Reviews// The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D

The biggest difference between Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time though – and probably the one that makes the most difference in whether or not you’ll love or hate the game – is the entire game being set within a repeating three-day cycle. Very early in the game you’ll chase down the Skull Kid only to find he is now fully-possessed by the pure evil Majora's Mask and uses its power to pull the moon down from the sky in order to destroy all of Terminus.

Link manages to reclaim the Ocarina of Time, however. He uses it to travel three days into the past, essentially trapping you in a Groundhog Day-style loop where you must keep returning to the start of the three days before the end of the world until you eventually find a way to stop it from happening. It’s an interesting premise that offers a lot of promise, but it’s not without its drawbacks.

Essentially this puts you under a time limit for the entire game. It’s not a very tight time limit, but that’s still a lot more pressure than you tend to be under through most Zelda games, in which you’re given free rein to just wander in circles for hours if you so choose. As a result you’ll have to plan ahead a little, making sure you don’t start to undertake more than you can hope to finish before you have to reset time as most of your progress will be lost when you do.

Any new equipment or upgrades you’ve acquired and the progress you’ve made through dungeons is saved, but the rest of the world is restored to the start of the cycle. It’s understandable that this might not be everyone’s cup of tea. At first it does feel hard to get into, the seeming lack of progress you’ll be making due to not really having a solid grasp on what you need to do or how long you have to do it.

To help with this you’ll receive a notebook that records key info on all the NPCs that are involved in sidequests, particularly where you’ll be able to find them at key points in the timeline over the three days. Apparently these guys are all stuck in a rut because unless your actions change things they will always follow the same routine over the three days no matter how many times you make them live through it. Once you’ve gathered information on all the townspeople like some sort of super-stalker you can start solving their problems in order to tick things off of your sidequest list.

The rewards for these sidequests are plentiful, covering not only the usual Zelda staples of extra health heart pieces, larger ammunition cases and increasingly weird things kept in bottles, but also a vast collection of masks that Link can wear. While these won’t transform him like your soul-forged racial masks, many of them do possess unique powers of their own.

Some – like the bunny ears hood that doubles your running speed and jumping ability – can be very useful, but the majority are only of use in incredibly specific situations and become worthless once that purpose is fulfilled. Some of them do look quite neat though, so you can always use them to accessorise your Link to suit your tastes. Plus, one of them lets him do a weird dance on command. Always fun. The reward for gathering them all is undoubtedly worth the effort however.

If you haven’t played Majora's Mask since its first release more than a decade ago I would definitely recommend it. I’ve found myself enjoying the game even more now than I did back in its day. If you’ve played it more recently – perhaps the Wii’s virtual console release – then it might be a slightly less alluring option. For all the updated graphics there’s nothing really new on offer here. Of course if you’ve already purchased and played Majora's Mask on multiple consoles before then this 3D remastered version is probably already on your must-own list. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Considering the most recent console Zelda games didn’t really set the world on fire it’s pretty cool to revisit the series at the height of its popularity. While I’ll admit it’s probably not the ideal entry to jump into the series for the first time, if you have played Ocarina of Time before you should definitely give Majora's Mask a try. See for yourself if the creepy younger sibling can hold up the family name.

Pros:
+ Creepy, memorable visuals.
+ Plenty of sidequests.
+ Transformations expand the basic gameplay well.

Cons:
- Repeated time-travelling initially difficult to get into.
- Nothing new if you’ve really played the original to death.

SPOnG score: 9/10