After more than 25 years of The Legend of Zelda, the Master Sword has lost its sheen. I’m not talking about the numerous times that Link has literally had to repair or restore the sword. It’s just that I personally have gotten a bit bored with it. Even though the designs vary, many versions just adapt the standard wide-brimmed blade and blue hilt with wings. It’s great and all, but it can feel a bit standard and formulaic.
Because of this, I’ve always had a soft spot for Zelda games where Link doesn’t get to use the Master Sword. Link wields the White Blade in The Minish Cap and just a regular sword in Link’s Awakening. These still bore me, but there’s another game where the Master Sword doesn’t appear: The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. In fact, Majora’s Mask gave fans the coolest swords in the history of the series and brought out a new, darker side of the franchise.
With Majora’s Mask, directors Eiji Aonuma and Yoshiaki Koizumi delivered the oddball darling of the series. In it, Link finds himself not in Hyrule, but in the floundering world of Termina. Every Zelda game can feel dismal in its own way. But even today, Majora’s Mask feels surprisingly transgressive for a Zelda game. It allows Link to fail — and fail again — in his role as hero. In Ocarina of Time, Link leaps through time to save Hyrule. In Majora’s Mask, the most he can manage is to buy himself a few days before a calamitous moon grimaces above with rounded teeth. And the premise gave the developers the perfect setup to get creative with Link’s powers and especially his sword.
Instead of solely using standard tools like weapons, Link collects masks he uses as items. Each one holds the spirit of a dead character, and some even allow Link to transform physically into the likeness of the departed soul. These objects feel cursed with power. In the cutscenes triggered when he puts one on, Link places a mask — like one that resembles the face of a Goron — and screams in agony as he takes on his new body. These new bodies widen the number of powers at Link’s disposal and, in one particular case, give him an exceptionally cool sword.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the ending of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.]
At the very end of the game, Link can obtain the Fierce Deity mask which allows him to wield the corresponding Fierce Deity sword. It’s a giant double helix blade that twists around itself and can fire discs of light. The sword and its corresponding persona help Link take on the final boss fight in the game and lend him a tremendous amount of power. As far as basic sword analysis goes, it looks and feels cool as hell. It’s no wonder that later games, like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, brought it back. The Fierce Deity mask also shows us a new side of Link’s swordsmanship.
Image: Nintendo/Nintendo EDP via BeardBear/YouTube
The Fierce Deity mask gives Link untold power, but at a cost. He becomes a warrior who’s animalistic and monstrous. When the child wearing Majora’s Mask gives Link the cursed item, he asserts that Link is the “bad guy.” According to one fan Wiki, the original Japanese language version refers to the mask as one worn by an “oni” or an ogre. Even Link seems offput by its power, and the description asks, “Could this dark mask’s powers be as dark as Majora?”
The Fierce Deity sword isn’t the only cool sword to appear in Majora’s Mask. I’m also a fan of the rainbow blade and black rose etchings on the Great Fairy’s Sword. But I personally like the Fierce Deity sword because it shows a side we rarely see in The Legend of Zelda. It allows Link to win the final boss fight, but he sacrifices his humanity during the fight. If you use the mask, he doesn’t win as himself, but with a borrowed monstrous power. It sounds like something Ganondorf would be more likely to do, and less like the antics of the hero. It’s a level of depth rarely shown around the swords in The Legend of Zelda, and because of that (and the fact it looks cool), it’s always been one of my favorites.
