It seems like just yesterday Ocarina of Time 3D was hitting store shelves and people had begun pining for its sequel. Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask use nearly all the same art assets, so why not? It made perfect sense. Fan groups like Project Moonfall sprang up seemingly overnight and began petitioning Nintendo in hopes that their dreams would one day come true. As time would have it, those wishes have come to pass. So now we stand on the dawn if its release with bated breath and 3DS’ clutched firmly in our hands.
Like any good remake, Majora’s Mask hasn’t touched the core of the game in the slightest. It’s the same old game we all fell in love with back in 2000 when it originally launched on the Nintendo 64. Despite its following, Majora’s Mask never hit the stride of its predecessor. Why was that? For starters, Ocarina of Time is widely regarded as one of the best games of all time. It blew away old scoring records and redefined its genre. So naturally, any game to follow was sure to live in its shadow.
Nintendo realized this and did something that we still haven’t seen to this day… They took the Legend of Zelda and flipped it on its head. If Majora’s Mask was to play second banana, it might as well do it in style. Majora’s Mask took the gameplay that made its older brother so revered, but put the player in a world of perpetual imminent doom. A three day timer kept players on their feet. Each minute of each day counted. And if the timer hit zero, that was it….Kaboom! The falling moon would come down and destroy everything you worked to protect.
Perhaps the thing that was most detrimental to Majora’s Mask’s success was the very thing that made it so unique. The three day clock was certainly fresh, but also intimidating. The player is dropped off in this bustling, lively world with only the slightest hint as to where to go or what to do. There is a special kind of panic that sets in when you have to solve puzzles on a clock. Many games have them, but none other than this one start that way. Luckily, Majora’s Mask 3D has fixed everything. It’s a much better experience for newer players than the original ever was. It guides the player more clearly at the beginning to ease them into their ticking clock. All of the world’s events are tracked in the newly revamped Bombers Handbook.
Visual cues have been added to many of the world’s events and bosses to make objectives more clear. The bank has been made more central, and they even added fishing! Its visual facelift isn’t anything to shake a stick at either. Each of Links mask forms have been given beautiful new models and animations. The 3D effect is some of the best I’ve seen on the system, and the game even supports the new 3DS’ c-stick. The c-stick moves the camera around Link to get a better view of your surrounds, a feature sorely lacking from Ocarina of Time 3D.
Do I have your attention yet? I sure hope so, because our full review is just around the corner…
***A copy of the game was provided by the Publisher***
