Gaming The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]I picked this game up Wednesday, as soon as the local GameStop got it in, and have had three play sessions with it so far. And wow. ... I love this game. It's no A Link to the Past, and I won't know how well it stacks up to Four Swords Adventures until I play all the way through it once or twice, but still, wow. The Minish Cap has lived up to pretty much all my expectations and more.

One of the biggest ways in which The Minish Cap has impressed me is with its puzzles. Not so much the puzzles in the dungeons, really, but the puzzles outside of the dungeons. They remind me of the kinds of puzzles you find in the old point and click PC adventure games, which I always enjoyed. That is, you're told what your objective is -- the dungeons are even marked on the map -- but figuring out how to accomplish it is left up to you. The game doesn't hold your hand and walk you to the next dungeon, telling you exactly where to go and what to do next.

A good example is when you're trying to get to the third dungeon: [spoiler]You can get to the Castor Wilds, a swampy area, but when you try to walk across any of the marsh water, you sink. This effectively traps you at the entrance to the area, and at this point, Ezlo observes that you need to be able to run faster in order to make it across. Of course, if you're at all familiar with the Zelda series you know that means you need the Pegasus Boots, but the game doesn't come right out and tell you where to get them. It actually makes you think a bit, before you realize there's a shoe shop in Hyrule Town; the perfect place to start your search for a pair of Pegasus Boots.[/spoiler]

Inside the dungeons is also pretty good, though. Nothing has especially impressed me yet, but all of the dungeons have been fun so far. (I've beaten the first three, and I just got into the fourth before stopping to write this post.) They haven't quite been up to the brilliance that are A Link to the Past's dungeons, but those are hard to top. They have, however, been getting progressively more complex, so we'll see what the later ones are like. I have high hopes for the fourth one. I only looked around the first room a bit, but ice dungeons are always fun.

The one thing I'm a bit disappointed in are the bosses. Like Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker, The Minish Cap seems to have gotten stuck in the rut of, "stun the boss with a secondary item, then use your sword while it can't move." Each of the first three bosses follow this pattern, and I'm betting all or most of the others will too. And as such, the bosses so far haven't even compared to the constant action of A Link to the Past's. They're okay, but not exactly hard or especially fun. The high points of the dungeons has been playing with the new items, rather than the bosses.

Also, most normal enemies seem a tad weak, which makes the game pretty easy. I've only found myself low on hearts twice, and one time was only because I got stuck on top of an enemy for a couple seconds. The number of enemies, both inside and outside dungeons, is good, but they're all easy to beat. Part of this is due to an annoying little thing where most enemies pause for about half a second whenever they get hit, so if you hit them once, chances are you'll be able to wail on them with your sword while they just sit there and take it. This especially cripples Darknuts, since you don't even have to damage them for the little pause to take effect; simply hitting their shield does it, which can give you enough time to walk up beside and hit their unprotected side with your sword.

So the puzzles have been absolutely wonderful, but the combat has been a bit lacking. Overall, though, I'm extremely happy with the game, and I can't wait to play it more.[/color]

[2010DigitalBoy]

I agree about the puzzles. My favorite thing about this game is that they dont focus on combat, just puzzles. The main thing that impresses me the most is the insane amount of extras. All that kinstone fusing and minish shrinking and fun stuff. I like this game a lot more than A link to the Past because in that game, I always died when I tried to beat the dungeons. In this game Ive only died like twice.

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]Wow. Just ... wow. The Minish Cap keeps getting better. I played through the fourth dungeon, and got part way through the fifth when I stopped playing just now.

The Temple of Droplets (aka level 4) was absolutely awesome, with lots of water and ice action. A very fun place to explore, with one really great puzzle in addition to the standard fare dungeon puzzles that I just breeze through. (That's one thing about being so familiar with the Zelda series, and how things generally work in it; you usually recognize what you need to do, and how to do it, almost instantly.) The boss was annoying, however, as there didn't seem to be any real pattern to it, or any way to tell when you would be able to damage it from when it would just turn too quickly for you to get around behind it. First boss to make me use a bottle of Lon Lon Milk.

And the fifth dungeon, well. ... I don't know if people who haven't gotten as far would want me to spoil what it is, but it's been absolutely awesome so far. Reminds me a lot of the original Four Swords, though, I'll say that. I love it. Having the Magic Boomerang is a must, though; second most useful item to have in the dungeon, with the first being the required dungeon item.

I'm concerned about the game's length, however. What I feared most -- there only being four dungeons -- has turned out not to be the case, but five dungeons still isn't very many. I was really expecting a full eight, as is standard for the Zelda series, but now that all my item slots are filled up in the subscreen, it seems doubtful that they'll be able to squeeze three more in. One for a better shield maybe, but I've no idea what else they could give you from more dungeons. I'll just have to wait and see what happens after I beat the fifth one.[/color]

[b]Edit:[/b]

[color=#087B00]Right, so I just beat The Minish Cap, and the official count is in: There are [spoiler]6[/spoiler] dungeons total in the game. Not the eight I was hoping for, but not the four I feared, either. And what with all the out-of-dungeon puzzles and sidequest stuff, the game still manages to be pretty long, so I'm satisfied. I still wish there'd been the full eight, though, as you really get way too many items in random caves and whatnot, such as the bow & arrows -- that seriously made me go "WTF?" when I found them.

Despite having beaten the game, however, I still have a good amount of stuff left to do. Unlike most games, I just went ahead and beat the game before getting everything, because I really couldn't tell for sure whether or not that last dungeon was the final one. The game had thrown my a similar curve before, and I had just done a tone of sidequest stuff, so I went ahead and beat it. And it turned out to actually be the final one.

The end boss was a very pleasant surprise. Not only was it a good, long fight with lots of variety, but it was also fairly difficult. I actually had to use two Blue Potions and one Red Potion during the course of the fight (though if I had realized I could use my sword during one stage, one of the Blue Potions wouldn't have been necessary), which is two more than any other fight. Still no deaths (yay for 000 completions), but I really had to stay on my toes for most of the fight. It was lots of fun.

As always with Zelda games, the ending was just sort of "meh," but really, does anyone expect cool endings from the series anymore? It wrapped things up nicely. ... Except for one thing, which it left open. You see, in the original Four Swords, Vaati is sealed away by the Four Sword until he manages to break free at the start of the game. But at the end of The Minish Cap, no such sealing occurs. Methinks they may be planning yet another Four Swords prequel, or at least leaving an opening for one.[/color]