I've banged the Minish Cap drum so many times by this point that my adoration for Link's littlest adventure is old news. With today marking 20 years since this GBA gem landed in Europe, it felt too easy to sit down at my desk and gush over the tight six-dungeon structure, the brilliant puzzle design or the somehow still under-discussed soundtrack. I've been rambling on about these for the past two decades and a big birthday like this deserves something special.
It's obvious what we should do, really. Let's talk about the parts of the game that suuuuuck.
For many, that will set the Kinstone alarms a-ringing. This Hyrule-wide fusing quest has earned quite a reputation over the years as the key sticking point in an otherwise stick-free adventure, and sure, it has its problems. I too wish there was some way that you could log the NPCs you are still yet to fuse with and some kind of 'Fuses Remaining' counter might help things feel a little less endless. There are some out there who enjoy it, though!
But, for all its inconveniences, it has its fair share of rewards, too. I'm tired of Kinstone fusing being dragged through the mud like some kind of Korok Seed-level event when, in actuality, it's a fun little mechanic that does nothing more than give the people of Hyrule something else to talk about.
If we really want to talk about Minish Cap features that deserve a one-way ticket to the Dark Realm, then let's shift the focus to Carlov and his blasted underground gambling ring — or the Figurine Gallery, to give it its proper name.
I've played through The Minish Cap more than any other title in the series by this point, and this jolly figurine maker and his stupid little smile always rubs me up the wrong way.
Look, I know that the figurine collection is an entirely optional part of the game, and I could just pretend that it's not there. But every time that smug little grifter opens his shrub abode, I can't help but be pulled in. Like a fool. For those of you fortunate enough to have avoided Carlov and his web of lies, allow me to provide a brief refresher.
After Link infuses the Earth and Fire Elements into his blade and claims the White Sword, the Figurine Gallery opens in a bush in Hyrule Town. Inside, you meet Carlov, a master figurine maker (who made his debut in Wind Waker). He grants you one of his famed statues in return for some of the Mysterious Shells you've picked up throughout your journey.
There are 130 figurines to collect in total, each depicting an NPC, enemy or boss from the game, with an additional six to unlock once you've defeated Vaati.
Sounds neat, right? Well, I haven't got to the best part yet. Figurine Gallery sales operate through a strict gacha system and yes, you can get repeats. The more Mysterious Shells you pour into the Figure-Dispensing Machine, the higher the chance you'll redeem a new design, but once you've ticked 80/90/100 options off the list, anything lower than a 100% pull rate can start to feel like a waste of time.
Speedrunners have found the knack for it, of course, and there are some ways that you can exploit the RNG by only betting one Shell at a time to get the best value for money — The Plant Commander explains just how busted this quest is in great depth. But gosh, what a time sink! It's not even like Wind Waker's Nintendo Gallery or Tears of the Kingdom's Monster Sculptures, where the fun is in going out and snapping up the subject of each model. You just have to sit through Carlov's dialogue, place your wager, then pull the lever. Urgh.
And all that for what? A single heart piece and, eventually, a gold medal of Carlov's face? Sure, fusing all the Kinstones results in a similar reward from Tingle, but at least some of them are required to move the story along.
Don't worry, I'll be back to my 'Mazaal is the best boss in the Zelda series' foolishness for the 30th anniversary, but, for today at least, let's spare a thought for the poor child who poured all his shells into this minigame and is still recovering from landing his 24th Helmasaur... it's me, I am that child.
Do you agree that the Figurine Gallery is a Minish Cap low point, or are the Kinstones still worse for you? Let us know in the following poll and then unleash your anger in the comments below.
Comments 56
As someone who likes gacha games/mechanics, I need to say that the Figurine Gallery sucks.
Lol the Kinstones are FAR from being the worst part about this game. I don't know who thought that. They only get annoying post-Vaati, honestly.
Yes but I liked them a lot!😉 The Kinstones just disappear... The figures stay forever!
Both of these side quests are annoying. I can’t choose between them.
Like other Zelda games from this period this game has a lot of intriguing ideas but is marred a bit by half-baked or ill conceived design choices. Still a great game though.
While the figurines are the worst aspect of Minish Cap (given you need them to unlock that heart piece, plus the sound test option), it is not the worst sidequest in the series.
Getting all 64 rings in the Oracle games is arguably worse, as is the pain of getting ALL boat and train parts in the two DS Zeldas.
