A Small Detour - The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap Review

The Wind Waker marked the end of an era for The Legend of Zelda series . It abandoned the many long-established design philosophies of its predecessors while instead seeking to attract a completely new audience of younger players , even ending the game in both the literal and metaphorical destruction of the world of Hyrule . To say that the Zelda series was forever changed after this game's release would be an understatement . Thus why it took me 5 and 1/2 hours to fully explore that topic in my last review. But . But the exact impact of this decision and where the series would go from here is actually a topic we won't be exploring in this video . Because before the financial and fan reactions to The Wind Waker could be fully analyzed and appreciated by Nintendo , another Zelda game had already been in the works for quite some time . A side project developed by a completely separate but familiar team, Flagship , a subsidiary of Capcom who had previously developed the Oracle Duology , a pair of side games made for the Legend of Zelda series . In many ways, this new Zelda game was completely unaffected by the release of The Wind Waker , except in only the most surface level of ways . The art style took some inspiration from The , but really only in the design for its main characters , like Link, Zelda, and the King of Hyrule . Otherwise, this game was meant to be its own unique Zelda experience , developed by a team completely divorced from the mistakes of the previous major entry in this series . As such, its design is much more akin to that of older Zelda titles while still retaining many of the quirks that a Capcom developed Zelda game is bound to have . Truthfully, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap is kind of a mishmash of previous games design philosophies, art styles, and even music composition with elements from Adora's Mask, the Oracle duology, and The Wind Waker all mixing harmoniously into its crowded little setting . Ultimately, I believe the end result is a bit of a mixed bag , as you'll no doubt come to see over the course of this review