The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask / Gaiden, released for Nintendo 64 as a “sequel” to Ocarina of Time lost some of its original features, including 4 days of the original 7 disappearing from the game, some dungeons, quests and a fishing mini-game (Jabu Jabu fishing) were removed. Yet even so, Majora’s Mask has managed to become one of the best games of the series.
Some more info on the beta development from an interview:
One of the developers for Ocarina of Time, Yoshiaki Koizumi, was not initially involved with the conception of Majora’s Mask, and was working on a different title until he was asked to abandon it. This turn of events resulted in the famous time limit.
Koizumi: That’s what he told us! I remember thinking to myself “That’s not helpful at all!” [Laughs] I’d originally been designing a board game, based around the theme of cops and robbers. I wanted to make it so that you technically had to catch the criminal within a week, but, in reality, you could finish the game in an hour. I figured I’d just throw what I already had into Majora’s Mask.
From Iwata Asks interview for the release of Majora’s Mask 3DS we can read more info on the early differences:
Right. But at first, it was one week.Three days was originally one week?That’s right. But when you returned to the first day it was like “Do I have to go through an entire week again…”, so we thought three days would be just right.Wait, it got decided just like that? (laughs)(laughs) In this game the townspeople do different things each day and many different things happen, but when the timespan becomes a week, that’s just too much to remember. You can’t simply remember who’s where doing what on which day.oreover, you probably wouldn’t have been able to make it in a year if you were aiming to make a game filled with so much content for seven days.ight, we never would have been able to do it. We felt it would be best to make it a three-step process, and we compressed all sorts of things we had planned for over a week into three days.
In an interview by Famitsu with Aonuma we can read some more info about the early development of Majora’s Mask:
Because of the tight schedule, the team needed to solve how to deal with the smaller volume. That’s when Yoshiaki Koizumi talked about a popular movie of that time, Run Lola Run, in which a heroine lives the same time periods multiple times. Koizumi suggested using a similar structure for the game. Originally, the cycle was planned to last a full week, but in that way Majora’s Mask couldn’t be finished in a year. The cycle was changed to contain of a start, a middle, and an end as a result.
In the gallery below you can see some beta screenshots released when Majora’s Mask was announced, with some interesting differences: there was an adult Link mask (later changed into Fierce Deity’s Mask), the instruments used by Deku Link, Zora Link and Goron Link were different, in the screenshot with Epona we can see a breakable wall that is not there in the final game, the moon did not have a face yet, some textures were different and we can notice a room full of skeletons that was completely removed. For more info on the development of Majora’s Mask read this article: Project Zelda 3D – The Development of Zelda 64
Thanks to Nick Bizzozero for the english translation! You can find more info about Zelda: Majora’s Mask in the Zelda Wiki!
Images:
Videos:
What do you think about this unseen game? Give your vote!
(12 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)
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- Conker’s Quest / Twelve Tales [N64 – Cancelled] - 04-04-2008
- Zelda 64: Ocarina Of Time [N64 – Beta / Tech Demo / Proto] - 04-04-2008
- Mother 3 – Earthbound 64 [N64 – Cancelled] - 04-04-2008
More awesome unseen games:
Cool were can you get a rom of this
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The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask / Gaiden – Released for Nintendo 64, a “sequel” to the Ocarina of Time had lost much of its original features to 64DD, including 4 days of the original 7 disappearing from the game, many of the dungeons, and a multitude of quests to complete never to see the light of day(or who knows, maybe they were revived in Wind Waker). Yet even so, Majora’s Mask has managed to become one of the best games of the series. It’s really a shame to think what might have been on the 64DD.
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Wow, that was entertaining. I used a bit of my current italian skills as well as google translate to translate and then patch up grammatically the paragraph. Here you go :)
Thanks Nick :D I’m going to add your translation in the page :)
The eleventh picture is als used in the zelda manga
I DEMAND FOR A MAJORAS MASK REMAKE!!!!
2 unique images but I am not sure what point in time:
http://bit.ly/9QhNeL
It looks like a few up there with a mix of English and Japanese. I’m no expert on this game though. From Edge (86, July 2000)
There are also Dinosaur Planet images but you have them already in another form.
Well, Ocarina of Time is being re-released on the Nintendo 3DS with many of its original features included (though they seem to be limited to missing dungeons and magic spells, not all the wacky 64DD stuff). I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Majora’s Mask got the same treatment somewhere down the line.
Seriously, four dungeons in a Zelda game? No amount of redundant, time-sensitive fetch quests make up for the distressing lack of actual dungeons in Majora’s Mask. If they do decide to re-release this, they’d better give me the other half of the damn game.
Maybe this refers to the 64GB Cable…? At any rate, it sounds as though it might have developed into the GBA connectivity in Wind Waker and Four Swords Adventures.
Thanks for the link Robert! :) I really hope that they could make a Zelda: Majora’s Mask remake for the 3DS, so i will be able to replay it again and they will do an “Iwata Asks” with more interesting info on the game :P
Lost quests you say? It would be amazing if they’d give those to Grezzo and tell them to include them in Majora’s Mask 3D @.@ Also if they have any other dungeons or mini dungeons laid-out, I’d love them included as well. I realize that it would mean it’d take more time, but it would be worth it for sure.
I’m just hoping they do make Majora’s Mask 3D at this point, I’d be happy with it even if it didn’t have new content, but if they could add some of the cut content that there wasn’t room for or time to develop fully back then I’d be the happiest girl alive :D and I think it would give a lot of people who are on the fence much incentive to purchase the game. They could add it to a second quest and keep one that isn’t changed as well, two games could fit on the cartridge, they fit Ocarina and Master Quest on one.
A Majora’s Mask 3DS remake would be awesome, even if without new content. Majora is my favourite Zelda game, i would be happy to play it on the train!
I hope they will Remake Majoras Mask on the 3DS, with that other deleted part of the game with it, who agrees with me.
@PatBateman
Stop whinning and talking out of your ass. Not a single one of the MM sidequests was a fetch quest, and they certainly were too diverse to be called redundant.
I noticed in the picture that there is an Adult Link mask and the fairy ocarina, but if I recall correctly it was the FeirceDeity mask and the ocarina of time. Am I the ONLY one that noticed this?!?!
You are right kokirian, those are Adult Link mask and Fairy Ocarina! We really need to update this page with more info someday :D
dont update the graphics on mm3d if it will save time [i love project moonfall]
This video outlines the beta of Majora’s Mask.
Might be worth adding to the page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvFGuSAmFp8
I demand Nintendo of Japan to make and release the other half of the game that they got rid of!
I want the full 7 days! 7! seven! s-e-v-e-n. Siete days.
Here’s seven in Japaneese. http://japanese.about.com/library/blkod32.htm
thanks, this is going to help me a lot as a zelda game restorer for restoring the full zelda gaiden version
i am in the Zelda Gaiden Restoration Team
i restore Maps, Textures, Items and other stuff
If you want me to help you contact me under our business e-mail:
[email protected]