Unlike Ocarina of Time, which was mostly a port with a few new things, there are significant changes made for the 3DS version of Majora’s Mask. Some of these are straight improvements: saving at owl statues is now a full save rather than a suspend save, and there are extra quill statues added for save points without adding more quick travel points. (Sadly, they removed the automatic save when restarting with the Song of Time, and moved the respawn point away from the Clock Town owl statue.) The Song of Double Time lets Link skip forward to a certain hour, not just the next dawn/dusk. The Bombers’ Notebook is expanded, with notes on just about everything. Shiro, the wounded soldier who gives Link the Stone Mask, is moved to the Pirates’ Fortress, where the Stone Mask is most useful. There’s a Sheikah Stone in the Clock Tower for hints. Tatl doesn’t wonder why Link forgot how to fight enemies that were in Ocarina of Time.
Some rewards are rejiggered: Koumé’s archery game awards a bottle, with the heart piece moved to the third night in the graveyard, and two Great Fairies are reversed so Link gets the upgraded magic meter before the upgraded spin attack. Because the Circus Leader’s Mask was only really useful in the N64 version for a prerequisite to earning it (wearing it makes the Gorman Brothers not attack Cremia’s wagon, but it can only be given by Gorman in the Milk Bar), there’s a new quest: wearing it and talking to a drunk Gorman makes him ask Link to go to the Gorman Brothers for a special milk delivery, and Link gets to keep the bottle.
There are two big changes I have mixed feelings about. Zora Link’s default swim speed was slowed down; this means it has greater control (yay!) but going fast requires using the electric field, which drains magic. This basically means that for times where going fast is a requirement (racing the Beaver Brothers), I made sure to have Chateau Romani’s bonus active. The Gyorg trial on the moon was also redesigned to have Link strike a crystal switch and swim to get through the gate it opened in time, also requiring a perfectly-timed jump out of the water. I thought once I finished it maybe I’d hate it even more than the Goron rolling trial, but no, that one is even worse than I remember.
The Inverted Song of Time doesn’t slow things down quite as much; while the only time I felt a time crunch it was self-imposed by continuing to push forward after I met each previous goal for the cycle, there were times I had to start a new cycle that I got through in a single cycle in the N64 version. (I didn’t make it through Snowhead Temple in time to get the Gilded Sword the same cycle, and didn’t have time to round up frogs after completing Great Bay Temple.) I didn’t do a “help as many people as you can” cycle before going to the Moon this time; when I was planning to, I figured I could cut out the Spider Houses and maybe a few small things and still get it in.
One new feature of the 3DS version is there are two fishing holes added, one in the swamp and one in Great Bay. Each one has a dozen types of fish, some that only appear under certain circumstances or can only be caught while wearing a particular mask, and “boss” fish, and… I spent a couple hours trying and started to wonder what the point of it all was. As far as I can tell, there’s none. For a while I thought I would come back and give it a try. Then, two months later and still no more interested, but needing the DS to play A Link Between Worlds, I finally gave up on the idea, came back, and left the fishing behind and finished the game. (This is also when I scrapped any plans of a final cycle. It also has me seriously reconsidering if I’m going to bother with fishing when I do Twilight Princess HD.) The worst part is some of the minigames’ rewards changed from 50 rupees to Fishing Hole Passes – theoretically, an equivalent exchange, since admission costs 50 rupees otherwise, but even if I cared about fishing, it’s not like scrounging up the rupees is in any way difficult. (The Takkuri drops 200 rupees, is easy to kill with Fire Arrows, and spawns near a zone transition so it can easily be respawned.)
Minigames already feel a bit out of place in this game – if the moon’s going to crash into Termina, what does it matter if you have a perfect score in all the shooting galleries? (Incidentally, I didn’t hate the shooting galleries as much this time.) Adding fishing – an activity that is 90% waiting around for something to happen – feels really out of place.
Next: Three (and a half?) revamped boss fights, plus one that I never went back and did properly.
