POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD Just know that I highly recommend this hack. Play it now!

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This hack was excellent in many ways. The music, foremost, is spectacular. It has a very melancholy feel that perfectly fits the game’s tone. The music for Deep Woods is one of my most favorite video game songs of any Zelda game. The new areas are great, too. I particularly liked Cluck Cluck Ranch, where you have to race Epona, and Monktown Valley, which had the intriguing backstory of it being cursed due to Gerudo intruders, and you have to chase the intruders away to restore it to its former state.

Besides the music and areas, there are plenty of other cool things about the hack. For example, Bombchus were very rarely ever needed in both Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask except in a couple puzzles in each game. 99% of the time, regular Bombs were sufficient. So, it’s an interesting change of pace that Bombchus are your only explosive item in this game, thus giving them a chance to shine. And I really liked Link’s new Soul-Charged Kokiri Sword that lets you shoot beam attacks to solve puzzles. (It also finally provides an explanation for why the Kokiri Sword has a different design in Majora’s Mask compared to Ocarina of Time. I always wondered about that.) The Bunny Hood gets a fun boost, too, as it not only lets you move faster, but now jump much farther, which is necessary for the dungeon at the end.

Speaking of the game’s one dungeon, Hollow Root Keep… Let me just say that I actually view it among the best dungeons in the mainline games. The dungeon’s aesthetic is fascinatingly eerie and mysterious. It features switch-block puzzles, which are one of my favorite types of puzzles in video games. The Floormaster mini-boss that’s a souped-up version of the normal Ocarina of Time/Majora’s Mask Floormaster was cool. And the brand new dungeon item, the Magic Hourglass, which lets you rewind yourself back in time through your most recent movements (giving the game a time-based element just like Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask), was used so cleverly from the moment you get it. I was genuinely stumped on how to I was supposed to reach the dungeon’s basement, until I realized the answer was in using the Hourglass. I’d say that is proof of great level design. It was even required for the custom end boss just like other Zelda bosses, and said required use was, again, very clever and well-integrated. Props to the creators for the custom boss, by the way, rather than just using an existing Ocarina of Time boss.

If I had to name any negatives, there would be probably two things. First, the lack of an aiming projectile weapon like the slingshot makes hitting Keese pretty frustrating. And since your sword’s beam attack is fire-based, if the beam hits the Keese before your sword does, it turns them into Fire Keese, which makes things more frustrating. And second, if you target an enemy and listen to the enemy info, when the textbox closes you stop targeting the enemy, unlike in Ocarina of Time where Navi will immediately target the enemy again. (I’m assuming the later is a bug.)

These are ultimately minor complaints, though. Overall, The Missing Link is a short-but-sweet experience that I highly recommend that anyone who likes Ocarina of Time or Majora’s Mask gives a try. As far as I’m concerned, this hack is canon in my eyes.

9/10, definitely would play again.