18th September 2026, 10:25 AM
I've done a comparison of a few of the rooms I saw, and I do have just a hint of hesitancy. As much as I love how they made the puzzles make mechanical sense with the visual design, when I found that exact room in the original, the puzzle was a bit more subtle. There was no eye, you targeted the ladder direction and knocked it loose to fall into place. It wasn't as artistically cohesive, but it required a bit more thought to figure it out. Since the puzzle's set up to lock the door to the room where you get the slingshot, it's one of those "you're trapped in here until you master using that thing you just got" puzzles. Maybe they could replace the obvious eye with something else? Well, not that they don't already cover the game in obvious targets outside of this room.
Still, I recall that they made the water temple easier in the 3DS game. I kind of hope they implement a harder puzzle difficulty, kind of like Silent Hill 2 does. That'd be nice. Master Quest may well make it's way in though, so there's that. Still, it won't really affect my enjoyment of it. By this point, I have every single puzzle in this game memorized by heart. The more obvious nature of the trigger didn't even stand out to me because of the number of times I've knocked that ladder down already.
Majora's Mask may well get a remake after this. There would be fewer assets to remake since they... well the original concept of the game being in an alternate reality let them reuse a LOT of character models then, and they still can now. "Oh, future and past Malon are now sisters", that kind of time saving trick. The 3DS version made a few concessions for those who didn't enjoy the basic "Groundhog's Day" design of the original, in that you can now actually save anywhere without resetting the time. Other changes were to the boss fights to add glowing "Shadow of the Colossus" style weak points to every boss, making them quite easy to figure out. I think the one boss I thought was genuinely improved by the changes was the twinmolda worms. I quite liked adding a bunch of worm wrestling moves to Link in that version. I was less enthused about the changes to THAT water temple, which outright trivialized the whole concept of having to figure out the water pathing. I DID like extending the length of time even further when "double time" was played. Didn't like what they did to Zora-Link's swimming controls, not at all. Oooh those angry beavers were so much more frustrating than they already were, feeling like that challenge and the characters stepped right out of a Rare game.
I guess that's it, I'm worried the puzzles will be made even easier, but there's ways to make that work out I hope they take.
On top of a revision of the whole ice arrow situation, and perhaps even giving us a proper temple of light, I also would like to see a "Second Quest" where you actually play as Zelda, well Sheik. She's off doing her thing going on all kinds of adventures and they could involve stepping into a number of these dungeons in a new order, with new layouts. It could involve how she learned these songs she's teaching Link in the first place, or other purposes. Imagine playing as Sheik to save as many townspeople as possible while Link is doing his thing to stop the attack. Then, in the final battle, as Zelda, you're caught outside that force field but Link just can't manage to keep Ganon down for good... and he dies. Ganon takes the triforce of courage, and uses it to brave the flame barrier and reach Zelda, no longer afraid to do anything it takes to reach her and she does the only thing she can, take Link's Ocarina and uses the song of time to send herself back. Now she's on a quest to find some way to defeat Ganon and she finds out about the light force her royal line can use. She does what she can to unlock access to it, and once she's completed this quest, she fights with the other sages and every army that could be be mustered to take on Ganon. The imprisoning war takes place, Ganon is sealed in the dark world, and then she returns to just a bit before she left. Link's fighting Ganon, and just when he's about to get up and slay Link, you perfect that spell and cast it yourself to pin him to the ground, so Link can do his finishing move slashing him up just in time for everyone to bind him. That binding too would be something she had to learn. In this way, you get the "Link failed" timeline fully explained. The first timeline is the normal one, Link dies because Zelda doesn't have the light force and has to learn it on the run once again before fighting him with a whole army to seal him away. She returns in time to save Link so he can do everything we remember from that boss fight, sealing Ganon before taking on those losses. And then, just to finalize things, she sends Link back so he can grow up and experience the lost years, and he takes that opportunity to warn Zelda of Ganon's plan, give proof of it to the King, and sentence Ganondorf to death by elder stabbings before he's even had a chance to do anything. Three timelines, neat and proper.
Still, I recall that they made the water temple easier in the 3DS game. I kind of hope they implement a harder puzzle difficulty, kind of like Silent Hill 2 does. That'd be nice. Master Quest may well make it's way in though, so there's that. Still, it won't really affect my enjoyment of it. By this point, I have every single puzzle in this game memorized by heart. The more obvious nature of the trigger didn't even stand out to me because of the number of times I've knocked that ladder down already.
Majora's Mask may well get a remake after this. There would be fewer assets to remake since they... well the original concept of the game being in an alternate reality let them reuse a LOT of character models then, and they still can now. "Oh, future and past Malon are now sisters", that kind of time saving trick. The 3DS version made a few concessions for those who didn't enjoy the basic "Groundhog's Day" design of the original, in that you can now actually save anywhere without resetting the time. Other changes were to the boss fights to add glowing "Shadow of the Colossus" style weak points to every boss, making them quite easy to figure out. I think the one boss I thought was genuinely improved by the changes was the twinmolda worms. I quite liked adding a bunch of worm wrestling moves to Link in that version. I was less enthused about the changes to THAT water temple, which outright trivialized the whole concept of having to figure out the water pathing. I DID like extending the length of time even further when "double time" was played. Didn't like what they did to Zora-Link's swimming controls, not at all. Oooh those angry beavers were so much more frustrating than they already were, feeling like that challenge and the characters stepped right out of a Rare game.
I guess that's it, I'm worried the puzzles will be made even easier, but there's ways to make that work out I hope they take.
On top of a revision of the whole ice arrow situation, and perhaps even giving us a proper temple of light, I also would like to see a "Second Quest" where you actually play as Zelda, well Sheik. She's off doing her thing going on all kinds of adventures and they could involve stepping into a number of these dungeons in a new order, with new layouts. It could involve how she learned these songs she's teaching Link in the first place, or other purposes. Imagine playing as Sheik to save as many townspeople as possible while Link is doing his thing to stop the attack. Then, in the final battle, as Zelda, you're caught outside that force field but Link just can't manage to keep Ganon down for good... and he dies. Ganon takes the triforce of courage, and uses it to brave the flame barrier and reach Zelda, no longer afraid to do anything it takes to reach her and she does the only thing she can, take Link's Ocarina and uses the song of time to send herself back. Now she's on a quest to find some way to defeat Ganon and she finds out about the light force her royal line can use. She does what she can to unlock access to it, and once she's completed this quest, she fights with the other sages and every army that could be be mustered to take on Ganon. The imprisoning war takes place, Ganon is sealed in the dark world, and then she returns to just a bit before she left. Link's fighting Ganon, and just when he's about to get up and slay Link, you perfect that spell and cast it yourself to pin him to the ground, so Link can do his finishing move slashing him up just in time for everyone to bind him. That binding too would be something she had to learn. In this way, you get the "Link failed" timeline fully explained. The first timeline is the normal one, Link dies because Zelda doesn't have the light force and has to learn it on the run once again before fighting him with a whole army to seal him away. She returns in time to save Link so he can do everything we remember from that boss fight, sealing Ganon before taking on those losses. And then, just to finalize things, she sends Link back so he can grow up and experience the lost years, and he takes that opportunity to warn Zelda of Ganon's plan, give proof of it to the King, and sentence Ganondorf to death by elder stabbings before he's even had a chance to do anything. Three timelines, neat and proper.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)