History’s most original Zelda, Majora’s Mask , goes 3D to enhance Nintendo’s 2015 line-up

It was a massive departure from the series and incredibly divisive upon its initial release in 2000, but the hunger for a remake of The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask has only intensified since Ocarina Of Time rolled out in lush remastered form on the 3DS. Finally we can stop poking at rumours like a tentative Goron with a bomb flower in  his living room; a lovingly updated version is officially coming to handheld in spring 2015. In Europe it’ll land alongside a Special Edition bundle, containing a pin badge, steel book and double-sided poster.

Rather than simply dump the N64 classic on our 3DS (when has Ninty ever just dumped something anywhere?), this remake will see a complete graphical overhaul and it seems there’s work being done to make it more accessible to boot. hardened majora fans might balk at that, considering it was the bizarre three-day time limit setup that made the game stand out, but we're sure Ninty can deku scrub it up with some new features to lubricate the first few traumatic hours of play. after all, with that repeating in-game ticking clock, different masks that young Link’s able to use in place of time-honoured boomerangs and hook shots, and gasp no princess to rescue, majora was perhaps the most un-Zelda Zelda ever made.

Steam America
Elsewhere on 3DS, codename Steam, the new strategy game from the team behind Fire Emblem, is starting to, ahem, pick up steam. With weaponry powered by condensation, a squad of retro comic book-flavoured heroes, led by abraham Lincoln no less, has to defend Earth from invading aliens. There’s more than a dash of XCOM, with an overwatch mode and resource based turn by turn combat. The slick cel-shaded visual style, with its caption boxes and wordy sound effects, has us reminiscing over massively underrated FPS XIII from 2003. That’s a very good thing, by the way.

Wiisy does it
Over on the Wii u, fresh details have surfaced on Xenoblade chronicles X. First seen at E3 2013, the open-world RPG sees future humans abandoning Earth for an uncharted planet. From their base of New Los angeles we’ll get  to explore the wilderness, taking on quests, hunting wildlife and carrying out research to help our fledgling society thrive. There’s a story tied to missions, and just in case you were looking at these screenshots and worrying it all looked a bit too halo-meets-monster hunter, there’s also a mouse-faced mascot Nopon creature involved. We’ll have to wait until next year before we discover what he’s all about.

Before we cap off this Nintendo goodness, we need to remind you to check out the eShop for Shigeru miyamoto’s collection of Pikmin short movies. They’re about 20 mins long and cost £4.49 a pop, so a touch on the expensive side, but this is mario’s dad’s first foray into film making. you shouldn't need convincing…

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