I can't really pretend this is a retro review since the game is just two years old...but I still love to watch myself type, so here goes!
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap was the all-new Zelda game for Game Boy Advance. The story has Link working with a race of tiny mouse-like people called the Minish to repower the Four Sword and defeat Vaati, a villain who petrified Princess Zelda in his search for the Light Force.
Capcom didn't take a lot of risks with the game. Take the plot and replace Vaati, Four Sword and Light Force with Ganon, Master Sword and Triforce and you've got the plot from any of the "main" Legend of Zelda games. Many of the characters and songs are taken straight from previous Zelda games too. That's not all bad because it makes the game feel almost like a "best of Zelda" title. The problem is that it doesn't have much of an identity for itself and when Capcom tries to invent new characters or compose new songs, they don't always fit in with the rest of the recycled Zelda content. The classic songs are great, but many of the new ones sound like good yet very generic RPG tunes. Identifying all the returning characters is a lot of fun but some of the new ones fall flat. Luckily the Minish feel pretty "at home" in the Zelda universe because Link spends plenty of time with them.
Where Capcom did take some risks is in the item design - and the payoff is decent. Of course classic items like the Boomerang and bombs are still there, but some of the new ones are pretty cool too. I especially liked the Gust Jar which can remove enemy defenses and also doubles as a replacement for the Hookshot up until you find a better item later on. Everything controls nicely, and the save-anywhere feature is very convenient.
The level design is good old 2D Zelda stuff, with a couple of new elements. Link can create magical copies of himself which allows for some fun new puzzles. Link can also shrink which allows him to interact with the Minish people and also opens up some new areas in dungeons. This is a pretty neat take on the "two worlds" idea that has been used in other Zelda titles and my only complaint is that sometimes you have to do a lot of backtracking in Link's slower tiny form. It would be nice to be able to warp back to the point where Link shrunk himself. Minor point.
If there's anything wrong with the dungeons it's that there are only six of them. I'm not asking for each new Zelda game to top all others in sheer size, but it would be nice if more of them would at least match the original standard of nine dungeons. It's still a good length for a Game Boy game, but I wish it was a bit longer.
Like a lot of games these days, The Minish Cap tries to make up for its shortage of levels by throwing in a lot of collecting. Kinstones are really neat at first: pieces are lying around and you can match the pieces up with other people in the game to unlock secrets. What makes Kinstones a pain is that some people will only want to match up once out of every few visits, making it hard to tell if a character has any Kinstones. On top of this, the rewards for matching Kinstones are often boring: Rupees or yet another Kinstone. How about some Heart containers, Capcom? The Kinstone set-up isn't bad, but it wears thin unless you're desperate to extend the game.
The challenge level is actually not bad. Like all the recent Zelda games, this one cuts the damage to about 1/4 of what you'd expect from the classics but healing items aren't as powerful as in other games, so earning a ton of heart containers doesn't make Link invincible like it does in other recent Zelda games. The shortage of levels is still an issue, but at least I didn't feel like I was breezing through the entire game.
In spite of some shortcomings in the depth and the feel of the game, The Minish Cap is still a very solid Zelda game that's great where it counts: fun gameplay. It's not the best 2D game in the series but it's a worthy addition and a great GBA game.
Four Swords out of Five Swords.
See what I did there?
Topic: The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Read 5321 times)
