What is Nintendo’s principal intellectual property? I’ll forgive you if you say Mario, but it’s actually Zelda. The Legend of Zelda is Nintendo’s premiere franchise. It is by far the Nintendo series with the most releases. (Actually, it may have more releases than any videogame franchise, but I’m not quite enough of a gaming buff to know if that’s true.) Nintendo has a lot of prominent franchises: Mario, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Metroid, Yoshi. But Zelda is the only franchise whose games Nintendo consistently re-releases as more than just ports. Even Pokémon doesn’t get re-released on the same scale as Zelda.
There is something classic about the respective adventures of Mario, Kirby, and Samus; but Nintendo clearly thinks about the adventures of Link on a different level. New Zelda games are more often than not accompanied with limited edition bundles and with entire limited edition consoles (also this one and this one). And in this instance, Majora’s Mask 3D is a launch title for the poorly-named New 3DS.
This implies that there is a certain timelessness to Zelda games, that Nintendo is willing not only to repeatedly invest in updating them but, further, to market them as the AAA titles that promote wholly new consoles. How then, should we approach Majora’s Mask 3D? As a port? As a re-master? As a new game?
For the most part, I’m reviewing it as a new game. This is partially out of necessity: I never played the original. I’ve played most of the Zelda games, but Majora’s Mask is one that I missed. Beyond necessity, though, Nintendo is treating this as a new game: They’re using it as a launch title and asking $40, the typical MSRP for new 3DS games. As such, I think it makes more sense to review MM3D in contemporary terms: How does its gameplay and story compare to current games? Does it fit alongside A Link Between Worlds or is it a relic better suited to its own time?
In short, MM3D is a contradiction. It is perhaps the most modern Zelda title; but this makes it at times feel nothing like a Zelda game at all. When I reviewed A Link Between Worlds, I found a distillation of the franchise’s core values: exploration, purity of heart, temperance–a balance of strategy and action. MM3D subverts this core in some important ways.
First and foremost is the game’s time mechanic. The entirety of the game takes place over 72 in-game hours. The countdown timer is constantly ticking down and unavoidably plastered to the bottom of your screen. Each in-game minute passes quicker than a real-world second. Unaltered, you would need to complete the game in about a real-world hour. Granted, you do gain some control over time: You are able to reset to the beginning of the 72-hour counter. And the updated version also adds the ability to slow and jump forward in time. Even with time slowed, though, an in-game minute ticks by in a couple seconds.
This imbues the game an with urgency that is foreign to other Zelda games. Even as you enter the final dungeon of most Zelda games, there is always time to wander the overworld in search of heart-pieces or to complete sidequests. Characters may blabber at you about the importance of saving Zelda from her captor, but there is no game mechanic that truly impresses this urgency upon you. And true enough: you can reset the 72-hour counter as many times as you want. Even in MM3D, the urgency is a bit false. But each time you reset the counter, you lose many items in your inventory and progress on certain quests. You don’t lose everything. You’ll keep quest items like your bow. But if you’re in the middle of a temple, for example, you’ll lose any unused keys or stray fairies you’ve collected. You’ll also lose any interactions with characters, as in the case of sidequests.
As such, MM3D unfolds as kind of an all-or-nothing proposition. Whereas other Zelda games welcome freewheeling exploration and a penchant for getting distracted with sidequests and minor tasks, MM3D demands an almost manic focus: Any task you start demands that you either complete it within the next real-world hour or be willing to restart it from the beginning.
This isn’t wholly bad. I’ve always thought it humorously aloof for characters to ramble on about the need to immediately save Princess Zelda while I meander casually around Hyrule cutting grass. But in MM3D, when Tatl (that’s your fairy familiar, replacing Navi from Ocarina of Time) yells at you to focus because you only have 24 hours left, you better focus, because you really do only have 24 hours left to complete the task at hand.
Majora’s Mask punishes you for failure in a way most Zelda games don’t (save for the unforgiving Adventure of Link). Not only do you lose life, but you lose time. Time management also contributes a puzzle at a higher level than those of other Zelda games. MM demands not only strategy for defeating a specific boss or solving a particular puzzle, but also the foresight to plan out your overall plan of action. This makes it feel more modern than even Zelda games that have come since, which sometimes hold players’ hands a bit too long and tightly.
