The Legend of Zelda: The
Minish Cap Review
Total Score: 7.68
Game Boy Advance
Nintendo
2005
Graphics
& Sound: I'm a stickler for this.... Old time
graphics, and music from previous games. But, I must keep
my bias to myself here. Graphically, the game is not very
different from A Link to the Past which was released about
a decade ago. There are some improvements, some more
animations, but really, it's not very original graphically.
I really like the little animations that were added in
though. Link putting his cap on, Vaati's cape and such. It
is an improvement, no doubt.
Now, at this point, I haven't played many Game Boy Advance
games, so I don't really know how good these graphics are.
But, from my known experience, I'd say they are as good as
they can be on the Game Boy. They remind me of Super
Nintendo graphics from the mid 90s. So, I know they can be
better.
The music is not up to Zelda par. In fact, it's all the
same music from previous games, spiced up a bit. There are
a few original tracks, but mostly, it's regurgitation. It's
very disappointing. However, for someone like me, the
eternal nostalgist, it's great. The original Zelda theme is
the over world theme, so it's nice to be adventuring to
that timeless track. But, they could have been more
original outside of that, and I felt they weren't.
Score: 6.75 (Graphics: 8, Sound: 5.5)
Play
Control: The game is really easy to get used to.
Especially if you have played other Zelda games before. I
really didn't have any problem getting used to the
controls. As the game progressed, and new items and
abilities were added to the game, I went along with it.
There wasn't any huge jumps in the learning curve. I felt
it was nice and steady. Every item took a little getting
used to, but it wasn't like I was struggling with the item
for very long. It was more of a 'getting used to' than a
'struggle'.
There were times in the game were I became frustrated, but
I do think it was a feature of the game, and not any
problem with it. For example, the whole splitting into
multiple Links was really cool, and could be really
annoying, but that was part of it. It was supposed to be
difficult. So, all in all, it was a well designed game.
Considering all they had to do was take A Link to the Past,
and improve on the known mistakes, the game should play
great.
I rather liked the whole Minish bit in the game. It added
to the game, and instead of having he Dark world and Light
world bit from previous games, you had, normal Link and
minish Link. So, it added another layer to the game, and it
was well done.
The Kinstones was a nifty idea, and I must say that I liked
this idea the best. I really liked the whole collecting and
fusing with people. I thought it was original, and a lot of
fun.
Score: 9.2 (Play Control: 8.9, Initial Feel: 9.5)
Challenge: This
game was, for me, very easy to beat. It took me just over a
week to finish. Now, I'm not sure if it is because I have
played Zelda before, or because the game was lacking that
third dimension (for the most part). I found it, generally,
rather easy. There were the times when there was a puzzle
that stumped me for a long time, but it was solved by the
end of the day, and I moved on. As mentioned, the addition
of being minish Link, and adding that other layer to the
game (where you can only access some locations as a tiny
miniscule version of the hero) really made it more
interesting, and caused me to really think about what I
could do in the game. I really enjoyed it, actually. Then
there were the kinstones. Another really original idea, and
a good one at that. I really liked finding the Kinstones
(there are, as I understand it, near limitless amounts of
kinstones, but a limited amount of people who you can fuse
them with (100, I think) and having to find the right
people to fuse them with. It wasn't very complicated. It
was very simplistic on it's surface, but can bloom into a
very complex system. Take the Kinstone fusing mission in
the Castor Wilds for instance, and the other kinstone
missions (especially the Goron mission).
Personally, I don't know if I'll go back to Minish Cap for
another playthrough. I will, though turn it back on now
that I'm finished and try to collect the missing 16 heart
pieces, and fuse the rest of my kinstones. But I don't
think the game is good enough to warrant a replay. It's
missing depth. Ocarina of Time, and Link to the Past had
huge depth, so much that you almost HAD to replay them to
fully appreciate what a great game you were playing. Not
the case with Minish Cap, in my opinion. Once complete, you
know what the game is capable of, and perhaps you'll want
to replay it, but I don't think it'll be replayed as it's
predecessors.
Score: 7.75 (Lasting Interest: 7.5, Difficulty: 8)
Theme &
Fun: The story was the same old Zelda story, but not
spiced up like in Ocarina of Time. Too often, I was
predicting what was going to happen. However, Minish Cap is
not all regurgitation. The story does have some merit, and
some surprises await you. Or, at least things that are not
in every Zelda game. The bottom line is, if you like the
Zelda series, the game is worth playing, just to see what
they have done. But don't expect something as original as
Wind Waker, or enthralling and original like Link to the
Past.
But with all its flaws (and they were small, but many, like
the Minish), the game was still enjoyable. I found myself
comparing it to Link's Awakening a little too often, which
was kinda unfair (though, I think I like Link's Awakening
better). My greatest disappointment was the fact that I
felt this game relied on it's predecessors too often. I
really like it when a game pays homage to it's previous
incarnations. In fact, I don't like it when there are no
references to previous incarnations, but I felt Minish Cap
did it too much that it was ignoring the fact that is was a
game unto it's own. It was not a remake, it was it's own
game, so be that: your own game.
Score: 7.0 (Story: 7, Overall Enjoyment: 7)