Thanks to Nintendo finally allowing us access to Game Boy Advance games, I was able to play The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. It slaps. Hard.

For starters, the game’s art style borrows the cartoony, expressive designs from The Wind Waker and transfers them into a 2D, 32-bit game. As to be expected, it looks cute. Very cute. Link’s giant eyes, Ezlo’s squawking beak, and even Vaati’s little mage form look absolutely adorable, fitting well within the game’s smaller-scale (yet still epic) story. Naturally, thanks to the well-animated sprite work and art style, the game’s visuals have aged nicely.

The story is fascinating for lore-hungry fans, but nothing special for newcomers. Luckily, I’m a Zelda lore fanatic, so I enjoyed witnessing the early years of Hyrule after Skyward Sword, the creation of the Four Sword, and the origins of Vaati the Wind Sorcerer. It’s basic (and Zelda gets kidnapped again at the very beginning), but effective.

The Minish world is fantastic. Shrinking down and exploring areas that Link was too big to fit into is always fun and never gets old. You can find whole societies in logs, dungeons in tiny little holes, families inside walls, and a whole festival in the rafters of a café. It’s all super creative. It’s funny that this game provides an actual reason for why Link is always breaking into people’s houses and smashing their belongings: it’s because the Minish are putting materials into their stuff for the Hero to use on his quest. That’s pretty cool, and it’s weird that future games never reference this.

Vaati is an interesting villain, especially since he’s the only one in the series aside from Ganon to have a multi-game arc (unless you count Twinrova, but they’re only really important in the Oracle games). He’s clever, eccentric, has a host of cool powers, and has a personal connection to this game’s companion, Ezlo. However, he isn’t as fleshed-out as I’d like him to be, and I wish he had a bit more screentime and a deeper past.

The overworld is pretty good. Hyrule Town is a fantastic central hub with lots of side quests and buildings to explore (and cameos from the three Oracles). There are heart pieces, Kinstones, and sword techniques to collect at every turn. The Kinstones act similar to the treasure charts from The Wind Waker by revealing treasure and showing you the place to find it, which is always great because I love treasure hunting in Zelda games.

Ezlo, the companion in this game, is… fine. As a character, he’s likable due to his snarky, sugar-and-ice dynamic with Link and connection to Vaati. It helps that Ezlo himself is one of the titular Minish Caps, and controls the shrinking mechanic, making him feel like a valuable ally. However, he also interrupts more than I’d like and points out obvious solutions to puzzles (yes Ezlo, I know the door is locked, it has a giant key-shaped hole in it).

Now for the main event: the dungeons. They’re good! Much better than The Wind Waker’s, anyway. Despite being more linear, all of the dungeons are filled with clever puzzles and visual variety. As soon as the second dungeon, the game starts using the shrinking mechanic inside the dungeons as a solution to puzzles, fixing the series’ issue with neglecting the central gimmicks in dungeons. The difficulty curve is nice and smooth, culminating in the game’s best dungeon: the Palace of Winds. The Palace of Winds starts out as a linear, action-packed gauntlet filled with tough enemies and platforming. When you get the Boss Key and open the door… you realize you’re only halfway through (with Ezlo even asking how much longer this place goes on), leading to a less linear second half focused on puzzles and traversal. It’s one of the best dungeons in the series for sure.

The bosses are decent, but none are particularly hard. One of them uses the shrinking mechanic well, forcing you to destroy it from the inside. The Gyrog pair is an exciting, high-altitude fight that requires use of Link’s clones to defeat him. Vaati is a stellar final boss that requires multiple items, the Four Sword, shrinking, and some damn god timing to defeat.

My main issue with the game is how similar it is to other 2D Zelda entries, especially A Link to the Past, which diminishes its identity a bit. Likewise, while the music is great, the audio effects are… not. The “Item Get” sound when you open chests sounds particularly awful. Neither of these issues ruin the game by any means, though, especially since The Minish Cap gets a lot of mileage out of its music, mechanics, and visual style, all which help set it apart.

All in all, The Minish Cap is probably the most underrated game in the Zelda series that just oozes with pure fun. It’s well-paced, colorful, creative, adventurous, and boasts some cool dungeons. If you haven’t played it, I’d highly recommend it.

Do I even need to talk about the performance issues? Yes this game runs like doo doo, yes this game doesn't always look the best, yes there are glitches everywhere, and yes this probably should have been delayed. But does any of this ruin the overall experience? Absolutely not. Behind all of those issues is a game that has one of if not THE best story Pokemon has ever seen, an amazing and memorable cast of characters, multiple storylines which all provide unique and fun experiences, and some incredible new Pokémon. My personal favorites are probably Ceruledge, Skeledirge, and Tinkaton. Between this and Legends: Arceus, Pokemon is showing hope for the future as long as they can work past their performance issues.