Majora's Mask Part 2: Link moonlights as a medium, leaves an old man to freeze to death, impersonates a dead guy, and murders Biggoron.

After the exciting events at the Woodfall Temple, your next stop is the mountains - specifically, Snowhead Temple. But, because this is Majora's Mask, nothing is straightforward. Link's got a few stops to make first.

One of the great things about Majora's Mask is that while you're certainly directed to one place or another, there is a certain level of exploring that you have to do before you can get where you need to go. The mountains are a large area, including a hub area with a little house owned by swordsmiths, the Goron village, and the path to Snowhead Temple. The way Link is now, he's not equipped to even get near the temple, so exploring it is.

"Seriously, Link, just step off the cliff into the abyss. It'll be totally fine."

As you explore the Goron village, you run into Kaepora Gaebora, the helpful sage owl from Ocarina of Time and several other Zelda games. Being the nice guy he is, he directs you to jump across some invisible, slippery blocks to a floating ice cave with no direction on where to step except for a few feathers. He does mention that there's something cool in the ice cave, though, and he's not lying - inside is the Lens of Truth, a late-game item from Ocarina of Time.

On the way back out from the ice cave, Link sees a little shadow on the ground. After whipping out the ol' Lens of Truth, you come face to face with a dead floaty Goron. He's pretty much as surprised as you are about the whole "I see dead people" situation and asks you to follow him.

After chasing him around the village and finally up a sheer cliff face with invisible ladder rungs, you find another cave (apparently Gorons love the whole cave thing) with the dead guy's grave in it. Apparently, his name is Darmani, and he's some kind of Goron hero. He got blown off a cliff face while trying to reach Snowhead Temple and died, which sucks for him. He asks you to "heal" him, and in response Link plays the Song of Healing (which the Happy Mask Salesman taught him). This turns Darmani's soul into a mask, which seems a bit less like healing and a bit more like sealing a dude in a mask for all eternity, but hey, we have to trust that a guy who is totally dedicated to collecting masks even if they can end the world wouldn't have any ulterior motives in teaching Link a song that turns people into masks.

Whatever.

Anyway, now we have the Goron mask. Link's Goron form can punch things, ground stomp, roll really fast, and lift and push heavy things. It is also very slow when walking, can't jump or climb very well, and drowns instantly in water. It'll serve as your powerhouse form, but doesn't have much finesse.

All the Gorons in the village now refer to you as Darmani, and they're understandably surprised to see you, seeing as Darmani is dead and everything. It turns out that the winter has gone ugly in Snowhead, threatening to freeze even the Gorons to death. Worse than that, the Goron village is filled with the sound of the world's most irritating crying from the son of the Goron elder, who is missing his father. Your task is clear - stop the kid from crying by finding the kid's father. Off you go.

Sucks to be this guy.

When you finally find the kid's dad, he's frozen in an ice block. You have to thaw him out using hot spring water from Darmani's grave, which is hard because hot spring water cools off quickly. After several inevitable screw-ups, you thaw the elder out. At first he refuses to believe you're real, since Darmani is dead, but once he discovers that his son is having the world's most annoying temper tantrum, he agrees to help you out by teaching you the Goron's Lullaby. Or, at least he tries to - he can only remember the first part of the song, since he's all old and was frozen in an ice block and stuff.

You'd think Link would take this opportunity to maybe save the Goron elder, but this isn't Link's style. Instead, you motor back to the Goron village and play the intro to the crying kid, who teaches you the end of the song. Once you play it to him, he falls asleep - along with all the other Gorons in the area. The usefulness of this will be apparent later.

A massive Goron who blows at you to stop
you from getting into the temple. Also,
he's invisible. Good thinking, Nintendo!

Anyway, since Link has what he needs to get to the temple now, off he goes. When you make it to the narrow path to the temple, the first thing you notice is a wind gust coming from somewhere which pushes you off if you try to approach. Using the Lens of Truth, you see that the wind gust is coming from a massive, invisible Goron, who is apparently trying to protect the temple from intruders. (This is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen in a game, and it is also never explained. I guess they just really, really wanted to use that Biggoron sprite from OoT.)

The natural response from Link is not to try to reason with the big, invisible Goron, but instead to murder him. That's our boy! By playing the Goron's Lullaby, you make Biggoron fall asleep and roll into the deep gorge below, landing at the bottom some time later with a mighty thud. (Comment from Anonymous: When you finish the snowhead temple and go back to the temple, biggoron is well and alive and you get to speak to him. He says that apparently he was being possessed by something in the temple, forcing him to do what he did.) So we can all be pleased that Link isn't going to jail! Hooray!

Snowhead Temple's main room.

Snowhead Temple itself is largely comprised of a central hub room with multiple levels - taking advantage of the much greater draw distance and reduced fog, you can see clear down to the bottom floor and up to the top floor at all times while in this room. The action mostly centres around climbing up and down the tiers of this massive temple, using the Goron form's fast rolling speed to jump across great distances. The item you get from this dungeon is the Fire Arrow - just like in OoT, it melts ice and lights stuff on fire. It's awesome.

Once again, the enemies are well-designed for the temple, the rooms are expansive and distinctive, and the puzzles are mostly driven by the complex temple layout rather than individual room-based challenges. It's not my favorite of the four temples - the music is a bit grating and the uniform look of the hub room means it's hard to keep track of where you are, where you've come from and where you're supposed to be going.

The boss of Snowhead Temple is Goht, who is a mechanical goat. (Thus the name). Beating this boss is fun, if overly simple - in Goron form, you roll around after Goht as he runs in front of you, hitting his legs with your body and dodging the bombs, boulders, and other obstacles which he tosses in your way. He occasionally gets faster and starts throwing more stuff at you, but it's largely straightforward.

After you beat Goht, you return to psychadelic bubble world and meet another Dahl-esque giant. Tatl asks the question that we all want to, except more politely  - "what exactly are all of you?" to which the giant replies "Guardians." Tatl surmises that the giants are protective gods, which explains why they're in the temples.

Link and Tatl are booted out of rainbow bubble land, and you're treated to a lovely cutscene of the snowstorm stopping and the ice and snow melting from Snowhead and the surrounding area. As usual, when you save, everything reverts to the way it was - except this time, you have Goht's Remains, the item proving that you've freed the giant from the Snowhead Temple.

Next time - Link saves cows from aliens, raises an invisible soldier's self-esteem, raids an all-female pirate fortress (and not in a National Lampoon way), rides a giant sea turtle, and kills a Zora guitarist. Stay tuned!