Majora's Mask on the GameCube: Was it a Bad Port/Emulation?

[vanguard333]

29 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

They made the shadow at least twice as large in 3DS, if not more-so.  It's much easier to see, even without the new reticle.

I see. That is definitely a good change, though I suspect it was born out of necessity due to the 3DS' small screen.

 

32 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

The Deku Flower mini-game stayed the same—only the Deku Palace was affected.  Perhaps that's because of how far you had to backtrack, if you missed?

Perhaps. But, if you're going for the piece of heart that you get from the mini-game, you have to beat the time record on all three days within the same cycle. If you fail to do so on any particular day (most likely on the Second Day, when all the platforms move horizontally at different speeds), you have to go back to the Dawn of the First Day and start all over again. So, one could argue that the mini-game also has the potential for backtracking issues, albeit only if you miss too many times.

 

By the way, regarding Deku Link, I heard that the 3DS changed his movement in ways that made the swamp more tedious. It made it that he takes a bit of time to get up to speed, which apparently made it a lot harder (and not in a good way) to hop from lily pad to lily pad, and I heard that it removed the ability to hop faster & further if you spin-attack on your way into the water. Apparently, these things combined even made it that you could not escape a certain cave in the swamp without either using the song of soaring or awkwardly and carefully running along the mouth of the cave to build up momentum.

[FionordeQuester]

 

31 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Perhaps. But, if you're going for the piece of heart that you get from the mini-game, you have to beat the time record on all three days within the same cycle. If you fail to do so on any particular day (most likely on the Second Day, when all the platforms move horizontally at different speeds), you have to go back to the Dawn of the First Day and start all over again. So, one could argue that the mini-game also has the potential for backtracking issues, albeit only if you miss too many times.

You get from 6 AM to 11:30 PM each day—another change from N64, by the way (that one was 6 AM to 10 PM).

That's 23 attempts each and every day, all of which you can attempt back-to-back, without delay.  This assumes you have the Song of Inverted Time active, of course (each attempt is about 3/4ths of an hour).

31 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

By the way, regarding Deku Link, I heard that the 3DS changed his movement in ways that made the swamp more tedious. It made it that he takes a bit of time to get up to speed, which apparently made it a lot harder (and not in a good way) to hop from lily pad to lily pad, and I heard that it removed the ability to hop faster & further if you spin-attack on your way into the water.

I wouldn't say "a lot".  It's not a change I would have made, but it's no more than a minor hindrance.

31 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Apparently, these things combined even made it that you could not escape a certain cave in the swamp without either using the song of soaring or awkwardly and carefully running along the mouth of the cave to build up momentum.

I don't know what this refers to, and I've 100%ed both versions multiple times.  You might want to link where you heard this from, if you'd like us to verify.

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, FionordeQuester said:

You get from 6 AM to 11:30 PM each day—another change from N64, by the way (that one was 6 AM to 10 PM).

That's 23 attempts each and every day, all of which you can attempt back-to-back, without delay.  This assumes you have the Song of Inverted Time active, of course (each attempt is about 3/4ths of an hour).

I wouldn't say "a lot".  It's not a change I would have made, but it's no more than a minor hindrance.

I don't know what this refers to, and I've 100%ed both versions multiple times.  You might want to link where you heard this from, if you'd like us to verify.

I know it would require failing a lot of attempts; I was just saying the possibility is there.

I see.

I read it online in a few places, but here's a video that actually shows the cave in question (go to 2:30 and watch until about 2:52)

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[Zapp Branniglenn]

Damn, I always have to stop and marvel at how good his videos are.

My 100% replay was earlier this year and I remember the one thing that had me stuck was the clock town shooting gallery. In order to get the second prize you need to manage a perfect score and that alone might have taken me an hour. Some of those cycles required you to hit the right targets pretty much as fast as Link could draw the bow, while also taking care not to hit the wrong targets. Sure would have been nice to have some gyro aiming for that part. I know that shooting gallery led a lot of players to give up their 100% runs in the past.

[vanguard333]

6 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

Damn, I always have to stop and marvel at how good his videos are.

My 100% replay was earlier this year and I remember the one thing that had me stuck was the clock town shooting gallery. In order to get the second prize you need to manage a perfect score and that alone might have taken me an hour. Some of those cycles required you to hit the right targets pretty much as fast as Link could draw the bow, while also taking care not to hit the wrong targets. Sure would have been nice to have some gyro aiming for that part. I know that shooting gallery led a lot of players to give up their 100% runs in the past.

