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The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap Review - GBA

When almost all hope was lost in Hyrule, the tiny Picori appeared, bringing with them a golden light and the infamous Picori Blade. The 'hero' drove out the darkness with his courage, and some wisdom. When the evil wrath was defeated, peace restored, and the sword was enshrined by the people of Hyrule. 100 years later, at the annual Picori festival, an unknown person among the town named Vaati unleashes the darkness kept hidden inside a chest in Hyrule castle, and turns Zelda to stone. With little else on his mind, Link sets off on his next great journey to rescue Zelda, and defeat the evil that sweeps Hyrule, but where's his cap?

Gameplay

If you've ever played a Zelda game before, you'll have no problem adjusting to Minish Cap. The only things you may find hard to get used to are the new environmental maneuvers and items you acquire throughout the game. Mushrooms that help you jump over water, a vacuum device that you can use to destroy almost anything in your path, and plenty more new ideas will keep you surprised and on the edge of... wherever you may be with your GBA.

The storyline follows the basic fundamental Zelda storylines with a bit of a twist, as you can now shrink down to the size of the Picori, which is about the size of a grape, or maybe even a sultana. When you've shrunk down, you can only go to certain places, as all of a sudden a small stream that you can run over when you're big turns into a huge lake and therefore you drown when you enter it. Yep, unfortunately you can't swim, however later in the game you find ways to get around that.

Ezlo becomes your newly acquainted friend, an enchanted cap that looks like a duck. He'll help you when you get lost; almost exactly the same way Navi did in Ocarina of Time. The only difference is that Ezlo knows how to shrink you. Don't worry though, Ezlo disappears when he's not in use and Link looks normal like he always has. Much like all Zelda games, as the game progresses you learn new abilities, gain new weapons, and new items. The bottles are back, and so are the fairies which always make the bosses a lot easier to beat if you have four of them to refill your health. There are different types of swords, and although you are given the sword that you use to kill the final boss at the start of the game, it is broken and you can't fix it until you need it. As you get new swords, you can visit a swordsman who will teach you new tricks. Of course the first trick you learn is the spin trick, which is infamous in all the Zelda games.

Kinstones play a large part of Zelda: (continued next page)