Leave it to hackers and modders to discover the darndest things about our favorite games. In a new video posted by Skawo on YouTube, it’s been discovered that The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask has support for the N64’s microphone peripheral. For those unaware, Nintendo released a microphone for its 64-bit machine that supported only two games: Hey You, Pikachu! and Densha de Go! 2. There were likely grander plans to expand support for the 64DD, but that never materialized before the console’s lifecycle was over. Majora’s Mask would have been the third game to support the device, but it seems Nintendo backed out at the last minute.
As Skawo notes, all versions of Majora’s Mask (which includes the JP, US, and EU releases) have lines of code that allow for voice commands, but Nintendo blanked them in the cartridge. Through reverse engineering, you can re-enable these lines on a ROM and use the microphone on real hardware, as the video showcases. There is one caveat: regardless of your region, the game expects you to have the Japanese version of the microphone and only recognizes the commands in Japanese.
I won’t try to explain how this was figured out, but the end result is shockingly similar to the original Legend of Zelda on the Famicom Disk System. One usage of the microphone allows you to snap pictures with your Pictobox by saying, “Hai Chiizu,” or roughly “Say Cheese!” Another lets you wake sleeping deku scrubs by saying, “Okirou!” or “Wake up!” Nothing is substantial in its application, but it’s still a bit of fun that Nintendo would revisit for the DS just a few years after this game’s release.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
