The Minish Cap is a subtle case of flash over substance. Subtle, since just looking at it you wouldn't necessarily think it's particularly flashy. But as you start to pick apart why elements aren't as interesting as they sound, it starts to make sense. The front-of-the-box selling point of being able explore the world as both regular sized Link, and shrunk-down fairy sized Link is probably the best example of this. The game essentially executes it in two modes: exploring the same map with a tiny sprite (thus being able to fit in places you couldn't before, but also making things like roads and steps into obstructions) and zoomed-in maps that play the same as normal. The latter allows for cool aesthetics of seeing the world from a different angle, but doesn't actually contribute much as a mechanic. You can see this as they have to go out of their way with screen-obscuring giant grass leaves and the like to even be able to sell the concept.
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| There are more ways to spend money than most Zeldas of this vintage, but you're still going to be wasting hundreds of rupees. |
The cases where you explore the same map with a different size are slightly more successful at being a mechanic, particular in town where you slowly unlock the capacity to reach areas while small that you've had access to the entire time as big Link. It's a slightly neat feeling of "oh that's what was in here". But it pretty much exists solely as a traversal mechanic, and only allows changing size at specific points (and doesn't even let you use any items other than your sword). The end result is that really cool ideas like stunning a boss as big Link, shrinking down to little Link, and going inside the boss to beat up its brain is purely spectacle- there's no puzzle since the size switcher makes it a foregone conclusion, and there's no mechanical riff since both sizes play the same. It's entirely reliant on flashy aesthetics selling the shrinking, rather than the mechanics. Even the developers kind of knew as much, as it basically disappears for the last two dungeons of the game.
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| Cucco abuser not so tough since being shrunk. |
One of the other things that exhibits this is the Kinstone sidequest system. Essentially: collect stones through various means (treasure, drops, buying them, etc), match them up with NPCs, and then see something new appear in the overworld. On paper this is a really slick idea of creating a constantly-evolving overworld to explore. In reality, it's a heck of a lot of backtracking to unlock typical minor Zelda treasure caves, and cursing that it turns out an NPC requires checking them multiple times to exhaust their stones, or having to triple check that some jerk doesn't suddenly have a new stone. In the system's defense, it also harbors a larger quantity of major upgrades than most side Zelda activities: turn your bombs into remote detonators, numerous bomb/arrow capacity upgrades that you don't really need, new sword techniques that you don't really need, shield and boomerang upgrades that you don't really need, etc. You can definitely see the groundwork for Skyward Sword's upgrade system (and thus Breath of the Wild's actual upgrade system) getting laid here with Capcom's staff bothering to consider putting real rewards in a Zelda game, even though it's buried in so many rupee rewards and backtracking that you don't really appreciate it. In other words, progressing by changing the overworld is flashily exciting with regrowing trees and restoring houses to get major optional upgrades, but doesn't actually come together in the end.
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| This boss battle where you jump between two flying monsters is also flashy, but legit cool. Also note that I was maxed out on rupees again. |
Putting that aside, the brass tacks Zelda of it isn't half bad. It doesn't fall into the Twilight Princess hole of kind of just using one item everywhere in a dungeon, it's generally decent at giving every item some love, or giving you 3 new items for a single dungeon and having you use all of them. While some dungeons are pretty rote, other ones do clever things like just shoving the dungeon item behind a wall or having you use an old item in a new way you hadn't considered several dungeons later. It does sometimes fall into the trap of having you use an item in the one extremely obvious way you use that item everywhere just to make you use it, but it isn't too bad with it. I'm not as big a fan of the overworld since it falls into mostly being used as dungeons-between-dungeons (in order to give you multiple items per dungeon) rather than a place to explore. Focusing on a single constantly-evolving town throughout the plot worked well, though they don't really do anything novel with the tiny Minish living hidden in people's houses or even have them evolve with the main townspeople. Thumbs up to the gambling minigame owner who constantly warns you about the dangers of gambling.
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| The Four Swords-derived Link clone mechanic was probably my favorite new "item", though they don't come up with enough ways to use it. |
So all that griping aside, Minish Cap is perfectly OK.
Yeah, it feels borderline like a fan game with the heavy reuse of
series items (albeit with some fun twists here and there), 90% of the
characters coming from other games, 90% of the music coming from other
games, etc. Yeah, it's definitely from this vintage of Zelda where the dungeons are in a linear story order, the story doesn't actually go anywhere despite the time spent on it, items are primarily for puzzle solving instead of combat, and you can spam the heck out of the attack button rather than actually fighting (though some end game enemies do require waiting for openings or exploiting them with upgraded items, so it's at least a step above Link Between World's spammy mess. Kind of a weird attempt to mesh Link to the Past with 3d Zeldas by having gigantic enemy sprites that rely on openings rather than vulnerable points, but it doesn't work that well). But at the end of the day some of the dungeons are pretty good, some of the puzzles are slightly clever, some of the flash actually works, the fangame nature is sometimes cute (they crammed Zelda 2's downward thrust into an overhead Zelda! I never used it, but it sure was neat), and it's just good enough to scratch that Zelda itch if you've got it. So go ahead and play it, if you've got the itch and already played the rest. But uh. Don't make it your first.
