The weirdest Zelda game, 2000’s Nintendo 64 great The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, is finally coming to the 3DS on February 13. Yesterday, I had a chance to play the game for a little bit during a Nintendo event in San Francisco, and I got to see some of the changes featured in the remake.
Now, to be clear, there aren’t many huge alterations to the game. It’s still the Majora’s Mask that fans know and love; you’re still going to have to save the world from an impending apocalypse within 72 hours, while having to repeatedly go back in time with key items you obtain before you can finally affect events enough to succeed. But, there are some differences — all of which are useful or improve the game in small ways. Let’s start with the most obvious one.
Note that the Majora’s Mask remake doesn’t require the new, more powerful 3DS. It will run on existing models. But what I saw yesterday was running on the New 3DS XL.
The Graphics
The revamped graphics really make the game shine on the 3DS hardware, especially given the speedy loading times. Here’s a short clip that shows those shinier graphics, if you’d like to take a look:
If you’re playing the game on the New 3DS, you’ll be able to use that system’s new C-stick to look around and take in all the detail, too (without it, presumably, you’d be using the 3DS’ gyro sensor or locking Link in place and looking around with the circle pad, as you could in the 3DS’s remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time). It’s also worth noting that the game now has much of the menu functionality on the lower screen, so pretty much everything you can think of is a tap away:
Better Bomber’s Notebook
Majora’s Mask is a game about people — people that you get to know, people that you have to keep track of as they go about a set series of actions across the game’s simulated 72 hours. The Bomber’s Notebook is essentially a timeline that tracks those characters. It’s been beefed up for the 3DS version of Majora’s Mask. Now the notebook shows you your current quests, rumours you’ve heard, and your completed quests. In addition to that, the Bombers gang will now also give you rumours if you talk to them. These are meant to orient you whenever you’re unsure of what to do next. And finally, you can now set alarms in the Bomber’s Notebook — so you can always keep track of when certain things happen and get a reminder that, oh yeah, its now that part of day two when character x is supposed to be doing something you want to witness or interact with.
A New Saving System
Before, Majora’s Mask had a somewhat clunky saving system that let you save in two different ways — a single-use quicksave and a more traditional save. In the new version of the game, there is only one way to save: by using owl statues. Better yet, there are more statues around Termina — so you can save more often.
More Useful Song of Double Time
In the original Majora’s Mask, the Song of Double Time let Link shift time forward to either dawn or nightfall. Now the song lets you shift time forward to any hour you’d like. The idea is that this change will make the game better for mobile, on-the-go playthroughs.
Fishing Holes!
If you think you have the time to spare, the 3DS version of Majora’s Mask gives you not one, but two fishing holes to cast your reel in. Bombshell! Each fishing hole has ten different types of fish.
These aren’t all of the new things you’ll find in the Majora’s Mask remake. We know, for example, that boss battles have been tweaked somehow, though Nintendo representatives wouldn’t tell me any specifics. But, aside from that, the changes listed in this article are the most notable tweaks — and they’re strong enough that Majora’s Mask seems worth playing on the 3DS.
Comments
15 responses to “5 New Things In The Majora’s Mask Remake”
A little off topic, but:
On the web site http://gamesites.nintendo.com.au/the-legend-of-zelda-majoras-mask-3d/
It says that special editions are available and has the aussie PG rating on the box, yet no ones selling the special edition of the game.
Any one know what the deal is with that or if any is selling it at the moment?
I know EB sold out of preorders for it. Dunno who else was selling it at all.
Dang. I was gonna pre-order one myself 🙁
Oh well, my fault on that for not boarding the train sooner.
JB HiFI sold some yesterday morning but their all gone now
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/games-consoles/platforms/3ds/the-legend-of-zelda-majoras-mask-3d-special-edition/678005/
As for EB Games, they presold out of them before they were even advertised.
If you have your heart set on the AUS PAL copy your only choice now is the eBay resellers, which of coarse you’ll pay through the teeth for.
Well that sucks. I didn’t even see it advertised.
It was a mess. Nintendo and retailers got their lines crossed because there were no newsletter emails or tweets about the first run of SE games back in November. EB did email about the special edition console this time but that lasted one afternoon.
JB did alert people for the game and console pre-orders when they put it up online at lunchtime yesterday, but they lasted till around 4PM for console, 6PM for game.
I looked yesterday,i saw nothing 0_o
Me too, I looked on there around lunchtime I think and only found the standard edition of the game.
I looked in the morning, even before EB listed the special edition 3ds. Hence my bitch post that i removed on the other thread.
Apparently EB messed up and took pre-orders for what was supposed to be standard version when it was announced for Aus back in November. Turns out stores put them down as special editions so their entire SE was allocated before it was ever advertised. Very annoying since I was checking their site fairly regularly only to find out it was allocated over a month ago.
JB did put both game and console up on their site around noon and they sold out between 4 and 6PM. Gamesmen put theirs up today and sold out around 1:30PM. This is all from the whirlpool thread which I discovered after the fact, but I can personally account for JB up at lunchtime yesterday because that’s when I ordered mine.
What? I checked Gamesmen this morning, they only had the regular edition listed too! And with no images or anything either, it was a pretty much blank listing.
That’s incredibly bad luck. The listings are still there, but unresponsive.
https://www.gamesmen.com.au/console-new-3ds-xl-majora-s-mask-edition-serialnum
https://www.gamesmen.com.au/3ds-legend-of-zelda-majora-s-mask-3d-le
Follow this thread, users been very helpful thus far. You might get lucky if people cancel pre-orders, EB will relist online.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2341554&p=31
As mentioned by others, JB HiFi and EB Games are both sold out of preorders for the limited edition NN3DS. You could always try importing one from Europe/UK if you really want it since they’re the same region as us.
Keep searching the EB Games website for it everyday; online they quietly restock some otherwise soldout items based on unclaimed preorders. Thats how I managed to snag my copy of Smash Bros + Gamecube Adapter a week after it came out. 🙂
Will do. Thanks mate.
Wow, I thought that smash bundle was a myth here!
Just wanted to say, since this is maybe my favourite game of all time that these changes are not all for the better.
I don’t know how many options to save they added, but I hope it’s not too many. The idea that more saves is simply “more convenient” is completely misguided. Saving, failing to save, and loss of progress is one of the only repercussions a lot of games have and therefore one of the few ways a game has to make you actually feel like you don’t want to mess up and die/lose. If it’s just about “i want to put the game down for now” well just close the DS lid.
Also, gotta say I am disliking the song of double time changes. I know that a select few quests it can be a little annoying that you have to wait for say 5 hours at a location. Kafei quest for example. But really there re only a few, and I think the waiting was actually an important part of making you feel the importance of the timing. Some parts of the kafei quest you felt like you had to rush to get there, then wait for hours. But you had to be attentive, “when is the robber going to get to his hideout, I need to stay on the lookout” and you did. You felt IRL what it would feel like in the game. Saying it will make things more convenient for mobile gamers. Well shit, why not just have the game load up and give them 100% “YOU WON” sign right away. Way more convenient, but also misses the point.
Convenience in a game should only be added if it has no bearing on the feeling intended to be imposed on the player. Item menus are a good example of things that should be convenient. Moving an in game clock to an exact hour when there is a series of quests that require you to navigate the world in a set time and arrive at locations at a set hour doesn’t seem like a good idea.
The notebook and the fishing holes sound cool though.
JB still has special editions available to pre-order in store