player (603)
Joined: 2/8/2009
Posts: 656
yeah I know mukki also used the old mupen, that had way more desynches, which makes it a good bit harder to TAS this game, so I totally respect mukki and his work, because the game was pretty unTASable these days another reason, why it looks a bit slow in some places is, that quick backwalk after angle changing wasn't discovered yet and without it, it looks pretty slow
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