Replaying Majora's Mask via NSO

Back in June I was replaying Ocarina of Time on my Nintendo Switch 2 and already made a mental note that I wanted to do the same with Majora's Mask later this year. However, it was originally my plan to do so after the Ocarina of Time remake came out, so that I can replay the second Nintendo 64 classic with a full understanding of what a potential follow-up remake could offer.

But then Nintendo highlighted Majora's Mask this month with all their 40th Anniversary activities, which made me reconsider. Maybe it's best to play this one last time now, before the Ocarina of Time remake spoils you so hard that this just won't be enjoyable any longer. I was worried that I wouldn't want to play Majora's Mask again without a remake of the same caliber.

Well, and by now we have a pretty good understanding of how the Ocarina of Time remake is going to look in detail, even without having played it myself. And there were some things that I was already longing for.

It starts with the item management. Since you need to put your Ocarina, Hero's Bow, Bombs, Hookshot, Lens of Truth, and all the masks on the C-buttons, you have to constantly go back into the menu to re-assign things. It's almost as bad as with the Game Boy Zelda games. Majora's Mask 3D made things a bit better with its touch screen buttons, but it wasn't ideal either.

Now, in the Ocarina of Time remake both the L- and R-buttons bring up the item quick select, where I suppose that a similar remake for Majora's Mask would use the L-button for switching your masks instead. So, it would bring up a quick select menu with all masks in it, where the first entry let's you remove your current mask, but you should also be able to switch from one mask to any other. In the original it wasn't possible to swap from a transformation mask to a normal mask, without taking it off first, but this would need to be possible to make such a menu comfortable to use.

The Lens of Truth and Ocarina go to the D-pad, just like in the Ocarina of Time remake. And since there are no different boots, there would even be one D-pad slot left (downwards), which they should reserve for the Great Fairy's Sword. So, instead of making the two-handed sword a ZR item, you would switch between the two different swords via a button press. With only one item slot this is for the best, because you wouldn't want that button be blocked by a second sword.

Such a remake would also be a great chance to flesh out the three day cycle in areas outside of Clocktown, e.g. the Romani Ranch. If you successfully aid both Romani and Cremia during the first two days, then Cremia will be completely absent during daytime on the final day. And this may even be intentional, because she's probably on her way to bring Anju's family to the ranch with her carriage.

But that's something a remake could show us: let her travel from Clocktown back to the ranch with a bunch of people on board. You should be able to watch these people take shelter there, instead of magically appearing at 6PM. This was completely fine for a 26 year old Nintendo 64 game, which was developed within a single year, but a remake in today's time could do so much more...

Otherwise I'm curious how they would handle the auto-jumping–or the lack thereof, because Majora's Mask has this odd inconsistency about invisible grounds. There is a hidden pathway at Ikana Graveyard where you just walk off into the abyss, where I wish I could jump manually... The invisible platforms around Snowhead on the other hand let you jump off them automatically, even when you don't see them, oddly enough. But it's how you are able to get to the Lens of Truth in the first place, where I suppose they would change this in a remake into one continuous path with curves.

But enough talk about a remake... I will get back to that topic once I've played and completed the new Ocarina of Time. 

One of the reasons why I started replaying Majora's Mask now were the collectible cards this month in Nintendo Today. And here it's funny how this often coincided. Well, I wasn't rushing, usually just playing a single cycle per evening with some breaks here and there. These cycles were also far from optimized, so this wasn't about challenging myself to cram as much into one cycle as possible.

And by doing so I matched the cards with what I was playing that same day a couple of times. I've obtained the remains of Odolwa, Goht and Gyorg when their cards came out on October 7th, 10th and 16ht respectively. Kafei's card showed up when I played parts of his quest early in the game, on October 8th. And I got both Zora Link and Fierce Deity Link on the day of their cards. Zora Link came out on October 15th and the Fierce Deity card is live today, on the day where I have finished the game.

But yeah, I was playing a lot more casually and even going for things I haven't seen for quite some time, because they usually don't matter. For example, I've stalked Pamela with the Stone Mask, where you can watch her go to the well... slowly.

Or, I've witnessed the hustle between Sakon and the Curiosity Shop owner when he's trying to sell the stolen Bomb Bag. There is a lot to explore in Termina, which is quite amazing for a Nintendo 64 game.

