Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap

Yeah, well, I knew this wasn't going to make me any friends.

But yeah, for the record, I didn't mean it was overrated. That's not what I was trying to say.

I don't think so. I think I've spoken to everyone in the village at least three times.

I don't remember that one. It's been a while since I played through this.

Don't worry, you're free to have your opinions. It was just the fact that you revived the oldest thread about this game. For the 3DS, no less.

About the puzzle, actually, it does. Right next to that seed you can see grown seeds surrounded by water, and to the other side, a cave, where a character tells you a friend of his has an item you will need. The item? A bottle.

Anyway, you should probably let your nephew make out his own impressions on the game. He may actually like it, but if you don't want to give him the chance to play you'll never know.

Please tone it down.

He wants the game for a little kid. Not for himself.

I say the kid will have no problems playing it on his own, but well, it's not up to us.

Well I'm not going to ride this to a lock. I've posted my impression of the game, in the most appropriate thread I could find with search. As I say I'm not going to belabor the point; to me it's self-evident. That's basically all I can really say on the subject. It's there for the record and I'm not going to push this any further.

I'm trying as hard as a can to prove myself wrong and it seems I might have been too harsh.

I'm kind of zipping through it (I've got two of the four elements and have the white sword) but I'm not sure if that's because I've already played through it once (some time ago now) and/or am familiar with the formula.

The Town's still locked up and the buildings impassible, and no one's wanted to trade Kinstones yet. I am walking in circles again now. I'm going to take another look at it later tonight to try and identify what it is I've got to do to advance my progress. I want to take another look at the complexity of the later dungeons.

But yeah...doing my best to prove myself wrong and it does seem I might have been too harsh. But having said that the only indication of what I'm supposed to do next is the element icons on the map and I'm just walking in circles trying to find a route to one of them...need to make a more thorough pass and will do so later.

Hoping that if I have to post to this thread again it'll be to post an apology, but I can't help but feel that it's kind like an open world game where no one will co-operate with you and everything is withheld.

I mean seriously...would it have killed Ezlo (the Minish cap) on my eighth pass to have said something like "Why don't you scoop up some water with your bottle and water that plant over there link" ?

The correct path is usually as simple as "use the new item to open a new way".

I suppose your newest item might be the cane of pacci, right? Have you tried using it on the large pots around town?

@Meowpheel Yeah, I've turned a few of them upside down but it was late so I have to do another pass and see if I can find the path forward. Providing the later dungeons don't get too complex (e.g. Ghost Babel levels of complexity) or too sneaky (as per the weird optical-illusion looking fort in (I think it was Occorina?)) I probably will give the cartridge to my Nephew but almost certainly along with a strategy guide.

I had eBay stuff to get done today so I've not been able to spend any more time with it today but I'm hoping to have played through it again by sometime this weekend.

I must admit it's not as bad as I remember it being, although at this point I've already played through it once and I know the Zelda formula pretty well now and have pretty much developed a quite systematic approach (and I've been pretty thorough. For instance I found a pot on the mountain map right next to a door that gives a guaranteed twenty rupees every time you smash it (as long as it wasn't just a temporary glitch)).

To be honest I don't think there's any way I'd give Minish Cap to my nephew without a strategy guide but with a guide, I think it'd be okay, as long as the later dungeons aren't super-complex, but I'm going to play through it and take a look at them to see how difficult they get.

Save your money on the strategy guide, this game never gets more complex than that. And there's always Ezlo telling you what to do next.

Young kids are actually very smart and receptive to this kind of game. And beating the game without a book telling him what to do may be very rewarding for your nephew. It may take him some time, but well, the games we have the fondest memories of are those we played for hours and hours as kids.

Of course, help if he says he needs help, but only then.

For example, in my personal case, I played tons of Pokemon Blue and Zelda Ocarina of Time as a kid (around 8 years old), I was terrible at it and I couldn't understand a single word (english is not my first language), but that was part of the fun, I think. Now as an adult, I have way less patience.

@Meowpheel I guess so, I'm just worried that I'm going to be setting him up for failure and frustration. I don't want him to loose confidence in himself because of the old style of game design.

Maybe it would be different for him, but there's just something about the old Zelda formula that just doesn't click with me.

For example, the guy who teaches you about kinstone fusions says "Anyone who's ready and willing to fuse Kinstones will look like I do right now." while there's a heart in a thought bubble over his had...he goes on to say that "When you see that look in their eyes that's when you press [the left shoulder button]"...

