Ah, Majora’s Mask. For years now, Zelda fans have been praying for and speculating about a sequel or remake to the beloved Nintendo 64 game, and Nintendo has teased us constantly about the possibility. But we haven’t seen anything yet.
I just sat down with Eiji Aonuma, the man in charge of all things Zelda over at Nintendo, and although our interview was mostly about Hyrule Warriors, I had to slip in one Majora’s Mask question. You guys would have killed me if I hadn’t.
So what’d he say?
Schreier: I have to ask… I asked readers what questions I should ask you, and the number one question was that you’ve hinted so many times about a new Majora’s Mask or a Majora’s Mask remake for the 3DS — will we ever see that?
Aonuma: I do know that fans want to see Majora’s Mask. I’ve heard that voice, it’s very, very strong, and I’m always listening, is what I would say.
Schreier: I think people reacted to the teaser in A Link Between Worlds, the mask in the house. People saw that and thought it was a hint for the future, so that’s why people are excited about that.
Aonuma: Maybe I was toying with them a little. (laughter) I’m doing everything I can. I hear the voices of the fans. There are so many out there. It’s very loud, and just to acknowledge the fact that the need, the want is out there, I put that in there.
Teases upon teases. Maybe next E3?
Comments
13 responses to “Zelda Boss On Majora’s Mask Remake: ‘I Hear The Fans’”
I thought I wanted this too for a while, but… do we really need it? I mean, all the time and resources that would go into doing this – at the end of the day, wouldn’t we want that to go into a new product rather than something we can go play right now if we want? I dunno, what do I know! Not much
Pretty much agreed. I was even more against the OoT remake – we’ve already had it appear on the 64, twice on the GameCube and again on the Wii via Virtual Console if you’re into that kind of thing. I own the game three times as it is, I don’t need another.
The worst part about it for me was that it was a half-arsed effort, what with carrying forward the old N64 sounds and everything. The post-credits credits really hit home just how much of a missed opportunity that was.
The only way I’d want a Majora’s Mask remake is if it were a full-blown console title. No restrictions, not holding anything back. Throw it on the Wii U and make it look and sound as gorgeous as possible. Otherwise just don’t bother.
They really need to implement some sort of cross buy style system. I’d happily buy every SNES Virtual Console game on the 3DS, even those with no Wii U release date, provided that I knew that if/when it made it to the Virtual Console on the Wii U (or future consoles) I wouldn’t have to pay for it again. Right now I’m trying to decide if I want to play Mega Man X on the 3DS or Wii U and all it’s done is stop me from buying it on either. Although that’s probably my fear of commitment more than anything else. =P
Im still confused at how I get my virtual console games from my dead Wii, across to my WiiU..
Funnily enough the original Majora’s Mask was possible because they were able to reuse the engine and assets from Ocarina of Time, and since they’ve already made that in HD the same story should be true this time and hence not need as much work as you think!
IDK how I feel about it myself. I’m new to Nintendo and so the 3DS remake was great for me to actually get to play it. BUT in the end the game is still dated right? So what’s the point?
So even new comers like me, although tbh I appreciate the remake for obvious aesthetic reasons as a new comer to OoT, still would have liked a new Zelda entry on 3DS that has more up to date mechanics etc, etc then a remastering.
As good as the game is, it still feels dated and I feel that a new Zelda would have ‘sold’ me on the 3DS faster AND made me more interested in playing the original OoT anyway so it’s not like I would be missing out on OoT right? In fact we all end up missing out on a new entry made for the platform instead.
ergh, it’s coming to the Wii U virtual console in HD eventually.
But will it be higher rez? I honestly don’t see the point if it isn’t. It’s not like it would be hard to do with the wiiu’s hardware considering Emulators have been having it unofficially for years.
Sony, MS and Nintendo: If your new hardware is backwards compatible… why not have it with higher resolutions and texture filtering?! Even on PS3 the PS1 games don’t look much better, Honestly.
No remake. Just a new game se in a similar world and art style.
It’s almost a waste to make a sequel using Zelda. Majora’s Mask 2 would pretty much have to be the exact same game. A new IP would let you strip it all down to just the mechanics and then play with it all without having explain why the same thing is happening again but slightly different. Maybe instead of being three days repeating it’s one hour. Instead of just having one town with a bunch of different surrounding areas maybe you can open up a dozen alternate reality versions of the same town over the course of the game.
Although honestly I think Majora’s Mask should stand alone. Nintendo have so many ideas for new mechanics for their games that they really don’t need to go retread old ground. Half the appeal (for me at least) of Majora’s Mask is that it was different. Perhaps that means a true spiritual sequel would be nothing at all like Majora’s Mask?
What if they put masks and transformations in the new game? That would be pretty sweet.
Will be so devastated if a remake doesn’t come out on the 3DS. Zelda is great and all but not buying a WiiU for it :/
I think the biggest evidence for a Majora’s Mask remake is Animal Crossing: New Leaf as one of the collectible items you can get is Majora’s Mask.
While that’s nothing special, as you can also get stuff from other Nintendo games, the Majora’s Mask item has a unique shading effect that no other item in the game uses. Instead of the usual darker shading for shadows , the Majora’s Mask item uses a hard black shadow, which makes it look like the 2D hand-drawn artwork that was used in the manual and advertising for Majora’s Mask, but wasn’t used in the actual game. What’s also interesting is when part of the mask is in shadow, the eyes are unaffected and have a bit of a glowing effect. Again, making it look like the 2D artwork.
If you ask me, that’s a lot of effort and detail to put into a single collectible item. I think that is is the biggest indicator of a Majora’s Mask remake and here’s the kicker: I think it will use a shader effect to give the game hard black shadows in order to make it look like the 2D original artwork instead of what the original game looked like.
Omg yes. wouldn’t even be hard to implement now that they’ve got a linked ID system