The Glitch



I wanted to replay my old N64 games. I love The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, so there was no question as to what I wanted to play first. After a few minutes of plugging my Nintendo 64 console into the TV, I blew the dust off and popped in Majora's Mask.

The game started as normal, so I picked a slot and started a new game. The intro started normally, with Link and Epona in the woods. It continued normally with Skull Kid appearing and stealing Epona. Link was dragged around while trying to hold onto that horse, but when he was thrown off, he died as soon as he hit the ground.

I sat there, surprised. How could that happen? It was playing the death music and showed the Game Over screen. Curious, I pressed continue and ended up back at the forest where you chase Skull Kid.

The health bar was gone and my inventory was full of Ocarinas. Every slot, instead of being empty as it should, was an Ocarina.

I began to feel uneasy, but kept moving forward until I reached the scene where Link was transformed into a Deku Scrub. The scene ended with Link dying again, which made me want to shut off my console. I didn't, however, and continued playing. Nothing of interest happened while on the way to Clock Town; everything was normal except for my inventory.

I reached the scene where Link enters Clock Town and meets the Happy Mask Salesman. When the scene ended, Link died again. I continued on, exploring Clock Town. Oddly, everything that used a text box caused Link to die. Clock Town was relatively fine; nothing was deranged like in other stories. I just died when something happened. There was no health bar and way too many ocarinas, but I kept dying.

I eventually reached the Great Fairy. I ran towards the fountain and she sprang up. Unfortunately, all she said was "000000000000000000" and scrambled words. I proceeded past the gibberish and got the magic bar, but Link died afterward. The scene repeated enlessly and I couldn't do anything, so I shut off my N64.

As of today, I still have the cartridge and my N64. Both work great. I think what happened was some sort of cartridge glitch that happens when the cartridges get old. This happened only once and a few years ago at that, so I have no pictures or video to support my claims. Oh well...back to playing Majora's Mask.