The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass DS Review

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass DS Review by Geek Woman™

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for DS is a touch-based Zelda set in the world of Wind Waker. It has been getting great reviews and high scores from fans all over. Is the hype truthful? The Zelda series moved up from a Nintendo kiddie classic with the version of the franchise The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Wii. But the experience on DS is no where near close to that fully 3D game. Unless you are a Zelda collector and are all ready a fan of the series, you might find that there isn’t a reason to pick up this one.

Game - play

In Phantom Hourglass the controls have been updated to fit the DS. You point the stylus in the direction you want Link to go, which works fine. But there is a built in obstacle that messes up the movement. The fairy companion becomes the cursor. It is a plain white color and it makes the navigation very confusing. It should have been highlighted with blue or gold to distinguish it from the tip of the white stylus, and the backgrounds. The flapping all around defeats the accuracy of the motion and sword slashing. The stylus controls are not perfect, and it does not always detect between the swirling motion for “dodge and roll” and mistakes it for running, or slashing. You can trip switches around corners by drawing a line for the boomerang to follow. You even can blow into the microphone to put out candles, which is clever. Are there some of you who wish that the next generation DS would leave out the ‘blowing’ feature regardless of how ‘clever’ it is?

You can attempt to jab and slash to attack. You can point to a spot when you want to throw a bomb. Mainly you are doing the usual things that you’d find in any RPG on the DS. You solve puzzles, wander around avoiding flames, and look for pick ups and keys. When you find clues the DS provides a notepad for you to write stuff in, or make marks on the map, which is a good application that would be useful in more complicated games. I am sure we will see more games with markable maps in the future.

What is up with the chickens? It went on Link’s head, and trying various moves only resulted in tossing the chicken a short distance. Why the chickens? What are they for? There are plenty of in-jokes and mini games in here that seem random to the non Zelda enthusiast, but may be charming for those who have been playing the games for year. On the other hand little kids who are new to the franchise might find the game to be a little dull. Cartoon and movie characters that are bright and engaging might be on their holiday gift list rather than an old franchise like this one.

You do a lot of sailing between islands, which takes up time. You have to hunt down a lost map to chart a path through hidden obstacles and you then have to copy this onto your map. There are six main dungeons, each with a boss level that has a specific solution involving the clues and weapons that you find leading up to the room the boss is in. If you forget any of the items or pass them by, you will need to go back to get them. The perspective combines third- and second-person.

Deep in the obligatory underwater, which is level called the Temple of the Ocean King the Phantom Hourglass itself is literally an hourglass. It’s function is to protect you from the poison as long as there’s sand in it at the top. When the timer is going, you have to get past phantom knights, and solve the frustrating timed puzzle to escape. There is much repetition and though obtaining certain equipment makes a few shortcuts, the annoying level design adds to the tedium.

The game has a two-player battle mode on Wi-Fi. There is a multiplayer game, where one player tries to collect force gems and the other plots the path for roaming phantoms. You can play this online or DS to DS.

Conclusions

So much of what you have to do with Link seems pointless, sometimes he even opens empty treasure chests. He has to go back and forth up and down the same paths over and over. The graphics are very plain and boring. It isn’t really 3D, in fact the introduction is made with paper cut outs and it looks amateurish. The game falls prey to over-confidence, it is all fan-service that excludes those who are new to the franchise. The characters aren’t visible enough to become engaging, and cuter more familiar characters like Pokemon or Inuyasha have better graphics and are more interesting. The game-play is weak and average. It’s pretty short, taking less than 20 hours for most players. Rent it first to see if it is worth adding to your collection. I give The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass an uninspiring 6 out of 10.

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