Not sure what to expect out of additional content, especially if this is nearly 4 years in the making (lolwut). But a solid framerate will do this game a lot of good.

The touch screen menu should also give the masks a lot of help.

I can't wait for this game! And I totally forgot about the possibility of a master quest. I eagerly anticipate seeing what they've added and updated for this already stunning masterpiece.

@missypissy

I just realised, that that's more time than they spent on the original. Damn.

This better be one hell of a remake.

I was listening to IGN's "Nintendo Voice Chat" podcast, and they mentioned something about how the dev team is adding a bunch of stuff to the "base" game. So there will likely be a decent amount of extra content not seen in the original.

As an added bonus, apparently a lot of time went into the beginning of the game, to make it easier for players to get acclimated with the game and have a less strict time limit for the first area. Which isn't something I really endorse. Oh well.

I think refining MM's beginning is a good idea, actually. I know several big Zelda fans who were turned off by MM's beginning. I mean, it's not the greatest intro to a Zelda game--you're pretty much stripped of your usual abilities, forced to play hide-and-seek with a bunch of kids around town, and running about attempting to get you-don't-even-know-what done by the end of a time limit, or else start it all over! How are players supposed to know they'd need the title deed, etc? And the Moon Tear, and other stuff? It's just too much, I think.

I'm normally not one for remakes, but if they actually add some neat new features (more character sidequests, more masks, maybe even an extra dungeon or boss?) I might have to bite. Majora's Mask has a lot of memorable stuff in it and it handles its subject matter with great aplomb. It's got a lot of heart to it.

I'm torn. I'm in the camp that thought Majora's Mask was one of the weaker Zelda games (even though I enjoyed it and recognize why people hold it in such high regard) and I've beaten it twice. But there's something about seeing how it will play with a consistent frame-rate and possibly some tweaks...plus the Master Quest (is this a real thing?) is really tempting me.

@TriforceBun

My only real issue with the beginning section was the location of the stray fairy.

I ran around town looking for it & couldn't find it. By the time I hit the Laundry Pool though, it had moved to the other side of Clock Town- A location I had already scoured and didn't go back to later.

Keep the damn thing in one place.

I'm really excited for this. MM is my second favorite Zelda game (as well as second favorite game overall), but I haven't replayed it in over 10 years. I'm glad they are doing this, and I'm interested in seeing what sort of extra content they add.

There are certainly some refinements that should be made. The Gyorg boss fight comes to mind as you are fighting the camera as much as you are fighting the boss. Some of the things Gui has mentioned in the past should be addressed as well. Also the save system I feel like could just be totally redone. Have a standard save function that the player can access anytime and saves their progress for the current cycle. You can probably just do away with the whole difference between a hard save on the time reset and a soft save. I'd also say losing all your ammo and consumables is just an excuse for busy work/adding a step before you can get going on your current objective.

One issue I have with the current video we do have is that the lighting seems to be different in a lot of shots. I think this could be a mistake and undermine some of the atmosphere Majora's Mask builds. This youtube video shows some of the differences:

I'm looking forward to it having only played the game through once. The fact that there were only two save files really caused an issue as my brother and I both laid claim to one each. With OoT or ALttP we would lay claim to one and then the middle file was whomever claimed it. I'd get top, he'd get bottom, and we would just copy files if enough progress was made. I found everything except some heart pieces in MM and I was never going to delete that file.

That said, at the time I enjoyed it more than OoT, but looking back, there are quite a few areas I hope to see smoothed out. I'm also curious what difference being 32 as opposed to 17/18 will do to my perspective of theme and such.

@Stephen

Nah, having a hard save makes it so that you can't redo things without redoing EVERYTHING. The current system is perfect for the game.

@Secret_Tunnel

What do you mean? Resetting the clock would still undo events.

This is a great opportunity to polish a severely flawed game that has a lot of really good stuff hiding underneath.

Yeah I'm not exactly sure why we can't hard save whenever we want. I get that it urges you to do stuff before the time limit, but for a handheld game I'm wondering if they really makes as much sense.

