Deku Scrub Link, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
I feel like 2000’s Zelda installment Majora’s Mask is sometimes overshadowed by the game before it, Ocarina of Time, or even the one after it, Twilight Princess, but the outfit change that puts the rest of the game into motion still sticks with me.
A weary Link heads through the forest in his classic, Elf-on-the-Shelf-type outfit, his floppy, pointed green hat loose on his blond head, a boxy green tunic belted onto the rest of him. He’s soon stopped and kicked off his horse, bullied by a nasty Skull Kid who turns him into a coconut-looking Deku Scrub forest creature.
Like with Vicar Amelia, Link’s change is dramatic, but it maintains vestiges of his former self, green hat and tunic still shielding his now wooden, manipulated body. It’s immediately unsettling, shaking you out of whatever expectations you had for the boy you knew and his endless questing.
