Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Before you start Tears of the Kingdom, pay your respects to Majora’s Mask

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is nearly upon us, but I can’t stop thinking about Majora’s Mask.

Early Tears of the Kingdom reviews are glowing, highlighting how it deepens the way players can interact with Hyrule through features like Fuse and Ultrahand. Still, Hyrule itself looks similar to what was present in Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom is very much a visually similar sequel that builds upon the assets and ideas established in its critically lauded predecessor. Whether that bothers you or not, no one can ignore that Tears of the Kingdom finds itself in a similar situation to Majora’s Mask.

Link glides with a Majora's Mask-themed glider in Tears of the Kingdom.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Nintendo 64 game, first released in 2000, had the tall task of following up the critically acclaimed, masterfully designed, and highly influential Ocarina of Time. It didn’t reinvent what a Zelda game could look like; instead, it took the formula established in Ocarina of Time and got weird with it.

From a mask system that gave Link tons of new abilities to a darker story to a 72-hour clock counting down to the destruction of the world, Majora’s Mask was a sequel where Nintendo took a formula that worked and decided to build upon it in experimental ways. As early reviews indicate that Tears of the Kingdom does the same for Breath of the Wild, it’s a good idea for Zelda fans to revisit Majora’s Mask on the eve of the next Zelda game’s launch.

Sequels building on success

On the surface, Majora’s Mask resembles Ocarina of Time and copies the same basic gameplay. Quickly, though, players are turned into a Deku Scrub with new abilities and sent to the world of Termina by Skull Kid. Termina is destined to be destroyed by a moon crashing into it in just three days, giving the adventure a ticking clock that players will have to reset multiple times.

Deku Link gameplay from Majora's Mask.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

By setting itself in a parallel world to Hyrule, Majora’s Mask can cleverly reuse environment and even character assets from Ocarina of Time but recontextualize them in new ways. This familiarity only adds to the game’s sense of creepiness, as everything you recognize feels just a bit off. Tears of the Kingdom does something similar with its Hyrule, sandwiching it between Sky Islands and dungeon depths that expose more of Hyrule’s history.

From a gameplay perspective, Majora’s Mask expands on Ocarina of Time, primarily with its mask transformations that grow Link’s toolset, allowing for things that weren’t possible in its predecessor. Meanwhile, Tears of the Kingdoms’ new systems enable players to explore Hyrule in ways that seem much different than what was possible in Breath of the Wild.

Majora’s Mask can be a bit trickier of a Zelda to get into because of the three-day cycle the game is built around. Players can lose progress if they don’t reset the world on time and often have to know the right time to do certain things. While this may hurt its approachability, it’s a deeply designed system that enthralls those who understand it.

Systems like Fuse and Ultrahand could cause similar approachability problems with Tears of the Kingdom. Even Digital Trends’ four-and-a-half star Tears of the Kingdom review admits that “it may be the least approachable Nintendo game of all time.” Because both Majora’s Mask and Tears of the Kingdom could build on a solid foundation, their developers had more room to try new things and push the limits of what a Zelda game could be.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

That means both are some of the most interesting Zelda titles from a game design standpoint, albeit ones that may not be as inherently approachable or influential as their predecessors. Those similarities make Tears of the Kingdom a great companion piece to the nearly 23-year-old Majora’s Mask.

In the long term, I have a feeling that Tears of the Kingdom, like Majora’s Mask, will be more favorably viewed as a sequel that does things in a unique way and cleverly enhances what came before, rather than a sequel that reuses a winning formula because Nintendo knew it would work. Give Majora’s Mask a shot before playing Tears of the Kingdom comes out and discover that for yourself.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will be released on May 12. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is available as part of the N64 library on Nintendo Switch Online and has a 3DS remake.

Tomas Franzese
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
If you like Tears of the Kingdom’s vehicle building, check out this awesome indie
A rover lifts a pipe in Mars First Logistics

Although The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a massive open-world action-adventure game, some players have spent most of their time pushing the limits of its Ultrahand mechanic. The system lets players create contraptions with most of the items or pieces of wood and stone that they find on their journey. The most skilled players have built things like mechs, but anyone can still have a ton of fun using Ultrahand to torture Koroks or solve puzzles in unique, unintended ways. If building vehicles and other weird creations with Ultrahand is your favorite part of Tears of the Kingdom, then there's a new indie game hitting early access this week that you will probably enjoy: Mars First Logistics.

