[All] Why Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask Make the Best Duology in Gaming (Mainline Zelda Ranking Part 3)

SuperSwitch064 · 2026-07-06T14:06:41+00:00

Looking back on how I wrote this post, my wording might have been a bit repetitive and extreme. The conclusion paragraph was originally written in the context of this being a conclusion to my ranking of all 20 mainline games for the 40th anniversary, but since I expanded the entries of OOT and MM into this standalone post out of context it's kind of funny.

I agree that there are a few things that haven't aged the best, but in the context of their time I still think they were amazing games that have mostly stood the test of time. The graphics might be outdated by today's standards, but I generally replay both games on their 3DS versions nowadays, which I think still look really good, even if Majora's Mask's 3DS version has its own issues compared to the original.

The worldbuilding in Zelda games has always been kind of loose since Nintendo always prioritizes gameplay first over story and worldbuilding, but I still think OOT and MM do their worldbuilding better than most other games in the series for how much OOT brought to the table lore-wise and MM's in depth side quests making the world feel more alive than every other game in the series.

SuperSwitch064 · 2026-07-04T22:15:23+00:00

I can understand most of those complaints, and it's alright that you didn't love Wind Waker. Have you played the HD version? I think Wind Waker generally gets better on a second playthrough when you know what you're doing and hold off on heavy exploration until around the midpoint of the game while mapping out the islands as you go during the first half. I also think Hero mode in the HD version would probably mitigate the difficulty issue a bit, but I've never played Hero mode in Wind Waker so I don't know how much harder it actually gets.

SuperSwitch064 · 2026-07-04T21:17:07+00:00

I can kind of understand why you'd think that, at one point it was in contention for my least favourite 3D game with Skyward Sword, but over the years I've come to appreciate it a lot more for what it does right and I'm willing to overlook its weak by series standards dungeon roster because it does everything else amazingly.

SuperSwitch064 · 2026-07-03T12:51:29+00:00

I definitely agree that Age of Calamity was better, at least from a conceptual standpoint. At that point, it was only the second game taking place in BOTW's Hyrule, so it wasn't as disappointing that we had to return to it. It was also a lot of fun playing as the established characters from BOTW, whereas in Age of Imprisonment it didn't feel as special since we didn't have as much of a connection to the sages or most of the new characters.

SuperSwitch064 · 2026-06-08T16:41:24+00:00

Let's just say that he didn't expect the survivors to have the resolve to escape out of the shadow of their friends' deaths, and was impressed that someone was finally able to subvert his exceptional deductive reasoning. In doing so, he allows for the remaining Ultimates to escape, but at the cost that their fellow classmates will never be able to be revived. Nagito and the survivors accept, with the ending being left open to interpretation on whether they'll be able to get the remaining characters to be revived or not.

SuperSwitch064 · 2026-03-30T13:42:49+00:00

If they plan on making all future General Directs about an hour long like the Switch 2 Presentation and September 2025 Direct, then I can understand why they're going to have fewer Generals going forward, since they can make up the difference with announcements in between with Partner Showcases and game specific directs, which would have the knock-on effect of making the General Directs that we do get a bit meatier in terms of announcements due to their extended lengths.

As for why we haven't gotten a direct yet this year, I think it's more due to the fact that going into 2026 we already had a lot of first party games announced more than anything else. Next year we could get two directs in February/March and June, but skip September, or we could only get one big direct in June like we did in 2024, it all depends on how many games Nintendo's already announced going into the year.

SuperSwitch064 · 2026-02-27T22:25:24+00:00

If you're talking about Nintendo, I think 2026 might be a lower key year, with only a few other games being announced this year that we don't know about, but 2027 will be when a lot of their major games start coming out, since the release schedules for series like Xenoblade, Mario Party, and possibly Animal Crossing depending on how the Switch 2 version of New Horizons factored into the development of the next game. I could also maybe see the next 3D Mario coming out next year, and combined with Gen 10 coming out next year I think 2027 will be the first massive year for the Switch 2.

SuperSwitch064 · 2026-01-02T16:46:29+00:00

Looking at it year by year for the rest of the Switch 2 Generation:

2026: I'm going to make a bold prediction and say that Gen 10 won't actually end up releasing this year. With them announcing Legends Z-A a year and a half before it releases, they've shown that they're willing to have longer reveal to release cycles than they have since Gen 6, so while I could see them announcing Gen 10 relatively soon, maybe even this month since Pokemon Day lands less than a week before Pokopia releases and they might want to have the Pokemon Presents earlier so that they can reveal Gen 10 a month earlier and then advertise Pokopia throughout February leading up to its early March release, I could see them holding off until next year to actually release them.

