Video Game Review of The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
On January 11th 2005, Nintendo released Link’s newest adventure on the Game Boy Advance. I would’ve written about this game weeks ago, but I’ve finally just gotten around to it. The story begins as Link accompanies Zelda to the Picori Festival at Hyrule Castle Town. The festival celebrates the day that the Picori gave the people of Hyrule a sacred sword to fight off the demons that were attacking Hyrule.
Every year a sword fighting tournament is held and the winner gets to touch the hilt of the mystical blade. The victor is a mysterious youth named Vaati, who’s intentions are much different from just simply touching the sword: an evil power is held in the pedestal the sword is held in and he wants to acquire it. Vaati breaks the sword and releases a great evil on the land of Hyrule. However there is no power beneath the sword and in his rage, he turns the princess Zelda into stone. Link vows to save Zelda and thus begins his journey:
It’s hard for me to give a Zelda game anything less than a 10 simply because it’s my favorite series. While others may have different opinions from me, I still won’t be swayed. Simply put: The Minish Cap IS the best game on the GBA. While LoZ: ALttP + 4S was great, it was just a remake of the SNES classic with a short 4-player game. This is a brand new adventure. TMC has all the elements that make a Zelda game great: puzzling dungeons, a massive cast of characters, multiple side quests, loads of weapons(new and old!), and a creative new kinstone fusing system.
Every Zelda game has a theme of some sort (ex: time, masks, wind) and TMC is no exception. After you save a half-bird, half-hat like creature named Elzo, you will be able to shrink down to the size of the Picori (aka: Minish) and get a view of Hyrule through an ant’s eyes. While you’ll be able to enter areas used by the Minish, the monsters that would be small compared to you before, will now be gigantic! Wait til you see the first dungeon’s boss! The game is a bit on the short side and no way is it easy, but you’ll be enjoying ever minute of it.
The graphics are alright; they resemble the Four Swords minigame included in the LoZ: aLttP remake. The bosses are brilliantly illustrated and the citizens of Hyrule are detailed as well. (You may even recognize some of them from past titles.) Not exactly the best graphics I’ve seen on the GBA, but still overall pretty good.
It really isn’t hard to control any Zelda game. In fact I think the button you press the most is start, because you have to switch out inventory items. Of course that is what you do in every zelda game. You move with the control pad, and press the A and B buttons. Nuff’ said.
I love the music in video games. I happen the love the music in Zelda games the most. It has remixes of music from past Zelda games and still has the catchy field music. It’s like they took an orchestra, shrunk it, and shoved it in the game pack. (Get it? SHRUNK?) The sound of people’s grunts and enemies’ war cries are funny and not hard on the ears.
If you’re a casual gamer, you may beat this game and be done with it. If you are a hardcore Zelda fan (like me) you’ll play this over and over until you have every heart piece collected, side quest accomplished, and upgraded every one of your items. And yes, it takes a while to do that. I still haven’t done it and I’ve been played it for 2 months now!
You gotta hand it to Nintendo, they know how to make a great game. I’ve been playing video games for about 10 years and Nintendo is my favorite franchise and developer and I don’t plan on quitting on em’ now! If you have yet to purchase this beautiful game yet, click the X at the right hand corner of your screen, go to your local video game distributor, and get this shiny gem now!
