Aight, so first off: I love Majoras Mask. In my list of best games of all time, it sits solidly at #1.
So of course, when I heard that there was not one, but two different PC ports, and that they were done by entirely different people, using very different methods, I had to try them both.
Now, I’ve beaten Majoras Mask, to 100%, multiple times. On the Nintendo 64 with my reliable gold cartridge with the holographic front, on Project64, Mupen, and WiiVC. I have a deep, intimate knowledge of all things Majoras Mask, random bits of lore, how to do just about anything in the game.
Thus, this post is not going to be talking so much about the game, and more about the upsides and downsides of each PC port.
We will be discussing Recompiled - and 2Ship2Harkinian - Henceforth called RE and SoH.
Framerate
For starters, each port supports > 20 FPS framerates. The game targets 20 FPS on original hardware, usually only reaching 15 FPS in most areas. It really pushed the hardware of the console to the ragged edge.
On both ports, I adjusted the framerate to 60 Hz, then 165 Hz.
I found that SoH’s port that while things did mostly appear smoother, there was a lot of places where the framerate did not match. For example, the Sky in SoH was clearly still adjusting at 20 FPS, and when spinning with Deku Link for example, the beginning of the Animation still hitched like it was at a slow frametate.
On the other hand, RE’s port managed to render everything smoothly at the higher framerates, with a notable exception of the Bats, which I think is fair, as they seem to have only had 2 frames of animation to begin with, meaning that a higher framerate animation is still 2 FPS… Just faster.
Features
SoH
SoH is definitly the winner here. It has a LOT more features, accessable via it’s F1 menu (!! This is an issue if you’re playing on the SteamDeck! There is no F1 key !!) such as making dialogs skippable, faster cutscenes, keeping items in time travel, and replacing the clock at the bottom of the screen with a much smaller digital version, available in 12 and 24 hour variants. I’d also love to see a version that’s a count down instead, where it starts at 72:00:00 and counts down… 71:59 or 3:23:59…
RE
While lacking a lot of those features, it has, in my opinion, the killer feature. It puts the Ocarina, and the three transformation masks, on the D-Pad, and displays it on screen. Completely unused in the original game, but easily used on a modern controller, it’s a fantastic way to ease C-button contention that is constantly felt in the original, where you often have at least 1 button always containing an transformation mask, and another usually has the ocarina, giving you a single button for your bombs, arrows, or anything else you want on there. Not great, but what they had to work with. With this innovation, suddenly you can use all 3 for items - You can have your Bow, Bombs, and relevant quest item ready at all times!
While we’re here, I also want to say that RE also has a WAY better system for configuring it. SoH uses F1 and dropdown menus and and honestly not amazing system of dialogs to configure everything, where RE has a beautiful, well laid out, easy to use system that shows everything cleanly and makes configuration a breeze. No more hunting through menus!
RE Also has an option to bind the camera to your right analog stick, giving you the ability to turn the camera similar to modern twin stick games. Oh and the ability to use Motion controls for Aiming! And Mouse Aim!
Overall, I’d recommend RE for casual players - It’s more friendly to the end user, even if it lacks some features that SoH has, though I’m sure that will change over time.
I just wish either one of them had fixed the Southern Swamp Shooting Gallery - The monster spawns usually play their sounds from the wrong side, IE, a wolf spawning on the left, howls from the right, and a bird spawning on the left chirps on the right.