The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest

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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest
Developer(s)	Nintendo
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Designer(s)	Shigeru Miyamoto
Released	February 16, 2003
Genre(s)	Action Adventure
Mode(s)	Single player
Ratings	ESRB: Everyone
Platform(s)	GameCube
Media	GameCube Optical Disc

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest is an alternate version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In the U.S., a bonus disc containing both versions was available as a pre-order bonus for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. In Europe, the disc came in the same case as The Wind Waker. The Master Quest basically contains the same storyline as the original, but includes altered dungeon layouts and more powerful enemies. The alterations concerning the dungeon maps contain slightly different room layouts (items are placed on different locations, and puzzles have to be solved in another manner). In many cases, knowledge of the original game can be a hindrance rather than a help, and trying to solve puzzles the way they are done in the original leads only to a trap. The game was originally developed as a 64DD add-on cart for the Nintendo 64 version of Ocarina of Time code-named Ura Zelda.

[edit] Ura Zelda's history

Ura Zelda (literally, "Another Zelda") was the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive expansion disk designed for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. However, due to the failure of the 64DD as a platform, the game never saw the light of day.

Ura Zelda was actually a 64DD add-on for Ocarina of Time where the player was rumored to be able to obtain the Triforce (although there was no truth to this; it was most likely a fan fabrication, and nothing of the sort was ever announced by Nintendo). The 64DD version was designed so that the original Ocarina of Time cartridge would be plugged into the main Nintendo 64 console while the Ura Zelda expansion disk would be plugged into the 64DD that sat underneath the console. Upon the insertion of the Ura Zelda expansion disk, Ocarina of Time's file select screen would have the option to have normal Ocarina of Time or the revised Ura Zelda version of Ocarina of Time. The size of this add-on was supposedly about 32-64 megabytes, and due to the smaller maximum size of Nintendo 64 cartridges, the game could not otherwise be released on a cartridge.

Eventually, due to repeated delays in production and development, Ura Zelda's release as a 64DD add-on was scrapped, even as the game was finishing production. As a result, there is no 64DD version of this game available to the general public. Due to public demand for the completed game however, Ura Zelda was "released" on the Nintendo GameCube as the Master Quest on a bonus disc for those who pre-ordered The Wind Waker. However, Master Quest was not the true Ura Zelda, instead it was just Ocarina of Time with rearranged dungeons, as the game is the same exact size. Also, many things that were promised never made it, such as new enemies or different side quests.

However, there were a few setbacks in both versions. Since the game was not truly ported in the technical sense, (as in being altered and optimised for the console in question) but merely running under emulation, there were some barely noticeable inaccuracies in the presentation of both Ocarina of Time and Master Quest due to inaccuracies in Nintendo's emulator.