Sage, definately check out Minish Cap. Especially if you have finished A Link to the Past. If you haven't then I would suggest playing through ALttP first. Minish Cap not asthetically recalls ALttP, but also themeatically. You can tell they drew a lot of inspiration from the older game when developing MC. Even the comparison between Aganihm (sp? Havent played that game forever) and Vaati are great. Even the storylines are very close. Minish Cap could pass for an extremely abridged and updated ALttP. Don't take that to mean they are THAT close to one another. It is just that there are many aspects of of MC clearly taken from ALttP. Even the scene at the end where Vaati is about to cast the spell on Zelda.

With that said, I only suggest new comers to Zelda playing ALttP first because I remember how very great it was when it first came out and how much I enjoyed playing it and watching the story play out, and I feel it would be ashame to for the comparisons between the two to be made in the reverse. But by all means play both.