Instead of being just one system in the game, building vehicles is the main hook of this game from developer Shape Shop, which was released into early access on Steam today. It forces players into an engineering mindset like Tears of the Kingdom does, as they must design and then use rovers to ship items across the surface of Mars. If you enjoy games that put an emphasis on player creativity, then Mars First Logistics needs to be the next indie game that you check out.
Emboldening creativity
Mars First Logistics is all about building rovers to transport cargo across the colorful surface of Mars, and it wastes almost no time in getting players into the action. There are some blueprints for things like the basic rover, watering can lifter, and crate carrier, but Mars First Logistics is almost completely hands-off outside of the contracts that tell players where to pick an object up and where to drop that cargo off. Players are free to design and attach parts on their rover to each other as they see fit.
While the process of determining what kind of vehicle build is best for a mission is more similar to Tears of the Kingdom, actually putting the rover together works more like vehicle customization in Lego 2K Drive. That works for the best, though, as this Lego-like setup really allows players to have complete control over customizing, painting, and setting up the controls for every single part of their rover. I stayed fairly safe in what I built, only using the basic blueprints or slight variations that did things such as making a mechanical arm tilt in order to solve certain delivery challenges. Still, the creative way I found to do things, like knocking a box off a ledge or tilting a steel beam up into the exact position I needed to finish a delivery, made each mission feel wholly unique to my experience.

Read more
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is almost perfect, but it could use these tweaks
Link looking shocked holding rice.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a monumental game. It unleashes player creativity with Ultrahand and Fuse, features three vast open worlds for players to explore, and still tells a rich and enthralling story that expands the mythology of The Legend of Zelda series. Still, no game is perfect. While Tears of the Kingdom will likely go down as my game of the year for 2023 and potentially one of my favorite games ever, there are still a few things that the game could do better.

And no, I’m not talking about removing weapon degradation. After spending hours upon hours with Tears of the Kingdom, some user experience quirks became more annoying and noticeable. None of them are game-breaking, but they are still areas where Nintendo can stand to improve as it updates and expand upon Tears of the Kingdom or potentially do another game in this style. Here's what I hope to see change to make this version of Zelda an even smoother and more seamless experience.
Make disconnecting Ultrahand creations easier
Ultrahand is a revelation for Tears of the Kingdom that allows players to create some really creative things and solve puzzles in any way their minds can imagine. That said, one aspect of its controls still baffles me: the only way to "Unstick" objects stuck to each other is by moving the right stick back and forth or shaking a Joy-Con remote. It's a bafflingly clunky way to do things for what is otherwise such a delicate and precise building system.

Read more
The best video games of May 2023: Tears of the Kingdom, Humanity, and more
Purah in Tears of the Kingdom.

When the video game industry looks back at May 2023, this month will most likely be remembered for just two things: the failure of Redfall and the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Redfall will serve as a cautionary tale about the industry embracing its worst impulses, while Tears of the Kingdom will likely be considered one of the best games ever made and serve as a North Star for video game design for the next several years, like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild before it. Still, this month was about a lot more than that.
With this roundup, we hope to paint a broader picture of all the great games that were released over the course of May 2023; no single game can paint the picture of the entire industry. From Tears of the Kingdom to some of PlayStation VR2's best releases to beautiful indies to a game Nintendo temporarily blocked from release over a TikTok joke, these are the best games of May 2023.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

To get the obvious out of the way: yeah, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a really good game. We already considered Breath of the Wild to be one of the best games ever made, but Tears of the Kingdom's evolution of that game's open world and mechanics make Breath of the Wild feel like a beta. Not only do players have two new open worlds to explore with the Sky Islands and underground Depths, but systems like Fuse and Ultrahand ask players to embrace their creativity to solve puzzles and traverse around the open world.
"So long as you’re willing to meticulously survey Hyrule like an archaeologist digging for fossils, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an engrossing sequel full of mysteries to solve and experiments to conduct," Giovanni Colantonio wrote in his four-and-a-half star review of the game. "It’s a digital laboratory that I imagine will still be producing unbelievable discoveries 10 years from now."
Details big and small impress across Tears of the Kingdom, and at times it feels like this is the closest we'll get to the ultimate video game experience. Its complex controls do take a bit of getting used to, but those who get the hang of it will be able to enjoy one of the most impressive games ever made. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available now for Nintendo Switch, and this is the last time I'm going to mention it in this article. On to some other fantastic games!
Humanity

Read more