LogFAQs > #939259402

Majora's Mask begins almost immediately after the ending to Ocarina of Time. A retired Link is searching for Navi (I think) when he runs across the corrupted Skull Kid, an elevated minor character from the last game. In OoT he was just a friendly forest spirit you could get some items from. I don't think we really know what happened to him between games. The Skull kid ganks Link's horse along with the Ocarina of Time and transforms him into a Deku Scrub.

I remember wanting to get out of the Deku section as soon as possible every time I've played this game, but that's kind of the intention. It's meant to leave Link vulnerable, even humiliated. No one will give you the time of day as a Deku Scrub. You have to resort to playing hide-and-seek with some local rascals to earn their trust, and even then they won't accept you as a friend because you aren't human. Your only real means of self-defense is a slow-building bubble attack that drains mana, and you have to methodically float around with plant propellers (human Link has a much more effective version of this power in Wind Waker.

It's a very effective intro. This first cycle presents you with easy goals that can be cleared in the 3-day limit with lots of time to spare, and the hide-and-seek game is deliberately designed to get you acclimated to the different parts of the city. What I especially like is the slow build up to the reveal of the Angry Moon. Zelda in general is good at giving a lot of visual presence to its story and setting. The way Death Mountain is visible from almost anywhere in Ocarina of Time is an example of this, and in Majora's Mask, you can always turn the camera upward and see the moon pulling ever closer.

In his Deku form Link is hopelessly outmatched by Skull Kid. It's all that he can do to retrieve the Ocarina of Time and flee into the past, where he learns the Song of Healing from the Happy Mask Salesman (another very memorable minor character from the last game,) and finally turns himself back into a human. That's as far as I have time to play for now, but I feel pretty eager to go back to it. I'd say it has a good sense of deliberate construction so far. I like how the Mask Salesman "jump cuts" to different expressions rather than animating, for example. That helps convey the comic insanity of the character.