"Phantom Hourglass is easily the best game on the DS, and one of the best Zelda games to date."

Before Nintendo first revealed anything on Phantom Hourglass, there was no Zelda game for one of Nintendo's greatest systems: the Nintendo DS, and most people thought it was going to be an online Four Swords type game, but everyone was wrong. Nintendo then announced, out of nowhere, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and right away, people knew it was going to be epic. Mixing the old birds-eye look of the 2D Zelda games from the past, and the new 3D cartoon style, people wanted to see more and more of this going-to-be epic game. As you all have noticed though, Nintendo has gone ‘casual', and now most of their games are getting stupidly easy (Twilight Princess) and are getting ridiculously simple (Wii Sports). And everyone knows also knows the Nintendo DS is not a graphical powerhouse, so Nintendo decided to go with the more ‘cartoony' look, made famous in the Wind Waker for the Gamecube. With this new casual approach, Nintendo decided to again, make the game simple, and make it easy. Nintendo went for an all touch game, which means everything is controlled with the touch screen, even running and slashing, all. Most people thought this would ruin the game, and old school Zelda fans would be turned off by such a move. But what Nintendo has done is nothing short of outstanding. The touch controls work near-perfect, the graphics are amazing, the adventure is epic.

The game starts off right after the events of the Wind Waker, literally. Link, Tetra, and the pirate crew are all on the ship sailing the seas. After a cute slide show of the events of the Wind Waker, fog randomly rolls around the ship, and the mysterious and well-known but never seen Ghost Ship appears out of nowhere. The courageous girl Tetra is, leaps on the ship to try and see what the hell is going on. But right after she does so, “Ahhh!”, she screams aloud. Link jumps to her aid only to fall off the ship and get washed away. Afterwards, Link wakes up on a random island in the middle of nowhere, not knowing where he is. Stuff happens here, stuff happens there, and eventually you meet up with a mysterious man named Lineback who controls the ship you must travel with during the game. You eventually find out that Bellum is the one behind Tetra's capture, and you must save her before it's too late. So it's your job to travel around the seas, like in the Wind Waker, and try to find out more about the Ghost Ship, and more importantly, save Tetra.

The game plays amazing, everything from talking, to running, to using the boomerang is used with the stylus. Like in Animal Crossing Wild Worlds, you touch the part of the screen where you want to run, but unlike Animal Crossing, Link zips, and it feels more smooth and can actually feel better than using the buttons. To use your sword, you slash in the direction you want to slash, simple. And if you want to do a 360 spin attack, you quickly draw around Link and he'll do it. You can also tap the enemy you want to attack, and Link will do a jumping slice if he's too far away, or he'll do a normal slash if you're close enough. Most enemies are pretty easy to defeat, either one or two slashes will usually kill them off. But combat, even though easy, is actually quite satisfying. Nintendo couldn't have done it any better, and it works great. Rolling is the only think that bugs me about the touch only controls. While running, you have to make a small circle and Link will roll. It's not as easy as it sounds though, because sometimes it just doesn't work, no matter what you do. This is especially annoying when you're trying to roll into a tree to get items. Picking up items is also easy, you touch the item you want to pick up, and he'll pick it up. Then, you can press the direction you want to throw it, and he'll throw it there as well.

Most of Link's equipment are amazingly used too. To use the boomerang for example, is as easy as drawing the path of where you want it to go, and it will follow exactly where you draw. In the dungeons, which there are plenty of, you will have to use these items like you never have before. I don't want to give away too much spoilers, so I'll try and tone it down a bit, but I could talk all day about how cleverly these items are used. Another example is the grappling rope, which you can hook it on a post sticking into the ground, and pull yourself towards it. You can also put the grappling rope onto two posts at the same time and walk on it, like a tight rope. Plus, you can use the rope as a sling shot to shot yourself from, and even to reflect your arrows. Equipping you items can be a pain though because when you go to the menu, the game is not paused, so enemies can still attack you, and it can be really tiring when you need an item for certain enemy, but they keep attacking you. The menu is activated by the touch screen at the bottom right, and the bottom left. The left menu is where you can save your game, and the right one is where you change your items. It can also get quite irritating when you want to run southwest or southeast, but you push the menu buttons. Also, when you're carrying items and you want to walk a certain direction, he will throw the item in that direction first, then run there.

