The Minish Cap

The Minish Cap is one of the few Zelda games I've never beaten and going back to revisit it quickly showed me why.  My gripes started mounting almost immediately and I had enough of the game by the time I hit the end of the first dungeon.

First of all, the controls just don't feel responsive or tight.  Link to the Past and the Oracle games both control so much better than Minish Cap and I don't know why.  They've already had great controls in the past, why did they mess them up this time around?  Not to mention that a bunch of interactions that are on the A button in every other Zelda game are mapped to the right trigger in this one.  It just feels like I'm constantly fighting the controls when I play.

And then once you hit the overworld it feels small yet boring at the same time.  The content density that is in most Zelda games is severely lacking.  Traversing from point A to the point B always feels boring.

Although the environments look pretty good the way they do the pixelization on the characters themselves just look gross.  It's ugly in motion.  I don't think I can level that accusation at any other game in the series.

Did I mention how much text and talking there is in this game?  It doesn't ever let you just do something.  It has to stop and tell you why you should do it, the history of doing it, and how to do it.  Even in dungeons you can't escape the constant tutorials from your own hat.

I just can't even express how disappointed I am in this game.  I guess the shrinking mechanic is kind of cool.  Beyond that there isn't much to redeem it.

At least it's still not as utterly horrible as Zelda II:

1. A Link to the Past (1991) 
2.  The Wind Waker (2002)
3.  Oracle of Seasons (2001)
4.  Oracle of Ages (2001)
5.  Majora's Mask (2000)
6.  Ocarina of Time (1998)
7.  The Legend of Zelda (1987)
8.  Link's Awakening (1993)
9.  The Minish Cap (2004)
10.  Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1988)