System: Nintendo DS No. of players: 2 simultaneous Genre: action, adventure ESRB rating: E for all, fantasy violence Online: yes Release date: October 1st 2007
Introduction
As many of you probably know, Phantom Hourglass is a direct sequel of Windwaker, picking up from where the previous game ended. It even retained that same humorous and cartoonish style of its predecessor. In the game's opening scene the incidents leading us into the story are introduced. Link, Tetra and her goons are searching for the legendary ghost ship roaming the seas. Naturally, the ghost ship unexpectedly appears during the introduction of the background story. Tetra, curious as she is, goes aboard the looming ship, but is captured by a strange force pulling her into the belly of the ship. As our protagonist, Link, plunges for Tetra's safety, the ghost ship disappears and so does Tetra's ship. Link strands on an unknown island, only to be found by a fairy. Hmm, sound familiar much?
This short story introduces us to the newest addition in the Legend of Zelda franchise. A bit clichéd, but it will most certainly do. After going through the usual tutorial you're off for your first dungeon together with your new fairy friend and guide, Ciela. It is there you meet the most intriguing and sympathetic character of the game, Captain Linebeck. Hate him or love him, he's going to join you in your quest and play a key role in future plot twists.
The game itself
Moving is done simply by touching the place you want to move to on the screen. You want to slash? Just draw a line or touch an enemy, it's as straightforward as that. Want to pick up something? All you need to do is tap it. Prominent in the game are the simplicity of the controls and the level of accuracy it pairs with. No button combos or anything similar are involved this time. With this control scheme Nintendo is probably also aiming at the more 'casual' gamer. The top screen is used for the map or as an extension of the bottom screen in spectacular boss battles and the bottom screen is used for standard gameplay.
No game comes to mind that utilizes the DS' two screens as usefully as Phantom Hourglass. For example: in a certain part of the game you'll have to solve a puzzle with several rocks saying they are set in a certain order. Finding out this specific order opens the door further into the dungeon. One rock says it's third, you press D-Pad down, the map slides onto the bottom screen and you then jot down a 3 next to the rock. Another rock says it's fifth. Okay then, D-Pad down, 5 next to the rock. And so on and so forth. This notebook-like use of the top screen is continuous throughout the game and there is rarely a moment nothing is drawn on the top screen.
To travel in the world of Phantom Hourglass you have to draw a line from your current position to the location you want to go to on the sea chart. Just as in Windwaker, oversea traveling goes by boat. There is hardly ever time to sit back and take a break, because you're constantly in the line of fire of other pirates, in the way of beasts of the sea, there are mines needed to be dodged and the ghost ship to look out for. Next to that, you'd want to pay attention to islands not yet marked on your map, because often these contain valuable items or even entertaining minigames that can help fill up that rupee bag of yours. To relieve the player of certain boredom while traveling, Golden Frogs can be used to travel great distances across the vast oceans of Phantom Hourglass.
Another function of the touchscreen is drawing the path of items such as your boomerang. This method is used to solve many puzzles involving switches and other key objects. For example: you have to activate three switches in a certain order (which you've already written down on your map) to open a door. Or maybe knock out an enemy by hitting it from behind. Combining these different actions make using items such as the boomerang more interesting than simply hacking and slashing away at enemies. These kind of situations are those that make the whole experience worthwhile.
After a series of events you obtain the so called "Phantom Hourglass" which can be used to traverse dungeons that leech on your life-force. As the item is an hourglass, these dungeons have to be passed within a certain time frame. Often you'll end up having much more time left than expected, so don't worry about the length of the dungeon. It's the Blue, Red and Gold Phantoms you have to watch out for. Every Phantom is more dangerous than the other. When they slash you with their outrageously large sword you'll lose time from your hourglass. Only within marked boundaries you're safe from being caught. The deeper you get into the dungeon the scarcer these boundaries are and the more dangerous the phantoms become. It becomes even more interesting when small flying sentinels are added to the mix. If you get seen by one, not only do all Phantoms come charging at you, sometimes an extra Phantom is spawned. This is all great fun and would be exceptional if it would've been more difficult than I made it sound.
The dungeons are one part of the game. The other is wandering around talking to people for clues and completing minigames to gain access to essential progressions in the storyline. As you might have guessed already, this is the game's weak point. Players might find themselves wandering around looking for vital information for an hour before actually understanding what had to be done in the first place. Of course if you've played more than one Zelda game you can probably figure out what is expected of you by purely using your 'Zelda logic'. Get this, talk there, bring an item here, wait a day, come back, etcetera. 'The usual' so to speak. But it doesn't take much to look past this and see the effort the developers put in, the originality and quality. Phantom Hourglass doesn't really break any boundaries. It sticks to the original Zelda recipe and, to be quite honest, why want something new if the original is so good?