At the same time, the Zelda ethos of exploration is obscured by MM3D‘s manicness. I often found myself swallowing the inclination to enter an unknown dwelling or cave. The time-sensitive main quest took ultimate priority. Sidequests were relegated to inconsequential status, because there literally wasn’t enough time. I normally like to distribute sidequests throughout my Zelda playthroughs, but in MM3D I regularly eschewed sidequests in favor of sticking to the main story. That moon was falling on Termina and I didn’t have time to help milk cows or whatever at Romani Ranch. The sky is literally falling! Milk your own cows!!
Kotaku was kind enough to put together these spoiler-free tips that should alleviate the manicness I felt. Even still, MM3D‘s time mechanic is a double-edged sword that both adds something new to and detracts from the Zelda experience.
The other key contradiction in MM is its tone. Again, it seems like a Zelda game simultaneously ahead of its time but out of place in the franchise. MM is the darkest Zelda game up to its original release in 2000, and such a tone has only been revisited in Twilight Princess. But while TP‘s darkness is gritty and realistic, MM‘s darkness is grotesque and haunting. The moon’s tortured face constantly hovering overhead. The “Happy” Mask Salesman’s exaggerated grin and jerky movements. The pained wail every time you put on a mask. Much of the style seems better suited to Arkham Asylum than idyllic Hyrule.
Then there’s the antagonist, Skull Kid. If there is any area where Zelda remains decidedly un-modern, it is the heavy-handed morality play of good and evil: Ganon is a power-hungry thief. Zelda is an innocent princess. Link is a noble and pure hero. MM tries to break from this convention, but struggles with the unfamiliar territory. Skull Kid never feels compelling enough as an anti-villain, even as they try to add nuance to his mischief. Link remains pure as the driven snow–so pure, in fact, that even though Tatl helps Skull Kid ambush Link at the very beginning of the game, Link immediately and without hesitation takes Tatl as a companion and begins helping her. Such simplistic morality is a hallmark of Zelda that works well enough even in more recent games. But by half-heartedly bucking this convention, MM feels more contradictory than innovative.
As for the gameplay, MM3D certainly stands up to contemporary standards. The original was created in only a year after Producer Eiji Aonuma secretly began working on a new game instead of Ocarina of Time Master Quest. This results in fewer dungeons than most Zelda games, but there are some pretty elaborate sidequests. So while the content is a little light compared to A Link Between Worlds or Ocarina of Time 3D, there’s certainly enough to warrant $40.
And for everything I’ve said about contradictions in MM3D‘s time mechanic and tone, none of that applies to the real gameplay of roaming Termina and crawling its dungeons. Once you get into the meat of a temple, the time-pressure falls away and the game unfolds with the same balance of strategy and action that makes all Zelda games so endearing. This is the only pure sequel in the Zelda franchise (MM features the same Link from and takes place immediately after Ocarina of Time), and much of the design is borrowed from OoT. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to know some of the mechanics if you didn’t spend hundreds of hours playing OoT as a kid like I did; but to me the gameplay feels intuitive and nostalgic. (As with OoT3D, MM3D adds a rather detailed hint system in case it’s not so intuitive for you.)
Masks as the game’s core mechanic also add a novel depth to both the puzzle and action sequences of the game. I suggest you skip the animation for putting on a mask, simply because that scream will haunt your dreams. But I encourage you to switch masks frequently, as it’s fun to run around fields and dungeons as different species, even when their abilities aren’t required.
The MM3D graphics are a little disappointing–although, full disclosure, I was playing on what will inevitably be known as the ‘old’ 3DS XL. Still, I think the problem is more with the source material than with the hardware. The re-mastered Link looks absolutely stunning, but the rest of the world and characters don’t seem to have gotten such thorough treatment. It may be a matter of personal taste, but whereas I was blown away by the visual style of A Link Between Worlds, the style of MM3D feels (understandably) dated. The cutscenes are quite impressive and immersive, but the 3D of general gameplay was hit-and-miss for me.
All in all, Majora’s Mask 3D is a Gothic cathedral: Its grotesque facade belies a rather pure and simplistic morality. Contradiction is also evident in the tension between the game’s time mechanic and Zelda‘s emphasis on carefree exploration. Like Gothic architecture, MM3D manifests a style teetering on modernity, reaching toward innovation but not quite breaking free of convention. MM both suffers from its allegiance to the values of the Zelda franchise while also etching out a unique position within the franchise’s context. Its style feels simultaneously dated but with a nuance ahead of its time. The craftsmanship of Majora’s Mask 3D is not without its contradictions, but it is ultimately a beautiful work nonetheless.