Yeah; his Majora's Mask remake video was the first video of his (though definitely far from the last) that I watched.

Oh, yeah; for me, going back to these games (namely Ocarina and Majora) after experiencing IR pointer aiming with the Wii version of Twilight Princess and gyro aim with Wind Waker HD and Breath of the Wild just makes the aiming in these games feel very stiff and clunky. It really shows just how bad the control stick is for aiming.

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

All this talk about the Zora swimming, meanwhile I'm currently still in Clock Town playing the deku flower minigame three in-game days in a row to get a piece of heart.

I heard that the 3DS added a target reticle and a way to look straight down by holding R, which struck me as a good change... until I played the flower minigame. There's already a shadow that you can use to tell where Deku Link will land, and since you can only fly for so long before Deku Link drops to the ground, I don't think having to switch to an alternate view to see a reticle for landing is a good idea. Someone who has played the 3DS version can tell me if I'm wrong about that assumption, but I can't help but think that putting the reticle in the standard view to make the shadow more obvious (since it is a rather small circle that can be hard to notice in dark areas) would've been a better change, especially for trying to land on the platforms that move horizontally on the Second Day.

Speaking of landing on moving platforms, I heard that the 3DS remake changed the Deku Palace so the moving platforms now only move after you've landed on them, which kind-of strikes me as missing the point. I have to ask, was the deku flower minigame similarly nerfed in terms of challenge in the 3DS version?

If there's a new reticle to the soaring that went completely over my head. You sure you're not thinking of the bubble aiming? Well at least if there's a reticle it's not a negative change, as you can still navigate with the shadow.

[vanguard333]

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

If there's a new reticle to the soaring that went completely over my head. You sure you're not thinking of the bubble aiming? Well at least if there's a reticle it's not a negative change, as you can still navigate with the shadow.

If you watch the video I left a link to earlier at around 13:10, you'll see the reticle. I think it appears in the remake as part of being able to hold R while flying to look straight down.

[Jotari]

47 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

If you watch the video I left a link to earlier at around 13:10, you'll see the reticle. I think it appears in the remake as part of being able to hold R while flying to look straight down.

Yeah I actually watched the video not long after posting (should have checked the second page of the thread!) I agree with it's sentiment on pretty much all points. Though it does neglect to bring up the extra Gormon side quest which is pretty nice, if somewhat unnecessary, extra content.

Edited July 8, 2021 by Jotari

[FionordeQuester]

5 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I know it would require failing a lot of attempts; I was just saying the possibility is there.

Ah.  I was thinking your point was that Grezzo should have streamlined that, instead of the Deku Palace.  I would have disagreed with that, because I think missing a jump at the Palace causes a noticeable amount of backtracking—that's as opposed to the Deku Game, which has no such problem.

But it sounds like I misunderstood.

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I read it online in a few places, but here's a video that actually shows the cave in question (go to 2:30 and watch until about 2:52)

I just tried it: Walking forward from where I spawned worked just fine—I did not need to build any momentum at all.  Maybe Nerrel's aim was off?  

Edited July 9, 2021 by FionordeQuester

[vanguard333]

11 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

Ah.  I was thinking your point was that Grezzo should have streamlined that, instead of the Deku Palace.  I would have disagreed with that, because I think missing a jump at the Palace causes a noticeable amount of backtracking—that's as opposed to the Deku Game, which has no such problem.

But it sounds like I misunderstood.

I just tried it: Walking forward from where I spawned worked just fine—I did not need to build any momentum at all.  Maybe Nerrel's aim was off?  

Yeah; I was just saying I wasn't sure why it made sense to them (as in the dev team) to streamline one but not the other (personally, I would've gone with streamlining neither of them).

That's interesting. His aim looked fine to me, especially since he then showed it clearly working in the original after two attempts on the 3DS version failed. Did you spawn closer to the left side of the cave (making it more of a forward line to the lily pad rather than a diagonal) or something like that?

[FionordeQuester]

48 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Yeah; I was just saying I wasn't sure why it made sense to them (as in the dev team) to streamline one but not the other (personally, I would've gone with streamlining neither of them).

They streamlined the Deku Playground by making it end at 11:30 PM, instead of 10:00 PM.  They thought that was generous enough, it seems.

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That's interesting. His aim looked fine to me, especially since he then showed it clearly working in the original after two attempts on the 3DS version failed. Did you spawn closer to the left side of the cave (making it more of a forward line to the lily pad rather than a diagonal) or something like that?

