Minish Cap Review

There's always going to be alternatives to what's most popular. The way I see it, there are three different ways to do anything worth doing. There's the popular way, i.e. Mac, Firefox, Abercrombie and Fitch, Facebook, Microsoft Word, etc. There's the less popular, sometimes better way, i.e. Windows, Google Chrome, internet, Myspace, OpenOffice, etc. And finally there's the criminally underused way, that has problems but deserves more attention than its getting, i.e. Linux, Opera, make your own damn clothes, orkut, Google Docs. I see this pattern just about everywhere, and the items in it kind of switch with the times. The Zelda series is really no stranger to this phenomenon because the only ones I ever see people talk about are Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and (my personal favorite) Wind Waker. Everyone has their favorites, but I think this way of looking at things tends to leave some very good games out in the cold.
Henry has already weighed in on Link's Awakening, which I had previously considered the best handheld Zelda, and the Oracle games for the Game Boy Color are fine games as well. The DS games are er... serviceable... I suppose... Okay those are pretty crappy. But the one game that I rarely see brought up is The Minish Cap.
Minish Cap came about near the end of Capcom's handling of the Zelda games. After bringing some fresh perspectives by way of the Oracle games as well as the Links Awakening/Four Swords remake, they settled into the Game Boy Advance and churned out this little gem, wherein Link discovers a magic hat, turns tiny, fights evil, blah, blah, blah ZELDA. What Capcom couldn't do in terms of substance (being imprisoned by the whole Zelda franchise thing), they did in style. With the move to GBA they could afford to upscale the sprites, and make them generally pretty awesome. I would go so far as to call them some of the best made sprites on the console. But, I think the reason these pretty little pixels aren't celebrated from the mountain tops are because most screens of the game look like this:

Pfft. okay, so it's a Zelda game.

But what you don't see is Marin bobbing her head to bubbly music.

D'awwwww.

The whole game is rife with neat cartoonish touches.

Well you're just gonna murder the shit out of me, aren't you?

THERE ARE TWO BEDS. WHY ARE THEY SLEEPING IN THE SAME ONE.

Sleepyhead.

Thanks to these nifty little touches (still more forthcoming), the game seems less like a paint-by-numbers action adventure. Twilight Princess felt like a checklist of Zelda tropes that wouldn't stop holding your hand, and even though Minish Cap has a far smaller world it sets you out on your colorful adventure quickly and rarely attempts to overpower gaming sensibility with half-assed plot. Capcom treated the Zelda franchise as more of a genre than a blueprint. They do some things that adhere to the rules (magical crap, dungeon items, Tingle), but twist expectations in neat ways (dungeon without magical crap, Minish dungeons, overworld puzzles). What's more is all the dungeon items are unique to this game (except for the lantern, which is admittedly kind of crappy). So the game feels less like a yearly installment, and more like something unique like Majora's Mask. Particularly of note in the visual department are the Minish areas. With the help of his magic hat, Link can shrink down to about the size of an ant and explore areas like Honey I Shrunk the Kid. The coolest moments are when you go into the rafters of town buildings and see things like huge apple cores, candles, and the room below magnified in such a way as to give a real sense of scale. It's like... It's like... Fuck it, I'll just show you. One sec...

There we go.

What's more is just the amount of character that permeates the whole thing. I'm gonna drag Twilight Princess into this thing again. Take a look at the most active page in the instruction booklet.

Well at least I get a horse... I guess...

Now check out the least active page in the Minish Cap booklet.

Oh so that's how I erase my game.

Isn't he just the cutest little adventurer? Who would you rather stare at for 8 to 10 hours? Scowly McAryan or Smiles McGumption? I know I'd pick the one with the delightful little animations any day.

Teehee.

Typically a "good" Zelda game only needs 3 things. It should be interesting stylistically, have engaging puzzles and dungeons, and it should have some neat gear. Ocarina had it, Majora's Mask had it, and Wind Waker had it. Minish Cap has it all in spades. I think I've said enough about the style, the dungeons are almost nothing but puzzles, and the gear is awesome. Just check out the mole mitts, which kind of replace the shovel:

Yes, I enjoy this more than Minecraft.

They're neat looking, fun to use, and have a variety of uses. They aren't just dumped in your inventory for one dungeon like the top in Twilight Princess. So yes, I am making the claim that a handheld iteration is superior to the latest HD console version. But that's only because the Zelda franchise has become so abstracted from its original form, yet so true to some arbitrary set of values. Zelda games are very unique, even today, but among other Zelda games, they've all sort of started to blend together. This is not really a good thing.
I will acknowledge (quite readily) that Minish Cap definitely has flaws. The kinstone thing fluctuates wildly between interesting concept to overused MacGuffin, especially when some random ones open up invaluable treasures, while others open up 50 rupee chests. Some Minish segments can also be kind of a pain. Often times you are just traversing the same field screen, except tiny, and it sucks to have to walk for almost three minutes just to find a chest filled with rupees again. But, every game in the series has its little annoyances, and when it comes down to it, Minish Cap is a very lean game. There's not much there, but it takes the quality over quantity approach and ends up surpassing even Ocarina of Time's bombastic high fantasy tale.
And it's not like any one game from the series is perfect. But Minish Cap ends up being that special combination of unappreciated and legitimately good. You can be an Ocarina of Time nostalgia-addled Windows fag, a Majora's Mask hipster Mac asshole, or you can be a real man, appreciate the cute things in life, and come on over to the dark side.

It's pretty sweet over here.

Minish Cap get's 1 hat out of 1.