What is Majora’s Mask 3D?
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D is a 2015 release of the 2000 game The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, remastered for the Nintendo 3DS. It is a third person action adventure game where you play as Link trying to save the land of Termina from the falling moon in 3 days time. The original Majora’s Mask was the sequel to my personal favorite game of all time, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and was developed for the Nintendo 64 console. Majora’s Mask 3D takes around 25 hours to complete with around 40 hours total to do every side quest in the game.
Game Review:
Majora’s Mask 3D tries to recapture the magic of the original release and modernize it through player-friendly design decisions and availability on a more widely owned video game system. As someone who tried to beat Majora’s Mask multiple times, both on an original Nintendo 64 and through Nintendo’s Switch Online catalog, I kept getting frustrated by the challenge of the game and the jankiness that was common on older consoles. This led to me never actually completing Majora’s Mask even though The Legend of Zelda series is my favorite franchise of all time and it being the sequel to my personal favorite game of all time.
Majora’s Mask is one of the darkest and most melancholy games in the Zelda franchise. The backdrop to the adventure is that the moon is falling to the earth above Clock Town, the central village of Termina, where the Carnival is supposed to be happening. This isn’t just some freak accident however, it is being willed by Skull Kid who is utilizing the power of the titular Majora’s Mask to bestow on him dark magical power and pulling the moon down. You have 3 days (54 minutes in real time) to stop this from happening as the moon will crash and destroy all of Termina if you don’t stop it in time. As you interact with characters you get to see their reactions and responses to the impending doom. Some characters choose to flee, some choose to live in denial of the crashing moon, some characters decide to cherish their remaining moments with their loved ones, and the rest have a myriad of other responses. This game really hits hard with the themes of the end of the world and death (I’ll get to this later). Majora’s Mask wrestles with the responses to grief and impending death and how people deal with that, showing which responses are healthy and which are maybe not so healthy. These themes are not often explored in video games, particularly kids games made by Nintendo, but Majora’s Mask takes these themes in stride.
Majora’s Mask deals with the concept of death and how people cope with their own death or the deaths of loved ones. The Deku Scrub mask, and the other transformation masks you collect in the game are obtained through the death of someone of those races. Dying turns these people into miserable, troubled souls who are unable to leave this realm. Playing the Song of Healing soothes their souls and frees them while leaving a mask that allows Link to transform into their likeness with their abilities. We can see different ways that people cope with death through the characters whose forms we take on. Majora’s Mask tackles heavier themes than most other Zelda games (which makes it darker but also gives it more emotional depth) which is why this game has amassed a more passionate fan base than some other games.
As you start the game, you will soon realize that it is impossible to stop the moon from crashing in one 3-day period and at first all seems doomed. But this game being a sequel to Ocarina of Time and the player playing as the same Link, we’re in luck. Link has the ability to reverse time back to the dawn of the first day whenever he chooses. But to do that, you need to recover the Ocarina of time from Skull Kid who stole it from you in the opening sequence of the game.
As I said earlier, Majora’s Mask is on a 3-day time limit. The world and all its characters have a timeline that they all follow, it is through Link’s interventions that the states of the world and characters will change. This means that characters will move on their own and have routines. For example, there is a Postman character who has a mail route through Clock Town every day from 9am to 3pm. This use of routines really makes the world of Termina feel much more real and lived in as compared to some video games that don’t. All these characters will move and act outside of what Link does which is really unique and makes me that much more invested in the characters. This 3-day time limit also provides the developers some great opportunities for puzzles and collectibles throughout the world. They will place a chest or a heart piece in a place that you can’t reach at the beginning of the game so you have to skip it. As you gain more powers and items, you will remember that one item and go back to seek it out. It’s a really engaging design decision used in many modern Rogue-Lite games today.
Gameplay in Majora’s Mask is very similar to Ocarina of Time. Because this game originally came out on the Nintendo 64, there are some differences between it and our modern games. The camera is where this really comes into play. There is only one joystick on both the 3DS and the N64, so to recalibrate your camera you need to tap a button that turns the camera towards whatever your character is facing. This is also the button that controls the lock on feature, or Z-Targeting. In Majora’s Mask 3D you hold the L button down to lock onto an enemy and then you can circle it or do a certain moveset that you can’t do when not locked on. This lock on system is actually still used in many games today but is finetuned a bit more to be less clunky.
In this game you will use a sword and shield as is the norm for Link in Zelda games. You also have a large swath of items at your disposal which can each be mapped to 1 of 4 buttons to be used. While this game doesn’t carry over every item from Ocarina of Time, it adds new items in the forms of masks that give Link different powers, particularly the Transformation masks. It adds a variety that expands on the Zelda formula and being able to assume the powers of the different races is really awesome. The developers take these new powers through masks into consideration and develop really engaging puzzles and combat scenarios that utilize the specific powers.
There are only 4 dungeons in Majora’s Mask but to make up for it, the developers make them very long and complex dungeons. There is the first dungeon that serves as a tutorial dungeon and is by far the easiest and least engaging, but still serves as a great starter dungeon. The other 3 dungeons are more puzzle-boxy in their design and really make you think about not only individual puzzles but the whole dungeon as a puzzle itself. The dungeons shine even if they can be frustrating at times. All of them ended with a boss fight against some huge monster, but only 1 of the 4 bosses was truly awesome to play.
After defeating the 4 bosses you will be faced with the game's final boss which is one of the hardest bosses in Zelda games. Fortunately, there is an easy mode that you can unlock if you collect all the available masks in the game. After collecting all the masks and trading them at the end of the game you will receive a mask that makes Link stronger than he’s been in any other Zelda game and honestly makes the final boss a breeze. But it takes a lot of effort on the front end to achieve this reward.
I love the way this game plays and I love the world that the developers have set up for Link to adventure through. The only issue I have with the game is the difficulty - it is one of the hardest Zelda games I’ve played. It’s why now on my 3rd try, I finally have beaten this game and had a great experience. Puzzles in this game are vague and convoluted, adding to the difficulty. The game doesn’t always explain what you need to do and where you need to do it, particularly in the side quests and the peripheral activities to the main quest.
Family Friendliness:
Majora’s Mask 3D is a Nintendo game in the Zelda franchise. This type of game is typically family friendly while still allowing some more mature themes like good vs evil. Majora’s Mask is one of the darkest in the franchise so it might be a bit intense for really small kids. I don’t think this game is inappropriate but it deals with things like death and ghosts and stuff like that. If a kid is mature enough for it, I think this game is fine to play in front of or alongside your child.
Features for Parents:
Majora’s Mask is not the most parent friendly game, particularly the original N64 version of the game. The 3DS version has some improvements that make it more palatable as a parent. For one, it’s on a Nintendo 3DS which is portable and doesn’t require you to sit in front of a tv. It also has much better checkpointing and injected many more save points into the game than the original, meaning you don’t have to exit whatever you were doing to save at the only save point in a given area. The menu system is more intuitive, easier to use, and gives you more information than the original game. For example you can look at the music notes you need to play and then quickly switch over to actually play it. Overall this game isn’t the most user-friendly but the 3DS version is the most accessible for those who want to give it a try.
Final Verdict:
Majora’s Mask 3D provided the accessible version of this game that I needed to be able to play it. I love this game, it’s a masterpiece in world building and puzzle design. When you play through it, you actually care about the characters and get to see how they respond to ultimate adversity. The gameplay is aged but still holds up to be engaging. The only critique I can give is that this game is very difficult and the 3-day time limit where you need to reset progress may hinder the ability to pick up and play. But if you are a Zelda fan and want to play an amazing game, I can’t recommend this enough.