Nope.  It may have helped, however, that I didn't stand right at the very edge before attempting it, like he did.  That's possible, too.

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Edited July 9, 2021 by FionordeQuester

[vanguard333]

Well, after more than a decade of owning and playing Majora's Mask on the Collector's Edition, it just had its first ever crash. I headed through the door to the Deku Palace, the screen just went black and stayed black. I gave it a bit of time, in case it was just struggling to load the transition, but nope; it was an actual crash. And here I was actually beginning to think I would get through the game without a crash or even a major framerate issue.

Well, hopefully it will be just the one crash. Thankfully, it was morning on the first day and I had done nothing new yet. EDIT: Plus, I think I figured out what caused the crash; I went through the door to the Deku Palace at the same time as the monkey. This time, I waited until the monkey disappeared before then heading through the door, and the game worked perfectly.

Edited July 10, 2021 by vanguard333

[FionordeQuester]

2 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Well, after more than a decade of owning and playing Majora's Mask on the Collector's Edition, it just had its first ever crash. I headed through the door to the Deku Palace, the screen just went black and stayed black. I gave it a bit of time, in case it was just struggling to load the transition, but nope; it was an actual crash. And here I was actually beginning to think I would get through the game without a crash or even a major framerate issue.

Do you know the "Copy Owl-Save" trick?  It's the closest you'll have to a permanent save, in OG Majora's Mask (besides the Song of Time).

Edited July 10, 2021 by FionordeQuester

[vanguard333]

2 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

Do you know the "Copy the Owl Save" trick?  It's the closest you'll have to a permanent save, in OG Majora's Mask (besides the Song of Time).

Yeah; I heard about it. Basically, you save at the owl statue, then you copy that save to the second file, giving you a backup owl-statue save. It seems like a good idea, but it also sounds a bit too much like a bug if that makes sense; something about it just doesn't sit right when I think about it.

I might try it if the game crashes again, but right now, it was just the one and it was obvious what caused it.

Plus, I can only use that trick if I actually save at an owl statue, and I've only done so once so far.

[FionordeQuester]

1 minute ago, vanguard333 said:

Yeah; I heard about it. Basically, you save at the owl statue, then you copy that save to the second file, giving you a backup owl-statue save. It seems like a good idea, but it also sounds a bit too much like a bug if that makes sense; something about it just doesn't sit right when I think about it...

When it's something as crucial as saving your game, I think you can bend the rules a bit.  

It's really nice, btw, that I don't have to do that in 3DS.  I can just make permanent saves wherever there's an owl.  I can't tell you how much I appreciate that 😄!

[vanguard333]

57 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

When it's something as crucial as saving your game, I think you can bend the rules a bit.  

It's really nice, btw, that I don't have to do that in 3DS.  I can just make permanent saves wherever there's an owl.  I can't tell you how much I appreciate that 😄!

Yeah; permanent saving by the owls does sound like a good addition. However, removing the ability to save by going back to the Dawn of the First Day was a bad change.

In any case, the more I think about it, the more that double owl-save thing seems more like an exploit than a glitch if that makes sense, so again; I might try it if the game crashes again, or even simply the next time I save using an owl statue. However, that second one probably won't be for a while since I frequently go back to the Dawn of the First Day (i don't try to cram too much into one cycle), and I hope that first one won't happen again for the rest of the playthrough.

[FionordeQuester]

1 minute ago, vanguard333 said:

Yeah; permanent saving by the owls does sound like a good addition. However, removing the ability to save by going back to the Dawn of the First Day was a bad change.

Don't you start right by the owl?  Perhaps they thought it was redundant, now that the owls saved permanently.

1 minute ago, vanguard333 said:

In any case, the more I think about it, the more that double owl-save thing seems more like an exploit than a glitch if that makes sense, so again; I might try it if the game crashes again, or even simply the next time I save using an owl statue. However, that second one probably won't be for a while since I frequently go back to the Dawn of the First Day (i don't try to cram too much into one cycle), and I hope that first one won't happen again for the rest of the playthrough.

Indeed.  On an unrelated note, the original Japanese version had three files, but no owl saves!  Those were added in the international versions—perhaps they reduced it to two files to account for copying owl saves?

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, FionordeQuester said:

Don't you start right by the owl?  Perhaps they thought it was redundant, now that the owls saved permanently.

Indeed.  On an unrelated note, the original Japanese version had three files, but no owl saves!  Those were added in the international versions—perhaps they reduced it to two files to account for copying owl saves?