...so I've been walking around waiting for someone to produce a thought bubble containing a heart but all they seem to be thinking of is rupees and blue-pots. I guess I had bad luck with the probabilities (assuming the thought bubble icon generation is true random) because I must have seen a ton of thought bubbles and not one of them contained a heart. I was going to look up what those other symbols meant but quite frankly just assumed they were red herrings.

Also, I ended up checking a walkthrough because I was going around in circles and the way forward was down a ladder where you get the bottle earlier in the game. I'd totally forgotten there was a branching path down that ladder. Every time I passed it I just thought it was part of an earlier puzzle I'd already completed and was effectively a dead end...I thought I had to find an item for moving the boulders into the holes from the near side in order to progress and I had no idea where to even start looking for it.

I was thinking it was just psychosociological factors that made Zelda fans Zelda fans but I guess I can't rule out the possibility that it might just be that I just don't grok with it. To me it really does just feels like a game series constructed primarily from easter eggs...

...basically, for me, Zelda prior to Windwaker is walking around in circles for frustrating hours on end with no progress. Where I'm concerned (and I guess people who think like I think) Navi may as well have just been repeatedly saying "Call the Nintendo Hotline link". I mean, what can I say? I just don't get the early Zelda formula...

...I kind of agree with many of the sentiments in this review, with regards the basic early Zelda formula (time-indexed hyperlink) https://youtu.be/XY4vTYmnvoM?t=137

The contents of the thought bubble are irrelevant, all the bubbles mean "I want to fuse".

The icon usually hints at what the prize will involve.

Anyway, this particular game is actually quite child friendy (in terms of puzzles), and came out well after Wind Waker. So don't worry, it'll be ok.

Of course, if you want to scare him for life, give him Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

@Meowpheel I guess but to be honest at this point I think I'm done with it. I just moved my progress forward and just immediately hit another wall. I spend 90% of my time in classic zelda games walking in circles for want of someone to tell me where to go and what to do next...I'm really pretty much done with it at this point. I think it's just going to go back on eBay...I'll pick up a copy of Phantom Hourglass at some point that he can play on his Mum's DS. But thanks for the help/advice, it's appreciated.

Oh believe me, this one is a lot easier to play. I like PH, but playing only with the stylus is very tiring.

And that one has one puzzle you will really hate, like, that's really an easter egg disguised as a mandatory puzzle. I'll just go ahead and tell you the solution: To pass a stamp from one map to your sea chart, you need to physically close your system.

Other than that, it's good.

Anyway, that's unfortunate. If I could take it from you I would, but well, money. At least it's on my 3DS.

@Meowpheel To be honest I love Phantom Hourglass. I just recently completed my third play-through. It was a bit of a chore grinding out the Golden Ship parts since I think the game was designed to encourage item swapping via Wi-fi, so it's not easy to solo the ship-part collection.

But yeah, I got all of the golden ship parts through sheer effort and (pretty sure I) only saw one Meager Cannon ship part in all of that time. I had more Seapony Canons appear than I could count and only got the Meager Cannon after finishing the game.

But yeah, that puzzle you posted about above had me totally stumped, and you're right, I hated it...I had to check a walk-through for the solution. Like Luigi's Mansion dark moon and the tilt functionality...so frustrating.

Another one that I just wish wasn't in Phantom Hourglass involves an, ostensibly, unmarked section of wall to be breached with a bomb. It kind of felt like classic Zelda just out of the blue and totally unexpected and basically sent me back to the Walk-through. But apart from that I found it pretty frustration free. Finding all of the soul gems is a bit too far into completionist territory for my taste but it wasn't really necessary to finishing the game so I guess that's just a minor quibble.

Don't worry about the cartridge, it's kind of you to suggest that but I'll get around to just sticking it back on eBay at some point in the future, and I'm guessing it should hold its value in the meantime.

Okay, so...I bit the bullet and bought a strategy guide for Minish Cap so that I could gift it to my Nephew along with the cartridge...so yes, he's getting the Minish Cap cartridge that I'm just now playing through again.

...I know, but he doesn't have internet access and I think he could really appreciate it if he had a walkthrough to aid his progress (also the selection of games I've got for him (I think) are more than the sum of their parts and it would probably suffer without a Zelda title...so yeah: got to do a little more eBay this month).