🟢[4.5/5]︱The Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap Review
I hope you guys enjoyed watching the Zelda 40th Anniversary direct! Perfect timing since I wanted to talk about my thoughts regarding The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap.
Preamble
It feels weird reviewing games out of the norm.
Last time I've talked about a game on here, I was in a much better spot mentally. But, ever since the end of last semester back in May, my mind was nothing but a clusterfuck of thoughts and emotions—some of which was spewed out in a random blog post in June, some had been directly said to my friends and family, and some of which was said on Bluesky. Now, with college starting on the horizon thanks to a successful save of my scholarships, so does my motivation to play games and make reviews for some of them.
I WON'T make them a distraction of my schoolwork through.
The game I'm going to be talking about my thoughts about is The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for the Game Boy Advance. It has to be one of the greatest Zelda games I've ever played, and the greatest on the system—right next to Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission. This wasn't my first playthrough of this game however, as back in 2020. during COVID, I've played the game using guides when needed, and I loved it just like nowadays. As a person who isn't really interested into Zelda compared to the rest of my family, they've done a pretty damn phenomenal job at introducing the mechanics of a traditional 2D Zelda game to a newcomer, and making them learn every aspect at a respectable pace until the very end where it's the ultimate test on what you've learned so far, along with what you've collected, since this game has a huge amount of replayabillity to make playthroughs last. After replaying this game again, I've wanted to talk about my thoughts about this game, and talk about how this game helped me revive my interests in making reviews again.
Story (3.5/5)
Every a hundred years, the doors to the Minish open, and a festival is hosted in celebration of them coming, with a tournament to allow it's winner to touch the Picori blade that was used by the hero long ago to vanquish evil, as told by the prophecy in the Elemental Sanctuary. The Minish are referred to as the Picori by the Humans. Zelda comes over to wake Link up for the festival, and after delivering the royal blacksmith's sword to the king of hyrule, the celebration commences. The winner of the tournament Vatti comes in, and instead of touching the blade, wonders what's inside of the contents holding the blade, and breaks it open, causing the monsters to wreck havoc and spread across Hyrule. He then turns Zelda to stone, and teleports away as what he was looking for—the light force—wasn't inside the chest.
With the Picori Blade now broken, Link has the Smith sword given to him and is now tasked to restore the Picori blade to its former glory and on the path to going to the marked place on the given map, he comes across Ezlo, a cap that can talk, and they both explore the Minish Village and the Deepwood Shrine to get the Earth Element. The goal then shifts to a greater journey about getting the rest of the elements to fuse into the Picori blade to turn it into the Four Sword.
After collecting the Fire Element, Vatti comes and attacks Link, and an important detail to the lore drops from Ezlo, stating that he and Vatti were both Minish and that he was a sage himself before being reduced to a cap by him, who wore a magical created by Ezlo that gave its user supreme magic powers. Begins Behind the scenes. Vatti goes to Hyrule Castle, and takes control of the King to get all soldiers to search for the "light force," the last remaining power that can get Vatti to becoming more stronger than he could, and takes the real King to Jail in the bottom floor of the castle.
After forging all parts to the Four Sword, Vatti comes and knocks out Link, turning the entire Hyrule Castle onto a darker variant turning everyone inside into Stone, and with the spin attack from the Four Sword, it can restore the affected civilians back to normal. Going through the entirety of Dark Hyrule Castle, Link comforts with Vatti, who have achieved a bit of the power of the light force and awakens but eventually gets defeated twice otherwise.
Link then comes across Zelda, and brings her back to normal, but before they can rejoice, the castle then starts to collapse. Before they can escape, Vatti sends Link over to the top of the castle for a final match before being ultimately defeated. With the curse of Ezlo finally being taken away, he is able to return to his former self, and puts the cap on Zelda to combine her pure light force energy with the power of the cap to restore Hyrule to its former glory, and Ezlo finally returns back to the Minish World as it was about to close.
