Working your way to Dark Hyrule Castle
The Power hides within
Remember how you go to the Elemental Sanctuary before? Well, you're going to have to do that again. Going to Hyrule Town, north into the garden, and then to the left side past the guards. Travel down the ladder and then over to the right to the sanctuary. Once there, put your sword on the Pedestal and the Wind Element will lend its power to the sword, and the tablet to the north with also disappear. Behind it was some stained glass that reveals that the Light Power Vaati was seeking was actually held within' Princess Zelda. After that, you're going to want to go south and enter the castle. The Dark Hyrule Castle. Use the colour-pads and step on the switches to open the door. You'll notice in the next room that some friends have actually turned to stone. If you charge up your sword and do the spin attack, if will shoot out a special beam that allows you to bring them back to life. Do this, and then you'll be able to pass south into the Dark Hyrule Castle.
Dark Hyrule Castle. The Final Dungeon
The Start of the End
Once in the castle, go left a screen, and then up a screen. Go past the rotating fireball things from Mario here, and then blow up the wall on the right. Use the Minish Portal here and go back left a screen, and down into the hole. Walk up a screen into the small hole near the top of the room. Go across and grow back to normal size. Step on the little switch to open up your jail cell door along with the one on the right. Use your sword powers to restore life to the real King of Hyrule. He'll give you a small key. Go to the left side of the room and up the stairs. You think that's a locked door there? Nope, it's a fake door. Go south, and to do so, push the block on the left out of the way by multiplying yourself and pushing. Then go down another screen. Soon, you'll get to some more locked doors. They're all fake except the one at the south left end of the room. Defeat the enemies and then past the stairs to go up. Instead, go right then north to the large chest to get the map. Now, go to the staircase on your left and up to the next floor. Then, go north and then take the left pathway to a room with colour-pads and four statues shooting balls at you. Duplicate yourself with the colour-pads, and use your sword to hit the balls back at the statue to break them. Then climb up those steps and up a screen.
How long could this dungeon be?
Go to the right a screen, and there are a lot of blue tiles. Step on them to make them all go red. Don't step on the same one twice, and if you do, use the reset button there. Once the door is open, go on through. Continue down a screen a use the colour-pads to duplicate yourself. Work your way down the room to the buttons, step on them, get your small key, and hop off the ledge. Walk down, left, and down a screen to get back to the entrance. Go to the staircase on the right and use the small key there. Continue along the pathway to get to some colour-pads. Duplicate yourself, and then go up a bit to reflect the balls back into the statues. Then, go north and defeat all of the Keatons there. Then, you need to bomb the left wall really close to the bottom where it meets the other wall. Once through, head up a screen and then up a staircase. Go up one more screen, and a Red Darknut will challenge you. Defeat him, then go left to get the Compass. Once you do have the Compass, go back into that room, and push the throne to reveal a path. Go down those stairs. In here, use the lantern to go right a screen, then up the staircase.
Every good Castle needs daring jumps
Exit through the door and you'll find yourself outside! Use the whirlwind to make your way south a bit, then go to the south-west corner. Re-enter the Castle to the left, and use the four colour-pads to multiply yourself. Run to the left and then down to push the giant block out of your way so you can exit the castle to the right. You'll find more whirlwinds here that you need to use to fly down a screen. Then, use your bow to hit the switch to the left to cross the bridge there. Then, re-enter the Castle again. You'll find quite a bit of colour-pads here, so what you need to do, is have duplicates in the bottom corners, and then on the top a space away from the corners. Go up and hit the switches there. Then, go through the door that opened. In here, you'll find two Ball and Chain Soldiers as I'm told they're called. That's a rather nice original name. Once you defeat them, a red warp tile will appear, and the doors on either side of you will open. Go through the one on the left, then up a screen. In here, there are the little bomb enemies, a moving platform, and cracked blocks. Use the Gust Jar on the little bomb enemies to suck one up to fire him at the blocks. Go on the moving platform, and then take it to get onto the metal grating. Hit the two switches with your bow, and then hop down back onto the platform, and through the door. Head right a screen, and then up to encounter a Dark Darknut. Defeat him, and then some more Darknuts will spawn all around.
Shhhh. Be very very quiet. You're going Darknut hunting.
Walk down and right a screen to encounter some Darknuts. Defeat them, and the up through the door that opens. In this room, use your lantern to light the torches to go through the door that opens to the north. Defeat the ghost enemies in here, then go right a screen. Use the staircase to get to a small key. Then, go back to where you fought the two Darknuts. Head down a screen from there, and then up into the grating. Walk south, and jump off the ledge. Continue down a screen to face the Red Darknut. Once you defeat him, head south a room to where there are a ton of colour-pads. Ignore the colour-pads and go down to the switches. Just do a spin attack on them to open the door on the right. In here step on the switch, and then take the stairs on the left. Open the chest to get the small key. Backtrack a few rooms to where you fought the Red Darknut just a bit ago. Then go two screen left to the two Darknuts. Defeat them both and go down a screen. Here's another floor puzzle, good luck. Go into the next room, then southward to get outside of the dungeon. Head left, and then back inside. Walk up the staircase to the left to get the small key. Then, backtrack to where you just fought those two Darknits. Travel north and then defeat the Red Darknut. Then go north some more. Use your bow on the four targets, then go through the door on the left. Push the blocks out of your way, and drop down that hole in the middle. Clumb up the staircase and again, and then open the chest you'll see to get the fourth and final small key.
