The Minish Cap features a completely different Hyrule than any we have ever seen before. It’s a world full of extremely interesting locations. Our central hub is a bustling town square, filled to the brim with things to do and books to check out. We get to traverse Hyrule Castle, which is massive for a 2D Zelda game. In the overworld, there are swamps, mountains, lakes, and all sorts of other environments to explore. And to top it all off, we have the land of the Minish, a tiny wonderland hidden in plain sight within the larger world of Hyrule!
One of my favorite things about this game is that it takes normal, everyday enemies and items and turns them into massive blockades that hinder our hero’s journey. This is illustrated perfectly in the Temple of Droplets, the fourth major dungeon in this adventure.
Entering the dungeon is no small feat (pun intended). First, we have to embark on a quest to meet Librari, a Minish elder who lives in Hyrule Town’s Royal Hyrule Library. Simply getting into his house involves locating missing library books and fighting monsters — you know, a typical afternoon for our fearless hero. When we finally get to speak with him, Librari directs us to an underground cave that contains the Flippers, a tool required to reach the Temple of Droplets in the middle of Lake Hylia. Then, you actually enter the temple by shrinking down to Minish size atop a little glacier. Normally, there are only three ways to shrink: tree stumps, upside-down pots, and large rocks. However, the Temple of Droplets gets its own unique shrinking experience.
After descending into the frigid depths, Link navigates the first area, opening and closing hatches in order to let in sunlight. These pools of sunlight are used to melt blocks of ice that contain keys, which means that we must push the blocks around until they land in the warm spot.
Hot (ha) take: Ice block puzzles are the worst. These include the ones where you have to skate forward and run into a rock to stop moving, then carefully nudge yourself into a small space, like in Pokémon Gold and Silver. I have never been good at them, and I likely never will be. If there is a secret hidden in an ice puzzle, you know I’m not going to get it; even if it’s a super weapon, it simply isn’t going to happen.
This is also an interesting temple because you get the Big Key very early on. It’s one of the first items you get in the dungeon, even before the Flame Lantern. It’s another small deviation from the standard formula that makes it a memorable and fun dungeon. On top of that, when you enter the main hub, you immediately see the element you need, frozen in a giant block of ice! So what if there is a giant frozen Octorok right next to it? Opening the giant hatches and letting sunlight melt the element free wouldn’t do anything too bad, right?
Right?
Well, after surviving the dungeon and letting the sun come through, said Big Octorok sucks up the element, and it’s time to do battle. The fight is another fun take on a commonplace enemy, similar to the Deepwood Shrine Chuchu fight earlier in the game. It starts off by charging at the wall, something that I’m not very good at dodging for whatever reason. Then, it’ll start shooting out black smoke and snuff out the light in the room. I wonder how it learned to do that? Eventually it will freeze itself again, making it vulnerable to attack, and since the big guy has a dry stalk sticking out from behind him, that must be the weak point you need to target. Burn the stalk, and a few quick sword swipes will end the battle and free the element.
The Temple of Droplets is an incredibly short dungeon, but it is full of small details that make it charming and memorable. This dungeon always stuck out in my mind because of how the Minish abilities were used. Link is fighting an enemy that he has tangled with hundreds of times, but, this time, it’s made more difficult by his small stature. It takes this larger-than-life adventure that he’s on and magnifies it tenfold. Also, I always thought the Big Octorok was cute. They should all have little flower tails.
I guess I’ll just wait here until Nintendo responds to my petition to put the Minish in Tears of the Kingdom, as was originally planned for Breath of the Wild. My current theory is that Vaati is secretly the main antagonist of the upcoming title, because it’s set in the sky and he floats. No, I will not elaborate. Good day.
