To Ikana!

This is the first time, I have ever made it this far in the game because the game frankly irritated me with its difficulty level to this point that I never cared up to this point.  But following the deeper storyline this time; Ikana is definitely the coolest places in the game and if they had wanted to improve this game any, you would have freed Ikana from its curse earlier in the game than the other areas which involved some quite stereotypical missions (rescuing a princess, thawing a landscape and avenging a lost musical soul).

Ikana Valley is where the game truly takes its own, unique form and makes Majora's Mask as its stand in its own light, independent of Ocarina of Time, without too much frustration.  Although the puzzle factor in this part of the game is still high (this whole game is centered around puzzle rather than action) it is fun to unravel the mysteries in this valley and learn about a lost kingdom within the game itself, adding more flavor to what is beyond Hyrule; this kingdom even sounds like a cool kingdom to base a whole independent Zelda in.

You start out not having any way in until you can best the Gorman brothers at racing (these two idiots look like Ingo from Ocarina of Time and act like him too...not a good synergy).  Either way, this mask makes us look like a ninja and makes ninja warrior appear to do battle with us, and give us hints along our way in this last leg of our journey.  They are mostly pretty cryptic, but they all point towards the fact that something happened to Ikana, though it was once a great nation, it seems...but a curse (via the Majora's Mask) has made all who enter this kingdom riddled with death.

This game gets very emotional, and it's very good in that regard; it makes you the player react not only to what is happening to Link, but to what is happening around him.  I love this part of the game, I wish there was a way to skip a lot of the other stuff to get here earlier.

Either way; now that we have access to Ikana we can also complete the longest side-quest in the game; which is highly evocative but highly irritating in its timing and length.  Everything has a certain time of day by which it must be completed, the whole thing takes a three-day cycle, and it has two rewards: but you can only get one of the rewards per setting, meaning you have to do this lengthy exchange twice!  This is where we reunite Anju, the inkeeper, and Kafei, her fiance cursed to look like a boy.  Though physically incompatible, their love overcomes all, sending a strong emotional undertone throughout the game which prevades the darkness of the overall plot.  Lovely!