One thing I never realized until today is that the Deku Stick trick also works in Majora's Mask. You can turn a butterfly into a fairy when it touches the stick's end. It's something that you learn in Ocarina of Time from a Gossip Stone, which came up the other day with the news about the Fairy Thoughts. So, I just randomly gave this a try on the moon, which worked like a charm. And it makes sense that this still works, since the two games share the same basis, but it's just something that never occurred to me in all those years.

The Nintendo Switch Online release also came with a number of caveats, like the slightly smoother 20FPS of the NTSC version. And I'm not sure I have ever experienced the game with active rumble before. It was an option on the Wii U, but I normally turned this off back then and I also haven't mentioned it in my blog post from almost ten years ago... (Which was the last time I had replayed Majora's Mask.)

But Link has essentially the Stone of Agony on him all the time, where it's not only rumbling for the two secret grottoes, but also on spots where treasure chests may appear. That was more irritating than helpful, however.

The true novelty was the rewind feature and this certainly shines in Majora's Mask with its many mini-games. The two Shooting Galleries always have been a pain without gyro aiming, but with rewind this was still easy enough to score a "PERFECT" on "first try". This is an absolute blessing even a remake wouldn't provide.

It's still painful how you have to do the Beaver Race four times in total, where the ten seconds less on the clock for the Piece of Heart certainly don't make any difference for when you can easily undo mistakes. But I generally hate it when mini-games just make you repeat the exact same thing with less time, where Rollgoal in Twilight Princess was the worst offender. 

And that's it... This may have been the last time I have played through the original Majora's Mask, because I'm expecting a remake to appear within the next four to five years and I won't go back from that. Though, I also thought the same about the Nintendo 3DS remakes and here we are. Still, if I want to refresh my memories until then, I will probably go for Majora's Mask 3D instead, where a part of me missed those fishing holes. 

Finally, here is some of my latest RNG:

• Bomber's Code: 21435
• Lottery Numbers: 021, 656 and 848

Ocarina of Time Remake: Steel Yourself Trailer

Nintendo has published a short trailer for Ocarina of Time, which focuses on boss battles and comes with some new footage. This includes a first look at Dark Link, Morpha, Bongo Bongo, a Big Poe and Ganon's Castle.

The latter looks massive now—it got a huge upgrade over the original. Can't wait to see it all collapse into a flat plain of rubble. But it looks like they are a lot more concerned about making the outside of buildings fit the inside, which is also true for the Skulltula House in Kakariko for example. They have scaled up Ganon's Castle, so that there is theoretically enough space for all the rooms with the barriers. And this may also mean that the final battle at the end may let you cover much more ground.

Anyway, that Big Poe hunting scene looks positively creepy, certainly a lot more atmospheric than before. I've talked about this topic already, but I really hope that this quest gets overhauled somewhat. But we could already see that the Big Poes now have visible spawn locations, which will be helpful.

Curiously, there seems to be a new indicator for when Link is using magic. His arms is glowing green while he is charging that Fire Arrow. It makes it look like the magic Zonai energy from Tears of the Kingdom, which doesn't mean that it's the same thing, but it's interesting how this now gets portrayed more actively. That Link is able to use magic was meant to be something special in the classic Zelda games, but it became a lost art later in the series.

Ocarina of Time Remake: Nintendo 64 Replica Box

If you live in France, you might want to buy the Ocarina of Time remake from a Micromania store during their midnight launch, because it will come wrapped in a replica of the Nintendo 64 box, the black and gold PAL version. This doesn't seem to be an official Nintendo product and it's not an exact replica, because the front and back will be identical...

But I love this idea. Limited Run Games has done this a couple of times, like for the Turok games. Sadly, I don't have my Nintendo 64 box of Ocarina of Time any longer, only the one for Majora's Mask. The one for Ocarina of Time was sealed with stickers and got damaged when I tried to remove them. Then I just cut out the logo, as well as parts of the backside, and threw away the rest. Unthinkable today, but I was a child at the time and it was just cheap cardboard.

But if Nintendo were to offer something like this in their Nintendo Store, maybe even as a reward for Platinum Points, I would totally get this. Though, I would probably then use it for the Nintendo 64 original to replace the missing box.

Via: Nintendo Life 

Ocarina of Time Remake: Fairy Thoughts Revealed

Another novelty that wasn't shown in yesterday's overview trailer were the so called "Fairy Thoughts". These are glowing scribbles, which you can discover in Hyrule, with the examples seen so far present in some ruins around Hyrule Field. You can check these to learn of secrets.