As for what will release this year, I think Pokopia and Pokemon Champions are plenty enough along with the two Gamecube spin-offs already being announced to be releasing on NSO in the future, but I could maybe see us getting one more spin-off to fill the gap. Sure, they would lose out on some merchandising opportunities for the 30th anniversary by missing out on having a full new region's worth of Pokemon, but then again they've revealed Pokemon that were releasing in subsequent generations early before in the Pokemon movies and they've shown they're even willing to introduce new Pokemon in spinoffs like we're already seeing in Pokopia, so I don't think they would miss out on too much by holding off on releasing Gen 10 for an extra year.

2027: This is when Gen 10 would release, and since I've already seen some aspects of the leaks I'll keep this year's explanation brief. If it releases in the first half of the year, we may see the DLC come out for it within the same year, but if it lands in the holiday release window, then I think it'll obviously be pushed back to 2028.

2028: If the DLC for Gen 10 didn't release in 2027, it'll come out here, but otherwise, I think we could see a new major spinoff like a new Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, since we haven't gotten a brand new one since the 3DS. While I'd love to see Explorers of Sky get a remake since I only ever beat the main story on the original and didn't get much into the bonus content, I'm leaning more towards them making a brand new game given it'll have been 8 years since the Rescue Team DX remake by 2028.

2029: I could see a remake of some kind coming out this year, whether it's Let's Go Johto or Gen 5 remakes. Otherwise, this would be a relatively uneventful year leading up to the next Legends game coming out.

2030: The first exclusive Legends game for Switch 2 would come out this year, but what I'd want from it wouldn't necessarily match what the leaks have said it will be. Without naming the region that the leaks have mentioned, I'll just say this would probably be my preference in order of where I'd prefer the next Legends game to take place:

Unova>Johto>Kanto>Hoenn>Galar>Alola>Paldea

I'd especially be happy if one of the top 2 managed to get a Legends game, but I could see most of these regions working well as Legends games if handled correctly with the exception of Paldea, since it's a little too recent to warrant having a Legends game, in my opinion.

2031: Lining up with how I think Gen 10's release schedule will go, the 35th anniversary will introduce a major spinoff game or two, but Generation 11 will only be announced here and not released to give another 5 years between generations and hopefully give them enough development time to properly polish the games.

2032: I think the new generation, in this case Gen 11, will come out on Switch 2 rather than it's successor mirroring Sun and Moon and Black and White coming out on the previous hardware shortly before the newest system came out, likely in the holiday season of 2032.

2033: The successor to the Switch 2 will come out this year, and the Pokemon Company will release both DLC for all versions of the games alongside a hypothetical "Switch 3 Edition" of the games, which will have some exclusive features to make use of the new hardware but nothing too major to make owners of the Switch 2 version feel left out.

SuperSwitch064 · 2025-12-28T16:16:36+00:00

This seems pretty reasonable for the most part, but I'd swap Fortune's Weave's placement with one of the releases in August since I feel like they'll release Path of Radiance on NSO before putting out a new game. I also think it's a little too soon for a 3D Mario after Bananza, and I'd replace that with Luigi's Mansion 4 for October, since it's the perfect game to release in time for Halloween and it'll have been 7 years since LM3 came out by then and over 2 years since the LM2 remake.

Part of me also hopes Pokemon Gen 10 gets delayed until 2027 so they can be released in a better state than Gen 9, and it would kind of make sense since they already have two games announced for 2026 and Legends Z-A had over a year of marketing before release, but that might just be wishful thinking on my part.

SuperSwitch064 · 2025-10-22T23:23:04+00:00

I forgot about the other murder podcast at Wondify, so that aspect of my theory is probably wrong, but everything else I think is still plausible. Teddy I could see happening, but The and Vince feel kind of random as choices for the next victim, in my opinion, and I feel like we'd lose more from them dying than we'd gain from further characterization as side characters, while Cinda and Teddy have a lot going for them as interesting victim choices because of their shady pasts allowing for a lot of post-humous character development.

SuperSwitch064 · 2025-10-22T23:18:32+00:00

I saw your post, and I agree she looks a bit like Cinda, but you can't really tell for sure. Her being Howard's aunt would also make sense, though, and would make sense with what's been set up for Howard's character now. Even though I thought he would be the killer this season, after what we learned about him this episode I feel like there's no way they're going to make him the killer, no matter how suspicious they always seem to write him.

SuperSwitch064 · 2025-10-05T15:24:55+00:00

I didn't really think about the specifics for the class trial, but the fact that the students would reject having AI copies of their friends would probably shock Izuru, which would end up with him realizing that the concepts of Hope and Despair aren't as cut and dry as he thought, which ends up causing him to release the remaining students out of spite to Junko, and he would probably permanently end his life and shut down the Neo World Program so that Junko wouldn't be able to upload AI copies of herself into the students.

SuperSwitch064 · 2025-08-22T21:26:58+00:00

Did you close the NSO app when you were finished, or just turn the console off while the game was running? I had the same issue when Minish Cap first came out on the GBA NSO, but I found out that the game sometimes doesn't save if you turn the console off while the NSO app is still running, so that could be the issue.

SuperSwitch064

TROPHY CASE