2015 – The Year of Fierce Deity

Another year went by and while we have a big year for Zelda ahead of us with the 30th Anniversary, this year wasn't too bad either. We got one new remake, one new multiplayer game, and some more DLC. And all of it had one constant: Fierce Deity Link was in it. Ever since I first played Majora's Mask 15 years ago I was fascinated by this dark being and hoping that we would be able to play as the Fierce Deity again at some point.

Hyrule Warriors then made my wish come true first with its Majora's Mask DLC early in the year, which let's you play as Tingle and Young Link. The latter can turn into Fierce Deity Link via magic, where for the first time since the year 2000 fans could take control of this scary and mysterious being to defeat enemies with your mighty sword beams. In addition, the DLC came with an Adventure Map based on Termina, where you could find masks for the different characters as costumes, including a Fierce Deity costume for Link.

The remake Majora's Mask 3D would follow two weeks later, though I was not happy that Fierce Deity Link went from a boss killer to a fisher in this game. You can't easily kill Gyorg with him anymore, but they let you catch other fish instead... oh well. But otherwise the remake looked pretty good, offered an improved system for saving and time management, and the two fishing locations, where you fish with masks... including the Fierce Deity's Mask.

On the same day Nintendo also released the New Nintendo 3DS (XL), the presumably final iteration of the Nintendo 3DS line, where there was even a golden Majora's Mask Special Edition for collectors and fans.

At the end of February we then saw the final DLC for Hyrule Warriors with the Ganon Pack, which included the Boss Challenges and Ganon's Fury modes. This ended the DLC pass for the game, but it wouldn't take long before the game saw some news again...

March 2015 then brought the bad news: the new The Legend of Zelda game for Wii won't arrive until 2016, because Aonuma's team needs the time to implement some new ideas. Well, next year will be the 30th Anniversary, which is good timing, and for the rest of 2015 Nintendo had other things in store to entertain the fans.

One of those was the Symphony of the Goddesses, which returned to Germany with concerts in Düsseldorf, Munich, and Hamburg. They've played the new "Master Quest" program, where Majora's Mask saw a lot of attention in the form of two entire suites, posters, and T-shirts.

While the E3 in June didn't show us anything about the big Zelda for the Wii U, they had announced two new games for the Nintendo 3DS: Hyrule Warriors Legends and Tri Force Heroes. Well, I personally was hoping for an online Four Swords game to happen and I got my wish, where I had a lot of fun battling with other Zelda fans through the 32 levels of the Drablands.

One of my favorite features of the game are the outfits, which feel like a perfect hybrid of the masks from Majora's Mask and the Magic Rings from Oracle of Ages & Seasons, with things like a Goron and a Zora costume. The first update of the game then provided us with a nice Fierce Deity costume, which is pretty badass. Needless to say that many Sword Beams were fired in the year 2015.. 

The update also included the Den of Trials and a Linebeck costume, but a reunion with Linebeck also took place on the Wii U Virtual Console, where both Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks became available in November.