Remaking The Minish Cap

If you're asking fans what (handheld) Zelda game should be remade next, you will often see The Minish Cap as an answer. This is curious, because – unlike the Oracle games and the Nintendo DS games – it doesn't seem like the Game Boy Advance title really needs one. Its 2D sprite graphics are the best looking in the series and have aged gracefully. It also doesn't have some hook, where addressing that alone would already make the game better for most people. There is no convoluted password system and it doesn't have touchscreen or microphone controls.

You can play The Minish Cap just fine in 2024 via Nintendo Switch Online, given that you're willing to pay for the overpriced Expansion Pack. The game is not flawless, but compared to the other handheld Zeldas it still looks and plays quite nicely, so it's not in immediate need of a remake. But this doesn't mean that it won't ever get one...

There is even a big hook here, it's just not as obvious at first, because it's mainly about the graphics. Yes, the 2D pixel visuals of The Minish Cap are the best in the series, as the last game that made use of them. And yes, the game still looks pretty. Nevertheless, 3D graphics would offer a whole new perspective, one that really let's you dive into the world of the Picori.

In The Minish Cap the shrinking was displayed in one of two ways. Either you were a small dot within the environment, similar to the Gnat Hat from Four Swords, or you've entered special zoomed-in screens, like the "Minish Roads", the homes of the Picori, or even entire dungeons. In those you appear normal-sized relative to your screen, but the environments are heavily enlarged.

With 3D graphics you could handle this a lot more dynamically and offer whole new perspectives. Imagine running through Hyrule Castle Town as a Minish, but it's actually zoomed in and you can see details like grass and tiny rocks, while the people around you became huge. It would be breath-taking and a completely new experience. Of course, this could potentially go more in the direction of a re-imagining, instead of a faithful remake, but either way it would be an incredibly charming incentive to re-explore the world this game.

With that in mind, it's easy to understand why people want a remake of The Minish Cap, other than the fact that's probably the most well-rounded out of the Capcom titles. It still has some rough edges, however, and the rest of this article will talk about those.

Controls & Hints

With the Nintendo Switch you get twice as many face buttons and twice as many shoulder buttons than what you had on the Game Boy Advance. This alone can already provide much more comfort, as demonstrated by the Link's Awakening remake, which didn't even make use of everything. In the very least, sword and shield should get their dedicated buttons. Pegasus Boots and the Roc's Cape are good candidates for this as well, while you still have the X and Y buttons for the remaining items.

Map and inventory should now be separate, with the inventory screen on ⊕ and the map on ⊖. The inventory can also display the main items, all your gear, and the status items at once, so there won't be any need to switch pages via L and R any longer.

As for Ezlo, the Select button was originally dedicated to getting advice from him, where this can move to some direction on the D-pad, together with the Kinstone fusion. Nintendo probably won't support the D-pad for movement anyway, since neither Link's Awakening nor Echoes of Wisdom did so. Plus, the remake will probably become more three-dimensional, where you'd want to use a stick.

Ezlo should also get the Fi treatment from Skyward Sword HD, meaning that he will only make some sound when he wants to give you a hint, instead of popping up and interrupting the game. If the player wants the advice, they can press his button at the moment.

Kinstones

In concept the Kinstone system was pretty neat, but its execution is quite flawed. Some characters won't fuse Kinstones with you until you've reached a certain point in the game, without giving you any real hints about that. And with certain characters, like Epona, you won't ever have the pleasure of fusing Kinstones, because they are part of the random pool that will run out quickly. Finally, finding Kinstones in treasure chests, sometimes even as a reward from other Kinstone fusions, rarely ever feels exciting, because you're getting so many duplicates.

There is a simple solution to all of these problems: make all Kinstone Pieces behave like the golden ones, meaning that there is a fixed number of each shape in the game and that every fusion is assigned to a specific character. There should be more shapes and colors, like purple and orange, where many pieces will be entirely unique. Let's say the remake will have 128 different fusions, because they've added some more stuff, then there will be exactly 128 Kinstone pieces hidden in the world. No more and no less.

Characters should always be ready for fusing Kinstones. If you don't have the matching piece yet, it will leave a marker on your map with the other side displayed. This even let's you open your Kinstone Bag to compare, just to be safe that you have obtained the right piece before revisiting the character in question.

If you're not meant to activate the fusion until a certain point in the game, then the required Kinstone piece will be hidden accordingly. For example, there is the Minish who lives in the northeast corner of the Minish Village and who gives you access to the final Heart Container at Lake Hylia. In this case the Kinstone piece should be found behind the 4x4 rock on the schoolyard, ensuring that you already have the Four Sword.

There also shouldn't be a shared pool of fusions any longer, giving you a reason to fuse with everyone, even that Cucco on Anju's house, where reaching it was usually pointless so late in the game. But the remake then also needs to make sure that every character still can be found at the end of the game somewhere.

Speaking of pointless things, you should be able to obtain the Mirror Shield right after summoning Biggoron via Kinstones, which doesn't happen until very late in the game anyway.

Figurine Gallery

A simple fix for the Figurine Gallery would be to increase the maximum of Mysterious Shells from 999 to 9999. This way you can simply collect as many of them as you want and then tend to this minigame whenever you're ready, even if that's at the very end of the game. The main issue here always was that reaching the maximum effectively forced you to stop whatever you're doing and go invest your Mysterious Shells, or else any more you find will go to waste.

The same goes for Rupees, of course, where the individual wallet sizes should probably be closer to what we have in Twilight Princess HD, also with a maximum of 9999.

As for the figurine game itself, there are a number of ways to improve this and speed things up. Like, it could allow you to make multiple draws at once, instead of always ever going for a single figurine. Or maybe it let's you choose between different eggs, so that you can target a specific color, similar to other common Gacha games.

Finally, there shouldn't be a Piece of Heart locked behind collecting 130 figurines. For those who want to have all hearts, but don't care about the figurines, this is just a painful requirement, no matter how much you improve it.