Minish Cap is DONE! TL;DR: This is the "Everyone is here!" of Zelda games and it's a real treat. People who played previous games would probably get a bit more out of it, but it has enough charm to hold up on it's own. Would recommend.Going to say this right off the bat, this is a solid ass Zelda game. It has some shortcomings (what doesn't) but it's still fun enough to keep you going and if you've played other Zelda games to this point in the franchise (Zelda 1 to Wind Waker) I feel like you'll get a lot more out of it. But this isn't absolutely necessary to enjoy the game, since it has enough charm to stand on it's own. Let's begin with ramble.

Story and characters aren't much to write home about, as usual, but there are some good implications for the rest of the franchise here. Introduction of Vaati begins here (timeline-wise) as well as Link's ICONIC CAP! And this is where, if you played other Zelda games, you'll get more out of this game since "EVERYONE IS HERE!" So many characters are here from all other Zelda games. Anju, Malon, Talon, the Oracles from Seasons and Ages, Snot-Nose from Wind Waker, gorons, etc. None of them really give you an impression of who they are on there own in the game, but seeing them all again is like a reunion and I welcome it. But, you don't really gain an attachment to anyone beside Ezlo (who is your talking magic cap companion in this game.) The game does introduce the Minish, a race of imps or elves or something that are very small and only children "pure of heart" can see. They live their lives hidden away and helping the people of Hyrule, since happiness seems to sustain them or give them magic. They also created a special sword called the Four Sword and helped Vaati gain his magic powers (unintentionally, but still a good way to show how powerful the Minish can be.) Minish are very cute and charming, but no one (with one exception) really stands out too much, like the rest of the characters here.

Gameplays very well. The sword feels very quick and responsive, tho it does feeling lacking in comparison to Wind Waker at this point. There are ways to make the combat more engaging by learning through sword masters (there are a few hidden through out Hyrule) but the way they gate keep the really great abilities till pretty late into the game. Also, the game suffers a bit from 2-D Zelda's item switching to just two buttons. The Game Boy Advance has four buttons you can use, but the left shoulder button is a hint system (talking to Ezlo and fusing kinstones. More on this later) and the right is dedicated to context sensitive acts (lifting, talking, grabbing, rolling). Neither one of these two can have an item assigned to them and, honestly, I didn't really need to talk to Ezlo that much. Not all the items are always useful in combat, which is disappointing after Wind Waker. Also, you sword can be upgraded after certain points in the game to allow Link to create clones of himself that parrot each input you use (minus items, since those are locked out while clones are used). After you upgrade you sword once, you first gain one clone. Eventually, you get up to 3 for a total of 4 Links on screen at once. And the game makes good use of this ability for puzzles and bosses. I especially like the boss use more, THO you do have to charge up a spin attack and move along a special tile to use the ability. And charge up time is looooooong. Too long. One of the sword masters can speed up the charge time and I would highly recommend finding at least this swordmaster. Another hangup I had was with the bow. You look in a direction and press the bow button and if you hold it, there's no way for Link to change direction and I've found myself wasting arrows a lot when an enemy juke me but simple moving upwards and to the left while I'm facing right with an arrow. You can recover by using another item, but it just never felt right to not be able to change direction.

Side quests are pretty disappointing on the whole. They introduce a collecting system with Kinstones. You can get them through chests, cutting grass randomly, purchasing (bread place gives them randomly IN THEIR BREAD. Hyrule needs a health department BADLY! Can also be bought way later one after you complete a "side quest" at a shop in town) or by defeating certain enemies. The Kinstones you recieve are only halfs of a whole. You have to go around to NPCs (mostly) and see if they have a bubble appear over their head. If you do, you press the L button and a menu pops up, showing you all the kinstones you've collected. You look at the kinstone the character has and notice it's oddly shaped. Find the half that you have that fits, select it and press a and USUALLY something appears in the overworld (a chest, an enemy, a new NPC, big beanstalk to the sky, or a new path). Some of them are kinda neat but too many net you rupees or seashells and feels lacking. There are over a hundred stones you need to fuse to gain something I imagine but it just wasn't rewarding enough to finish them all. ESPECIALLY if you got seashells, ANOTHER collectible used to gain figurines from the figurine man from Wind Waker. Also, there are certain NPCs that you can only help for a limited time. After a certain point, they're gone and you can't gain the items they would have given you. Which is really disappointing for a person that likes to collect everything in a Zelda game. Now I know, I guess. Another issue I had was not being able to see with NPCs you could fuse with at a glance. You had to walk up to each one and see if the bubble popped up. MMOs kind already solved this issue, but I will grant that with the GBA's small screen, it would be hard to solve this problem in the same way. Also, start fusing kinstones early and often.

Music is a lot of the tracks we've heard before, but on a GBA. And they sound good. the original tracks the Capcom came up with sound GREAT but for some reason, didn't sound like Nintendo in comparison. Perhaps it was just my imagination however. Was very surprised but pleased with them all.

The world is neat. I like the mechanic of shrinking down to Minish size and seeing things from a different perspective a la Honey I Shrunk The Kids. The addition of the minish gave the world a whimsy feel and the cues from Wind Waker's art helped a lot too. Tho the game doesn't really reward exploration too much until you started fusing all the Kinstones, since kinstones are where all the meaty rewards are.

Dungeons do a good job using the shrinking with the items you gain. It's just another evolution on the 2-D formula and it's just solid here. No real complaints. Capcom added another warp tile here, give you two points to warp to the beginning of the dungeon from, solving an issue I had with dungeons in Link's Awakening and the Oracle games. However, I didn't die until the last boss of the game, so I never really had a chance to run into that particular issue. My only real complaint was how the game tried to used the shrinking form for dungeon bosses (EXCEPT THE FIRST ONE! Fighting a regular sized Chu Jelly but as small as an insect was a good idea!) just broke up the action a little too much for my liking.

Overall, Minish Cap is a very solid Zelda game. And it's not made by Nintendo. Story and characters are lacking A LOT but that seems to be par for the course for 2-D Zeldas. The world itself, the art, music, and Minish gimmick are very endearing. Also, if you played the other Zelda games to this point, you would definitely get more of a kick out of the characters. Minish Cap doesn't really master anything, but it's good in so many areas that it's such an easy recommendation to many people. I can see and understand why people would say "this is my favorite Zelda game." Another surprise in my Zelda-thon run. Very happy to have finally played this game. I actually want Capcom to make another Zelda game (unless those people went to Nintendo or somewhere else. Just get this team back together to make another Zelda.) You can feel how much love this team had/has for Zelda as a whole. Well, onward to Barkerville. Twilight Princess is next for me.... yay -_-