Reddit will argue over these.
by Joe
This article is a sequel. And not just any sequel, but one that reuses the same assets and flips them to save on development costs and time and recontextualizes the entire experience. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, just like Tears of the Kingdom. Anyways, this is a sequel to The Best Way To Play Majora’s Mask? That goes over the original game and every console-emulated title and why they all kind of suck in the roaring 2020s. If you missed that then… sorry.
Majora’s Mask key art
Here we are going over the elites and the way Reddit will tell you to play them as well as argue tooth and nail over which one is the best. I am such a Redditor. And I say the port. But I’ll go over the rest anyway because what good is having an opinion otherwise? So what’s better for you? The 3DS version? Emulated on your favorite retro console? Or how about the port? Let’s get into it.
1: Majora’s Mask 3D
As a veteran of Operation Moonfall, I am proud to say we successfully bullied Nintendo into acknowledging that people do in fact enjoy Majora’s Mask (before it was cool). Grezzo’s 2nd outing into the Zelda space was met with praise as Majora’s Mask 3D for the Nintendo 3DS. This version was remade 1:1 with the original and added a ton of features and QOL stuff like dual screen support, gyro control, more item slots, a refined side quest system, updated graphics, and absolutely terrible Zora swimming. Nerrel covered this version in length here, complete with that damn, cursed ass thumbnail.
Glorious
Modded 3DS owners and Citra users rejoice since a restoration patch was created to restore most of the altered content of MM3D and add additional QOL to make the game easier to navigate with a single screen. Pairing this version with the 4K texture pack and the restoration mod, you already have an absolutely stunning version. My only reservation against emulating the game derives from the audio issues still present for this title.
The 4K texture pack looks amazing
- Pros:
- Official version on native hardware
- Enhanced graphical fidelity and 30fps
- Multiple QOL and accessibility improvements
- Scales well in emulation
- Texture packs and mods make the experience even better
- Cons:
- (IMO) Best experienced on the 3DS
- Native 240p
- Citra is dead and audio is buggy at times (rupee pickup sound)
- Without modding, some of the QOL stuff Nintendo did just sucks.
2: Emulation: A Crash course
Emulation for N64 titles is… broad and getting into it will require its own three-part article that I don’t feel like doing. It’s also something I generally don’t like to do in general given the sheer amount of jank that comes with emulating N64 titles. Majora’s Mask is no exception. Accurate N64 emulation requires a multitude of systems to work correctly. One such system is the external frame buffer, which handles most post-processing and just about any images that are drawn over something being rendered. Mask transformations, the intro cutscene, The lens of truth, etc. are examples of this. It’s a post-process that is rendered simultaneously, So it can potentially introduce input and/or audio lag. And most N64 emulators can’t seem to agree on the best way to handle this, not even official Nintendo ones.
GlideN64 with 21:9 widescreen and Nerrels texture pack
Nintendo 64 emulation also requires an application, and then a graphics plugin that does all of the emulation leg work. And these can vary greatly in terms of performance and quality, whether that is through Project64, Mupen, or RetroArch. Here are a few typical GFX Plugins:
Bad Framebuffer emulation blacks out the background in the pause menu
- GlideN64
- The most popular and easy to set up
- Most customizable with widescreen support, custom texture support, and scalable performance
- Notably has fairly high input and audio lag with the frame buffer on
- Frame buffer and textures are extremely accurate
- Glide64
- An outdated version of GlideN64
- Lower performance demands
- Mupen: slightly inaccurate frame buffer.
- Parallel Core in Retroarch: scalable texture accuracy, scalable frame buffer accuracy
- Overall less input lag
- High-resolution support
- Parallel (Vulkan)
- The most accurate to the OEM experience
- Significantly fewer enhancements, with 480p support
- Accurate frame buffer with OEM input lag
- Higher-than-average performance demands
- Rice
- Extremely low power demands
- Generally inaccurate emulation
- No frame buffer support
- Angrylion
- Software renderer
- Replicates the OEM experience 1:1
- 240p lock
- High power demands
While this just scratches the surface of N64 emulation, my recommended “set it and forget it” configuration I use for just about every title is RetroArch -> Parallel Core -> Glide64 -> Texture Accuracy Medium or High. The slight inaccuracy of the framebuffer is worth it for more responsive controls, otherwise, I’d just stick to GlideN64 on your application of choice. For device power demands, I’d recommend any device with processing power over an RK3566. So an RG353 and up. No, your (5) H700 XX devices aren’t running Majora’s Mask… unless…
3: The Port (2Ship2Harkinan/N64 Recompilation Project)
It’s safe to say that our collective fannies at Retro Handhelds were jumping with joy when the Majora’s Mask Recompilation port was announced, giving us a working app that manipulates the game source code yielding a near-infinite amount of enhancements and taking a full benefit of your computer’s processing power without the bottleneck of a software-based emulator ONLY to be met with a couple weeks later the Majora’s Mask Decompilation port that pretty much gives us the same thing. I really don’t know what the exact difference is, But I do know that we are eating SO good boys.
These are unofficial ports of the game that you could literally slap on just about everything from your $40 35XX plus to your steam deck and beyond with varying degrees of performance, But who cares since we were literally just talking about the high-performance demands of emulation, for which these are in a totally different league. The ports also introduce something previously unseen in a good functioning capacity: arbitrary framerates. That’s right, You are now running a 20 FPS source code with interpolated frames and zero input lag at 60+ fps. Welcome to 2024 baby. The setup for either of these is super simple and all you need is your *ahem* legally dumped rom file for Majora’s Mask, internet access, and maybe one of our official guides on setup!
The recompilation project made some hefty promises on release, as Nerrel (again) talks about in his announcement video. Some of those promises were ray tracing, access to Ocarina of Time as well from a single app, a randomizer, texture pack support, and more. It is still early on and it’s released, so they’re still a way to go. The same can be said about the decompilation counterpart 2ship2harkinan, which takes a slightly different approach That gives you a plethora of enhancements and tweakable functions out of the box like beta restorations, UI tweaks, third-person camera, gyro functionality, and a lot more.
Early RT64 footage shown in Nerrel’s video
Overall, the ports allow you to fully take control of the game in an uncompromised state and can be adapted to most of the more recent retro handhelds out there.
- Pros
- Arbitrary framerates
- Arbitrary resolutions and aspect ratio
- Infinite mod potential
- Modern control options
- Fairly easy setup on all platforms
- Low power demands in comparison to emulation
- Simple UI (Recomp.)
- Cons:
- Both applications are still early releases
- Setup is less intuitive (see our guides)
- The amount of tweaks and features can be overwhelming at first (2S2H)
So Which IS The Best?
Honestly, the ports. But also the 3DS remake with the restoration mod is fantastic, especially on 3DS hardware. While emulation is a tried and true method we are all familiar with, your mileage will heavily vary And even in the best-case scenarios you are still not getting an ideal one in terms of emulation quality. And maybe you don’t care about that stuff. But hey, at least try the port. You will see what I mean when you get there. What is your favorite way to play Majora’s Mask? You already know mine.
The End
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