Even if the presentation for this game was phenomenal (which l talk about this later), the story for this game is lackluster. Being this is the first in a set of Zelda games with barebones storytelling, this game unfortunately is hit with the same remark as the other Four Swords games. I remember liking Vatti a lot as a kid, but I can 1000% tell it was because of the simple edginess he had when I was an edgy teenager like most Gen Zs, because my goodness, he is probably the worst antagonist of the Zelda antagonists personality and motivation wise. You're telling me that his entire goal to do deadly shenanigans was because his likeness of the cruelty of men and wanted to put it onto everyone? I mean sure yeah but at least Ganon/Ganondorf, Demise and others had more to be put on them; they quite literally took what Vatti has been established prior to this game, and make him.... weaker than what he was?
I mean this is his strongest incarnation of him, holding four variations of himself (Minish, Human, Hot Thing, Eyeball, Eyeballer), but in Four Swords, he got Zelda to make her his bribe and take over Hyrule using her power, and in Adventures I don't even remember what his point in that game was. I guess when you put it this way, Nintendo couldn't have done him justice if the other games he appeared in have him doing small stuff, but even in The Minish Cap, Vatti is still very weak with his motives. But other than that... Yeah the story for this one is very weak. It's unfortunate that the Four Sword games don't have that much to offer story wise, and I can tell this may be a downer for those that talk about this game on other platforms. I do think the intensity and the urgency of certain moments that happen did get me and I do appreciate those moments.
Gameplay (4.5/5)
The gameplay for Zelda is very simple: As Link travels around Hyrule to enter dungeons that contain items necessary to make the plot move forward, those dungeons contain additional items that serve as the overall gimmick of each dungeon you come across. Take the Deepwood Shine for instance: As the perfect introduction to the gameplay formula for Zelda, it teaches the player the basic concepts of the puzzle solving Zelda games are known for, with some moments where you'll have to think critically or non-critically for most of them. The ones in this dungeon are kept fairly simple but it also contains secrets such as Heart Containers and additional Rupees and other items that are optional and requires additional steps to get. Upon entering the halfway point will introduce you to the dungeons item, which for the shrine is the Gust Jar, and you're expected to use it a lot for the remainder of the dungeon, to use it against the boss.
As you finish the dungeon, you'll get the item needed to advance the plot which, in the case of the Minish Cap, are the elements needed to fuse the Picori blade, but let's take a break from the core traditional Zelda gameplay to talk about stuff exclusive to the Minish Cap: Shrinking, and during the Kinstones.
Upon having Cap Ezlo force himself onto you for you going "too fast for him" at the beginning of the game, you're immediately introduced to The Minish Cap's main gimmick: Shrinking. Upon standing on an object with a crack, you're able to shrink yourself to the size of the Minish, and you're able to explore places that you normally can't reach when you're normal sized. This is crucial throughout the game, and while you can't do much in Minish (you can swing your sword but that's just a novelty and never needed in-game), you can pass through tight corridors, and enter places that contain other Minish that can help you with various things. Sometimes, especially in the latter half, you can use being small to help you do things when you're big, and I always find it satisfying to do this, especially in bosses that require it (unfortunately this exact case has been only done for two bosses—one being Vatti).
And then there's Kinstone fusion. As you go throughout the land of Hyrule, you pick up halves of Kinstone Pieces that you can fuse with anyone by standing next to them and see if they have a speech bubble. If they do, you're able to fuse a Kinstone with them, and if you have the matching one, "something great" will happen. This all depends on the individual, and the effects can either include spawning golden fast variants of enemies that give you mass amounts of Rupees, discover secret areas that can give you extra goods, or even help you with progression. There's four types: Red, Blue, Green, and Gold: Green is Common, Blue is Uncommon, Red is Rare, and Gold is essential for progression. You can go through. the entire game without ever touching normal Kinstone fusion, but for traversing and fighting enemies to be a lot more powerful, these are required to make Link stronger. Of course, the same applies if you're 100%ing it.
Unlike most Zelda games before this one, this game is very linear with how the gameplay perfectly flows with the story; if you pay attention to what the NPCs have to say, you'll never have a problem getting lost in The Minish Cap. Even when it comes to understanding what you have to do. However, I'm not a very patient person, and I've found myself to be using guides three times throughout my playthrough for this game. Not as much as it was back then, but all of them were for moments that, should I have a little more patience, could've been solved without the reliance on a guide.