But the real worst damned sidequest/minigame is trying to beat the Endless Cucco challenge in A Link Between Worlds for all 999.99 seconds. You and your giant hitbox vs. thousands of RNG cuccos for 17 minutes!!!
I did it. Twice, for both normal and hero mode files. Thank the pandemic for the insane amount of free time I had to keep trying. I'm never doing THAT one again.
its an okay game....but the sprite work in this game is top tier. Props to CAPCOM for making that happen. I wonder if nintendo would allow them to develop another one that isn't minish cap 2.
The Kinstones are fun. It just sucks that you get locked out of most of them after completing a certain part of the game. You potentially screw yourself out of a lot of rewards.
I was replaying this game recently on NSO, and my wife kept asking me what I was playing, so I would respond “Minish Cap, no cap”… I guess I’m just saying that I don’t really know what ‘no cap’ means. Please help.
Ok Jim fair, but neither are great, it's like a lumpy potatoes compared to a potato.
@Notsoavid I'm told by the youths that "no cap" means "I'm not lying" so you aren't using it improperly.
@dudujencarelli the worst offender of all actually is gathering 900 KOROK seeds ... in TWO games! ... And worst reward ever... TWICE.
That is the worst sidequest I've ever seen in ANY videogame, let alone "Zelda" games.
At least the gacha mechanics in Minish gave you interesting figurines or in the DS games they gave you interesting boat parts... even the 64 rings gave you different abilities... Koroks are useless just.... F Koroks.... there's a special place in hell for Fujibayashi and Aonuma.
Ah, Minish Cap. Perhaps the most flawed Zelda game.
Missable rewards, the monotony of the figurine gallery, the difficulty of trying to get into the Goron tunnel (Until other versions added in an extra whirlwind) and only being able to build two houses for the three not-goddesses.
Still fun though.
@Yoshi3 While 900 seeds (1000 in TOTK) can certainly be exhausting, I can excuse them since they encourage the player to explore the land carefully and be mindful of anything that might look unusual. At least there's no RNG involved like the DS boat parts or the Maple/Gasha rings.
I spent several hours trying to get the heartpiece from this section. (Yes, really!!) After the 3rd hour I gave up and decided to finish the game missing one heart piece.
@dudujencarelli the thing is ... you actually explore the land quite well while getting around 300-400 koroks. 900 is just overkill, pointless, repetitive and very dull... and with no real useful reward then its just an useless slog of a sidequest. I rather keep trying at an RNG than wasting hundreds of hours looking for koroks for no real reason if I already explored 95% of the map.
@Yoshi3 I was basically with you until you wished them in hell. But my controversial take for literally years now has been that Aonuma’s design style is bad for Zelda. I wrote a letter to a Nintendo podcast before BotW was even announced arguing that Aonuma had taken the series down to many dead ends and fractured the fan base.
If someone says the figurine sidequest is not the worst in the game I know he never tried to complete it
@MSaturn you know its just an expression. Its not like I literally wish death to them............ but I completely agree that they fractured the fanbase... 100% agree.
@Yoshi3 yeah, I know. No worries, lol.
@Yoshi3 Don't get me wrong. I don't disagree. It becomes a slog after a while, and it's one of the reasons I don't plan on revisiting TOTK any time soon (the other being the insane amount of material farming and rupee grinding for maxing out every armor).
But I still prefer that over saving/reloading the same file hoping for a different prize/outcome, because at least you're the one doing the exploration and not relying on some random algorithm.
But as I said, to me the worst one was 17 minutes dodging cuccos because it did award a special prize that actually appears during the game's end credits. For a minigame that was supposedly "endless", I was shocked there was an ending.
@dudujencarelli tbh I have memories of completing that one too and it was hard as hell ... at least fun for a few minutes... but yeah 17 minutes was overkill too. If they wanted to do it a challenge just with 5 minutes with quicker cuccos would have sufficed.
@Yoshi3 One thing I loved about Echoes of Wisdom was that it wasn't a 300 hour game. I completed 100% of it, and I certainly plan on replaying that before touching TOTK again.
