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»The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
"Chalk it up as another classic Zelda game."
It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here. The Legend of
Zelda: Phantom Hourglass was first announced all the way back in 2004
with the announcement of the Nintendo DS, and was only shown during the
early months of 2006. After being in development for more than three
years, one would expect to see something amazing, right? Well, you'd be
right. This game is amazing. While Twilight Princess catered to the
frothing demands of the Ocarina of Time fan base, Phantom Hourglass
succeeds in bringing the series into a fresh new direction. It may
feature the same concepts and setup as previous Legend of Zelda games,
but the added touch controls make this one of the freshest experiences
in the series since Ocarina of Time.
Phantom Hourglass takes place some time after the events of The Legend
of Zelda: The Wind Waker, with Link and Tetra sailing through the Great Sea looking
for a new land to create. However, Link, Tetra, and her pirates search
for a mysterious Ghost Ship, which Tetra believes to be nothing more
than a nefarious group of trouble-making pirates who she is going to
teach manners to. Upon boarding the ship, Tetra is captured by the
pirates, who disappear into thin air. Link makes an attempt to board
the ship beforehand, but falls into the sea. He washes up on an island,
and meets a fairy named Ciela, who has lost her memory, and joins
Link’s quest to rescue Tetra after her father, Oshu (who is a Hylian as
opposed to a fairy), grants her permission. Link and Ciela meet a
seafaring (and kind of good-for-nothing) pirate in the Temple
of the Ocean King named Lineback, who was searching for a sea chart in
the temple. After Link retrieves the sea chart and rescues Lineback,
the three of them leave on Lineback’s steam boat, bent on finding the
Ghost Ship and find Tetra – or in Lineback’s case, a great treasure.
Phantom Hourglass introduces one of the most epic
additions to the series, right behind 3D and plot: the touch screen.
While some people don’t want to like this change, it’s here and it’s
excellent. The touch screen is (or at least can be) used for everything
– moving, attacking, rolling, map, inventory, solving puzzles, etc.
This is accomplished through an overhead style, similar to that found
in the two-dimensional The Legend of Zelda games. The most important
part of the game is moving and attacking. Moving is done by holding the
Ciela cursor on a certain part of the screen, which will cause Link to
move towards her. The further away Ciela is, the faster Link will run.
The touch screen acts as nothing more than a sophisticated d-pad: if
the player puts Celia on the other side of a wall, Link will simply
move toward the wall; the only way for Link to get around would be to
guide Link to a path which would lead him to that spot, just like using
the d-pad would. The only flaw in movement is rolling, which is done by
moving, and then sliding the stylus towards Link, and then away,
causing him to roll. Sounds confusing? Well, it doesn’t really matter;
it’s not very useful and too cumbersome to be worth it.
Attacking is done mostly by tapping on the enemy which the
player wishes to attack, causing Link to attack said enemy, and move
towards it if necessary. However, Link can use more than just a simple
tap. Often, the most effective tactic to taking down an enemy quickly
is to do a slash with the stylus. Link will not move towards them, but
it does extra damage and has a larger range as well. Link can also do a
spin attack when the player draws a quick circle around him, and can do
up to four before he gets dizzy. It all works very well and is very
precise. It doesn’t interfere with your movement, and honestly, not
even analog could have done Phantom Hourglass as well as touch screen
does.
Of course, most of the classic The Legend of Zelda
elements return as well. Most of the game takes place on an overworld,
littered with monsters, treasures, and non-playable characters, and in
between sailing the Great Sea, Link traverses several dungeons, including the game’s primary dungeon, the Temple
of the Ocean King. Besides this dungeon, each dungeon contains a
dungeon item, a dungeon boss, a Heart Container, and a treasure at the
end. The Temple of the Ocean King is quite a bit different – when Link first enters, a
strange aura in certain parts of the dungeon saps his health, while
purple areas protect him. After obtaining an item called the Phantom
Hourglass, however, Link gains the ability to travel safely through its
passages – for ten minutes. In this dungeon, Link must reach a certain
floor to find a clue to get to the next dungeon, but in his way are
heavily-armored knights called Chasers who are completely invincible,
and will reduce Link’s health and time if they strike. Thankfully, they
have limited range, allowing Link a lot of freedom to complete the
puzzles.
Phantom Hourglass appears to eliminate a few staples of
the series, however. While most dungeons in Zelda games typically
feature a Dungeon Map and Compass as items obtained during the course
of the game, PH elects to give them to Link from the beginning. Also
gone is probably my biggest disappointment, the Heart Pieces. While
Heart Containers still exist, if we had Heart Pieces as well, it’d be a
lot more sidequests to accomplish, eh? But one thing that DOES return
would be the puzzles. While some are simply moving a block by tapping
on it with the touch screen and pushing on either a left or right arrow
to move it, others require the player to draw notes, symbols, etc.
Drawing on the map is also extremely useful outside of puzzles – I have
made many notes on many maps, marking something as small as a bomb
wall, or as big as a treasure chest. Marking notes on the map has
always been something I’ve wanted to do, and I am really glad that I
can now.
