While everyone is too busy with the controversy about how magnificent and/or bugged Skyward Sword is, I decided to forget about it for a while and take advantage of my prestigious status of Nintendo Ambassador to play another episode of the Zelda series, one that I ended up dismissing with a loud “meh” when I played it back in the days of its original release.

I thought Minish Cap didn’t do anything new when it originally came out in 2004, but now that I’m literally starving for a good top-down action adventure, I feel I’m ready to play through all of it again with a more mature and less spoiled attitude.

The title has a very peculiar nature as, instead of setting its roots in the huge Zelda mythology, seems to draw inspiration from Mary Northon’s novel The Borrowers (if you’ve never heard of the books series, perhaps you’re familiar with the acclaimed but disappointing Studio Ghibli animated adaptation, The Secret World of Arrietty).

In fact, the whole adventure feels more like a generic anime/adventure game than an official Zelda chapter, despite featuring a huge number of cameos from other episodes of the series and the usual array of returning field themes.

But it’s not that bad, as it allowed Flagship to concentrate on brand new characters - amongst which the fascinating brand new villain Vaati, a personal favourite of mine - and mechanics.

The game flows similarly to other 2D episodes, such as A Link to the Past, but it’s hindered by a slightly invasive script and some bad “modern” game design decisions.

To put it simply, there are too much useless dialogue; it sometimes hurts the pace  of progression and gives unnecessary hints and instructions to the player. And, even worse, several points in the story require talking to specific, random NPCs in order to unlock the next location — no matter how obvious it is where you should go.

For example, I got stuck in the game for a good hour because I knew I had to go to the library in the center of the hub town, but there was an old geezer sitting in front of the door forbidding me to enter. The only way to make him step away was finding a character in a reasonably unrelated location who told me “to investigate in the library”.

These lame design choices were probably adopted to hide one of the game’s greatest limitations: the world map is definitely the smallest in any Zelda episode to date.

Despite that, the area design is still very good and the number of secrets to be found is far from disappointing. With all the content concentrated in a handful of screens, though, most discoveries are not achieved through simple exploration: their retrieval relies on gimmicks such as trigger dialogue or the terrible Kinstone trade mechanics.

Thanks to a new ability he is bestowed with at the beginning of his journey, the green-clad hero can also shrink at will, exploring his surroundings from whole new perspective.

Despite being the main feature of this episode, becoming a “minish” has an increasingly smaller role as the game progresses, and is quickly overshadowed by what turns to be the best selection and use of tools in the 2D side of the series.

Similarly to the latest 3D installments, in fact, most artefacts Link will obtain in dungeons or fields have multiple functions. Take, for instance, the Gust Jar: its basic function is sucking and then shooting air, but throughout the game you’ll also use it to sail on giant leaves, clean rooms from dust or draw in distant items. Other instruments such as the Cane of Pacci the Lantern or the Roc’s Cape add just as much flavor to the gameplay and are also very fun to use!

Minish Cap is really short. Zelda veterans can easily beat it in a couple of afternoons. Even if the game feels like some kind of impersonator rather than an official entry in the saga, it turns out to be a decent top-down action adventure.

I think I liked it a bit this time around, enough to recommend it to everyone looking for this kind of experience.

Maybe it’s the nostalgia or my undying love for 16 bit looking games. This pixelated Hyrule is precious, and so are all the creatures who inhabit it — most of which are evil anthropomorphic animals, a true return to the series’ roots!

Or maybe it’s because I got it for free.

Pic stolen from here. I know, I know, I should definitely draw some stuff myself T_T