The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

1. Chase Skull Kid and reclaim the Ocarina. You wake as Deku Link; bubble-hop through the tower, follow Skull Kid to the Clock Tower rooftop. The Happy Mask Salesman teaches you the Song of Time—your reset button for the entire three-day loop.

2. Learn the cycle from the Clock Tower guard. Three days to apocalypse. Each in-game hour burns 45 real-world seconds. Moon crashes at zero, loop resets to Day 1 dawn. Rupees banked, songs learned, masks collected, and dungeons cleared persist; consumables, quest states, and NPC schedules wipe.

3. Bank rupees before every reset. West Clock Town banker stamps your account; banked rupees survive the Song of Time. Your wallet empties on reset, so deposit everything or lose it.

4. Get the Bomber’s Notebook on Day 1. North Clock Town: chase the bandana kid through the alleys, pop his balloon as Deku Link, crack the hideout code. The notebook tracks 20+ NPC schedules and side-quest windows—mandatory for mask routing and heart-piece hunts.

5. Play Inverted Song of Time before Woodfall. Ocarina input: ←→↓→←→. Slows the cycle to ~2.5 minutes per hour, tripling your dungeon window. The game never mentions this song exists.

6. Unlock Epona at Romani Ranch, Day 1–2. Defend the barn from aliens at 2:30 AM Day 1 (arrows required), escort the milk cart Day 2. Epona opens overworld shortcuts and the Gorman Bros. mask chain.

7. Reset early, reset often. Song of Time is cheap. Burn cycles to learn NPC timing, test dungeon routes, and bank resources. The pressure is the design—lean into it.

• Bank your rupees immediately. The Clock Town bank preserves your balance across Song of Time resets; every other rupee, consumable, and bottled item vanishes when you loop. Deposit early, deposit often—especially before dungeon runs where you might collect a stray 200-rupee chest.

• The Bomber’s Notebook is your actual quest log. It tracks NPC schedules, side-quest triggers, and reward windows across the three-day cycle. If you meet someone new or witness an event, check the notebook—many side quests have narrow time windows (often a single six-hour block on a specific day) and the notebook marks when to return.

• Learn the Inverted Song of Time on Day 1. Play the Song of Time backwards (right-A-down-right-A-down on C-buttons) to slow the cycle to roughly half speed. This effectively triples your dungeon exploration time and makes timed side quests far less punishing. The game never tells you this exists.

• Transformation masks aren’t just keys—they’re toolsets. Deku Link skips across water with flower-launch momentum, Goron Link breaks obstacles and rolls at sprint speed (hold A), and Zora Link’s boomerang fins hit switches from range. Many “optional” areas require swapping masks mid-navigation.

• Owl statues are one-way teleports until you unlock the Song of Soaring. Activating a statue lets you warp to it after learning the song (from Kaepora Gaebora in Southern Swamp), but the statues themselves don’t serve as save points—only playing the Song of Time saves progress.

• Great Fairy rewards require collecting all stray fairies in a dungeon. Missing even one locks you out of the magic/defense upgrade for that temple. If you’re short, the dungeon-specific fairy appears as a cluster of sparks; use the Great Fairy Mask (from the Curiosity Shop side quest) to draw them out of hiding.

• Chateau Romani is the endgame consumable. Sold at the Milk Bar for 200 rupees (members only), it grants infinite magic until the next Song of Time reset—trivializing boss fights, Zora swimming costs, and Light Arrow spam. Worth the investment for final-day dungeon clears.

• Anju & Kafei is the critical-path side quest for 100% completion. It spans all three days, requires the Bomber’s Notebook, and gates the Couple’s Mask. Start it early (talk to Anju at the Stock Pot Inn on Day 1 between 11:30 AM–8:20 PM) or you’ll miss interlocking triggers across the cycle.

Snowhead Temple — Goron Elder’s Son melody

You miss the Goron Lullaby because the sequence demands wearing the Goron Mask in spring water (Mountain Village, unfrozen state) to speak to the elder’s crying son, then racing back to the frozen Goron Elder in the cavern before the three-day cycle resets. The elder hums the first half; the son completes it. Without this melody, the Goron sleeping at Snowhead Temple’s entrance never moves. If you’ve already cleared the dungeon’s first room and can’t proceed, rewind: thaw the village with hot spring water, get the lullaby, reset the cycle, return.

Great Bay Temple — ice arrow + pipe routing

The central water-flow puzzle stops players cold because the colored pipes and valve wheels create sixteen possible configurations, but only one correct sequence unlocks the boss key. The unblock: enter the temple’s second floor as Zora Link, freeze the octoroks with ice arrows (requires clearing Ikana Canyon’s music box house first to get the arrows from the Sharp brothers), then reverse-engineer from the boss door. The red pipe must flow to the northwest wheel; green to the east. If you’re spinning valves randomly, you’ve already lost twenty minutes. Draw a map.

Romani Ranch — alien defense (first night)

The 2:30 AM alien event fails for two reasons: you don’t realize Epona is mandatory (the timed event requires mounted archery), or you cluster at the barn instead of patrolling the field perimeter where aliens spawn. Equip the bow, mount Epona before 2:15 AM, and ride counterclockwise circuits around the field’s outer fence line. Aliens materialize as glowing orbs; one successful abduction ends the quest. Missing this blocks Romani’s reward (milk bottle) and Cremia’s wagon-defense quest on the final night.

Stone Tower Temple — upside-down navigation

After acquiring the Light Arrows and flipping the dungeon with the red temple block, you lose spatial orientation because rooms invert but the minimap doesn’t reorient. The unblock: the boss key is always in the original entrance hall, now accessible as a ceiling chamber in inverted mode. If you’re wandering upside-down hallways for thirty minutes, warp out (Song of Soaring), re-enter normally, and memorize the pre-flip layout. The eyeball switch puzzle on the inverted side requires Deku Link’s bubble attack from ground level — not obvious when you’re standing on what used to be the ceiling.