The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Game Boy Advance)
Developed by: Capcom
Published by: Nintendo

As Cate Blanchett said in the Lord of the Rings, “Even the smallest person can make a difference” (or something to that effect). The newest Zelda game revolves around miniaturization and midgets — not real midgets mind you, although that might have been cool, but rather a mystical race of diminutive creatures called the Minish (not to be confused with the Amish) who live in tiny villages like the Smurfs and aid you in your quest.

“The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap” is the first all new Zelda game for the Game Boy Advance since the system debuted way back in 2001 (that remake of “A Link To The Past” doesn’t count), and it’s about time! What the hell took so long? I find myself conflicted because although I am anxious to jump in and cruise through this game, I also have a sneaking suspicion that this could be the last 2D Zelda game we ever see. So call me every nerdy name in the book but I’m trying to take my time and savour the experience.

The Minish Cap is a stellar game in just about every way and refines the classic 2D gameplay and level design to perfection. There was some uncertainty because the game was developed by Capcom, not directly by Nintendo, but there is no perceptable difference and certainly no lack of quality here. Besides, Capcom are not strangers to the Zelda series as they previously developed the two Game Boy Color games, “Oracle of Ages” and “Oracle of Seasons” as well as the A Link To The Past remake.

In The Minish Cap you start out in the familiar town of Hyrule, where before your very eyes young Princess Zelda gets turned to stone by an evil wizard named Vaati. In order to defeat Vaati and rescue Zelda you must repair your broken sword by retrieving crystals from 4 different elements… and in order to do that you need help from the Minish, who can only be seen by children. This conveniently explains why our young hero is the only one who can possibly take on this epic quest! Early on you meet up with a sentient hat — excuse me, cap — that will become your companion for the duration of the game. He spouts hints and advice, sarcastic comments, and allows you to shrink down to the size of the little people, an ability that is central to the game’s puzzles. After experiencing said “shrinkage” you will find yourself controlling a character that is only a few pixels wide on screen… an interesting, if not cross-eye inducing, task to say the least. Then there are other areas where Link appears normal in size but everything around him is gigantic, and this is also neat, especially when the little bugs or raindrops that were minor annoyances before suddenly become major obstacles from the new perspective. The whole shrinking gimmick has been used before in plenty of games, but never with this much thought behind it.

In general, this is what makes The Minish Cap such a solid game. Absolutely everything is well thought out, from the level designs to the items and their multitude of uses. You’ve got your standard Link items like swords, bombs and boomerangs, but then you’ve also got completely new power-ups like the Gust Jar (possibly inspired by Nintendo’s disgustingly cute Kirby and his ability to vaccuum up bad guys and shoot out blasts of air). And there’s just so much to do in the game. The world map may look small but it’s just jam-packed with stuff, and every step of the way there are puzzles to solve and new ways to use your arsenal of goodies.

I’d be lying if I said there weren’t things about this game that were very formulaic. For once it might be nice to see a Zelda game without themed dungeons, or without any dungeons at all for that matter. A completely new musical score could be more exciting than recycling songs from past games. But at the same time, sticking to the tried and true Zelda formula makes the game so intuitive and so quick to jump into that it’s hard to call it a design flaw.

The only real complaint I have relates to the controls, though even this is a limitation of the GBA, not the game. The small number of buttons on the GBA makes things a bit cumbersome; you can only have 2 items equipped at one time (including your sword), and the R button is awkward to use as an action button. It’s not a major hassle to adapt to this control scheme, but you can still expect frequent trips to the inventory screen throughout the game.

Although this a 2D game with the isometric overhead view, the visual style seems to be based on the cel-shaded 3D graphics of The Wind Waker. Maybe this is just a marketing decision to try and tie together the newest Zelda games, but they are unrelated games and as far as I know there is surprisingly no GBA link options available between them either. The game does also borrow some gameplay ideas from the Four Sword games, as you eventually obtain a sword that allows you to make copies of yourself.

As far as Zelda games go, you probably already know whether or not they’re your cup of tea. There’s puzzles to be solved, items to track down, and monsters to defeat. Still, The Minish Cap would rank up there as one of the best in my books. It pulls ideas from almost every other Zelda game, adds some new ones, and combines them for a fun and addictive play. It even has one of the most well-developed stories of any Zelda game. Aside from that, it’s one of the best games to come out for the Game Boy Advance in the last year, so if you own a GBA, don’t pass this one up. — Sean