This Legend of Zelda Game From Nearly Two Decades Ago Is Almost Flawless

The Legend of Zelda benefits from its sterling legacy, with the series often heralded as one of the gold standards of the medium. Their best entries, like Ocarina of Time or Breath of the Wild, are often held up as some of the greatest games of all time. As a result, even terrific minor entries in the series can be overshadowed by the giants that launched around it.

Over twenty years later, that’s definitely how it feels with The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. Released for the Game Boy Advance in North America on January 10, 2005, the game feels like the perfect medium between the endearing art style of The Wind Waker and the tight design of A Link to the Past. Even as other entries in the franchise more than deserve their accolades, The Minish Cap is also a nearly flawless entry in the series that deserves more recognition alongside its siblings.

How The Minish Cap Refined Generations Of Zelda Games

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap is a cult classic entry in the franchise that, nearly twenty years later, still stands out for its charms and craft. Set long before the events of many games in the series, The Minish Cap expands the lore of Hyrule by introducing the Picori, a minuscule species that exists hidden from the rest of the world. The game follows a version of Link who struggles to save Princess Zelda from the machinations of the villainous Vaati with the help of Ezlo, a wise member of the Minish race who has been transformed into a sentient hat.

The Minish Cap was far from the first Legend of Zelda game designed for a mobile system, with Link’s Awakening, Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages, and Four Swords all highlighting how original Zelda’s could thrive on the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance. The Minish Cap took inspiration from all of those, as well as from the more cartoony art style of The Wind Waker. The result was that The Minish Cap could use the softer visual touches to reinforce the almost fairy tale tone of the game.

More than almost any other Legend of Zelda game, Minish Cap feels like folklore, with the focus on a race of tiny fairy-like creatures giving the entire presentation a sweet-natured tone. The gameplay feels familiar to anyone who has ever played A Link to the Past, but with new weapons, gear, and tools utilizing the advancements made in game design since then to create a richer experience. The ability to shift from the minuscule world of the Picori to the rest of the world lent the adventure a sense of scope and scale that might have otherwise been difficult to pull off in 2D. Eiji Aonuma (who oversaw development on the game as a supervisor) was very complimentary towards Capcom and their subsidiary Flagship.

Minish Cap Is Short And Sweet

Reviews for The Minish Cap were fantastic upon release, with the game winning several awards from publications like GameSpot and Nintendo Power. Critics and audiences alike were won over by the whimsical aspects of the game, reflecting the intention to create a softer Zelda story that nevertheless retained the thrills and challenges of the franchise’s other highlights. The only fault that many critics noted was the relatively short length of the title, a complaint that reinforces the way the game charmed players and left them wanting more. That sense of charm is exactly why The Minish Cap is one of the most entertaining Legend of Zelda games of the 21st century.

Even though other entries in the series have gotten better reviews, The Minish Cap takes the tight adventure gameplay of A Link to the Past and refines it — all while using the GBA’s visual capabilities to create a very charming take on Hyrule. The Minish Cap has a straightforward story that nevertheless plays into the ever-expanding lore of the franchise, adding new elements like the Picori that add to the world without needing to overcomplicate it. It’s not the most epic Legend of Zelda game or the most ambitious, and that actually works in its favor.

The thing that makes The Minish Cap so effective is the sense of charm that permeates throughout it. It’s fun and challenging without being too hard, cutesy, and colorful, but with a sense of menace still afforded to Vaati. It has some surprisingly tense moments, highlighting how the cartoonish approach doesn’t mean the narrative loses a sense of stakes.

The Minish Cap perfectly captures that sense of childhood fantasy that is the tonal bedrock of the franchise, recreating Shigeru Miyamoto’s original intent to create a game that feels like exploring a fantasy world and going on an adventure throughout it. It may be short and might be largely brushed aside in conversations about the best entries in the series, but The Minish Cap is a nearly flawless game that takes everything fun about Zelda 2D adventures and makes it more charming than anything that came before and since.