The problem with being able to 'hard save' midway through any given timeline, is that when you screw something up, instead of coming at it again in the next timeline, you're just reverting back to your save to give it another whirl.

It's the equivalent of using save states in something like Mario. You're just breaking the challenge of the game at that point.


The ability to 'soft save' anywhere rather than at statues would be an ok addition. Or even better, have an autosave feature that triggers & overwrites the previous save every time you do something significant/enter a new area. That way you can't savescum within a single timeline. AND it protects people from losing hours of progress because they lost power (in this case battery power) before they saved or their game glitched out forcing a reset- Both issues with the first release.

Shadowlink said:

The problem with being able to 'hard save' midway through any given timeline, is that when you screw something up, instead of coming at it again in the next timeline, you're just reverting back to your save to give it another whirl.

This.

I'd be surprised if they added a ton of content to this after the relatively straight-forward Ocarina and Wind Waker por... um, remakes.

Still... loved this game. May have to double dip. Or may not. We'll see.

The thing is though, even without hard saves, Majora's Mask is a very difficult game. There's plenty of challenge already in figuring out just where to go or what to do next.

Also, they did add save features to old Mario games in Mario All Stars and other releases. I'm sure you could argue that adding a save feature breaks the challenge of Mario 3, but they did add it in All Stars and Advance.

TriforceBun said:

I think refining MM's beginning is a good idea, actually. I know several big Zelda fans who were turned off by MM's beginning. I mean, it's not the greatest intro to a Zelda game--you're pretty much stripped of your usual abilities, forced to play hide-and-seek with a bunch of kids around town, and running about attempting to get you-don't-even-know-what done by the end of a time limit, or else start it all over! How are players supposed to know they'd need the title deed, etc? And the Moon Tear, and other stuff? It's just too much, I think.

See, I'm in the complete other camp. BECAUSE the intro is so jarring, so punishing, and so challenging, is also what makes it so brilliant. As Jose said on the IGN podcast, he really like the feeling of "having the rug pulled out from under me." Right from the beginning, this game showed you this wasn't going to be like past Zelda games. It was something new. Different. Exciting.

Zero said:

I'd be surprised if they added a ton of content to this after the relatively straight-forward Ocarina and Wind Waker por... um, remakes.

Hah. Referring to these projects as "enhanced ports" seems to get me downvotes on the Nintendo subreddit every time, but that very objectively describes what OoT 3D and WW HD are... and what MM 3D appears to be. A true "remake" is something like Resident Evil on Gamecube, Metroid Zero Mission, or Tomb Raider Anniversary. Nobody, for example, was calling games like Soul Reaver, Rayman 2, or THPS2 "remakes" when they were ported and enhanced from Playstation to Dreamcast. The process here is very similar, only a lot more time has passed.

I'm not sure why calling these things what they are upsets some people so much, because I'm not doing so pejoratively. I'm not against the idea of enhanced ports at all. In fact, I favor it over a true remake. It's like releasing The Godfather on VHS, then DVD, then Blu-ray. It doesn't make for a lesser product but instead lets people experience a classic in the best possible way while also bringing in a whole new generation that never experienced it before and isn't going to use dated technology to do so. I don't know about anybody else, but I wouldn't want a remake of The Godfather, and I don't want a remake of Ocarina of Time either. (My autocorrect changed that to Ovarian of Time. Awesome.)

Anyway, vexing semantics aside, I'm truly excited to play through this game. I'm one of those people that never finished it before because the time limit stressed me out when I was younger, but I always appreciated that it tried something new and loved the tone. Now I feel like I get the time system and can enjoy it for what it is. I've actually been wanting to revisit MM since OoT 3D but figured I'd be patient and wait for the inevitable 3DS port. I'm excited to see just what features Aonuma is referring to when it comes to making this game more accessible to people like me, but I also truly hope that it is optional and doesn't hurt the experience for those people who adore this game how it is... I'm also thinking that there has to be something pretty substantial that they haven't told us yet, what with the project taking so long and Aonuma teasing that it was more than "just another remake." There should at least be something to match the Master Quest mode of OoT, which actually added a lot of value for those of us that never played it.