It's the Final Countdown...literally
Work your way all the way back to where you fought the Black Darknut. If you need help, go look for it elsewhere. When you head north from the room of the Black Darknut however, you'll find a giant block. Use your four keys to unlock the four small key blocks. Then, destroy all the pots in the top right corner to unveil colour-pads. Use them to make copies of yourself, then finally push the large block out of the way to get the boss key. The boss key. No joking around, this key is the boss key. You can step through the blue portal then go into the red portal to easily get there, or just backtrack to where the door is. Either way, use the key on the door, and step through to face...time. Yes, it's a race against the clock now. If that bell tolls too many times, you're done for. Game Over. (It will happen if you take too long. Trust me, I found that out the hard way.) Anyhow, defeat the Ball and Chain guy there, and continue on. Next is a room with Keaton and buttons. Multiply yourself and try to defeat them along the way to get to the floor switches, then go up one last screen. This is the room where it's typically won or lost. Three Darknuts. If you defeat them all, you get to face Vaati. If you don't, you get to face them again until you do. So when you do defeat them, go into the next room to face the final boss. It's Vaati time.
Vaati
At the start of Vaati, he'll shoot out fireballs and some eyes will circle him. If the eyes stop moving, it means they're going to use laser beams. If Vaati shoots out a purple ball, it means whatever you do don't touch it. If you want to find out what it does, be my guest. Touch it. What you need to do is hit the eyes with your sword. Then, Vaati will reveal the big eye in his center. Use your sword on that too. Soon, he will use small eyes cloaked with dark matter or something. Use your gust jar to reveal them, and keep killing him that way repeatedly. After a bit, he'll engage his second phase. Now Vaati is a giant circular thing with an eye in the middle. When he body slams the ground, it means purple spike balls will fall from the sky. Avoid them, because they even look and sound like they hurt. Vaati will also send little electric balls at you. Anyhow, use your arrows to shoot at his little circles. There will be four in a row that will turn red. Shoot until you uncover these four, then use the colour-pads to make multiples of you in the same format as the red eyes. Hit him with your sword on the red eyes.
The process will repeat several times, and each time the location of the four red eyes will change. Just keep dodging and attacking. Fairly simple. Soon, you will defeat him, and you can go run up to meet Princess Zelda. At long last you've saved her! Charge up your sword beam, and release her from her stone imprisonment. The Castle will begin to crumble, and you'll be at the Dungeon Entrance. The only way out is through the shrine! Hurry! Take the stairs to the left and then follow the path up and then right then finally north to the garden before the Sanctuary. Wait...it can't be! He's alive? And it isn't even his final form...wait yes it is. He's now an eye with horns, arms, and four...small circles. Anyhow, he'll still shoot energy balls at you, so avoid those. Soon, he'll put his arm into the ground and then back up to attack you. Use the Cane of Pacci on the arm that's coming out of the platform. Once you do, run up to the Minish Stone, become Minish, and run back to his arm. Go inside of it and slash at the eye thing with the red pupil It's the different looking one.
Soon you'll need to exit and return to normal size. Do this again with the second arm. The second arm will be dark on the inside, because it took too many Vaati's to change the light-bulbs. Use your Flame Lantern to see for the different eye, and slash at it with your sword. Finally, once both his arms are down, you're going to play a game of Dead Man's Volley. You'll need to use the colour-pads to make all four of you to reflect his four light blue energy balls back at him. Once you do this, run over and slash his eye until he dies. Soon, he will die. Once he is dead, there will be a very fitting cutscene. This is really the final part of the game, so please enjoy the last few moments as much as you can. I know The Minish Cap may not have been the best Zelda game ever, maybe not even the best handheld Zelda game ever, but it certainly wasn't the worst. The Minish Cap is a Zelda game very worth of the title and through thick and thin, it kept upping the difficulty. I hope you enjoyed it on your playthrough as much as I did on mine, because if I didn't enjoy it, I never would've played another Zelda game in my life, as it was my first Zelda game. (Good thing the CD-i's weren't my first.) It's the very game that led me to a future of working for Link's Hideaway, and to always look forward to the next Zelda game. So thank you for playing, and I do hope in a small period of time, you'll pick it back up to rediscover the magic that was The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap.
Part 10: Palace of Winds
