Zelda: Majora's Mask Finally Making it to Virtual Console

By Shane Jury 28.03.2009 19

Zelda: Majora

Nintendo have released the list for Japanese Virtual Console Releases in April, and tucked away in there is one of Link's more unique adventures, Majora's Mask.


Previously it had been speculated that there would be trouble emulating Nintendo 64 games that relied on the Expansion Pak in their original forms to VC, as none have appeared yet, but this will quell any worries.
Although Majora's Mask has seen a re-release before, as a quarter of The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition, it was badly Emulated on the transfer from Cartridge to Disc, and there were notable problems, such as frequent Frame and Sound Drops, and the occasional crash, but since Ocarina of Time had a few of the same problems on Disc and that was Emulated perfectly on VC, there should be no problem for Majora.

It is notable that this game is the first to appear out of all the high-profile Nintendo releases that needed Expanded Hardware. Other Notable titles include Super Mario Kart (which included a special DSP chip), Star Fox (which included the famous SFX chip), and Yoshi's Island (which put the advanced SFX2 chip to effective use). Could we finally be seeing these games soon, and could MM''s sudden appearance be because of the recent Memory solution?

The list of scheduled Japanese VC releases;

* Takeshi no Chousenjo (Taito, Famicom, 500 WiiPoints)
* Castlevania III Dracula's Curse (Konami, Famicom, 500)
* Der Langrisser (Hudson, Super Famicom, 800)
* Hoshi no Kirby 3 (Nintendo, Super Famicom, 800)
* Zelda: Majora's Mask (Nintendo, N64, 1,200)
* Phantasy Star (Sega, Master System, 600)
* Ninja Gaiden (Tecmo, PC Engine, 600)
* Genpei Toma Den (Bandai Namco, Arcade, 800)
* Space Invaders (Taito, Arcade, 500)

Chances are that other territories will see the release of Majora's Mask quite soon, as a VC Zelda release hasn't yet been exclusive to Japan for more than a month.

Box art for The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Developer

Nintendo

Publisher

Nintendo

Genre

Action Adventure

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  6/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10 (102 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now   

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Comments

Two reasons probably.

1, Yes there is now adequate storage for big N64 ROMS.
2, Time to get Zelda into people's heads before the launch of spirit tracks.

Great news, but I won't buy it.

I own this game 3 times over - on n64 once, on cube bundled with windwaker, on cube with the zelda star/bonus disc.

It's one of the best zelda games ever made though.

Smilie my fav Zelda!!! OH so cool!! I have this on the GC but awesome for me to tell my mates to buy it!!

I couldn't get into Majoras Mask. I got half way through the original game and forgot what I was suposed to do.

Great news. I am really unhappy with how the Virtual Console has been slugging away recently, we were told it would provide welcome games during bleak spells of disc releases. That never happened, during what was easily the most baron spell for Wii owners a few months back...

Majoras Mask was my second favorate zelda of all time, and easily the one with the best story.
I actualy loved the time system.
My only problem in the whole game was finding the kids at the start Smilie
(Much like Twlight Princess in many ways; I swear I spent ages trying to get that darn fish for the cat Smilie)

http://www.fanficmaker.com <-- Tells some truly terrible tales.
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Have we even got Smash Bros yet?

I found Majora's on the GC Bonus Disc to be playable but may just get this version to play it without flaw. Smilie

Our member of the week

erv>This game is NOT Master Quest. Majora was never bundled with Wind Waker, this was Ocarina of Time + Master Quest. But yeah, no reason to download it again if you already own it two times ^^.


As far as i'm concerned i'd be intereseted in downloading it, even though i still own a N64 and the cartridge, but only if the port is not buggy like the gamecube one, AND if it supports progressive scan, which i don't think will be the case in Europe, given that the game will be in PAL 50Hz AND that the Wii doesn't support progressive scan in full PAL Mode.