Honestly, a lot of the changes made scream of Aonuma playing through the original game (something we know he did do when making the remake), noticing something even remotely difficult, and, because he had zero confidence in the game because of the breakdown he famously had during the game's rushed development, going, "This is bad and needs fixing" even if it wasn't actually broken. I mean, if you look at what was changed, the remake really wasn't made with people who enjoyed the original version in mind (which is ironic, since it was fans that enjoyed the original version that created the fan campaign for the 3DS remake in the first place). Considering that removing stuff takes work, it's the only reason I can think of for removing the dawn-of-the-first-day save; Aonuma played through the game, saw the save system as broken, and said, "scrap it and replace it" rather than, "make it more convenient".

Removing the dawn-of-the-first-day save system created a real problem for people who played the remake after playing the original: losing progress due to either not knowing about the change or simply due to muscle memory being a powerful thing. @Jotari can attest to that; he himself stated earlier in this topic that he lost a lot of progress due to the new mechanic, and he's far from the only person who went back to the dawn of the first day, shut the game off, then came back and wondered what happened to all their progress.

 

The original dawn-of-the-first-day save system was originally born out of hardware limitations; because Majora's Mask has a lot more that it has to keep track of than Ocarina of Time while being made for the same console, the idea of saving by going back to the dawn of the first day saved space by making it that the save file didn't have to keep track of nearly as much stuff as it would have to if you could save at any time like in Ocarina of Time. The international version created the owl statue save as a suspend save, and they had to remove the third save file in order to make enough room for it. 

Of course, the dawn-of-the-first-day save system was born out of limitations but became a large part of the game, so I doubt Aonuma went, "This was only because we couldn't create a permanent save that stored everything, now we can, so let's get rid of it"; it's the "let's get rid of it" part and not just thinking, "let's add a permanent save that stores everything" that makes no sense to me and leads me to think he came with the perspective of, "This is bad and must be replaced".

[FionordeQuester]

7 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Honestly, a lot of the changes made scream of Aonuma playing through the original game...I mean, if you look at what was changed, the remake really wasn't made with people who enjoyed the original version in mind (which is ironic, since it was fans that enjoyed the original version that created the fan campaign for the 3DS remake in the first place)...

...But you've never actually played it, right?  Just so we're on the same page?

Edited July 10, 2021 by FionordeQuester

[vanguard333]

12 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

...But you've never actually played it, right?  Just so we're on the same page?

Yes; I've never played it. I should've prefaced, "From what I have seen in reviews and gameplay footage, and from what I've read about the development for both the original and the remake..."

I avoid making criticisms for the quality of stuff I haven't played (as I can't really judge that stuff), but I'm more than happy to talk about behind-the-scenes stuff and speculate on things about the development and/or marketing. What I was trying to do there with my theory about the reasoning behind a number of the changes I've seen and heard about was an attempt at the latter; it was not meant as a criticism.

[FionordeQuester]

What bothers me is that you're presuming things with such confidence, despite not having played it.  Why?  It's frustrating—it makes me wonder if I'm actually responding to your opinion, or Nerrel's.

I'll be frank—I think the backlash the 3DS has gotten is absolutely ridiculous.  It's completely out of proportion, and I say that as someone who has 100%ed both versions multiple times.  I think a good chunk of the hatred is manufactured & sensationalized, for clicks and views.  I think Nerrel either didn't spend enough time on that cave (excited to make what he thought was a good point) or he deliberately failed that jump to make the game seem worse.  

Are there a few legitimately bad changes in 3DS?   Actual bad changes, and not just "that's not how I remember it"?  Sure—I'll say them if you really want.  But I would highly, highly, highly recommend giving it a whirl yourself, if you want to analyze it.  I think you'll be in a much better spot for debating about it.

Edited July 10, 2021 by FionordeQuester

[vanguard333]

1 minute ago, FionordeQuester said:

What bothers me is that you're presuming things with such confidence, despite not having played it.  It's frustrating—it makes me wonder if I'm actually responding to your opinion, or Nerrel's.

I'll be frank—I think the backlash the 3DS has gotten is absolutely ridiculous, and I say that as someone who has 100%ed both versions multiple times.  I think a good chunk of the hatred is manufactured, for clicks and views.  I think Nerrel either didn't spend enough time on that cave, or he deliberately failed that jump to make the game seem worse.  

