“A long, long time ago... when the world was on the verge of being swallowed by shadow... The tiny Picori appeared from the sky, bringing the hero of men a sword and a golden light. With wisdom and courage, the hero drove out the darkness. When peace had been restored, the people enshrined that blade with care.”

Many years have passed since then, and each year the people of Hyrule hold a festival to celebrate the vanquishing of the evil: The Picori Festival. At the festival, a sword fighting tournament is held and the winner is awarded with a special sword forged by the Master Smith of Hyrule. The winner is also granted a chance to touch the sacred Picori Blade, which is being used as a magical seal on a chest full of the defeated evil. This year's winner was a man named Vaati.

Unfortunately for the people of Hyrule, not everything was as it seemed, for Vaati was in fact a powerful wizard that wanted to steal the treasures that he thought the chest contained. Once he got close enough he quickly defeated the palace guards, and using a magical blast of energy he smashed the Picori Blade causing the evil to break free and spread throughout Hyrule. To make things worse, he also places a magical curse on Princess Zelda, turning her to stone.


It's Link!

Now it’s up to Link to find the legendary Picori -- the race of tiny people who originally forged the blade -- in order for them to repair the now shattered sword, free Princess Zelda from the curse, and save the land of Hyrule.

Graphics
With its bright crisp visuals, and distinctive style, it’s easy to see that The Legend of Zelda; The Minish Cap was very heavily influenced by not only A Link to the Past and Four Swords Adventures, but The Wind Waker as well. Utilizing the same cartoony explosions and character design as The Wind Waker and background and level design as A Link to the Past and Four Swords Adventure, you feel somewhat at home whilst playing, but at the same time it seems fresh and new.


Gorgeous details...

The new twist in the game's graphical presentation, is the size changing aspect. When you shrink, you get treated to two different views of the action. The first seems no different except for the fact that Link is tiny, and I mean TINY. So small in fact, that he’s barely a few pixels in size (yet still fully animated), but fortunately you’re aided by a marker balloon to let you know where he is. The second zooms into the action, making Link appear as a normal sized character, but his surroundings are huge. This second view utilizes the GBA’s excellent parallax scrolling abilities, which are very well done, but can present a problem in viewing where you’re going –- it’s very easy to lose sight of Link underneath leaves.

My only real gripe would be that it’s very easy to walk into an enemy that’s lurking behind a rise or building because more often than not Link can be completely covered by the scenery. This is slightly annoying, but not really that big a deal.

Sounds
The sound is a surprisingly excellent mix of the old and new, consisting of plenty of recognizable tunes from previous Zelda games including A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask and Wind Waker and some great, and extremely catchy tunes. These tunes WILL get stuck in your head –- you have been warned!


Can you see Link?

The sound effects are equally impressive as along with the usual mixture of sword clashes and “YHAAAAH!” it seems almost the entire library of character “voices” from Wind Waker has been utilized for all the sub-characters. These are all impressively clear and really add to the overall atmosphere of the game. I can’t really find much fault with the sound design. The music plays its part very well and each piece of music or sound effect coincides perfectly with what’s happening on the screen.