Welcome to the second episode of my Retro play series. Continuing with all of yesterdays Zelda news, I finally thought it was time to start up The Minish Cap for my first time ever. This game is a Gameboy Advance game, and thus is two Nintendo handheld generations ago so I can Retro Play it. The last handheld Zelda game that I played was last year in the form of The Phantom Hourglass, so I was not expecting a game as good looking as that. But what I have played so far I have really enjoyed. Even more so is the fact that this game feels and looks a bit like A Link To the past which is great. The sprites and everything is obviously much different and more better than A Link To The Past, but it still feels like it. The controls are easy as you would expect and as an avid Zelda buff I had no trouble in starting and getting used to everything. That roll function is also really handy. Also this game does feature small vocal noises for some of the main characters. This just adds a little bit extra to this great game. Backtracking to the look of The Minish Cap, I find it quite nice with its cartoonish art style with a slight hint of the Windwaker in it. Zelda games always looked and played great with these cartoonish styles so I am happy on the graphics front. I have also seen a few characters and objects so far in my play that is reminiscent of Windwaker so that was also nice. As with most Zelda handheld titles, we always see a spin off story away from the Link/ Zelda/gannon triangle and The Minish Cap carry's on that spin-off tradition. This time it is about a powerful swordsman named Vaati who breaks the Picori Sword(Master Sword), opens a chest and unleashes monsters and also turns Princess Zelda into stone. This basically sets up the game as you go in search of the Picori to fix the sword, stop Vaati and save princess Zelda once again. For people who have not yet played this game, you are probably wondering what the title means. Basically, the Picori that I mentioned above are also called the Minish and they are a very teeny tiny race of people that live in Hyrule. Along your adventure you come across a magical hat. This hat then becomes your help hub like Navi of Ocarina of Time fame. The hat also has the power to shrink you to the same size of the Minish. Doing this opens up a new side of gameplay for the Zelda series and so far it has done quite well. Mixing it in with the gameplay and just genral adventuring. Sounds cool huh? Well it is. Anyway, enough with that. How have I done so far! So far I have just got up to the point after the second dungeon. I have had no trouble so far since I have started and the puzzles and even the two bosses have been easy. Though as a avid Zelda buff it should be. Like I stated above in that mini review, this feels a bit like a Link to the Past, but this has only made me enjoy it that much more. The same link voice used in A Link is in this too which is nice. What do the rest of you think about this game? Is it a worthy Zelda title? Comments welcome.
I preferred the look of LttP myself. Minish felt a little soulless and I lost interest about a third of the way through. It's a decent game but it just felt a bit lacking.
So you are nearly half way through the game then. There are only 4 things to collect but the third ends up sending you to 2 different places. It was a good game but far too short, collecting and combining kin stones got a bit boring after the 100th time!
LttP was more adult cartoony looking and this is more colourful cartoony looking. I really like this game so far, but it is no where as good LttP. Like I stated before, I also really like that roll funtion which was added. Yeah I read about about the length and it was said to be short. There was 5 dungeons overall which includes the final area against vaati. The length can be a problem but since I have a lot of old games to play this will not bother me, and if I still need my Zelda fix, I can always start The Spirit tracks which I have yet to even play. Speaking of those kin stones, what the hell is the point of those single Snake enemy's which have come from two kin stones so far? Do they drop something good or are they just a random bad luck thing? Also, if you have not noticed by now, these short reviews are practice for me for when I start doing them for the main site. I have not put much effort or focused into everything, but I gets me working on it which is good.