This isn't to say that there aren't legitimately bad changes in 3DS—I'll point to them if you really want.  But I would highly, highly, highly recommend giving it a whirl yourself, if you really want to analyze it.  Because as-is, none of the points 

I wasn't meaning to presume anything; I even tried to make clear where I was stating facts (like Aonuma's famous breakdown when making Majora's Mask) and where I was speculating and stuff like that. I admit that I'm not the best at communicating that stuff, but communication is not a strong point of mine.

By any chance, did you watch the whole video or just the thing about leaving the cave? He had a lot more points than just that and the Zora swimming; he also mentioned the changes to the boss fights, Captain Keeta being a lot slower, the ice arrows only working on sparking water except in the Gyorg boss room, and a bunch of other stuff.

Did you mean to have more to that last sentence? It ends rather abruptly and without a period at the end.

[FionordeQuester]

Don't worry, friend.  You communicate fine.  You speak quite articulately, in fact.  As for this...

48 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

By any chance, did you watch the whole video or just the thing about leaving the cave?

I watched the entire thing—and the entire video is as sensationalized as the cave part.  In fact, let's debunk another of Nerrel's myths right now—you know Oldolwa?  The one that made you "stand around like a moron, waiting for the final blow"?

Well, it doesn't.  In fact, there's a wide variety of ways to beat him.  I experimented on how I could get past his shield, and was rewarded for my diligence.  I felt accomplished.  I appreciated the fact that Grezzo didn't force me to do it the way they intended me to do it—no "rigid patterns" to this fight!  And, I'm going to upload another video very shortly on how many ways you can beat him, even with just the equipment you get at Woodfall Temple.

Edited July 10, 2021 by FionordeQuester

[vanguard333]

2 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

Don't worry, friend.  You communicate fine.  You speak quite articulately, in fact.  As for this...

Okay. I'm always trying to make sure; I have autism, so communication doesn't come naturally to me.

 

3 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

Well, it doesn't.  In fact, there's a wide variety of ways to beat him.  I experimented on how I could get past his shield, and was rewarded for my diligence.  I felt accomplished—I appreciated the fact that Grezzo didn't force me to do it the way they intended me to do it.  And, I'm going to upload another video very shortly on how many ways you can beat him, even with just the equipment you get at Woodfall Temple.

I admit that I haven't played the remake, but in all my research, I've only found two ways: stun him with a deku flower or dropping deku nuts if you missed with the flower but are still in the air and then slash at his eye while he's stunned (which is what Nerrel showed), or hit him with the sword while in human form and then hit the eye while he's stunned. From what I've read and from what I've seen of people trying a lot of the old methods, hitting him with an arrow no longer works, nor does throwing a bomb or using the blast mask. Correct me if I'm wrong on that, but that's what I've found.

Also, even if a lot more of the variety is retained from the Odolwa fight than he thought, that doesn't debunk the argument that Odolwa was made especially vulnerable to the flower method to the point of "standing around and waiting for the final blow", which Nerrell showed Odolwa literally doing. He wasn't saying the player stands around like a moron; he said that 3DS Odolwa does that if you use the flower method, and then showed footage of Odolwa doing exactly that.

[FionordeQuester]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

Okay. I'm always trying to make sure; I have autism, so communication doesn't come naturally to me.

I am autistic as well—it does not either you or me back in any way.

Your problem isn't your autism or your communication.  Your problem is that you're using someone else's arguments on a version of the game you've never played before.  You're doing this while debating someone who has played it before, has constructed his own arguments, and is willing to record video to back up his points.

Isn't that a powerful disadvantage?

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I admit that I haven't played the remake, but in all my research, I've only found two ways: stun him with a deku flower or dropping deku nuts if you missed with the flower but are still in the air and then slash at his eye while he's stunned (which is what Nerrel showed), or hit him with the sword while in human form and then hit the eye while he's stunned.

Don't worry—the bow & arrows work really well, too.  Bombs will also do the trick, if you're clever enough.

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Also, even if a lot more of the variety is retained from the Odolwa fight than he thought, that doesn't debunk the argument that Odolwa was made especially vulnerable to the flower method to the point of "standing around and waiting for the final blow", which Nerrell showed Odolwa literally doing.

That'd bother me more if:

1) He wasn't the very 1st boss you fight (guys you would generally expect to be pretty easy)

2) If the bosses in Majora's Mask were ever actually hard—they were not.

Regardless, N64 Oldolwa can be beaten as easily as this, 3DS or otherwise (18:51, if the time stamp doesn't work):

 

Edited July 10, 2021 by FionordeQuester