No 576p 50 Hz on Wii, only 60 Hz 480p. And no N64 game which was previously released in Europe is available in 60 Hz on the Virtual Console. Pity considering the GameCube port was in 60 Hz only, and it was a PAL Rom inside on the European version of the Disc (it had all the other european languages)

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Do any console give the option for 576p, i\'ve only ever seen the option for 480.

( Edited 28.03.2009 18:03 by Mario_0 )


^^Click for a wallpaper version^^

"This game is NOT Master Quest. Majora was never bundled with Wind Waker, "

He means the Collectors Disk that also had Zelda 1/2 on it. (I have both the Bonus Disc and the Collectors Disk Smilie )

Imho, the version on that was fine.
There was sound issues, but I didnt get any bugs personaly.

Do any console give the option for 576p, i've only ever seen the option for 480.

Unfortuntely not.
America's NTSC system has dominated. Even PAL64 is actualy NTSC resolution, only with europes better colour system.
576p isnt even supported by most tv's officialy, allthough Id guess theres many that do anyway.

http://www.fanficmaker.com <-- Tells some truly terrible tales.
Last update; Mice,Plumbers,Animatronics and Airbenders. We also have the socials; Facebook & G+

Awesome news but I do hope smash bros 64 comes out soon, I\'ve been waiting ages for it XD

( Edited 28.03.2009 19:08 by Falcon Armour X )

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Awesome, MM is my seconds favorite Zelda game, behind OoT.

Now hopefully we'll get other expansion pack games like Donkey Kong 64.


.:Zelda Adventures:.
u guys are DNA.

Awesome. Will definitely be getting this, the GC emulation is very poor, full of glitches and crashes, and I assume this one will be more up to scratch.

Just hope Smash Bros gets here soon too! For crying out loud, N64 titles on VC are so rare...

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It's odd that it seems to be mainly Nintendo titles on the N64, I wonder wy other publishers arn't willing to add there titles to the N64 VC.


^^Click for a wallpaper version^^

To be fair, there weren't exactly many notable Third-Party efforts on N64 that now have a clear path for emulation (license issues, etc.)

Do Want! DO WANT!!!

I've never even played this game but hav heard nothing but great things.
It seems really fresh as well with brilliant concepts such as 4D (space through time aka space-time) puzzles and crazy masks.

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Yeah, there isnt enough 4D gameing.
Majoras Mask was great, but only scratched the surface of whats possible.
I want more time-travel based puzzleing Smilie

It's odd that it seems to be mainly Nintendo titles on the N64,

Probably because the most other major/good games came from Rare...which is owned by microsoft.


http://www.fanficmaker.com <-- Tells some truly terrible tales.
Last update; Mice,Plumbers,Animatronics and Airbenders. We also have the socials; Facebook & G+

Oh cool, looks like I\'ll finally get a chance to play it, back when I was in school, the computers had a N64 emulator, the game was running at 70fps for some reason, so I decied not to play it due to it not being able to be saved.

Darkflame said:
\"
Do any console give the option for 576p, i\'ve only ever seen the option for 480.

Unfortuntely not.
America\'s NTSC system has dominated. Even PAL64 is actualy NTSC resolution, only with europes better colour system.
576p isnt even supported by most tv\'s officialy, allthough Id guess theres many that do anyway.

My Dvd Player in my living room plays movies in 576p, The DVDs look great in it. I wish that the Wii did it aswell, it would make games look better on Bigger screens, Even on a small LCD i\'ve noticed 576i looks better than 480p sometimes, and definately looks better than 480i, and in most games in our days, the games aren\'t any slower in 50Hz either, although Sonic the Hedgehog(mega collection vesion) in 60Hz is far faster than in 50Hz.

Oh well, we can\'t always have it our way Smilie .

( Edited 30.03.2009 13:35 by Stulaw )

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Good news. I still own it on N64 cartridge (and Cube disc), so I don't think I'll get this. Unless I get tired of the old N64 control-stick one day.

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