Link travels in time to fight evil… then returns for a Master Quest!
- JP release: 28th November 2002
- NA release: 17th February 2003
- EU release: 3rd May 2003
- Developer: Nintendo
- Publisher: Nintendo
- NGC Magazine: Score: 81%
- Mods Used: PC Port, Texture Pack
Coming out as a bonus for buying The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (although it was given out slightly earlier in Japan), this contains not only Ocarina of Time, but also a brand new version called Master Quest. These were emulated versions of the game, running in a higher resolution. For this playthrough, I am focusing on Master Quest’s alternative dungeons (everything outside the dungeons is unchanged) and playing in a similar way as I recently played Ocarina of Time: the unofficial PC port with a texture pack.
The big promise of Master Quest is that the dungeons are more difficult, but I don’t think that’s the right word to use. The better word would be “obtuse”. A lot of the time, switches now change things in completely different rooms, and it’s often a case of just trying things rather than thinking. Take Jabu Jabu, there are cows you have to hit with a slingshot to activate various things, then later on there’s one that you need to hit multiple times with no clues – and now that the entire dungeon could house the “switch”, you no longer have the limit of the room you’re in.
Oddly, other than hitting cows, Jabu Jabu is one of the few dungeons that’s actually easier than the original, and you no longer have to move Ruto about much. Other dungeons, like the Forest, Water and Fire temples also feel easier, just with more backtracking back and forth throughout the dungeons. The spirit temple takes this to the extreme as for one key in the adult section, you need to leave the dungeon, go to the temple of time to become a kid, go back to the dungeon, get the key and repeat the process in reverse.
The one definite improvement is the enemies. Tougher enemies are brought in earlier, so combat feels more meaningful than it did in the original. You’ll have to fight multiple strong enemies or in more difficult areas. The biggest highlight for me was probably Dodongo’s Cavern, as you end up going to the top level first and working your way down. However, even this didn’t feel difficult, it was just amusing due to going through it in a different way, and the biggest issue with all the puzzles is that the difficult ones never feel satisfying to solve.
However, this disc was a free bonus, and it also includes the original version of the game as well, so it’s still an amazing package. The Master Quest version is really only for people who have played Ocarina of Time many times and just want to be thrown when they next play it, even if it is ultimately a worse version of the game. The Master Quest version was originally designed for the 64DD (and the mythical “lost” Zelda expansion called Ura Zelda turned out to just be this, just with some more convoluted dungeon elements), and does have one major thing going for it: Eiji Aonuma ended up making Majora’s Mask because he didn’t like that Miyamoto’s plans were just changing his work on the Ocarina dungeons.
Great
The main differences are in the dungeons, and even they are pretty subtle. The dungeon layouts are identical, but you’ll find chests and important items in different places to last time, a few tweaked puzzles, and, of course, more numerous baddies to fight. But we can’t help feel that some of these changes detract form the subtlety of the game; after all, the original was meticulously planned, playtested and tweaked to perfection. It’s as if the locations or puzzles have been changed solely for the sake of making a difference, more than anything else.
Adam Waring, NGC Magazine #80
Remake or remaster?
This was included in the 3DS version of Ocarina of Time, although now completely mirrored and enemies do extra damage. I would love a new port of Ocarina with some features similar to the unofficial PC port.
Official Ways to get the game
There is no official way to get The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time / Master Quest. I do find it odd that the Master Quest version was never released on Virtual Console or added to NSO.
Europe
Japan
North America
GameCube Games by Date
2002: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2003: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2004: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2005: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2006: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
Worth noting that Master Quest is the very last N64 game ever released; and it is indeed an actual N64 ROM; merely running in an N64 emulator on the GCN.
You can extract the N64 ROM and run it on real N64 hardware, making it the final first party release for the platform; and the final game released for the console, period.
The N64 emulator on GameCube is actually a bit of a work of art in of itself. An enormously impressive piece of software in its own right that runs amazingly well considering its vintage and (relatively) low spec hardware compared to what we have today. It actually ran OoT much better than the Switch 1 did when the N64 NSO app first came out (though they’ve subsequently fixed it of course); and this emulator would form the basis of the Wii VC N64 service. NST did an amazing job for the time and hardware, a true marvel of software engineering!
So, while I enjoyed Master Quest, this was the first time I felt a version of a game felt… off. I think the N64 emulator, as good as it was, might’ve had some framerate issues, because everything felt choppier than it did on the N64. The fact that the Crescent Moon symbols in the Gerudo areas were replaced with the now-current Gerudo symbol didn’t help, this definitely felt like an uncanny version of the original OoT.
As for the remixed dungeons… It started well, with lategame enemies being put right away inside the Deku Tree, and Dodongo’s Cavern doing a thing where the bomb bag is within sight from the entrance, but you don’t get to it until the very end… And yet, the most striking memory are those cows lodged into the sides of Jabu-Jabu. It was so bizarre, it felt like lore was being rewritten, or like I was in an Abridged series.
But it was a cool thing, it definitely showed me what some creativity and lunacy could do to a game. When I later learned what Romhacks were, I wasn’t nearly as surprised.