The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Overview

Released at the tail-end of the N64's lifespan, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is very different than its predecessor. It might've been an objectively better game except some major drawbacks that are integral to its gameplay.

Review

I first wrote a bit on this game about five years ago where, despite some big nostalgia factors, I was not terribly kind to it and to be honest I'm not sure about it now.

First announced as Zelda Gaiden (lit. "Zelda Side Story"), like Ocarina of Time's ambitious expansion pack, Ura Zelda, Zelda Gaiden was to use the N64DD's features, with the idea having a real-time clock. In the released game, the main gimmick is you have three in-game days to solve everything, with it being about an hour in real time, and while that can be slowed down or sped up (the dungeons are slower by default), the clock is always ticking. There are some tasks (key items, boss battles, and so forth) that can be solved permanently but it relies on continually going back in time to finish the game. I'm not sure what the original plan was for the 64DD (I read it would've used seven days instead of three), because of all the time-specific events it would be hard for a kid or a working adult to be there at certain hours...and it means that after seven days you'd basically be forced to reset anyway.

It's cooled off quite a bit since I first started working on this review five or six years ago but for a long time contrarianism has deluded people into thinking Majora's Mask was better than Ocarina of Time. I can see why people might think that. The NPCs are more involved and have better stories than any Zelda game past or present, and as a kid, day/night features were super cool (Pokémon Gold & Silver was released around this time, which DID use a real-time clock, though not with a tight schedule) and the game had different schedules for various shops and places to visit. In practice, though, it's a pain, especially when restarting the loop. Sure, you can deposit Rupees but all the consumables (arrows, bombs, Deku Nuts, etc.) are also gone. This wouldn't be such a big deal but if you try to approach, say, Snowhead, you have to have arrows to knock down the icicles blocking the path each and every time. For a game with time being a central focus, they sure don't respect yours. That's not even counting the awful save scheme the game has. Most of these have been fixed through the PC port(s) but it's still an issue.

The two other main problems with Majora's Mask on a fundamental level that I came across was that it suffered from the collectathon element. The game revolves around doing tasks to get masks (there are 24 that aren't directly story-related) for Link. Some of them are useless while others are needed to get various things like Heart Pieces. You need all 24 to get the best mask in the game, the Fierce Deity's Mask. The Heart Pieces in the game...there are 60 of them as there are so few dungeons, which leads me to the second part of my complaint, not being like a Zelda game in terms of dungeons and items. Usually, in a Zelda game, there are at least 8 dungeons, each having an item in each of them. Yeah, some of them are just upgrades and don't do much in later dungeons or the game, but by the end of the game you're a walking arsenal. In Majora's Mask there's only four dungeons and very few items (the four dungeons give you a bow and arrows, fire arrows, ice arrows, and light arrows). There are a few interesting items in Majora's Mask that aren't in Ocarina of Time (notably the Pictobox) but so many other—the Megaton Hammer, the magic spells, the gauntlets, and so on aren't. It could be justified as most of those were "Adult Link" items, but they aren't there. As a result, Majora's Mask was arguably the weakest Zelda game until the DS games came around.

That's all a shame because there's so much going for it. It pushes the N64 to its limits, has a lot more for Link to do, and there's all the flourishes that make it good and remind people that this is The Legend of Zelda, after all, and at the time hadn't been nearly as tainted as it has now. It's the little things, too...somewhere around 60% of the way through, if you walk into the band members' rooms they're playing renditions of tracks from the original The Legend of Zelda including the ending theme and the underworld theme. It's nice stuff like that.

Player Notes

I haven't been playing Majora's Mask all that consistently. Even as of this writing I haven't gotten to the last dungeon yet.

Port & Rerelease Notes

For a long time, Majora's Mask was hard to work with. Its complex programming and full use of the N64 Expansion Pak didn't play well with emulators, and while it was part of The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition, that too was buggy. Unless you have an original cartridge, it is recommended that you find a decomp port like 2 Ship 2 Harkinian. In 2015, a remake was released on the Nintendo 3DS, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D, though it changes many things (including graphics and gameplay) that are somewhat iconic of the game, so it's not recommended (especially as some of the better changes were implemented by the port).