One main part of the game is the Temple of the Ocean Kings, where you go deeper and deeper into after every completed dungeon in order to find different sea charts. I'll talk about the temple later on. Sea Charts unlock certain areas of the sea. There are 4 main areas of the season, and there are many islands on each part of the area. To travel to the different parts of the sea, you must ride Lineback's ship, which is way easier to use than Link's King of Red Lions in the Wind Waker. What you do is draw a line, and your ship will follow where you drew. And while traveling there, you can turn left and right by pressing that part of the screen, and you can also jump by pressing the jump button at the bottom of the screen. Enemies pop up everywhere while sailing, and you can attack them by shooting them with your cannon. It's as simple as touching the enemy you want to shoot. You also have unlimited ammo, unlike the Wind Waker where you have to use bombs. You can also get jumped by a Female Pirate, and when she ambushes you, you must fight here inside you ship. This event can happen every so often, and can actually be quite fun to try and dodge her.

But the Temple of the Ocean Kings is a cool temple, and a very cool concept, but can get tiresome after a while. What you must do is travel from floor to floor looking for sea charts. After you find the sea chart, you can exit, and travel to that part of the sea. But after to beat the temple, and obtain some Sand of Time, you must go back, and look for another sea chart. Oh, and by the way, you're timed, and you run out when you step out of a safe area. There are also Phantom Guards that patrol the temple, and on the map on the top screen, it shows the way they're looking, kind of like guards in Metal Gear Solid. Phantom Guards cannot be killed though, so you must dodge them in order to proceed through the temple. The Temple of the Ocean Kings is a cool concept like I said before, but each time you come back to the temple, you have to do the same puzzles you did before over and over again. Eventually, you can travel halfway through so you don't have to travel there again, but it's still tiring in the first couple of hours.

The graphics are especially amazing in this game. What the Wind Waker made famous, Phantom Hourglass put on the DS. But, it's no doubt a huge downgrade from the Gamecube, but Phantom Hourglass is definitely the best looking DS game to date, maybe even better than some Nintendo 64 games. Everything is cel-shaded in the game, from the character models to the environments, and it looks great. They're easy on the eyes, and never get bothersome in any way. Not everything looks perfect though, pots, rocks, and other things you can pick up are sprites, and aren't actually in 3D. It's nothing to get angry over, but it sometimes can look odd when Link pick up pot that doesn't look 3D, but everything else does. The enemies are smartly designed too, but there isn't a huge variety. There are the main Octoroks, Chu-Chus, and Miniblins. But there are also new enemies like a huge fish-like creature that has a sword and a shield. The bosses are also quite amazing. Each one is unique to the temple they reside in. One, for example, is a flying Octorok, and it resides in the Sky Temple.

The audio is also quite magnificent in Phantom Hourglass. The soundtrack is one of the best soundtracks in a handheld Zelda game, but it's definitely not perfect. There are great tunes, like the island tune, but the music seems to be constant, and never changes. For example, every dungeon has the same music, and every island has the same music. Usually in Zelda games every dungeon has a different tune, and the different towns have different music. It's only a minor gripe, but it can get irritating. But everything else is pretty much perfect though. Each sound effect sounds exactly like the Wind Waker counterpart. Link's yell, perfect. Everything sounds great.

The main quest will probably take you around 15 to 20 hours, and that's pretty good for a DS game. You can collect different parts for you ship by searching the sea. This is done by finding a treasure chart, and it marks an X on your map. From there, you stop on the X and fish in the sea for treasure. Using the crane in Phantom Hourglass is a lot better than using the Grappling Hook in the Wind Waker. Once you start, you must play a mini game where you slide the crane left and right dodging enemies and things in the way. One you get to the bottom, you pick up the treasure, and you have to bring it back to the top passes all of the things you dodged getting to the bottom. You can also speed the crane up, and slow it down just in case you don't want to damage it. If you do damage the crane, you must to back to the man that made it for you, and buy a new one.

Another distraction from the main quest is the battle mini game that you can even play online. Yes, Phantom Hourglass is the first competitive multi-player Zelda game. Not only is it not that fun though, it's not even a minor distraction. The mini game is a Link vs. Phantom capture the flag type of game where players rotate from being Link and being the Phantom. What you must do as Link is dodge the Phantoms and grab as many Triforce pieces as possible and deliver them back to your zone. As a Phantom, you must draw a line on the touch screen to where you want the Phantoms to go. You can keep your overall stats like wins, losses, and disconnections.

Overall, Phantom Hourglass is a true Zelda game, easy or not. There are many major things that make it an amazing game like the near-perfect controls, the great boss battles, and the amazing puzzles. There are also many little things that make it great like drawing on maps, which is really useful, and the great usage of equipment. There are also many gripes though, like the rolling, the Temple of the Ocean Kings, and some of the music. But overall, Phantom Hourglass is a great overall package, and is no doubt the best DS game to ever hit the market. You can put it beside Ocarina of Time, A Link to the Past, and the Wind Waker, because Phantom Hourglass is a great game, and shouldn't be passed by anyone.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/22/07

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