We're used to donning our finest party hats when a big birthday rolls around here at Nintendo Life, but today's celebration calls for a special piece of talking headwear. No cardboard cone will suffice today. We need something green, something intrusive, something with the spirit of an acclaimed mage trapped inside it... and with a beak on the end.
Only with such a fantastic accessory atop our dome can we properly celebrate this one, because it has somehow been a whopping 20 years since The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap launched in Japan. While we search through our copious hatboxes to try and find such a headpiece, let's lay down the facts.
The Minish Cap arrived in Japan on 4th November 2004 on Game Boy Advance (it would land in Europe the following week and in North America two months later). This was Capcom and Flagship's third foray into the Zelda series, after the Oracle games three years prior and the extra Four Swords multiplayer stuff in between, and the last time that Hidemaro Fujibayashi would direct a Zelda title not under the Nintendo banner.
Here's another fact: it's weird. Not quite 'Link turns into a wolf' or 'a giant smiling moon plummets to Earth' weird, but probably a close third. It's a game where Link finds an annoying talking bird hat in the forest, puts it on his head, and then lets it coerce him into a tree stump where he magically shrinks to the size of an acorn. It's the game where you summersault out of magic holes in the ground, become part of an underground model-making scheme and try to match up correspondingly shaped colourful pebbles with everyone you meet. It's even got Tingle in it.
Yet, despite all of this, it's brilliant. On any given day, you'll find it at the very top of this writer's 'Favourite Zelda Games' list (yes, really) and, with Virtual Console renditions popping up on the 3DS and Wii U, and the game being on the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service, we'd imagine a fair few of you are well-acquainted with it enough to be more than a little fond of it too.
The gorgeous pixel art maintained the controversial 'Toon Link' visuals from The Wind Waker, but pushed them into a much more palatable top-down style. The soundtrack is made up of banger after banger from composer Mitsuhiko Takano and, with only six dungeons to its name, it's one of the series' tighter experiences.
Sure, it has its frustrating points — Korok Seeds have got nothing on keeping track of your Kinstones — but it remains super accessible today, and certainly isn't in desperate need of a remaster. That said, we can't imagine we'd say no if one were offered...
Where does The Minish Cap sit on your list of favourite Zelda games? Let us know in the following poll and then take to the comments to share your thoughts on Link's smallest adventure.