The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (English Version)
“This game is the second title in official chronological order of events in the series”
Se você quiser ler a versão original em português, clique aqui.
Because it is a title for a portable, released in the distant year of 2004 for the nostalgic Game Boy Advance and that I played via the Wii U virtual console.
It’s funny our visual perception, at the time reading articles in magazines (I didn’t play at launch), the game was perfect, now used to mega resolutions and new generations, everything seems too serrated. But even so, the evolution of developers Capcom and Flagship (yes, this game was not developed by Nintendo directly) compared to their predecessors Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons, graphically, is an absurd leap. So we could also notice the difference between the hardware they were released on (GBA for Minish Cap and GBC for Oracle series).
But those who think that Nintendo was not behind the project are mistaken, Big N takes good care of their IPs and oversaw the entire process of creating this game.
This game is a classic zelda, which means, it follows the famous Zelda formula of being, we start with Link (Or would it be Zelda, that boy in green, hahaha), unpretentiously going to take a sword to Hyrule’s castle with her, yes, Princess Zelda (the real one). Then, already in the throne room our villain appears, a wizard named Vaati (I’ll confess, he doesn’t have the same appeal as our friend Ganon). Vaati then breaks the Picori sword, responsible for keeping evil entities sealed, frees these beings and turns Princess Zelda to stone. =(
Link confronts Vaati and is easily defeated. Knocked out by him, he regains consciousness the next day, inside the castle. So Link finds the king and his armorer, they give you the broken picori sword and ask you to go find the picori or minish so they can rebuild the sword and defeat the evil villain.
Them our hero heads to the minish forest to fulfill his mission and save the day. Once inside the forest, we found and saved our second protagonist, Ezlo, the hat. It is he who enables the main mechanics of the game, he allows our protagonist to shrink to the size of a minish and return to its normal size.
So, being able to shrink we arrived at the minish village, inside the forest. There we find out more about these tiny people and the leader shows us the way to the first temple in the game.
Oh, the temples, present in practically every game in the series (do you consider the divine beasts of BOTW temples?), after a while and many challenges we left there with the element (earth) of this place. I think it’s worth noting that the last boss of the place is a common enemy of adventure when you’re big (a Green ChuChu) but that it becomes a formidable challenge to link in in his minish form.
Upon returning to the village we find that the master armorer who will be able to reforge our sword is somewhere else, inside a volcano (which makes a lot of sense for the world of RPGs, including being replicated in several different titles, but if you think about it, it’s not particularly handy for those who want to sell their weapons/armors).
We traveled to said volcano and found the master armorer. He sends you to the next temple right there in the volcano while working on the sword. One more time and another challenge, we left there with the second element (fire). He reforges the picori sword but it’s not the same, you’ll need to infuse it with the 4 elements you get from the temples (2 already).
The sanctuary to infuse the sword with the elements is inside Hyrule Castle, with no other option to us, let’s go there. We infuse the sword and this enables a new mechanic in the game, which I particularly found no fun at all. Now you can split up to follow your journey, for now you can only create one copy of yourself, but as you go through the journey you will create three. These mechanics lead to solving challenges that are often frustrating and unintelligent and don’t add much content to the journey. It actually makes sense with the story of the Zelda legend and its chronology, as this game features the villain Vaati from the games known as four swords, yet I didn’t find it fun anyway, totally passable. The mechanics of more than one link may be restricted to four swords games.
Upon leaving the sanctuary, we find out when confronted by Vaati that Ezlo was his former mentor and that he stole an invention from him to become a powerful wizard and cursed him, turning him into a talking hat.
We then proceed to the fortress of the winds where after overcoming its challenges we are rewarded with the wind ocarina. Classic item from the franchise games and that allows us to the long-awaited fast travel in the game.
After getting the item that allows us to swim around (Weeeeee!!!!) we arrived at the third temple. More time spent and new challenges, we came out victorious with element (water).
Quick pass to infuse our weapon with the new element and we headed to the last temple, not before having to visit a cemetery and get a kinstone that would open a passage to this one. By the way, the game also has a fusion mechanic of the so-called kinstones, items found on the map and in chests, with the various inhabitants of the world. Nothing noteworthy about these mechanics.
So we reach the last temple, another time and new challenges and after defeating a flying stingray and its daughter? We left with the last element (Air) and felt ready to defeat the evil wizard Vaati.
Again quick pass to infuse our sword, now yes, remade in its majesty, ready to tear the villain.
We are then in the last dungeon of the game, in it we need to let go of all the items and mechanics presented previously in the game besides defeating powerful enemies on the way to finally find Vaati.
He is performing a ritual with the poor princess Zelda petrified, so we manage to thwart the villain’s plans to drain all the princess’s power, so he runs away.
A simple and easy fight at this point in the game, nothing that will cost you a lot of time, the use of the split mechanics is required in this fight and once again pissed me off, but you know, last boss, haha.
By defeating him, you may think the game is over, after all, we returned the statue of Princess Zelda and returned it back to flesh and bone with the power of our sword, but then Vaati comes back for another round of fighting, oh noes!!!
Some more boss phases and some use of that boring mechanic, yes, that mechanic, the split one. Is Vaati defeated forever, or not??
So, as far as we know in this game, the day was saved by our hero wearing green.
Oh, I almost forgot, the part of collecting the characters, monsters and locations of the game was something extremely tedious for me, so much so that I didn’t even finish. Good luck to you if you decide to collect them all.
Hugs to all and see you in the next text? Good game! If you liked the text, don’t forget to leave your palms.
