## 2025-01-30 Finally playing this for reals! It's one of the only Zelda games I haven't finished, outside of **Tears of the Kingdom**[^1] and **Echoes of Wisdom**[^2]. It's a very interesting game to return to, 20 years later. It feels like when it was released we were kind of getting a deluge of **Zelda** titles...because we were! From 2000 to 2007, we got: - **Majora's Mask** - **Oracle of Seasons** AND **Oracle of Ages** - **Four Swords** - **Wind Waker** - **Four Swords Adventures** - **Minish Cap** - **Twilight Princess** - **Phantom Hourglass** That's a new **Zelda** game *every* year except 2003 and 2005. That's a lot of Zelda! Comparatively we're in a drought nowadays, but it makes sense that **Minish Cap** slipped under the radar for most people, even obsessed **Zelda**-fans like me. I'm sure I would have been obsessed with this game as a kid. Now, at 30, I'm still enjoying it! It's a gorgeous game to this day, coming out late in the GBA's life-cycle and harnessing its full power. I also just love the aesthetic. It can take a bit for me to get "immersed"[^3] into a game's world when I'm so jaded nowadays, but it's hard not to be drawn in by **Minish Cap**'s cuteness. The areas you run around in as a shrunken Link are all delightful and inventive and make exploring fun. What hasn't been fun are kinstones, which is sad 'cause it's like, one of the game's main mechanics! You collect kinstones throughout the world and then connect them with various NPCs, which then give you access to extra stuff - usually areas that lead to rewards. I don't like kinstones at the moment because they basically boil down to lots of running around trying to put the pieces together, then backtracking to an area to get the reward. There's no way to keep track of which kinstones you haven't completed yet - at least that I've seen so far - so after a few hours I've given up on it entirely, just connecting things as I run by and get lucky. I usually always do a 100% playthrough of any Zelda game I'm playing for the first time, but **Minish Cap** will probably be the exception. I also don't like that kinstones seem to have replaced most actual sidequests. Normally I'd do something to get a new wallet, but in **Minish Cap** I just happened to get it after getting good kinstone RNG. Boo! It's a shocking lack of deliberateness from a series that's usually polished to a fine sheen. Anyways besides that I'm having lots of fun. Gotten two elements for my sword so far, and I'm hoping to finish the game by the end of the weekend since I heard it's pretty short! ## 2025-02-01 I finished it! It was...fine! I would consider **Minish Cap** to be an entirely middle-of-the-road **Zelda** experience. After having played so many of these games, it doesn't really stand out to me apart from its aesthetic and the novelty of shrinking (which pretty much goes away by the end of the game more or less). That doesn't mean it's bad! A mid **Zelda** game is still better than 80% of games out there. I just kind of finished it and was like "...alright!" I doubt I'll remember it the way I do other games in the series. It doesn't help that I didn't 100% it like I do other **Zelda** games! But to be fair: **Minish Cap** didn't really encourage me to. Now that I'm done I hate kinstones even more! I did not realize how much and how often they were rewards instead of actual rewards. The basic flow seems to be that I'd open a chest, get a kinstone, run around until I found who needed it and *then* I'd get a bottle or a heart-piece or whatever. That sucks, and is not an interesting or engaging vehicle for exploration. It seems to exist to simply pad the game out, which is why I was able to finish this game in record time as far as **Zelda** games go. Making the kinstones a roadblock for basically every side-quest takes the sense of adventure out of the game, which is sad, because that sense of adventure is what I love most about **Zelda** games. But it's all good - I still loved the puzzles, the environments, the music, and the joy and whimsy that always comes with hanging out with my boy Link. Also Ezlo was a cool navigator - turning Link's hat into a character is a cute idea, and I really like their vibes in the promotional art! ![[Pasted image 20250201150910.png]] ![[The Legend of Zelda - The Minish Cap-20250201150927712.png]] With all that said, I'd give **The Minish Cap** a solid *5* out of *7*. [^1]: too damn long [^2]: I'll just get back to it when I get a Switch 2 that can run it better lmfao [^3]: A word I've come to hate tbh, I might need to write about that at some point