Games don't need to be insanely long, and I think a lot of people disparage shorter games, maybe because some believe 60 dollars is a long-term investment somehow. But to me, I can spend that money on something brief, if it's that good and worth replaying.
this was one of my favorite quests as a kid, just mowing down the moblins and grass in the west side of hyrule and pumping the machine in the hopes of seeing new enemies and descriptions
I consider myself lucky in that I don't feel a strong pull from such bonus content. I understand why some are compelled to do everything in a game. I do feel it too, but it's not a strong feeling for me. I've long ago approached Zelda games with the mindset of only doing side quests that aren't ridiculous and sticking with the main quest as much as possible. It may be because I always had a strong preference for straightforward arcade-like design. I have only vague memories of this figurine section, but that's because once I realized what a slog it would be, I simply didn't bother. I have reminded myself that optional bits are optional. I have absolutely no problem with finishing a Zelda game with missing hearts.
@dudujencarelli I'm in the same road as you. I completely agree. I'd rather have 10 different experiences with games than one repetitive 300 hour game which I will never touch again.
The other shorter Zeldas are classics and I revisit all of them from time to time... I will never touch BOTW and TOTK again though. Their time in my life was fulfilled and they will fall into the void of my memories while the other ones will live rent free in my mind, and their usual "replaythroughs".
Also, I think the best "collecting" sidequest in any Zelda game are the figurines in Wind Waker. Taking photos of each enemy was fun and it was awesome earning 3D figurines of every boss/enemy/character in the game. That one should really come back again someday.
@sdelfin I have a different take on that. I've always taught myself to grab every optional heart/item/upgrade in a Zelda game because that's the lesson I was taught in the original NES game. If you didn't grab the optional hearts, you couldn't even grab the Magical Sword, and in 1986/87 that game could be punishingly hard if you didn't grab everything. Zelda games have gotten easier over time, but I've kept that mindset.
@Notsoavid "Cap" means you're lying through your teeth. "No cap" means you're being honest.
I remember the kinstones, but I don't think I ever bothered with this so called figurine gallery, as I have literally no memory of it. I tend to ignore side quests that don't appeal to me in most games.
I always leave that jerk in the dust, he can keep his figurines. Save for the early games, all Zelda titles have that one thing that seems to have been specifically built by some joker just to see how many silly players suffer through it. I know them when I see them and I always proudly shut the game off without whatever paltry reward that figurative cactus patch doles out.
I 100%'ed it after the game launched. It wasn't a difficult sidequest. Just bet 100% to guarantee that you'll get a new one each time.
Rupees are easy to mine and there's a great spot not far from the village at I believe Link's house. Dig just outside his window will net you something like 50 or 100 rupees each time (It's been 20 years now, so I don't recall the specifics).
This was the first Zelda game I 100%d, which, given how tedious this quest is, says a lot about how much I loved the rest of the game. It helped that I was a child with nothing better to do, but still.
I would actually say it's the Mirror Shield, since it exists at the perfect intersection of time-consuming and pointless since you can't even do it until you beat the game, though that's kind of a sub category of the Kinstones.
Also shout out to the permanently missable Light Arrows.
Played this for the first time on NSO,
and found the game poorly designed overall,
don't get what others are seeing.
I can only imagine the pain Nathaniel Bandy will go through if he decides to %100 marathon the top down Zeldas.
@JimNorman
@Yoshi3
I don't really get the "hate" for the korok seeds.
I do not think the point of there beeing 900 korok seeds in Breath of the wild and 1000 in Tears of the kingdom is that the average player should try to get them all, I think it's for two other reasons:
1. So it will not be too hard getting a good amount of them for upgrades in the game.
(Let's say there were only 90 and 100 korok seeds in these games, then it would be even harder to find half of them. Well unless they put them in some very easy spots, but this would go against reason number 2.)
2. To make the wast world less empty and more interesting to explore.
But of course if one have a strong urge or compulsion to 100% the game I can see the korok seeds beeing a "problem".
I recently played it for the first time on NSO and I thought it was an excellent game with wonderful dungeons, a spectacular final boss fight, some ocassionally opaque signposting — and terrible sidequests. Luckily, I have no compulsion to 100% games. But the sidequests — and their related items — remain obviously and inescapably there, which means they're still visual or gameplay "noise" cluttering the game space. And ignoring this noise is still a cognitive load. So, sure, I didn't drag myself through these sidequests, but I still had to contend with them, to a degree.
@batmanbud2 this makes SO much sense in retrospect, thank you!