Apart from the singleplayer story, an online mode is also included. There you can play a 'Zeldified' version of cops and robbers. One player is Link, who has to retrieve triforce shards and bring them to his home base. The shards, varying in size, alter the speed of Link's mobility, but the bigger they are, the more points they're worth. The other player controls four Phantoms, which he moves around by drawing a path on the map. His goal is to attack Link, so roles can be switched and the defender becomes the attacker. All quite amusing, but it's nothing special really. When you perform certain tasks during the online matches you're awarded golden ship parts that can be used in the singleplayer mode. Think of tasks such as "the opponent never scored a point" or "Link never got hit" and you'll understand what I mean.
Closing comments
Ultimately, you'll keep playing this for a month or so, just to put it away for a week and pick it up again over and over. Maybe to play the online mode or to find those parts you wanted and to customize your ship to your likes. You'll find yourself trying to beat your record times in the dungeons, searching for rare treasure and doing the usual more often than you'd expect. Overall the game's a great, a typical Zelda experience, though lacking some of the difficulty paired with other Zelda's. The simplest things in the game are often the most entertaining. Even though the game does have certain flaws, they are too minor to smudge the bigger picture. It's a must-have indeed.
Graphics
Smooth frame rate, great animations and a beautiful 3D world without any loading times whatsoever. Prepare to be amazed by the DS' capabilities. The cell-shaded style won't work for everyone, but I, and probably many others too, wouldn't have wanted it any other way. The style suits the DS great and it doesn't demand as much from the system as full-blown realistic 3D graphics would. Vivid colors, stunning sceneries and a lot of characters is what you can expect from this game.
Sound
The traditional Zelda tunes are included as well as many new songs. Link's sound effects are as good as they can get without having him speak. Phantom Hourglass most likely has one of the best soundtracks featured on the DS up to now.
Gameplay
Intuitive touch screen controls compliment the game's gameplay. The boss battles are great fun, but overall the game is rather easy. Even though touch screen controls are worked out quite well, they can prove tricky in intricate battles with multiple enemies.
Longetivity
Even after finishing the quite short and easy main story probably many ship parts, orbs, treasures and upgrades remain to be collected. The online mode is a tad simple, but amusing nevertheless. Don't expect all too much from this part of the game. Phantom Hourglass' focus lays on the single player adventure, which is nothing more and certainly nothing less than a traditional Zelda game in terms of quality.
Score
Graphics: 9 Sound: 9 Gameplay: 8 Longetivity: 8
You don't have it yet? What are you waiting for? Phantom Hourglass is quite possibly one of the best games the DS will feature in its lifetime!
Thank you for reading!
This post has been edited by n_gamer: Oct 9 2008, 10:12 AM
Wow impressive review n-gamer. I have to say that when I started reading it, I was getting the urge to play the game again. There is so much I loved about this game, but one thing I hated. Actually I would go as far as to say that I abhor the Ocean King Temple. So much so that I never finished the game. If it wasn't for that temple this would have became my number 1 Zelda game.
Anyways as stated great review, toward the end you started to over use the word "the" to start sentences and that detracted a little bit from the review, but other then that it was very well written.
Oh, dang. You're right about the "the" thing =P I'd edit it if I could. Thanks a lot for the critique! =D Things like that you don't often notice yourself.
Oh, dang. You're right about the "the" thing =P I'd edit it if I could. Thanks a lot for the critique! =D Things like that you don't often notice yourself.
No you don't. My issue is commons. I either over use or under use them all the time. The review I just posted yesterday I think I under used commons. There are a few places I want to add them in, but I don't know if they belong. I tend to pause a lot when I speak and so I'm trying really hard to work on common usage.
You're welcome too. You did make it on the NCR list so I wanted to read all the reviews on the list before I voted. I really hope you post more reviews on this board. I'll be starting another tournament after the one that is currently running.
I edited and removed some unneeded "the's". It was pretty difficult as I couldn't really come up with anything else than "the" in most places and just swapped them for "Phantom Hourglass" or removed them completely. Shifted a couple of weird sentences too, like the last one. I didn't even notice the blatant error there.
I'll be sure to write some more reviews soon! I've been dieing to write one on Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard. Maybe I'll start this weekend.
SWEET! I would love to read one on that game too because it's still one that I was thinking about but never got. Also I hope you join in the next tournament. ^_^
Hmmm... The review was pretty good, but I hate when reviewers break their review up into sections. I won't take away points this time, but next time, I might.
Oct 5 2008, 10:48 AM
