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The Top 7... Little heroes in big worlds

Honey, we shrunk the protagonist

Words: Brett Elston, GamesRadar US

 

Is a child’s imagination powerful enough to make everyday toys like Hot Wheels cars, model airplanes and Army men spring to life, igniting a civil war that slowly tears a house apart? Of course not, but Dreamcast classic Toy Commander captured that same sense of wonderment on a godless, soulless disc. As long as you stay away from the racing levels, you’ll feel like a kid again, joyously reliving plastic-coated fantasies from decades long since past.

Hop in kid-friendly vehicles and stare in wide-eyed amazement at household items suddenly made astonishing:

Indoor basketball goals!
 

Kitchen counters made of individually separated Rubik’s cube pieces!
 

Boring, boring bookshelves in the living room!
 

That sparsely decorated room with chairs no one uses!
 

A cat that really wishes you’d play something else!
 

Most embarrassing tiny thing that kills you:
 

Of all the toe-sized opponents you’ll face, nothing is as degrading as a loss dealt by Chuck, a bunny-suit-wearing Godzilla toy. Sure he can breathe fire and is, for all intents and purposes, the same size as Godzilla, but c’mon... he’s wearing a bunny suit.

Not ready to leave the confines of your own home? Take control of Chibi Robo and engage in the endless cleaning of a home 50 times your size. And you thought tidying up one room was bad...

 

There’s hardly a series more beloved than The Legend of Zelda... but even iconic franchises need to mix things up now and again. That’s where Minish Cap comes in – Link, with the aid of talking hat Ezlo, can shrink to microscopic size and investigate/infiltrate areas that even child Link could never enter. These size-based puzzles added a welcome new layer to the rich brainteaser history Zelda already enjoys.

Thanks to this new perspective, you’re able to gawk slack-jawed at environments you’d normally pass right on by:

Fungus-infested tree trunks!
 

Creaky rafters overrun with Minish mice!
 

Watery old boots!
 

Lilly pads and floating flowers!  

See it all in action here!

Most embarrassing small thing that kills you:
 

Battling these poisonous globs of goo is usually no big thing for Link, but when he’s tinier than a peck on the cheek from Princess Zelda, one is large enough to qualify as a boss. Please, don’t let Link fall to such an overly cuddly enemy.

The terminally ignored Psychonauts never strays from the bizarre, even dabbling in size-shifting just enough to make the also-ran list. Protag Raz (in the red circle) enters the mind of an unsurprisingly crazy coot who thinks he’s Napoleon, and once inside has to shrink onto a hex-based board populated with soldiers, buildings and random discarded items.


 
41 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
The_Lurcher  - 1 year 20 days ago 
FIR- no im not gonna stoop to that.

very good gamesradar id totaly forgot about the okami one!
T0M95  - 1 year 20 days ago 
nice article, as always. good things come in small packages. game discs, for example.
(i'm really sorry to do this, but FIRST! now i hate myself.)
T0M95  - 1 year 20 days ago 
aaaaaaaaaaaw crappy slow computer. i thought i'd be first, but i was 4 minutes late. damn you! (now i REALLY hate myself.)
TobiUchiha  - 1 year 20 days ago 
As I read the first one I was thinking about Kingdom Hearts but I though you wouldn't include it because it was only one leve and was preparing to complain in the comments section then BAM my favourite RPG pops up.
Thequestion 121  - 1 year 20 days ago 
Great article. Okami is one of my favorite games and I loved that part of the game!
lava_lamp  - 1 year 20 days ago 
hope u guys arent fans of kingdom hearts, ha ha
lava_lamp  - 1 year 20 days ago 
oh by the way i love pyshoconauts, that napoleon level is my second favorite one, its funny
M-for-Mustache  - 1 year 20 days ago 
Cool top 7. This can't be a crowded competition so I'm sure you had dig up some of those. Very original thinking Brett!
lucklesswonder  - 1 year 20 days ago 
Ha! That FF II Legends video.

See kids, that's why you should practice safe sex. 'Cause otherwise you could get crabs which will then attack any shrunken hero trying to save your life from the inside.
FromTheDeskOfAndrewRyan  - 1 year 20 days ago 
Nice haha these games destroy my perception... do not mix with alchohol
JoeMasturbaby  - 1 year 20 days ago 
why are my pants wet?...


gaddamn!

(i have an Okami fetish)
derringer83  - 1 year 20 days ago 
fuck man, dry your pants...

Oh yeah, the article, pretty awesome. Mario 64 had a pretty notable "shrinkage level" except it's obviously based on an earlier Mario game. So I applaud you for leaving it out.
Weasel  - 1 year 20 days ago 
Ah Mr. Mosquito, what a bizarre game that was. Oddly fun though.
peteypablo2624  - 1 year 20 days ago 
all about buck bumble man...all about buck bumble. if u don't believe me, at least listen to the theme song for the game. simply contagious.
Shadowfan  - 1 year 20 days ago 
What the-? No Pikmin? T_T
garnsr  - 1 year 20 days ago 
The Mario shots don't give me the feeling I had decades ago when I played the huge goombas. And why the hell are Okami and Psychonauts so ignored? What a world! What a world!
Patius  - 1 year 20 days ago 
World 4 has always been my favorite.

World 7 on the other hand. . .that one's just plain evil.
GamesRadarBrettElston  - 1 year 20 days ago 
Pikmin! Dammit I knew I'd miss something crucial. Oh well, that's why we have comments.

Also felt bad for not calling out Micro Machines more. Great party games.
Tasty_Pasta  - 1 year 20 days ago 
WTFHAX, no Army Men 2?!?!?

That was classic, c'mon.
smallberry  - 1 year 20 days ago 
Great article. Also, Army Men!

Right on Tasty!
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