"The DS spoils yet another classic."

Okay, you undoubtedly clicked on my review because it was a 5/10 in a sea of 10/10s, so I'm going to level with you right off the bat: this game is not worth buying. It's gimmicky, uninspired, suffers from poor controls, is ridiculously easy, and makes you wait around entirely too much. Also, the music is repetitive, as is the rest of the game. Let me break it down for you.

Presentation: The graphics are pretty good in general, at least as far as DS games go. They could afford to be a little more colorful, but essentially everything looks like what it's supposed to be, and it's more or less pleasing to the eye. Music on the other hand is forgettable; you probably won't remember much of it 10 minutes after shutting the game off, and you won't have much reason to. In addition, the same themes are played over and over throughout the game. Compared to earlier Zelda games, the music can be said to be a complete failure. As for sound effects, well, they seem to have been ripped from Zelda 64. They're fitting, more or less, although your character sounds a little too furious with his battle cries considering he looks like a scared little kid.

Gameplay: This game can be played without ever touching the buttons or D-pad, and in fact all you are really allowed to do with the controller is activate your items with the L or R button and bring up your map with either the D-pad or the ABXY buttons. Everything else happens by touching the screen. This is immediately problematic; sometimes your baby Link clone will move instead of attacking, attack instead of rolling, or jump off of a platform instead of throwing an object down to the floor beneath him. This also means that you can't move while aiming your boomerang, which is slightly upsetting. Even by the end of the game, I (and everybody else I've talked to who isn't a rabid fan) found myself unable to consistently control my character the way I wanted to. This is where essentially ALL of the game's difficulty comes into play. Enemies die as soon as you click on them with your stylus, and even taking down bosses is a very simple matter assuming you can control your character. The difficulty is far below average, and makes everything you do feel sort of pitiful. This lack of difficulty goes beyond just the action, too. The puzzles are pathetically easy and all have their answers handed to you. One of the last 'puzzles' in the game consists of jumping to four different platforms with buttons on them and pushing the buttons. Just in case that was too difficult, each of the four buttons has a sign next to it stating "Push the four buttons to proceed." This is the type of puzzle you can expect to encounter all throughout the game. It's laughable.

Variety, replay value: Nintendo actually managed to give me a game in this case which is LESS than the sum of its parts. There are quite a few areas to visit, yet the game feels small and cramped due to the linear, "go here, then there, then there" gameplay. There's no feeling of adventure like the other Zelda games had, which makes the game feel smaller. The same goes for enemies; there are actually quite a few different enemies in the game, but for the most part each area has only one unique enemy. The rest of the time, you battle the same few monsters. Electric slime inhabits every continent in this world, it seems. And searching for hidden items and treasures, a staple of Zelda adventures? You receive treasure maps for defeating enemies or solving puzzles (read: pulling levers), and proceed to the X which is placed on your map. You then complete a brief mini-game and receive a useless item as your reward! Your reward will be either a custom part to make your ship look different, or SAND which extends your timer in the game's MASTER DUNGEON. Let me hit those two topics.

Monotony: Journeying from place to place in this game happens by ship. You draw a line on your map from one island to another, and then a minigame ensues where you stare at the ocean for two minutes as your ship moves. Periodically an enemy will appear, and you are expected to shoot it by clicking on it with the stylus. Or you may be expected to jump over a trap, because naturally your boat can jump. Frankly, I spent most of my sailing time reading something and clicking on enemies when I heard the music change from happy to evil. This tedium is bearable, but what really kills this game is the master dungeon. There is one dungeon which you will have to enter numerous times, full of puzzle rooms which you will have to complete every time you enter the dungeon. That's a whole lot of pulling levers and hitting switches! It becomes infuriating when you find yourself in the same room hitting the same switch for the fourth time, and if you save and shut your game off in the middle you'll just have to do it all again. Your SAND is important here as it reflects how much time you are allowed to spend; you are armed with an hourglass which grants you 10 minutes in the dungeon, but by defeating bosses or finding treasure outside of the main dungeon you add additional minutes to your total. Of course, your time doesn't go down when you're standing in certain areas, so even though it'll take you 15 real minutes to run through the dungeon you'll only end up spending 5 of your in-game minutes. Plus, you'll find items inside to replenish your minutes. In other words, that sand you get for searching out treasure is completely useless and represents a waste of your time, because you would have been just fine with the 10 minute total you started with. Finally, we have the icing on the cake, which is where the game makes you WAIT all the time. That gets its own paragraph because it's just so bad.

Waiting: Dear lord. This game already holds your hand by giving you the solution to every puzzle in it, but that wasn't enough. After hitting a switch, pulling a lever, or killing a room full of enemies which opens a path, you get to watch a cutscene of that path opening in addition to a little exclamation point popping up on your map to show you what you've just done. So if you've opened a door, you get to watch a little cinematic of that door opening. In many cases multiple paths will open up. And what does that mean? You'll get to watch a 3-second video of a door opening. Then a 2-second video of spikes lowering. Then a 2-second video of flames being extinguished. THEN you can play. This is slightly funny at first, but becomes particularly annoying in the master dungeon where you will have to watch the same doors opening time and time again. But we're patient people, so that doesn't bother us, right? Here's where Nintendo had to make absolutely SURE that we'd be annoyed: the same thing happens when enemies are alerted to your presence or when they appear in the master dungeon. And this often takes place when you're directly next to them. So what's that mean in real terms? You can be right next to an enemy when suddenly the gameplay stops, the camera moves somewhere else, and you watch a short video of an enemy materializing or waking up. THEN you get to control your character again, which can be disorienting during certain parts of the game. This is pointless at the best of times, and infuriating at the worst, particularly because it tends to happen during the "stealth" portions of the Master Dungeon which is the last time you'd ever want to lose control of your character.

Story (Dignity): I don't have much to say about the dialogue except that it really made me feel embarrassed to be playing. Of course the DS is geared towards a younger audience, and of course Zelda games are supposed to be accessible for children, but this was just ridiculous. Scenes from the game play out like this:

Ship's captain: "Go give those monsters a beating, Link! I'd do it, but my... uhh... back hurts... so I'll be over here. ...yeah..."
Link's pet fairy: "Your back doesn't hurt, you're just afraid, you big coward!"
Ship's captain: "Shut up, you fluttering twerp! I really am in pain! Ohh, ohh, if I could only move I'd definitely take all the glory!"
Link's pet fairy: "Oh, you're just a big scaredy cat! Link, you think he's just afraid, don't you?"

You will then be offered the choices YES or NO. Don't worry about making the right choice - the game won't get any better either way. As for the plot of the game itself, it's along the lines of what you'd expect from an NES game.

I don't know what else can be said. The only reason why I finished this game was so that I could write this review. Otherwise, I would have gotten rid of it after about halfway through it. It just isn't a particularly good game. The controls aren't solid enough, there's no difficulty factor, and the content just doesn't feel worth the trouble to play the game. My advice is to skip this disgrace to the Zelda series.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/16/07

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