From the opening screen you know this is going to be a good experience: the music hits you, it feels familiar, you name your character Link - cos if you name him anything else you really aren't a fan - and you are instantly brought back into the world of Hyrule. The story follows a young boy who has to deliver a sword his grandfather made to Hyrule Castle to be given to the champion of the tournament of the Picori Festival. After meeting up with Princess Zelda and checking out the festival, they head off to the castle only to find bad things happen.

We don't want to go into too many details, but yes, it is up to you, as Link, to save Princess Zelda.... again. As the story unfolds you start hearing about fairy like creatures that can only be seen by kids: the Picori. It is this addition that gives this specific Zelda installment its edge over the others, as the only way to talk to and interact with the Picori is to be shrunk down to their size. In fact many puzzles and bosses can not be passed without being any bigger than a few pixels high.

The controls are as you would expect from a Zelda game. You can map equipment to the A and B buttons and the R trigger makes Link roll and open doors and chests. The only new control is the L Button. There has been an addition to unlocking secrets in The Minish Cap, and its a thing called Kinstone Fusing. Nearly every character has half a Kinstone and it is up to you to find the others, and by doing so and putting them together you will find an assortment of new and wonderful things, some of which are necessary to complete the game. While this can get tedious, the idea works. You may not find yourself running everywhere trying to get every little Kinstone fused, but you will hunt down the areas you do manage to unlock. But Kinstones aren't the only item you will be tracking down. You will find plenty of the standard items hidden in grass and under rocks. From bombs, arrows and rupees to the newly added shells. These can be used at a store you find later in the game to unlock figurines. Why? Why not. It's the little added extras that make a game worth playing, so it's nice to have the guys at Flagship give us a little more here.

The one thing about the Zelda games is that we know what we are about to get. We enter a dungeon and we see certain things that cannot be reached and have a target like symbol on them; we know we will be gtting the bow and arrow soon - it is these little nuances that make the game what it is. But what happens when there is something you haven't seen before, and you are completely clueless as to what to do with it? Worse, it isn't part of any dungeon. You may find yourself near the end of the game before you realise what the real purpose behind the Gust Jar, Mole Mitts and the Cane of Pacci, simply because we haven't seen these items before. While it isn't a bad thing to introduce new concepts, it wouldn't hurt to give a few more examples of how to use each item somewhere near where it is acquired. Sure, it won't stump you forever, but it can get frustrating.

Flagship have also added in the use of multiple Links that was introduced in Four Swords. With a certain item you can create 1 - 3 more Links - purely dependant on how upgraded the item is - and, for those who have yet to play Four Swords, you will find it a very nice addition to the puzzle solving elements.

The graphics in Minish Cap are downright gorgeous. The style, while being very familiar, really shows us what the GBA can do. Flagship have put in a fair bit of work getting the animation looking how it does and one cannot praise the team enough for the job they have done in the zoomed-in Picori-sized areas. You have your standard Link view, you have your zoomed-in Picori scale and then you have more in between. Flagship have used layers to show plants overhead moving at a different speed to Link and the ground and it really adds to the scale they are trying to portray.

Sound = perfection. For one reason or another the grunts and groans used in the series have never really felt like they fit. Maybe it's the graphical style, but this game really pulls it all together and makes up one of the most aurally pleasing Zelda games to date. Everything just fits. If we had to find something to put down, and it really is nothing major, is the "you're running out of life" beep. It's there, it's less annoying than it used to be, but of course it can only be stopped with an extra heart or two.