What can you say about The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask that hasn’t already been said? As the first Zelda title to follow the revolutionary The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask had it had its work cut out for it. Pushing the Nintendo 64 hardware to its limit, Majora’s Mask dared to be different and became the darkest, weirdest, most stressful and – many believe – most interesting Zelda title ever made. Nintendo have now released The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D onto its 3DS handheld, with a slew of updates and improvements. As good as it was at the time, how does a 15-year old game stack up in the modern era?
Majora’s Mask picks up at where Ocarina of Time left off, with young Link riding his horse Epona home to the Kokiri village. En route, he is accosted by a crazed imp called Skull Kid, wearing the hideous, bug-eyed purple and yellow mask the title refers to. Flanked by two wise-cracking fairies, Skull Kid knocks Link to the ground, mugs him for his ocarina and rides off on Epona. Link, awaking from his daze, charges blindly after the thief before plummeting down what appears to be a bottomless pit.
When he awakens, he has been transformed into a Deku Scrub, a small plant-like creature, that can really only hop short distances, perform a spinning attack and shoot bubbles to ward off foes. After hooking up with one of Skull Kid’s fairies, a replacement for Ocarina’s Navi named Tatl, Link finds his way into a city called Clock Town. Here he discovers that he has fallen into a land called Termina, a world that is doomed to end in three days when the moon falls to earth and wipes out life as we know it. Thus, the race is on – first, to restore Link to his to his human form, then to stop Skull Kid and the evil Majora’s Mask, and save Termina from catastrophe.
The first thing you’ll notice about Majora’s Mask 3D are its graphical improvements – gone are the N64’s blocky models and muddy textures. In their place are models that are far more detailed and full of character but still pay homage to their original look in ways that really pop and lend a sense of even grander scale to the proceedings. I found myself thinking that the way Majora’s Mask 3D looks now is the way my brain remembers it looking on my N64, back when my friend Josh and I would gush about it to each other in Year 10 science rather than actually paying attention.
The 3D is also used the great effect here – there’s no gimmicks, everything is used to provide a sense of depth and it’s instrumental in making the whole game feel more epic and desperate. It’s like a little window into this doomed world and it serves to ratchet the atmosphere up considerably. If you do want to play with the 3D on the bulk of the time, do try to play the game on one of the New 3DS or New 3DS XL models because the upgraded 3D works much better than on older models, which get a bit fuzzy with all the moving around your hands have to do to control the game.
Termina, the bizarro version of Hyrule in which the game is set, feels smaller than Hyrule did in Ocarina but is actually rather massive in its own right. There are four main dungeons in the game, which makes for a rather shorter game than Ocarina’s nine dungeon odyssey, but the dungeons that are on offer are quite substantial in terms of puzzles and design. Though the level of difficulty doesn’t really rise beyond what we’ve come to expect from a Zelda title, the temples all require you to grapple with a suite of new abilities. Younger players should find a decent challenge here though.
These new abilities are granted by masks given to you by spirits of various creatures in the game. Once Link transforms back into a human from his Deku Scrub form, he can pop on a Deku mask to take that shape any time he likes – indeed, the first dungeon located in the Swamp area requires liberal use of the Deku mask. Each successive dungeon then unlocks a new creature to try out, outfitted with a set of abilities all its own. Their respective dungeons are built around these skills and ask you to master them as you make your way toward the boss room.
The bosses are among the more fun I’ve encountered in a Zelda game, and some have seen a few changes. They’re all great fun to fight and with the handheld controls, they feel like they present a bit more of a challenge than they usually do. The first major boss in the game, Odolwa, a dancing tribal giant that resembles Incan iconography, has seen a few changes from the N64 version of the game. The floor in the boss room is now littered with deku flowers that Link can burrow into when wearing his deku mask. The flowers fire him into the air above the boss and he can drop deku nuts to stun Odolwa long enough to transform back into human form and pelt the jerk with arrows. Make sure you switch your L-targeting from Hold to Toggle though because holding it down will give you hand cramps after a while.
There are quite a few changes in this updated version of the game. Owl states can now be activated simply by checking them (rather than striking them as in the original) and will permanently save your game. A few of them have been shuffled around as well, so they may not all be where you remember them being. There’s been a new song added to Link’s repertoire as well, the Song of Double Time which lets him warp to a given hour of the day – this makes getting through your schedule so much easier because you no longer have to wait around all day for a particular thing to happen. Some temples have seen a change or two in terms of design or puzzles while others, like Zora Link’s Inside the Moon dungeon has seen a complete reworking. Certain pieces of dialogue have been tweaked too to provide a bit more clarity as to what you should do next. Everything Nintendo have altered about the game is, in my mind, for the better.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D remains an extremely important title in video game history. This updated version brings the game into the modern era with a fresh coat of paint and design changes that bring its pace in line with today’s adventure titles. Despite its age, it still feels fresh and is as enjoyable as it was when you played it on your N64 all those years ago. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of jumping into this title before, I really do envy you. You’re in for a real treat.
Review Score: 8.5 out of 10
Highlights: Gorgeous visuals; smart design changes; great setting
Lowlights: 3-day cycle still takes some getting used to; older players may find it a bit on the easy side
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: February 14, 2015
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Reviewed on Nintendo 3DS
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