Replay Value (4.5/5)
With the inclusion of the gameplay mechanics that makes up the Minish Cap, coupled with the plethora of side quests that Zelda is known for, the replay value for this game is extremely high. Even after defeating Vatti, there's SO much things to do to maximize as much time as you can with this game. I've mentioned it in the gameplay section but to reiterate: There's so much you can explore with Kinstone Fusion showing and marking you places throughout Hyrule that can help you better gear up to be the strongest Link that he can be in this game, and it can all make your experience better. I didn't really make much of the extra content this game had, but I've done what was best for me to do since I'm not much of a 100% gamer myself.
Graphics (5/5)
I shouldn't have to explain this one: The graphics for The Minish Cap is absolutely gorgeous. The Legend of Zelda is already a heavily stylistic series of its own (yes, I'm counting both the original and Zelda II for the NES as they're both remarkable for the hardware they're on), and the Minish Cap does justice big time. The game's art style is essentially the combination of the whimsical nature of the Wind Waker while featuring similar graphics to the original Four Swords (with some Adventures sprinkle), and it's obviously one of the best looking games on the Game Bot Advance. The sprite work for the characters is charming, giving more personality to both the new and returning characters in the series, and even Link has more expressions than what he had in the original Four Swords (which is the specific version of link he's based on).
Soundtrack (4/5)
If my information is correct, Mitsuhiko Takano is the composer for this game. And the soundtrack for this game really makes perfect use of what the GBA's Direct Sound and the leftover components from the GBC has! They both blend in nicely together to create what is one of the greatest sounds tracks on this system and in Zelda altogether, and I haven't have a single one that I didn't really think was the odd one out. While I do think the loop of the temple themes can be longer (The Temple of Droplets was the worst case as I find that one to be the one that got stuck in my head quickly LOL), they aren't terrible songs and are masterpieces. My most favorite one has to be Dark Hyrule Castle since it's a more ominous version of the Hyrule Castle Theme from A Link to the Past. Its somber feeling is honestly perfect since the minute Link wakes up after getting knocked out and you immediately enter to a taken over Hyrule Castle is amazing.
Another one of my favorites is Cloud Tops. Rewinding time a little bit, I've finished Cave Story, and at some point at the route towards the normal ending of the game, the game plays the title screen of the music, and it got me super motivated for what that game had to offer at that point and moving forward. That same feeling with the theme of this song kicked in as Cloud Tops is refusing the motif from the title screen of this game. It's AMAZING; I LOVE IT when video games do this since its the perfect "shits about to get serious" moment and at this point, you're at the middle half closer to the end of the game, getting the last element and tackling Vatti once and for all. It's such an amazing theme that goes along the rest of the other songs in the soundtrack and if there was more melody to give to the temples, I would give the soundtrack of this game a complete score.
Verdict/Other Thoughts (4.5/5)
Even if I've used a guide here and there throughout my playthrough of The Minish Cap, this game is the greatest 2D Zelda that I've ever played so far. The most beginner friendly one I would personally say for sure! I know this game has a lot more post-game contents, but for someone who just wanted to game during the start of my college semester when I have to focus more on my Classwork, this classic was serviceable for the time that it took for me to complete it. As an avid fan of the Four Swords side of the Zelda series, this definitely was a perfect start, and considering it's gimmick with Link turning what was once the broken Picori blade to the four sword, it makes me wished this game had gotten a major ROM Hack where the game had implemented Four Sword-like functionality to the game, creating a four player expansive Minish Cap experience. Imagine how awesome that would be to do together? Only time will tell...
As for the next game I'm going to play, it'll all depend on how much classwork I have, and if I'm motivated to do it. I wanted to bring this up again but I'm postponing my OneShot review until further notice. It's been a while since I've worked on it, and because my mind has been focused on other games since, it's going to be a long bit before I post my thoughts about that game. I've been mostly playing small or medium paced games while I go through this semester so I don't get entirely stressed out working exclusively on schoolwork.