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The Game

  • Accidental Innuendo:
    • The things people say to you when you offer to fuse kinstones often sounds like you're offering something else. One guy says "oh yes please", an old lady says "well ok, but let's be careful", and a couple others say they hope it fits.
    • When Zelda gets hit by a Deku Shrub on the way to the Picori Festival.
      Zelda: If only we had some way to defend against those nuts of his.
  • Annoying Video Game Helper: Ezlo's tendency to remind you of absolutely everything including the fact that closed doors are shut.
  • Awesome Bosses:
  • Awesome Levels:
    • The Cave of Flames, due to its utilization of the shrinking mechanic and Link's hilariously terrified screams while riding the mine carts.
    • The Fortress of Winds, a surprisingly open-ended and puzzling dungeon that grants access to the Digging Mitts.
    • The Palace of Winds is hailed as one of the best 2D dungeons in the series. It begins as a challenging, fast-paced gauntlet above the clouds before transitioning to a more open, exploration-based second half, all while backed by an amazing music track.
    • Dark Hyrule Castle is a fitting finale that throws every difficult enemy The Minish Cap has in its arsenal at you and forces you to utilize all of your items to reach the end.
  • Awesome Music: The game's soundtrack is fondly remembered by its fans. Has its own list.
  • Breather Boss: Especially when compared to the Big Octo, the fight against the Gyorg Pair is actually easier than it sounds.
  • Contested Sequel: Compared to the earlier Capcom-developed Oracle of Seasons & Ages, fan opinions on The Minish Cap are more divisive. While some prefer The Minish Cap for its upgraded graphics and sound as well as its variety of sidequests, others consider it a step backwards due to having only six main dungeons compared to the eight featured in both Oracle games, as well as suffering from a few of the perceived shortcomings of the post-Ocarina of Time games, such as increased handholding and an annoying helper character.
  • Cult Classic: It's one of the least talked-about entries in the franchise, but also a beloved title in its own right.
  • Demonic Spiders: The Black Knight encounters. It's only fought twice, both times in the Dark Hyrule Castle. The second fight in particular can almost be considered That One Boss, as you are timed (even if you can't see the clock), and he has two Red Darknut flunkies there too. Unlike his Red Darknut flunkies, he has a charged thrust attack that hits you through your shield (unless you have the Mirror Shield, which can only be acquired AFTER beating the game once), and it hits hard, and he also has more HP and leaves fewer openings to attack. While you do have plenty of time to beat him, you can expect to see the Non-Standard Game Over once or twice if you're not quick in besting him.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Smith, for being one of the few relatives of a Link.
  • Evil Is Cool: Vaati is at his best here, being portrayed as a genuinely cunning schemer on par with Ganondorf, having a great new design, and proving to be a fantastic Final Boss.
  • Fan Nickname: The Legolas Brothers for the various sword tutors.
  • Fans Prefer the New Her: Any and all fan art of Vaati post-2005 will be of this new design rather than his original design. Even Four Swords Misadventures uses this design for Vaati.
  • Genius Bonus: In the Japanese, French and German versions, it is possible to understand what the Minish are saying before Link eats the Jabber Nut. Their dialogue is written backwards, necessitating a reversal of either spelling or phonetics to get what they are saying.
  • It's Short, So It Sucks!: The game has been criticized for its short main quest, which consists of only six main dungeons and one Mini-Dungeon. By comparison, the earlier Oracle games (as well as their own precursor Link's Awakening) have 8 main dungeons each, with Link's Awakening having three mini-dungeons, Seasons having two, and Ages having four.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Vaati the Wind Sorcerer was once a normal Minish boy and Ezlo's apprentice, before stealing his master's wishing cap and transforming into a human mage. Seeking the legendary Light Force to achieve godhood, Vaati tracks its key, the Picori Blade, to Hyrule Kingdom, where he infiltrates and effortlessly wins their annual sword-fighting tournament, allowing him to shatter the blade during the awards ceremony. Failing to find the Light Force but refusing to give up, Vaati instead amasses his own army of monsters, turns the powerful Princess Zelda to stone to keep her out of his way, and possesses the King of Hyrule to keep tabs on the heroes. Allowing Link and Ezlo to upgrade the Picori Blade into the Four Sword and reveal the Light Force's location for him, Vaati discovers that the artifact is hidden within Zelda herself and retreats to Hyrule Castle, converting it into a dark, heavily-fortified lair as he extracts the Light Force from the petrified princess. Coming within mere seconds of finishing before Link's intervention, Vaati uses the power he's already extracted to battle Link through multiple forms, attacking the hero with his full might to the very end.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Vaati was originally considered a very generic and forgettable villain in his previous appearances, but with his more cunning sorcerer characterization similar to Ganondorf in this game, his popularity skyrocketed.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: You can only buy one figurine at a time, and each purchase forces you to pull a lever and watch a little cutscene. It's incredibly annoying when you consider how many there are and that you need all of them for a Piece of Heart.
  • Sequel Difficulty Drop: Compared to Capcom's previous handheld installments, this game feels much easier. In fact, it might be one of the easiest games in the entire franchise (and one of the shortest as well, if you decide to ignore its many sidequests).
  • Surprise Difficulty: The veteran Zelda gamer should have little to no difficulty conquering the dungeons and their respective bosses, until the final boss Vaati. He has multiple forms with unique attacks that all hit like a tank. Needless to say, without a strategy guide, you're going to die a few times trying to work out each form's weakness to which item.
  • That One Level: The Temple of Droplets and Palace of Winds. The former for being your standard Slippy-Slidey Ice World, the latter for being really long. However, the Palace of Winds is also regarded as the Best Level Ever.
  • That One Sidequest:
    • The cucco game. The cuccos you must find only appear when you start the game, idiot villagers will always get in your way and stall you, and there's very little time to complete the challenge even if you know exactly where the cuccos are. And some of them are on roofs and unreachable, and there are times when you won't be able to pick one up even if you're standing right next to it. You'd better get used to Anju saying "Hmmm. Well, it looks like I'm still missing a lot of cuccos..." because you'll be seeing that a lot.
    • If you want to unlock the Sound Test or get every Piece of Heart, you'll have to collect every Figurine in the game. Collecting Figurines involves some RNG unless you spend a large amount of Mysterious Shells, but you need to spend nearly 7000 of them to get guaranteed drops. You can only hold 999 Shells at a time, so you will have to grind for them at some point and it's incredibly tedious.
    • One of the Pieces of Heart is locked behind the sole random Red Kinstone fusion, meaning that if you're unlucky, you'll have to try and fuse with every NPC to find the correct fusion.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Vaati's androgynous appearance in his human form can make it difficult to tell what gender he is at first glance.
  • Woolseyism: Coupled with Genius Bonus above, the Minish speak differently in all languages of the game before getting the Jabber Nut. In the English versions, the Minish all have Pokémon Speak, saying fragments of "Picori" leading to their common Hyrulean name.

The Manga

  • Genius Bonus: Like in the Japanese version of the game it's based on, it's possible to understand the Minish before Link eats the Jabber Nut. All of their lines pre-Jabber Nut are written in Japanese but are phonetically backwards.
  • Woolseyism: In the original Japanese version of the story, Link refers to Ezlo as a turtle, referencing the Japanese folk tale of Urashima-taro. In the English version, Link calls him a leprechaun.

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