The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo DS, 2007)

Once again, Nintendo banks on one of their other famous mascots to bring in the sales, please the fans, and tie up any loose ends that they might have created. It’s hard to believe that you can take the graphics, game play, game length and everything else that would be packed into a huge disc that’s GB’s worth of information and somehow squeeze it all into a small rectangular cartridge and play it on a portable system that doesn’t even come close to the processing power of a console and still play and display par to a console system. My hat goes off to Nintendo for striving for excellence out of their gaming divisions.


Story – 5/5
Wind Waker ends and this picks up from there. Link, Tetra, and the pirate crew are all on the ship sailing the seas. Events of the Wind Waker, are shown, cue the random fog that engulfs the ship and the mysterious and famous but never seen Ghost Ship appears. Tetra leaps on the ship to see what all the commotion is about, but right after she does so, there’s a loud girly scream, Link jumps to go save her, but falls into the water and washes away. Links wakes up on a random island (Link's Awakening anyone?) Well, eventually, you’ll meet this Leinback character who helps you with the ship you get to use. In the end, to sum things up you find out Bellum has kidnapped Terra and in typical Mario fashion, your off to save your princess… whoops wrong game.

Game Play – 4/5
Call me biased, call me whatever, but I’d like to maybe even give this section a 3/5(reasons will be given later). This has nothing to do with the cel shading or the appearance of the graphics and lighting, both great for the DS. The touch screen capabilities with the dual screens are both big points, very additive features, among the lines of using the weapons with the touch screen, marking things on the maps, ect. The boss battles at times are over the top and brilliantly done. The 3/5 I would like to give this lies in the puzzles, overall difficulty of the controls and using the touch screen to use some of the weapons.

Music – 5/5
In typical Zelda style, Koji Kondo does wonders. Everything from the main menu to the deepest dungeon will have impressive music. Nothing too offbeat, some old toons along with some new make the music top notch.


Replay and Overall Value
Graphics and sound are among the best on the DS. Gameplay that's traditional Zelda in every scene. Main game is about 30 hours with side quests and even mini games to boot. Now if Nintendo would do more of these type of game “sequels” or add-on storylines to the rest of the Zelda games, I can see a lot of great things coming from Nintendo.

"This game is... EPIC!"
I know, I know. Epic? Am I exaggerating? Nope. Few games reach epic status, one such game is Metroid Prime. I know. Am I going so far as to compare this game to Metroid Prime? No. This game is astounding.


Graphics: 10/10

The graphics of the game are quite a lot like Wind Waker's, which means graphics are either something you love, or something you hate. I am personally a fan of Wind Waker's graphics, because it is more of a storybook style, and I persoanally enjoy that, because it makes you feel like you are enjoying a great fantasy novel, as well as playing a game. That is why I give the graphics a ten.

Sound: 10/10

The sound takes you back, as always, with that first "You found a secret! DANANANANA-NANA!", and takes you back to the Wind Waker days; not a huge time jump, but enough to make you nostalgic for that ol' GCN game; the game of so many hidden treasures. The time you hear the sailing song again, you will sigh with relief. It's back... your home...

Story: 10/10

The story in this game is quite intresting. Tetra has been kidnapped, and you must find her. Wow, big suprise, right? However, the story gets more and more intresting with every new dungeon. It is great.

Puzzles: 10/10

Ok. You may start to think I am kissing up to this game, but the puzzles are amazing. Sure, they are the same ol' Push Block, Hit Switch in Right Order conviently located on sign, but then there are new puzzles such as "Open the door by writing the number of palm trees on the beach on the sign". It is like playing "Trace Memory" With Zelda. Thumbs up!

Gameplay: 10/10

From learning to roll to the Phantom Dodgings, to finding the way to find the secret cave, it is epic. Sailing, sadly, has taken a small toll, as now you may not free sail, instead navigate in a line. Fortunately, ship battles, Beedle, and barrels to dodge are still cool. Go ahead. You know the game. Let's play

Overall: 10/10

For the reasons stated above, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass has achieved Epic-hood. You can't beat this game. Well, you can, because if you don't then you will have failed game-hood, or your dignity, but this game deserves respect, care, and honor. This game will live on as one of the greatest DS games of our time. It isn't Twilight Princess, but in some ways it is better (Because this game actually has hard puzzles before Arbiter's Ground!). You will love this game. Welcome home, Link. Go on. You can stop reading. Go play.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10

Game Release: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (US, 10/01/07)

