99. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D (3DS)
While I've replayed and beat Ocarina of Time countless times over the past 25+ years, I've only ever beat Majora's Mask a single time. In fact, the last time I beat Majora's Mask was as an angsty middle schooler back when it first came out on the N64. I remember really liking Majora's Mask, albeit not as much as its legendary predecessor. However, after replaying and beating Majora's Mask 25-years later, the fact that I haven't beat this game at least half as many times as I did Ocarina seems completely indefensible on my part.
Majora's Mask is nearly just as good, if not arguably just as good as Ocarina of Time. While its story and scope isn't as epic and grand as Ocarina of Time's, the game's focus on more dark themes such as death, loneliness, and grief absolutely make it just as memorable, if not for different reasons. One might also think the world of Termina is just a rehashed Hyrule. After all, many of the same characters and types of creatures you encounter in Majora's Mask are repurposed in Majora's Mask. However, the way they are repurposed makes them feel entirely fresh and new, while also introducing enough new characters, settings, creatures, dungeons, and mechanics to make a whole new game if Nintendo really wanted to. With all that said, I don't have a single complaint about Majora's Mask's presentation. As much as I love Ocarina of Time, I actually will admit that in some ways Majora's Mask absolutely surpasses it visually, which is saying a lot.
I also can't say a single bad thing about Majora's Mask's audio. In fact, I will say I absolutely prefer it over Ocarina's, which is also a 10/10 from an OST and audio perspective. The Song of Healing, the Observatory music, and the Final Hours theme are some of the greatest pieces of video game music I've ever heard. Koji Kondo is a freakin undisputed genius when it comes to his contributions to some of the best video games ever made and Majora's Mask is no exception. And despite there being no voice acting in this game, sounds and other audio effects you hear all surpass most of what was out there in games that were afforded the benefit of disc based tech, which obviously Majora's Mask was not afforded. Again, the audio is perfect in this game and I'd challenge anyone to say a bad thing about it.
Where Majora's Mask does falter slightly, if only a tiny, tiny bit is its gameplay. The same masterfully crafted gameplay from Ocarina of Time is present in Majora's Mask, but with the added bonus of the mask transformations. These allow you to take the form of other creatures that occupy Termina (and Hyrule) and include a Deku Scrub, Zora, and Goran. Each of these forms comes with its own abilities, mechanics, advantages, and disadvantages. The game fully leans into leveraging their mechanics to make dungeons and other exploration aspects of Majora's Mask to make the game highly enjoyable to play through, as well as distinct enough from its predecessor to make you feel like you're experiencing something new. Unfortunately, while the transformation masks offer a lot of new gameplay mechanics, playing as human link barely bring anything new to the table. The same types of weapons and upgrades are more or less available to Link in Majora's Mask as they were in Ocarina. This can at times make the gameplay as human Link feel a little stale, despite all these elements being implemented very well. However, this sameness with human Link's gameplay isn't why Majora's Mask falls somewhat short of being a 10/10 in terms of gameplay. Rather, it's because of another central mechanic to this game, the three day time cycle.
Majora's Mask is famous, or according to some, infamous for its three day time cycle which forces you to play the game out within the confines of three in game days before the moon comes crashing into Termina, resulting in a game over. An in game day is equal to about 20 minutes, which means you have around an hour to accomplish whatever it is you need to before needing to go back to the start of the first day. You do this by playing the Song of Time which transports you back in time so you can relive out the events of the three day cycle again, Ground Hog Day style. This mechanic was implemented in order to give characters and events their own distinct schedules which force you to do things at specific times and places in order to experience all there is to do in Majora's Mask. I applaud Nintendo for putting a system like this into a Zelda game, and in many ways it makes the game feel very unique and more interesting. However, another condition of you going back in time is losing all your non-key items and your money (assuming you didn't deposit it first). This gets annoying after a while, but maybe not as annoying and kinda tedious as seeing the same events play out the same way all over again, making it appear as though you never actually accomplished anything at all during the last three day cycle you played through. There are other methods of manipulating time, including a song that slows time and also another song that allowed you to jump again in time, but it still doesn't remedy the central issues with this mechanic. Another issue I ran into a few times with the three day cycle is almost running out of time before I was able to do everything I needed to, specifically completing dungeons. And that was with slowed time active. I will say that this time mechanic makes Majora's Mask more interesting and unique than anything else, but it isn't perfect and was the source of enough annoyances for me to make me dock a point off the overall gameplay score for this game.
Before I move onto my final thoughts on Majora's Mask, I wanted to address the 3DS version specifically. My original plan was to replay this game on the N64 as I had originally done back in 2000, however travel and other complications required me to either pick another game to play or play the portable 3DS version. The 3DS version, from everything that I can remember is just as good, if not slightly better than the original. The most obvious difference in this version is the visuals which are way more clear and refined than they were on the N64 back in the day. Also, while the game itself is 99% the same as it was on the N64, seasoned players who have no doubt played and beat the original version of this game way more than me, will undoubtedly notice small changes that have been made to the locations of certain items or characters compared to the first game. None of these impact the game in any really meaningful ways. If anything, they make the game feel a a tad bit more enjoyable by making certain things slightly more intuitive. I'd say nothing is lost by playing the 3DS version and I'd even encourage it if you have to play this game on the go like I did, or just want better visuals than what was offered on the N64.
I've made many comparisons between Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time, and well, I'm about to do so once more. I still stand by Ocarina of Time as being my preferred N64 era Zelda, even when looking at the 3DS remakes as well. I feel like Ocarina is a more iconic game, and undoubtedly was far more groundbreaking when it came out, whereas Majora's Mask took the formula laid out in Ocarina and made many meaningful additions to it. However, another undeniable factor that has me preferring Ocarina over Majora is my own personal nostalgia for the former; beating Ocarina of Time for the first time as a 12 year old kid is up there with some of my most fond gaming memories. And as me beating it yet again earlier this year proved, Ocarina of Time is still very, very special game to me. Still, it cannot be understated how much I also love Majora's Mask and if anything, it's a game I'd like to replay and enjoy maybe just as much as I have Ocarina of Time since the late 90s. (9/29/25) [45/50]
