Friday, July 26, 2013

Forget about Majora's Mask HD

Most of you probably know this video, which shows a very, very impressive Majora's Mask HD fake trailer for the Wii U. It's so good that many people actually believed it's a real thing. And ever since this video, Zelda fans are obsessed with it. They want Majora's Mask HD and they are angry that Nintendo is making The Wind Waker HD instead.


I hate to be that guy, but you have to realize that Nintendo is not some magic factory, where they throw Majora's Mask into some bubbling cauldron and suddenly a beautiful HD version pops out of it. Making a full HD remake like in the trailer above would cost a lot of time and resources. Time and resources better spent on the new Wii U Zelda game. And a remake like this would probably end up being a new game alltogether (like A Link Between Worlds did).

The Wind Waker HD got made, because they were able to produce it as cheaply as possible. The cel shading graphics allow easy upscaling and interpolation into HD, you can play the original GameCube game on an HD supporting emulator and it already looks stunning. TWW's graphics have aged very well and all Nintendo had to do is play with some lighting effects (where they arguably overdid the bloom). They were even resistant to add any new content to the game except Miiverse integration, that's how cheap this remake is. It was probably made in a month or so.

Majora's Mask HD? Making that would be as expansive and time consuming as making a new game. They can't just take the N64 game and it suddenly looks like in the trailer, they would have to start from scratch, which would be a very expansive project. So, don't expect it to happen. Especially considering that Nintendo already admitted that they are overwhelmed with making HD graphics.

If there's going to be a Majora's Mask remake, it will be for the Nintendo 3DS. Because there they can just use the original game as a basis, which still looks good on the system. Half of the work was done with Ocarina of Time 3D, where they can reuse half of the new assets. Nintendo is currently in recycling mode (just look at all their games from E3, everything is recycling previous games) and Majora's Mask 3D fits their current pattern.

What people also tend to forget is that Majora's Mask was designed to be a sequel to Ocarina of Time. It's meant for players, who have played and beaten Ocarina of Time before. Majora's Mask can be a complicated game, even more so, if you don't have ever played Ocarina of Time before. It really builds on the experiences that you've made with the previous game. I would never recommend to play MM before OoT. So, putting Majora's Mask out there without Ocarina of Time in the foreground would be a mistake.

It's going to be Majora's Mask 3D or no MM remake at all.


...

Unless of course they do something like A Link Between Worlds, meaning they start with a Majora's Mask HD remake, but transform it into a new game alltogether. Aonuma wanted to use the GamePad for new items and I could imagine using the GamePad for masks... But this would mean that even Zelda Wii U will be just a half new game again... No, thanks.

1 comment:

K2L said...

I just want them to work full-time on new games. Remakes, easy or hard to make, are a waste of time and resources.