But there are plenty of other games that are significantly improved on the new machine as well. Nintendo did a smart thing by pairing the New Nintendo 3DS XL with Majora's Mask: both will launch on February 13th, and a 3D Zelda serves as an ideal showcase for the handheld's new capabilities. Still, even with these minor problems, it's a long overdue addition, and it makes navigating the world of Majora's Mask much easier than it was 15 years ago. It's also almost exactly the same size as the face buttons, and on more than one occasion I hit the X button when I was trying to adjust the camera.
It's not quite as nice as a proper analog stick, as it's tiny and doesn't actually move, offering nothing in the way of feedback. The New 3DS adds a tiny nub on the right side that is functionally similar to that second stick, letting you move the in-game camera around so that you can see whatever is around you. 2000 was a simpler time, a time when the in-game cameras for 3D games were a source of frustration, and a time before most designers realized a second analog stick could let you control those cameras. It's more than just the way the game looks, though - the New 3DS also changes how it plays. There's a brief moment of blurriness when you look away from the screen and then look back, but otherwise it works great. It's also a game that you'll want to play over relatively long stretches - the three-day in-game cycle is about an hour in real-world time - and I never once found myself wanting to turn the 3D effect down to spare my eyes. The distinctive N64-style polygonal world has an added depth that really makes you want to explore Clocktown and its surrounding areas, and the new, wider viewing angles only add to that. With a plethora of straight lines and flat surfaces, it feels almost like a pop-up book brought to life. There's something about older, chunkier games from the N64 era that makes them work well with Nintendo's glasses-free 3D tech, and Majora's Mask is a prime example.
The new 3DS version is largely the same as the original, but like the best video game remakes, it also improves on its predecessor in some significant ways.įor one thing, it's a game that looks great in 3D. While it's not the most revered Zelda game, Majora's Mask has developed a cult following. It's sort of like a video game version of Groundhog Day: you play the same three days over and over again, in an attempt to stop a giant moon from destroying a town. The sequel to the groundbreaking Ocarina of Time - a game that helped shape the way we move around big, three-dimensional worlds - it was much smaller and a lot weirder than its predecessor.
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Perhaps the biggest surprise is that a 15-year-old game makes the best use of 3D on a portable machine that I've ever seen: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.įirst released on the Nintendo 64 way back in 2000, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is one of the oddballs of the Zelda franchise. With the New Nintendo 3DS XL (which launched in Japan last year), Nintendo seems to have finally perfected the concept: new face-tracking tech means that you no longer have to sit perfectly still while playing to maintain the 3D effect, and I've been able to play for long stretches of time without it bothering my eyes at all. In fact, over the past few months, the 2DS has been my handheld of choice.īut lately I've found myself swayed by the lure of the third dimension. Really, the payoff wasn't worth the effort, and I pretty much only play 3DS games with the 3D slider down all the way - and I'm likely not the only one, since Nintendo released the 3D-free 2DS back in 2013. It looked neat, sure, but it also required me to align my head just so to maintain the effect, and I've always found that my eyes hurt after playing too much. The 3D capability of the Nintendo 3DS always felt like a gimmick to me.