This game uses the NDS to its full capabilities. You easily move your fairy character around and attack with the touch screen. Also there are many points in the game that use the microphone or require other unique actions that are not in many other DS games (theres at least one point where you need to shut the lid to complete a task).
Besides being unique in the style of gameplay you get pretty much what is expected with any other Zelda game. You play as a young fairy boy who must complete some tasks to ultimately save a girl.
In this game the girl is your captain of the ship you were a part of. She gets captured by a Ghost Ship that you must chase down to rescue her.
Of course you must go through several temples defeating evil so that you can get to the ghost ship.
So overall for a Zelda game: its cool because its on the DS and uses some fun new ways of beatign the game, but overall there isnt anything too specal in comparison with all of the other games. It is defineatly worth the purchase though. Just dont be expecting another Ocarina of Time

At first hearing about how The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass would be controlled completely with touch control I thought it might of been a bad idea. I thought touch control would get in the way of the action. I thought it would be difficult to pull of the moves Link could do in previous games. Boy I was dead wrong. All touch control is almost a stroke of genius. It's all very simple to control Link, anyone can do it. While controlling Link may be easy you deftdently can't say the same for the mind-boggling puzzles, fiendish enemies, and awe-inspiring bosses. There are a few things in Phantom Hourglass that are brand new to the world of Zelda. Number 1 is obviously touch control. Second is the inclusion of a multiplayer! Finally you can beat up on your friends, siblings, and people you don't even know in pitched sword to sword combat! Third is Wi-fi. Now people in Norway, Grenada, Bolivia, and even Canada will be able to get some butt-kicking from you. Fourth and finally is a sort of master dungeon called the Temple of the Ocean King has been added. At first you can only go down so many floors. But if you comeback inbetween every dungeon or two you will able to travel father into the temple. This temple however has a curse on it. So every second you lose a quarter of a heart, uh-oh, thats not good. That's where the Phantom Hourglass comes in handy. This hourglass starts out having only ten minutes of sand in it when you first get it. Every second your in the Ocean King's temple the sand slowly runs out, but while it still has sand in it you are immune to the temples curse. You can get more sand for you Hourglass throughout the game. So you want to get The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass for your DS believe me. Don't have DS? Phantom Hourglass is a perfect excuse to get one. This game is filled with dozens of cool wacky characters. All cartoony like. Some cool new things are a wallet that hold not 999 rupees (Zelda currency) but 9999 rupees! There's also a cool new sword brand new to the Zelda series. A lot of the game is spent on water just like Wind Waker. Only the way you sail has been much improved. You can even customize you own ship so it looks cooler and has more hearts. Your boat has a heart meter of it's own. Captain Linebeck your ships' navigator drives the boat. All you have to do is tell him where to go and fire you cannon that has infinite ammo. The story is strong too. So overall The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass is unbelievably great. I hope my review helped you.

From the day I read about this game in an issue of Nintendo Power I had been highly anticipating this game, while originally it didn't meet my expectations at all, after playing it a second time I have enjoyed it quite a bit.

Graphics 3/5:
For being released in the middle of the DS's lifespan, Phantom Hourglass has very nice graphics. Though I have never really dug Wind Waker's cartoon like graphics, I can still see that they are somewhat impressive, if you enjoyed Wind Waker's graphics then ignore the rating I gave above.

Gameplay 4/5:
This can either be an enjoyable Zelda experience, or a very boring repetitive game depending upon certain factors. For the most part it's exactly how every other Zelda is, which is fine, at least thats how it appears at the beginning, then you step into the boat. I personally somewhat enjoyed the ocean traveling portion of the game, though many people didn't like it, if you don't like having to go through the same area multiple times taking 3-4 minutes each time you probably will have some trouble with this. While it would of been nice if they had a sort of teleport thing like the Elder Scrolls games, I think that the large amount of exploring is alright.

Controls 3/5:
I really don't like the stylus controls of this game, it would of been nice if they added a sort of classic controls option similar to the older games. First of all some puzzles require drawing symbols on the touchscreen, I remember spending half an hour drawing the same thing until it finally accepted what I drew, extremely frustrating! Other than that the battle mechanics using the stylus can get annoying, occasionally doing one of those spin attacks when I don't want it to, or slashing when I want to roll, but you won't have that much trouble with them.

Sound 4/5:
Pretty good, not much to say here, typical for a Zelda game, nothing super impressive or terribly bad here.

MultiPlayer:
I'm not gonna rate the multiplayer, it's a nice little extra, but nothing that will sell the game. Basically it is a sort of RTS thing, one player controls phantoms trying to kill Link, the other player gets Link who is trying to get all these little Triforce like things that I can't remember the name of. It has a little ranking system so you won't go against super Experienced opponents, which is nice. I suppose it is a bit fun but nothing special.

Conclusion:
I wish there was a 3.5 option here, it can be a good or bad game depending upon how you take it, once you get used to the controls and graphics its an alright game. Don't go expecting it to be like Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask, but come with an open mind, you may enjoy it.