The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap is a top-down action adventure game that tells the origins of the evil Vaati from Four Swords. Like most other titles in the series, The Minish Cap features the fully…

90 4 November 2004

Adventure Puzzle Action Fantasy

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap is an adventure developed by Capcom Production Studio 1, released 4 November 2004 on Nintendo 3DS, Wii U and Game Boy Advance. The main story takes about 16 hrs to finish.

Verified 18 Oct 2026 Sources: IGDB , Wikipedia

What The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap is

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap is an adventure game developed by Capcom Production Studio 1 and released in 2004. It was published by Nintendo. It is available on Nintendo 3DS, Wii U and Game Boy Advance.

The premise, in the publisher's words

While at a festival with Princess Zelda, Link encounters a mysterious mage called Vaati who turns the princess to stone. Helpless to stop them, Link is asked by the king to meet with a race of tiny people known as the Minish, who may be able to help with their predicament. On his travels, Link teams up with a talking cap called Ezlo, who is able to shrink Link to the size of a Minish so that he can meet with them. With his newfound abilities, Link must save the kingdom from Vaati's menace.

Description from the publisher · source

How it plays

It is played from a bird view / isometric perspective. Its themes are action and fantasy. It is a single-player game with no multiplayer component.

Where it sits in the The Legend of Zelda series

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap is the 40th of 133 entries we hold in the The Legend of Zelda series. The next entry was The Legend of Zelda: Navi Trackers in 2004. Its critic score of 90 is 4 points above the series average of 86. The highest-rated entry is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past at 100.

See all 133 The Legend of Zelda games in release order →

How it was received

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap holds a critic score of 90 out of 100. That places it above 92% of the 7,527 rated adventure games in our database, which average 72. Games released in 2004 averaged 70, so it scored 20 points above the year average. Player ratings track closely with critics at 87, across 442 votes.

How long it takes, and what that costs

The main story runs about 16 hrs. Completing everything takes closer to 22 hrs, roughly 1.4 times the length of the critical path.

What it launched against

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap launched on 4 November 2004, within three weeks of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and World of Warcraft. It reviewed better than 3 of the 4.

Released around the same time: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, World of Warcraft.

Cheats and codes

We have not confirmed any working cheat codes for The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap yet. Rather than reprint a list we have not tested, this section stays empty until one is verified.

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