4. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

2004’s whimsical little Game Boy Advance adventure shrinks the art of The Wind Waker down to 16-bit sprites. Aesthetically the game is similar to Four Swords Adventures, but with enough differences to feel distinct and fresh by comparison. This Hyrule isn’t a remixed SNES A Link to the Past overworld. It’s a new land that features a bustling city center with gorgeously designed characters and shops.

The Minish Cap is another Zelda game that likes to play with perspective and scale. Link, using his magical talking hat, can shrink down to an impossibly small size and interact with the Pecori, tiny creatures who fill out the nooks and crannies of Hyrule. Because many of the locales in the game can be explored at different scales, it makes the game feel both large and compact.

Wind Waker and sprites go together like peanut butter and jelly, and it’s a shame that Minish Cap was the final Zelda game to use this exact aesthetic.