@Lofoten but as I said... I did explore 95% of the map and felt like I found Koroks at every corner ... and got 300-400 ... and you only need a handful of those to unlock all the slots. So there's really no need to have 900-1000 koroks.
I understand what you're saying and the mentality behind the design..... however... its just not good design.
They could have used many of those "spots" to put more interesting collectibles or anything else.
Lets say, for example, GTA ... even with their gigantic worlds you don't ever need to find 900 of anything to make them "easier to find". And whatever sidequest or collecta-thon feels compelling.
This sidequest just bloats the games and makes people never want to return to them, as they are time-consuming and dull.
They are fun and creative the first 100-200 times .... after that its all downhill for that sidequest.
They only exist to ARTIFICIALLY make the games longer ... and that's a sin in any videogame.
I didn't even remember that sidequest. Nothing tops the Kinstones for me, they had all my attention (and hate).
Great game overall, but that specific feature, that's sooo important, makes it less enjoyable than other top down Zeldas. A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, A Link Between Worlds and Echoes of Wisdom are better games. However, this one is very good too, give it a shot if you haven't!
@Yoshi3 That's because you have a problem with this kind of things, not because the game has a bad design. In my opinion, the fact that there are many kore koroks than you need is simply GREAT. It's the best they could do, as I don't like exploring every corner of the map to see what there is in there. It's a HUGE map.
I was so glad when I saw it was the same in TOTK...
@obijuankanoobie haha nice. Thanks.
@the_beaver but you decided to ignore the GTA comparison/example.
Why can GTA do it so right and BOTW/TOTK so wrong?
And its not just my problem as I looove collecting things in videogames. GTA never feels dull. Hell, even Xenoblade X gave you other ways to incentivize you to explore the world (and the world is way bigger than TOTK), not just dull "collect 900-1000 of these things".
Tbh, any other open-world game does this better than the new "Zeldas"
I'm definitely on the side of, "The Korok seeds are not good." Even if you're just doing them as you stumble across them there's constant repetition among them and having to go out of your way to go take them to an NPC to actually use them is just pointlessly tedious. If they had more variety in the tasks and you could just use them for the upgrades yourself they'd be a lot more tolerable.
I liked both of them and if I ever get back to my series playthrough I'll 100% them again. I'm much more bothered by the European version missing an upgrade and one of the fusions being bugged.
Eh, I've completed this minigame 3-4 times in my life and it really isn't THAT bad. Plus, you unlock the sound test along with the heart piece and gold Carlov face, so it's well worth doing. I'd take it over collecting 1000 korok seeds without a guide any day.
I've done it twice. Both playthroughs I got the glitch that makes you unable to 100% the game. So...I will have to do it again one day if I want to do just that.
Pain.
Personally I find that a Kinstone-like system would be ideal in an open world Zelda title; it would easily facilitate elements of the world changing piece by piece either for narrative or simple sidequest reasons. As long as any changes can be seamlessly tracked of course.
I never even try to 100% games. I enjoy this side quest until the game is done and then I move on. I find the required side quests much worse. The first time I played Link's Awakening, I missed a trade and it halted the whole game.
Personally I like both.
The worst one for me is the shield upgrade because you have to bear the game once first
For me it's the old man that you need to save by sucking up a ghost. You can permanently miss that and be locked out of completing the game 100% unless you know about it in advance and are extremely careful not to progress th story too far.
For me it get's to feel like a slog around that mountain area. Don't know why but I've got three save files that climbed and concured the mines...and then I just stop at whatever wretched sidetravking follows... A shame, because I know that's the good part!
Never even attempted the figurines... I'm still getting trophies in Melee!! 😱🤣🤣
@LXP8
Nope, it's not the arrows, it's one of the bomb bag upgrades that's unavailable in the EU version for some reason.
i think kinstones are great and serve the overall gamedesign in a great way.
My favourite 2d Zelda, its just magical, but that figurine gallery sucks. I have never and will never 100% this game due to it
Nah, between these two - the permanently missable stuff followed by the Mirror Shield after beating the game are the actual worst - I'd say the Kinstones are worse just because there's inevitably RNG involved as much as I otherwise love them while in the figurines' case you can remove it by paying more shells (of course you don't want to do that until the starting rates are low).
i think zelda minish cap is the best zelda game on handheld but figurie gallery eww so bad
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