The preview by Nintendo Life showcases this. There is some stone archway in the southeast corner of the field and it gives you a hint about you can turn butterflies into fairies with a Deku Stick. Now, the exact same hint could be learned from a Gossip Stone near Hyrule Castle, so this seems a bit redundant. But these Fairy Thoughts are much easier to access, maybe as something that's supposed to help new players.

Either way, I hope that both the Fairy Thoughts and Gossip Stones will be marked on your map and the information made accessible there, so you can re-read it easily at any point. And this should be part of the actual ingame map and not just some feature for the Zelda Notes app, please.

Also, it's interesting to see all the design influences from Breath of the Wild here. Not just with the jumping and the UI, but also in the game world with all those ruins found on Hyrule Field. It makes complete sense, though, because the game does take place a decade after the Hyrulean Civil War, so there should be signs of that war all over the country. This remake is a great chance to add some environmental storytelling and they've done a great job from what we've seen so far.

Ocarina of Time Remake: New Item Revealed

The gameplay from Aonuma last month has shown us the items and equipment screens, where it became clear that the remake will eventually come with some new items. Now, with all the previews out there, some of these gaps have been filled. Don't read more if you want to avoid spoilers.

Ocarina of Time Remake: Hall of Fallen Foes Revealed

In the new overview trailer for Ocarina of Time, Nintendo has revealed a semi-new feature in the remake: the Hall of Fallen Foes. This place offers a collection of statues of all the enemies you've defeated, which looks very pretty and detailed.

It's similar to the Nintendo Gallery in The Wind Waker, but there are two key differences. You don't have to take photos of the monsters, where it's enough to defeat them, which makes this much more convenient. In fact, this should fill out automatically while playing the game, with only a few monsters that you can ignore. It may be even too trivial, but if you were to collect these via a new Picto Box item, then this would have added missables to the game. And that's not something you want in any case.

You probably also don't want to grind for this, where it's necessary to defeat a certain number of each enemy to unlock their statues. For bosses, certain mini-bosses, and some special foes that number may simple be "1", but the game could ask you to defeat twenty Peahats for their statues. And this may not necessarily be fun either, though it would let you engage with certain types of enemies a bit more.

The other big difference is that this serves as a new hub for the Boss Challenge. This feature in Ocarina of Time 3D was basically just a menu, accessed via the bed in Link's house. And having this as an actual place makes this look a lot more impressive. It reminds me of the Hall of Gods in Hollow Knight, where it even has the same vibe to it. Maybe this will also bring the Boss Gauntlet back, once you've unlocked all of the bosses.

We don't know yet how and where to find this hall in the game. Kaepora Gaebora is there with you, which makes me think that this is close to the Temple of Time or maybe even inside the Temple of Light. Maybe you have to talk to the owl and it will bring you there. But I would prefer this to be physically connected to the actual game world, for example as a new basement added to the Temple of Time.

Anyway, the second big extra feature of the Nintendo 3DS version was the added Master Quest mode. And that they still haven't shown this yet makes me believe that it won't be included in the remake. Unless they want to keep this as a surprise for beating the game this time...

It shouldn't be taken for granted in any case, because the original on the GameCube was just very much a ROM hack by nature and came with a lot of quirks that probably can't be copied by the remake. And the remake is already doing a good number of changes to the dungeons itself. But they could have developed their own new Master Mode, where they may release it at a later point to keep the hype going.

Ocarina of Time Remake: Overview Trailer + Previews

We're getting closer to the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 remake for Ocarina of Time, which is going to happen in three weeks time, on November 5th. And today they have released an overview trailer, which mainly just shows more footage, but also introduces us to one of the remake's new features: the Hall of Fallen Foes. More on that later.

In addition, the preview embargo has been lifted, where Nintendo has invited the bigger media outlets and Youtube stars to playtest the game. They were allowed to play the Kokiri Forest and part of the Deku Tree insides, Hyrule Field and Castle Town, and finally the entirety of the Forest Temple. So, there is a ton of new footage here, also revealing some additional things, like one of the new items. The preview by Zeltik was pretty nice, so maybe watch this one.

As always, I will discuss some individual topics in separate posts. I won't go into every detail, because I'm going to save those for my play journal next month.