Please support Game Informer. Print magazine subscriptions are less than $2 per issue
Zelda 25th Anniversary: Remembering The Minish Cap
The Game Boy Advance was a renaissance of the glory days of 16-bit gaming in a lot of ways, but few of the system’s games approached the brilliance of Minish Cap. This wasn’t a simple port or reworking of a classic game or formula. Capcom’s last Zelda game was a joyous exploration of why we loved the Super Nintendo era in the first place.
You’ll never hear me say a bad word about A Link To The Past, and I would have gobbled up a translation of those mechanics to a new version of Hyrule with gusto. Capcom went well beyond that with Minish Cap, though, bringing a whole new set of fantastically creative ideas to the traditional top-down sword-swinging gameplay.
Just as the Dark World or the adult/child worlds in other Zelda titles played with the idea of two planes of gameplay intersecting at odd and wonderful angles, Minish Cap’s concept of shrinking down to insect size and exploring the alien world of mushrooms and treelike blades of grass is cleverly integrated into the puzzle design. The unfettered joy of digging through your toolbox to come up with a jury-rigged solution to the problem at hand, whether it’s an epic boss battle or a flooded hallway, is captured here as well as in any of Nintendo’s own classics.
I thought that I was going to have to grow up with Link after his move to polygonal 3D, but Minish Cap reminded me what it was like to be discovering the brilliance of SNES gaming when that was the big thing and Ninja Turtles were the height of popular culture. It’s a Saturday morning cartoon come to life in all the best ways, its timeless gameplay, story, and puzzles respecting the intelligence of an adult while bringing back one of the finest points in gaming history.
For more Zelda memories from the Game Informer staff, check out our Zelda feed.
[This essay first appeared in Game Informer issue #222]
I’d like to ask you to support Game Informer’s continued coverage of games with a subscription. For less than two dollars per issue, we mail you a full year of 10 print magazines, each with cover stories and preview features filled with exclusive details about the most exciting upcoming games. We profile and interview game creators. We look back on the rich history of gaming, and we celebrate what’s next.
Here on the website, we offer much of our content for free, including game reviews, daily news, videos, event coverage, and more – all with minimal ads.
We do so with a small editorial team, alongside contributing paid writers from around the world – over 65 individuals from 9 countries around the world, just in the last couple of years.
It’s not possible without support.
In a time when game makers and games coverage have faced hard struggles and layoffs, the future of this 30+ year magazine and community is at risk. Our new standalone magazine subscription is the number one way you can keep us alive – and we believe you’ll get a pretty fantastic gaming magazine in your mailbox every few weeks for your trouble.
Thank you.
