For years now, Nintendo fans around the world have been clamoring for a remake of one of the greatest Nintendo 64 games ever made. And while there may never be an HD version of “Superman 64,” Nintendo was kind enough to produce the next best option: “The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D” for the Nintendo 3DS.
Even though it has been 15 years since the original game’s release, there still isn’t anything quite like “Majora’s Mask.” The closest game, comparatively, is its predecessor “Ocarina of Time,” a game that Grezzo — the Japanese developer tasked with remaking the once-cult classic — remade for the same system in 2011. Most assets from “Ocarina of Time” were reused for “Majora’s,” so many puzzles and dungeons are designed similarly.
The entire world runs on a cycle of three days, and using the time-bending Ocarina of Time, players can go back to the start or jump ahead. This presents an ultimatum to complete challenges and missions because everything will reset once you go back in time. This includes losing all rupees (the currency in the game) and inventoried items, such as arrows or bombs. The player can keep all other items, which is important because it means they can skip half a dungeon if the player runs out of time before completing it. The player can store Rupees in a bank to avoid losing them as well.
Alongside the iconic three-day cycle, the game features different masks, which offer protagonist Link many different abilities. The most notable of these are the main three masks that can transform Link into a Deku, Goron or Zora — three different sentient, humanoid creatures in the game. The rest offer varying degrees of usefulness and rewards. One bird-like mask allows Link to lead baby chicks in a march until they miraculously evolve into roosters, while another stone mask makes you invisible to basic enemies.
All of this returns from the original game. The changes, however, are not only notable, but also vastly improve the overall experience of playing “Majora’s Mask 3D.” The ‘Bombers’ Notebook’ (a book in the original game that showed each character and when an important event in the three-day cycle would occur) has been vastly revamped. Now it is a real mission log that keeps track of not only when each character has an important event, but what it is and in some cases where it might be happening. It even mentions rumored events to help the player search for something they might have missed otherwise. Players can even set an alarm so you don’t forget to go to a place at a certain time.
The Bombers’ Notebook is just a small part of Nintendo’s main goal of making “Majora’s Mask” more accessible to anyone who hasn’t played it before, and they’ve done an excellent job. The player no longer has to go back to the beginning of the first day to save because statues exist all over the map where a player can save their game. In general, the game has made it easier to figure out where to go and what to do — a problem in the original game.
That’s not to say the new game has worked out all of the kinks. There are definitely areas where “Majora’s Mask” shows its age. The swimming controls when Link is in Zora-form are clunky and frustrating at times. Falling off a ledge and needing to circle back up several floors — a minor nuisance in other “Zelda” games — is much more punishing with the three-day time limit biting at your heels, especially in the second dungeon of the game.
Thirdly, even with all the added direction pointing, there are times when the player will need a certain item to use or event to occur, that the player will need to acquire somewhere that isn’t immediately obvious.
Yet even with problems, nothing stands in the way of “Majora’s Mask’s” greatest strength: side missions. While they can often be the weakness, and sometimes the bane of many other games — including “Zelda” games — the side missions are by far the most engrossing part of “Majora’s” world. The restrictive nature of the three-day cycle gave the original developers the ability to write a tightly knit narrative for each character in the game that uses the cycle in interesting ways. Needless to say, they are the highlight of the entire game.
