Journal entry #2 - Goron Village

    So today I did the groundwork for going to Snowhead Temple. Years ago when I was playing the GameCube version of Majora's Mask I ended up quitting the game in frustration at Snowhead Temple because I found Goron Link impossible to control. Luckily, I've improved dramatically as a gamer and the switch controls feel much smoother than the GameCube port. 

    It was honestly a lot of fun. I didn't find a ton of goodies on the route to the dungeon, like I did with the Woodfall Temple route but that was okay. The time consumer was getting the hot spring water back and forth from the tomb of Darmani to the area where the Village Elder is frozen. I happened to unfreeze the hole in the ground first (which I had not done on any of my previous playthroughs) and was pleasantly surprised to find that there was indeed a hot spring that from which I could collect water. I'll remember that for future reference. 

    As I was going through the frozen Goron village, it occurred to me that one of the themes of the game that sits quietly in the background is the fact that all of the locations have a group of people who are dealing with issues differently. It's an awesome tool for introspection actually. It has led to my preparing what I think will be my first non-journal entry on this blog in the future. I want to examine how the Deku deal with the problems they are dealt and consider how I might make similar mistakes to the ones they do in my own life. I would attempt to write it in a slightly more formal sense than I take with these journal entries which are intended to be much more of a stream of consciousness. 

    So that has become another area of attention to which I am paying respect with this game. While attempting to understand the significance of the masks, the morality of Majora, I now add the manners for dealing with stress or negative circumstances which the inhabitants of Termina employ.  I feel already that this will be an interesting subject to cover because of it's applicability in the world we live in today. I know that for me personally, I deal with stress sub-optimally at times so identifying patterns of behavior in these stories that I exhibit to a lesser or greater degree could have utility for my own life. 

    Something I was dreading in this game was reacquainting myself with the controls to Goron Link. I must say I've been pleasantly surprised thus far on how easily controlling him has been. I am hopeful I'll find it so as I go through Snowhead, as mentioned earlier. I'll check back in tomorrow hopefully with the details on that. My wife and I are moving into a new home tomorrow so I'm not sure whether I'll be online with any updates immediately but once we get settled I'm sure I'll be printing out journal entries on the daily. 

    Speaking of my wife, she's an incredible person and I am very lucky to have her as my life companion. She's got a masters degree in psych and as much of my interests in this game deal with psychological or at least philosophical themes, I may try and run a podcast analysis of some of these subjects with her if she'd be interested in it. 

    In any event, that will do it for me today. I'll hopefully be back with another entry tomorrow!

    Cheers, - Samuel