The Minish Cap



The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap is the twelfth installment in the The Legend of Zelda series, released in 2005 for the Game Boy Advance. It is preceded by Four Swords Adventures and succeeded by Twilight Princess. The Hero of the Minish is the main protagonist and Vaati is the main antagonist. Vaati's minions are the villainous faction.

It is the twelfth game in the series, and the second in the Unified Timeline, set millennia after Skyward Sword. The game's prologue tells of the legend of the Hero of Men, a great hero who vanquished evil using the Picori Blade, a powerful weapon gifted to him by the tiny people of the sky, the Picori. This game picks up at the hundred year anniversary of the blade's vanquishing evil, where the Wind Mage Vaati appears to steal it and use the demons in the bound chest to conquer Hyrule. Link must repair the broken Picori Blade and turn it into the Four Sword to defeat Vaati and save Princess Zelda.

Synopsis
''Hundreds of years before Four Swords, this game tells the origin of that titular blade. Link and Zelda go to a fighting match, and watch as the winner, named Vaati, wins a chance to touch the Bound Chest, a box that contains the supposed Light Force that was used by the Hero of Men to defeat evil with the help of the mythical tiny creatures known as the Piccori. Vaati opens the Bound Chest, expecting to find the Light Force, but accidentally releases hordes of monsters onto Hyrule. As compensation for being tricked, he turns Zelda to stone and runs away. Link tries to use the fabled Piccori Blade to stop him, but it breaks. He then goes on a journey to collect the Four Elements to turn the Piccori Blade into the Four Sword. Link uses the Four Sword to split himself in four and defeat Vaati, sealing him within the blade. Link and Zelda then seal the Four Sword in the Piccori Shrine (which will later become the Four Sword Sanctuary.)''

Summary
One year, in celebration of when the Picori last came to Hyrule 100 years ago to the day, the festival was unusually grand. Hyrule Castle was hosting a tournament of sword-fighting skill that calls to mind the heroes of legend. That year’s champion was a mysterious man by the name of Vaati. He won the tournament with an almost magical ease, and all of Hyrule was abuzz with rumors about this shadowy figure. The young Link, who attends the festival that year with his childhood friend, Princess Zelda, is charged by his grandfather, Smith, with delivering the sword that will be presented to the champion.

During the ceremony following the sword competition, Vaati shatters the sacred Picori Blade and opens the Bound Chest, which, for an age, had been sealed by the Picori Blade, trapping evil monsters within. Vaati is after the Light Force, the golden light that was once wielded by the Hero of Men mentioned in the legends of the Picori. He subdues the castle guards and turns Princess Zelda to stone before departing. Vaati was once a Minish, an apprentice of the Minish sage Ezlo. Ezlo had made a magical Cap with the power to grant wishes, but Vaati had stolen it and used it to become a powerful sorcerer. He had transformed Ezlo into a hat himself, then proceeded to hunt down the Light Force. Link is asked by King Daltus to seek out the Picori and ask them to reforge the sacred blade, and he travels to the Minish Woods with the help of his Map.

There he meets Ezlo, a curious creature whom he rescues from a group of Octoroks. Ezlo hops onto his head and offers to help him find the Picori. He also helps Link shrink down to a minuscule size — the size of the Picori people, who call themselves the Minish. Link meets with Gentari, the elder of the Minish Village, who tells him that in order to reforge the sacred Picori Blade, he will need the Four Elements, the embodiment of the sacred powers of earth, fire, water, and wind. Vaati had learned from the legend of the Wind Tribe that when the Four Elements were collected, the path to the Light Force will open. Knowing that Link is collecting them, Vaati decides to wait until the task is complete.

Once Link has gathered the Four Elements, he brings the Picori Blade — renamed the White Sword by Melari, a Minish sword-smith — to the Elemental Sanctuary hidden within the courtyard of Hyrule Castle. There he infuses the White Sword with the Four Elements, fully restoring the sacred Four Sword — a legendary blade with the power to split one warrior into four. Link then gains access to a chamber with stained glass, where the location of the Light Force is revealed to be within Princess Zelda.

Meanwhile, Vaati has brainwashed King Daltus and shrouded Hyrule Castle in darkness. He discovers from the stained glass of the chamber inside the Elemental Sanctuary that the sacred Light Force had actually been passed down through Hyrule’s princesses, and so he prepares to extract it from Princess Zelda. Link rushes to her rescue, and, after vanquishing Vaati, uses the Four Sword’s evil-banishing power to restore Princess Zelda.

With Vaati defeated, the Mage's Cap could be used to restore Hyrule. Princess Zelda puts on the cap and wishes with all her heart that Vaati’s cruelty might be undone. With her righteous wish and the power of the Light Force that still dwelt within her, many miracles happen as a result.

Now that the land of the humans had been saved, Ezlo ventures back into the world of the Minish through the Minish Door, not to return until perhaps the next time, one hundred years later, when the doorway to their world would open once more.

Trivia

 * The Minish Cap is the only Game Boy Advance game with two different "Not For Resale" cartridges which were used in store kiosks. One says "Not For Resale" and contains the full version of the game. The other says "Not For Resale Demo," where there are three playable areas to explore. Subsequent Zelda games like Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks also had demo carts with selectable stages.
 * The logo for the game featured in pre-release material and some commercials featured the Master Sword rather than the Four Sword. The Master Sword does not appear in the final version of the game.
 * There have been three existing official logos for the game. These include one with Ezlo next to the name, and one with the Master Sword next to the name. Some commercials incorporate some of these alternate logos.
 * There are several Super Mario references in The Minish Cap. These include enemies such as Bob-ombs, Spinies, and Lakitus. In the Palace of Winds, chain-link platforms with spinning gates such as those found in Super Mario World and Super Mario Sunshine appear. In Mount Crenel, small beanstalks use the same sound effect from Super Mario Bros. when growing.
 * The game over music is an excerpt from the opening demo music in A Link to the Past.
 * The Minish Cap is the only main Zelda game to feature an optional sound test.

Continuity

 * Telling the origin of Vaati and the Four Sword, The Minish Cap takes place many years before Four Swords, making it the first story in the Four Swords trilogy.
 * The official timeline released in Hyrule Historia places The Minish Cap and Four Swords between Skyward Sword and Ocarina of Time. Four Swords Adventures, which concludes the Four Swords trilogy, is an indirect sequel to Twilight Princess and currently the third member (along with Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess) of the "Child Timeline".
 * This game tells the origin of the Four Sword Sanctuary, which was once the Elemental Sanctuary.
 * Before Skyward Sword, this was the earliest game in the timeline, and it was meant to tell the story of how Link got his iconic hat, which was given to him by Ezlo.