When Link gets in his ship, movement is limited to mapping
out a path on the sea chart with the stylus. Once a path is drawn,
Link’s ship will automatically follow it until the player opens the Sea
Chart. While the ship is moving, the player may move the camera around
it as well as fire cannon balls by touching on an area of the touch
screen. Link’s ship has four hearts, and every time Link’s ship is
damaged, it loses one of those. And trust me – there’s a lot to take
damage from. Enemies will pop up regularly and will go on the attack if
Link does not act quickly enough. As if that wasn’t enough, Link also
has to deal with explosive barrels and strange spiked walls that appear
in his path – which the player must jump over by pushing the jump
button at the bottom. Several icons can be seen on the map, including
anchors (where Link may dock), ships (which Link may board), X’s (areas
where Link may salvage for treasure), and fish (where Link may fish).
It’s not all daffodils and daisies, however. Including the
lack of Heart Pieces and the rolling function, there is one major flaw
about the game – the difficulty level (or lack thereof). Most enemies
can be vanquished pretty easily, and not even bosses are all that
challenging. In fact, they can be quite annoying, since almost all of
them fit the Legend of Zelda cliché of practically being a puzzle. The
only challenge I really got out of the game was sailing through a foggy
area, which was littered with enemies and explosive barrels – that got
me a Game Over. Otherwise however, I have not yet found something of
intense difficulty.
The visuals are almost as polished as the gameplay. They
do an amazing job of bringing handheld Legend of Zeldas into the 3D
realm, while still retaining its 2D gameplay roots. It uses The Wind
Waker’s cel-shaded cartoony style, and while it obviously doesn’t hold
up as well as Wind Waker’s visuals did, it definitely outperforms
everything on the DS by far – well, at least until Dragon Quest IX
comes out. They did give Link a bit of the bug eyes he had in the first
Wind Waker trailer, but besides that, the character models, animations,
and backgrounds are very well done, and I’m glad they decided to
cel-shade this title – without it, I doubt it would have looked nearly
as well as it does.
The soundtrack, while not groundbreaking like certain
Legend of Zelda soundtracks have been, is definitely strong. It takes
songs from several games in the series (including the sailing song from
Wind Waker), but most of the soundtrack is entirely original.
Unfortunately, the high point
of it is the recycled songs, but it’s all pretty good. The sound
effects are pretty good, as well. Each item has a unique sound to it,
and Phantom Hourglass features many voice samples for the characters
(such as Link, Linebeck, and Celia).
Phantom Hourglass also has quite a bit of replay value. Besides the
obligatory “it’s an excellent Legend of Zelda game, so it’s a 9/10 by
default!” argument, it’s also got a highly entertaining multi-player
mode which I call “Pac-Zelda”. All that is required are two Nintendo
DSes, a copy of the game, and two people it. There are eight stages in
all, and two groups – player one starts out as Link, while player two
starts out as three Chasers. Link’s controls like he does in the
Adventure mode, while Chasers are controlled by drawing a path for each
Chaser on the map. Link is much faster and is the only one able to
access the protective purple areas, but the Chasers can see Link
outside of those areas anywhere he is, and if Link is struck by one,
the players switch sides. The objective for Link is to gather up as
many Force Gems and bringing them to his area, while the Chasers’
objective is to stop him as soon as possible, or at least make sure
Link gets as few Force Gems as possible before the time runs out. This
mode is really addictive, and I love freaking out whenever I see a
Chaser, or going crazy trying to surround Link with my Chasers.
Overall, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is an
excellent Legend of Zelda game, and it really is a step-up from the
uninspired Twilight Princess, which just felt like fan-service to
Ocarina of Time fanboys. It falls short of the other handheld Legend of
Zeldas, but with a little work, it could have been one of the best
Nintendo games ever made. The engine, however, is an entirely different
story – it is one of the best engines Nintendo has ever made. It does
have one single flaw to it, but that’s less than almost any engine you
could ever cite. Phantom Hourglass should do for touch-screen adventure
games what Super Mario 64 did for the 3D platformer.
Article by: Alttp
Posted on: Oct. 16th, 2007 |
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Review Recap |
| Gameplay |
| It does for the touch adventure genre what Super Mario 64 did for the 3D platforming genre, and it’s simply a blast to play it. |
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Graphics |
| The best visuals on the DS to date – not a single flaw to be noted. |
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Sound |
| Soundtrack is great overall, recycling some pretty good songs from past Legend of Zelda games. |
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Replay Value |
| The Legend of Zelda series gets a nine in replay by default thanks to its super excellence, but Phantom Hourglass truly earned it with its addictive multiplayer mode. |
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Comments |
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October 23, 2007 |
JT |
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I don't know if i should get this because i hate games that suck after you beat them! You guys say the replay value is tremedous, but gameinformer says the replay value pretty much totally sucks, and that we will probably just leave it to the side after beating it. So.... what do you guys think?
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December 15, 2007 |
Chance |
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you should get this game i beat it 20x and it is still as fun like i just got it
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March 16, 2008 |
CHUCK |
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It's a great game, even after you beat it, there is much more to explore and unlock, item trades with other PH owners and multiplayer achievements or "Big Plays" to complete! A great plotline and exellen gameplay to top it of gets it a 10/10 in my books.
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April 29, 2008 |
Help |
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Chance can you help me in the part where you need to put the sea chart to the crest it gets me so mad plzzzzzz help :)
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