Legend of Zelda Minish Cap

I can't believe the scores/reviews this game is receiving in Amazon. Bad graphics? Hard gameplay? not.... fun??? This does not make sense at all and I have to say.. some people just don't know how to play Legend of Zelda.

I got a copy of this game the day it was released and have been playing since then. It took me roughly 15-20 hours beating the whole game, including fusing all the kinstones, collecting all the hearts, and collecting all the figurines. First of all, Minish cap is a short and easy game compared to the other Zelda series. It normally takes me at least 30-40 gameovers to beat previous Zelda games (oracle of times/ages, link to the past) but this game took me only 3 gameovers to complete it. (Where 2 of them shouldn't have happened) The dungeons are fairly simple and short, whereas the field puzzles are quite complicated and time consuming. Monster battles didn't get easier but the one thing that lowered the game's difficulty is the amount of damage Link takes per hit. Usually in the previous games, one light hit costs Link half a heart but in Minish cap, weak hits will cost Link 1/4 a heart!

The boss battles are the weakest part of the game. They are VERY simple, having limited techinques are moves, where the player can easily catch it's moves and defeat it. While I was playing this game, I sort of missed the old Zelda days where I had to challenge to boss again and again until I finally beat it and the happiness and pride you gain from that doesn't exist in the Minish cap.

Next one is graphics. People keep saying this game has BAD graphics compared to XBOX or ps2 games.. which doesn't make any sense at all.. You can't compare XBOX and GBA people.. Maybe comparing this game to another recent release, like Kingdom Hearts, may be a better choice.

Anyways, the Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap's in game graphics have the most vibrant, colorful, and closely detailed visual features compared to ANY GBA game. When comparing his well detailed and precisely dotted graphics to other GBA games, nothing stands a chance at Minish cap. The graphics made me just smile throughout the whole game. Wonderful graphics just make me happy.

At last I want to talk about the special features in this game.. which are VERY addictive. The most well-knowned system is the Kinstone fusing system, where you find pieces of different shaped or colored kinstones and find the right person in the world to fuse it with. If you are successful to find a person(or an animal/object) who have the matching kinstone pieces, you can fuse them together and unlock treasures, new rooms, secret monsters or doors throughout the whole map. There are a total of 100 kinstones you can fuse and each one unlocks a secret. This fusing thing is really fun, because not everybody want to fuse their stones all the time. Some fuses when they WANT to, some fuse only one stone where some can fuse two, and People are scattered all over the whole map big AND small, so you would never stop moving busily around the map. Fusing IS good, because it can give so certain upgrades to your weapons such as the Magic boomerang, remote bombs or even bigger wallets.

The next cool feature is the figurine collection. You can trade off your mysterious shells for figurines. This figurines are just plain AWESOME. They are much like the 'trophies' in Super Smash Bros. Melee, giving you decriptions of characters you got while presenting a magnificent representation of that certain character. (the graphics just SHINES here. SHINES) You can get a total of 130 figurines.. and this collecting business is VERY addictive since these figurines are so darn tempting.

This is all I got to say.. Minish cap is just another GREAT Zelda game with obviously awesome graphics and improved gameplay. I would absolutely definitely recommend this game to Zelda fans, but those who don't like the puzzle solving, secret unlocking, figurine collecting, real-time monster bashing type of games should reconsider before buying.

If you've played any previous Legend Of Zelda games, particularly any of the ones found only on various incarnations of the GameBoy (Oracle Of Ages/Seasons, Link's Awakening), then you already know much of what you need to in order to grasp the dynamics of this game. I didn't even bother to read more of the manual then the story part. Because really, the gameplay is as simple as it is brilliant - use your sword and different combinations of weapons or items to solve the many puzzles, defeat the enemies, and save the world, as well as a beautiful princess. On the GameBoy, you'll know the controls if you've played the other games; and even if you haven't, they are not hard to learn.

However, this game comes with a new twist; very early on, you acquire a companion, one who enables you to shrink to miniscule size. While this doesn't sound like much at first, the way it affects you & your surroundings is fascinating. I haven't gotten far enough in the game to give a well-rounded opinion of this new ability, but so far it adds a new dimension to gameplay that is hard to even describe. The first time you shrink down and walk through a forest that dwarfs you, only to find yourself on a path where the nuts you previously hacked easily away with your sword are now hanging high over your head, is such a strange, weird experience. You'll find yourself staring around in awe, much as though you yourself were stuck in the suddenly huge world with Link.

As for the graphics that accompany this journey - flawless. The colors are vivid, everything is a cute kind of lovely, as stunning as anything the GameBoy is capable of. The looks of Link, Zelda, & even the King of Hyrule are extremely reminiscent of how they appeared in The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker (available on the Nintendo GameCube). If you enjoyed - or even just didn't mind - the graphics in that game, then this one may be as pretty to you as it is to me.

All in all, I'd say if you enjoy Legend of Zelda games, then you'll enjoy this one. (And if you've never played Zelda before, then this game is not a bad place to start; any adventure fan will probably love it, and as with all Zelda games, the difficulty increases slowly as you go along, so you aren't immediately overwhelmed and frustrated.) Though if you are as big a fan as I am of Link's quests, then you probably already went out and bought it.

Although I've played most of Zelda handheld games and 3-d ones, this one is very impressive. First off, I was really excited about this game since Christmas and when I anticipate something too much I'm usually disappointed with it in the end. Surprisingly, when I picked up this game, it was even better than I expected.

Some good:

-the graphics of the games were very crisp and colourful with sharply defined lines that makes it stand out.

-there were a lot of beautiful music geared to different settings.

-a lot of things to do: go on the main quest, which is enough to keep you busy with the shrinking and growing aspect that lets you see things from different views. Tired of going on the quest? Take a rest collecting cute figurines. If not, just talk to other people (there are amusing things that can happen) and try to fuse kinstones with them. This is one of the things I really enjoyed in the game, people seems to live their own lives and we can discover their stories.

-this may be good or bad, but I found that the bosses of the stage and dungeon were relatively easy compared to the other zelda games. This can save you some frustration but also makes the game shorter compared to the other.

-interesting way of learning new sword techniques.

-a variety of equipments to choose from

Some bad:

-as said before the bosses and monsters are easy compared to other zelda games (esp. because of less heart loss per hit), this can make the game smoother but perhaps subtract from the feel of victory at their defeat.

This game is reminiscent of past zelda games but oddly has a very new feel to it.

To the person who keeps entering 2/5 review, you're obviously an immature person with nothing else to do but creating three accounts a day to post a review, two times on Jan 17, two on Jan. 16 etc, the same type of language, and the user always have a history of no other review, come on. I'm not criticizing you because you don't like this game, everybody is entitled to their own opinions and their own likes and dislikes (that's what this review system for), but not when you try to force your opinions on other people and influencing the rating of this game by posting a gazillion of reviews that doesn't reflect what other people might think.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 110 reviews  4.4 out of 5 stars