Over the course of The Legend of Zelda series, I haven't missed a lot of games. I've played everything from Zelda II to Majora's Mask to Oracle of Ages, but there was one that I had skipped: The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. Why that one? How could I have missed it? I can only determine that my interest was low due to it being developed outside Nintendo again (Minish Cap, the two Oracle games, and Four Swords were created by Flagship, a former Capcom studio) and that it missed the 2004 holiday window by a few weeks. Plus, for whatever reason it seemed like a kids game. I always saw the feature of Link turning into a pixie as... lame.
Five years later and I finally determine that it's high time to play The Minish Cap, so I add it to my Amazon wishlist and receive it for my birthday in May. I plowed through this game like my family's lives depended on it (meaning I ignored them in the process, whoops, won't happen again), but wanted to let the game sink in for a while before I organized all my thoughts and finished the review.
It's probably worth comparing my review of this game to the two previous portable Zeldas: Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. I always felt like those games were missing something, but I couldn't lay my finger on it until I played The Minish Cap. Here's my full review of the one I almost let get away: The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap.