When I was a child, I prided myself on completing just about every 3D Zelda game... except for Majora's Mask. To protect my claim, I replaced the word "completed" with "played". The truth is that I did play Majora's Mask, but I didn't get very far at all. Something about it twisted my perception of Zelda as approachable, wondrous, and adventurous. Not that Majora's Mask lacks any of these things, but maybe the aforementioned adjectives could be replaced with: challenging, awe-inspiring, and complexly beautiful.

Even in the theme for Termina Field, we can hear traces of melancholy under the typical adventurous Zelda ritornello. Without getting heavy into music theory (I'm studying music as an aside) the theme starts off with the piccolo's rooster call, as it were, signaling dawn. The next section introduces strings, but with some falling suspended chords in the mix, which produces a really bittersweet effect, as if the morning is 'suspended', destined to fall to night.

Then the main theme kicks in, headed by strange, chromatic rolls on the marimba and strange doots on the brass instrument (euphonium or tuba, I'm too bad to tell). This is a really disquieting change, but soon the iconic main Zelda theme kicks in. Yet we know something is amiss in this adventure. Around 1:10 in the piece, the sense of adventure gives way to a sense of urgency, like everything is going to fall into chaos. That's my quick and amateur score analysis.

I think the music of Majora's Mask really encapsulates it's thematics more than words can even tell. Of course, there are other clues. From the very beginning, we are placed in a scene similar to the intro to Dante's Inferno, "I found myself in a dark wood". Child Link is on his vacation (more or less) from just having saved Hyrule in Ocarina of Time. Something is immediately wrong in this scenario. Epona, Link's horse for those not in the know, walks with slow steps. Link looks around anxiously. Then, we are treated to a reverse of Virgil to keep with the Inferno comparison, Skull Kid (who my username is named after, by the way) and he promptly robs Link of both his horse and his possessions. Next, Link goes into a cave, and like in Dante's epic, crosses over to a suspended bittersweet hell, Termina, after being turned into a (git gud) scrub from Skull Kid and being greeted by the very strange guide known as the Happy Mask Salesman. Link, as his child self, (not as the adapted and well-respected adult Link) must find himself in literally transformational situations via masks, which cause him different becomings. He finds these masks when he becomes woven up in others tales, or sidequests. It's almost to say that he can become the emotions embodied in the people of Termina's through a kind of sympathetic magic.

He is destined to live out these peoples tales, day by day, through these masks, with the time loop and all. For every 3 days the literal faced moon is destined to crash into Termina, and everyone in the town knows it. So we get a glimpse of all of their lives in their final days. In gameplay, this means we have day-and-night cycles. Not that these have never been done before (like in Shenmue) but they have never been done quite like Majora's Mask. The time loop adds an extra dimension not just in gameplay but in tone, because every day we are greeted by a familiar yet mysterious routine, and the more we investigate one character, like the postman, the more we put a telescope to their lives and see things we couldn't see on the surface. Due to the nature of the time loop, we can't see all of the characters lives at once, therefore we are left to investigate them one at a time, and after resetting using our "Song of Time" on our Ocarina, we can only live out their stories once again. It's almost if the entire town is stuck on a curse, and that we the hero our literally tasked with freeing everyone from death. The game ultimately ends on a note, that while happy, has a tinge of sadness to it. "We were supposed to die, now what do we do?"

Now, I've been talking mostly about the thematics of the game thus far. The game can be hard to complete without a guide though, especially since some of the sidequests can use moon logic.
Biggest tip: in this game the sword upgrades, sidequests, and collectibles are kind of required if you are going to have a semi-easy time. The masks because if you collect all of them you get a super powerful transformation at the end of the game, the sword upgrades because some of the mini-bosses are really difficult without them. One of the upgrades comes from collecting all the little fairies (I forgot what they were called) in (I think) the 3rd dungeon, so it's worth doing that, at least. The spider house quests in particular often lead to some upgrades, so they are worth doing for that reason. Also please get the song that slows down time, The Inverted Song of Time, details on how to get it here: https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Inverted_Song_of_Time. It makes life a million times easier.

Overall, Majora's Mask is probably the most challenging and mysterious game Nintendo has made, probably ever I would hazard to say. There's an interesting interview here with Aonuma which says things better than I ever could (actually, there's a group of telling interviews about MM on this site): https://nintendoeverything.com/aonuma-talks-about-the-creation-of-zelda-majoras-mask/.
It's quickly becoming a favorite Zelda game of mine for how oddly dreamlike, and bittersweetly comforting it is. It has plenty of Zelda humor and charm in it, but it is quiet and less pronounced. It's a game that wasn't scared to go into things like atonal music for themes such as the one for Southern Swamp. It is endlessly mysterious and has inspired countless interpretations, and countless video essays while still remaining esoteric and open to interpretation. It's honestly one of the most powerful games I've ever played.

Thanks for reading.