The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest is a more challenging version of the original hit for the Nintendo 64, Ocarina of Time. Master Quest, originally named Ura Zelda in Japan, was released for the Gamecube on a special bonus disc, sometimes packaged with The Wind Waker. It includes modified dungeons and Golden Skulltula locations to give players another classic challenge, as well as slightly improved graphics and frame-rate.

History
A few years ago, Nintendo were planning to do an upgrade for the Nintendo 64 called the 64 Disc Drive. The reason they wanted to do this was to attract more third party game developers to the N64. However, they did have quite a few titles of their own ready to launch with this new and exciting add-on, one of them called Ura Zelda.

This was a much harder version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, featuring remixed dungeons that was supposed to be the ultimate challenge for any OoT lover. Because the 64 DD add-on for the N64 never became a hit in Japan, they decided not to release it outside of Japan, and therefore Ura Zelda was also added to the list of games that none other than Japanese gamers got to try, 20 000 of them to be exact.

When The Wind Waker was released, Nintendo decided to give more people a chance to experience Ura Zelda, and added it along with the original version of Ocarina of Time to a bonus disc, available exclusively to those who pre-ordered the game before a certain numbers of days within the release of the Wind Waker.

A while after the news had been spread around the world, Nintendo of America decided to give American gamers the same opportunity as the Japanese, and along with that, they released the English name for Ura Zelda. You might have guessed it already, but if you are one of those who rather save your thinking for playing Zelda, the English name was Ocarina of Time: Master Quest.

Although the game comes wrapped up with the original Nintendo 64 graphics, the frame rate for both the original Ocarina of Time and Master Quest has been slightly improved from the N64 version.

Links and Reviews

 * Master Quest review on VGRC.net: 9.75 out of 10
 * Master Quest Page on ZU
 * Master Quest wiki guide at StrategyWiki