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When Nintendo decided to tackle time-travel in its 1998 masterpiece, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the approach it took was mythic, built on moral fulfilment. The boy will venture through time to become a man, it foretold. He will travel to the future to undo the wrongs of the past, and travel to the past to prevent the wrongs of the future. He will face evil and thwart it. He will master his destiny and the world around him.Two years later there was a sequel, Majora's Mask - now available in this splendid remake for 3DS - and it returned to the time-travel theme. It was set just after Ocarina of Time, with the same Link returned to childhood and continuing his adventures in a strange new land. It was built on the same engine and used much of the same artwork and designs. And yet, at heart, it could not have been a more different game.
It asked: what's it like to be a child in an adult world that's falling apart? Never mind facing evil, how do you face sadness and regret? And how do you deal with the inevitability of failure? You pick yourself up, go back to the beginning and start again - clawing a little victory for yourself each time, banking a little experience for later. Majora's Mask isn't the stuff of myth, it's the school of hard knocks and broken dreams, dressed up like an eerie fairy tale.
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