The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

I believe that The Minish Cap is absolutely fun, especially after playing the main story over and over again. The mechanics of the game are pretty simple, since this is a game that was released on the GameBoy Advanced. So you would be mainly using the A, B, L, and R buttons. The A and B buttons are for the various weapons that you obtain throughout the game, so I would usually place my main weapon (the sword) as A and my secondary weapon as B. The main mechanic for pretty much the whole game is to defeat enemies with the various weapons in various ways. There are monster crawling in every area and not to mention the epic boss fights at the end of every dungeon. Each weapon has an important at each dungeon you obtain them from such as, certain bosses can only be defeated with a certain weapon/strategy. I like how the L button is reserved for one thing, and that is fusing kinstones. Kinstones are items you can find throughout the game, and once you find someone that has the other half of a kinstone you have they are fused and something good happens as a result (treasure chest/maps, hidden doors, etc.).

The constraints in this game are mainly story continuation or weapon related. For example, at some point in the main town there will be knights blocking some entrances to certain areas and the only way to get rid of them is is to continue the story, then when you come back later they will be gone. Some areas are blocked off with some kind of obstacle that requires a certain weapon, so if you do not have it then you cannot progress. I find this understandable so that people do not go exploring areas they should not be in. The goal for almost every Zelda game is to save Princess Zelda. Other than saving Zelda, the goal for this game is to obtain elemental artifacts in various temples and forge a sword that can defeat the main antagonist. I especially love the concept of going through the different dungeons.

I thought the art of the game was fun to look at. Yes, it is all pixelated and all the characters were small and short, but I thought for a pixelated game it looked really good. Plus, this pixel art is more detailed than older Zelda games. I never thought that anything looked weird or asked myself, “What is that?” You can clearly tell who is who and what enemies are what. Even looking back at it now I really liked the pixel style of this game. There is one mechanic that is unique to this game alone due to it being an important part of the story, and that is shrinking. In the story, your hat (Ezlo), gives you the ability to shrink to about an ant’s size. The purpose of shrinking is so that you can talk to the Picori (little people only children can see), and with there help forge a sword that can save Zelda. Even the very first temple and a portion of the final boss is only doable if you are tiny. Throughout the game, you will have to shrink every time in order to speak with the Picori; plus, certain dungeons or puzzles can only be completed will you are small. Another mechanic only in this game is the fact you can make copies of yourself. The copies that are created only last for a few seconds and are in sync with the original. In the story, as you collect each elemental artifact you can make one more copy of yourself. Like shrinking, you can only progress through certain parts of the story with this ability.

This is one of my most favorite games of all times. I love the story, characters, and the challenging dungeons that this game has to offer!