Master Quest

Here's a geeky late summer post.

Lately, I've been playing the Master Quest version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I acquired this GameCube disc as part of a bundle promotion for pre-ordering The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker back in 2003, but never really got around to playing it until now. For those who are unfamiliar, the Master Quest is a slightly different version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, or "Zelda: OOT." OOT was originally released in 1998 for Nintendo 64 and is, I think, the pinnacle for the series thus far. It's one of the only games I've played that transcends the medium and delivers a concise story; great music thanks to Koji Kondo; remarkable, intuitive controls; fun gameplay and has lots of great character. The Master Quest was originally developed as Uru Zelda in Japan as an add-on for the ill-fated Nintendo 64DD. The differences include "remixed" dungeon layouts which are more difficult than in the original and, since it was released for the GameCube, higher 640x480 resolution. What's fun about playing it again is I can go back and play through the original dungeons and then play the same dungeon in the Master Quest to see what the differences actually are. Often times, it's amusing to see the little things thrown in there just to confuse you, especially if you've played the original game. As such, it's not always harder - just different. For instance, in one dungeon in the original game, you had to dive underwater to activate a drain switch to lower the water level, allowing a floating platform to pass low enough beneath a row of spikes for you to reach the other side. When playing the same dungeon in the Master Quest, after searching for over a half hour for some sort of drain mechanism, I realized you simply board the floating platform and duck beneath the spikes. You could almost hear the level designers laughing in Japanese somewhere. Probably Japan.