"Fun but flawed; Phantom Hourglass is a gem surrounded by coal"

The latest entry into the Zelda series, this time found on the DS, is a mixture of fun and frustration which takes promising ideas and either makes you realize they aren't good in practice, drives them into the ground, or rarely, makes you hope that Nintendo can sort their gems from the rest of the chaff.

Graphics - 9/10
The game's graphical presentation is great, sharing the style of the Gamecube's Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. The game is pleasing to the eye and I cannot remember a time where I was disappointed by the graphics. Customizing your ship can be fun, and the amount of parts available ensure that at there's something you'll like to look at while sailing. Sometimes it's difficult to perceive depth in dungeons when there are multiple levels of ground that you're dealing with, but it's a minor thing and probably just my lame depth perception.

Sound - 5/10
All the sounds are appropriate and often times the same Zelda sounds we've been hearing forever. The music is nothing spectacular, but it fits the occasion appropriately. There is just nothing spectacular here.

Gameplay - 6/10
I'll start this off simply - The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is an example of Nintendo taking the non-standard functions of the DS too far. Everything, and by that I mean every action the game requires you to take is done without the use of the standard face and shoulder buttons. You may use them to equip items and bring up helpful menus, but the majority of the game is played with the stylus.

This wouldn't be a problem if the stylus controls were spot-on, but frankly, even by the end of the game Link will be puttering around under your control, often misjudging your intentions and flubbing things up in a decidedly frustrating manner. The game is fully playable and even enjoyable even with this issue, but there's more to it than just the spotty stylus control. At times, the game will require (yes, require) you to use the DS microphone and even sleep functions. While it's cute that they're trying to incorporate all the "kooky" functions of the DS into the game, it's irritating to be forced to use them in a manner that, for the most part, feels unnatural. And because the DS is a portable system, don't be surprised if you get more than one person looking at you funny for putting the DS up to your face and blowing hard into the microphone (my record for questions on that topic: 3).

The game seems to really abuse the privilege of interactivity by requiring you to do EVERYTHING manually. As amusing as tapping a door to open it was the first time, that interactive joy quickly deteriorates into interactive tedium. The game has you performing the same functions almost endlessly. Fighting enemies is more of a chore than a thrill, since a single stroke defeats most enemies in the game, and tapping on an enemy actually makes you leap over to them in order to quickly administer your death blow. Bosses aren't much harder, almost always requiring just a simple use of your latest item (conveniently located in the dungeon they guard) to dispatch. However, unlike the normal enemies, the boss fights are both innovative in their design, and most importantly, fun. They may be the most fun part of the game, because they offer the most variety out of anything in the game. Where one boss battle has you use the perspective of your enemy on the top screen to your advantage, another makes you switch between two characters in order to fell a beast across a quicksand pit, and so on. While they may be fairly easy, the boss fights offer a variety that is lacking in most of the rest of the game.

While adventuring and puzzles are a mainstay of the Zelda series, the puzzles in Phantom Hourglass are formulaic and easy, generally consisting of three basic types:
1) Remember the order in which to pull/place/trigger a series of levers/gems/switches
2) Visit locations on your map and connect them in an appropriate way to reveal a symbol to inscribe or a secret area to dig up
3) Use the item you recently received to trigger a switch/orb in a dungeon

There are some fun puzzles, such as a logic puzzle to determine which of six islanders is lying to you, but by and large the puzzles are unentertaining. The most difficulty I had with them was managing to force Link to do what I wanted in order to complete the puzzle.

The ability to mark notes on your map is underused, in my opinion, since it is almost exclusively employed to complete the abovementioned map-location puzzles. However, it's an innovation that I'd like to see more of, as making notes on the map actually seemed in place for any Zelda game, not only one that's fully touch-controlled. I found myself frequently noting the orders of things for the "remember the order" puzzles, and I can see that purpose being expanded further into other adventure games.

Sailing is another critical, and flawed, aspect of Phantom Hourglass. In lieu of roaming a giant world map, you sail to your next destination by drawing a course between you and your destination. After that's done, your navigation consists of telling the ship to stop or go. While that sounds very boring, your ship duties also include manning the cannon (when you get it), and being ready to make the ship hurdle obstacles, which mostly consist of unthreatening green kelp. While this may sound somewhat entertaining, it is actually one of the most tedious parts of the game. At best, it is a timesink, forcing you to watch the screen while you wait to play again. At worst it is an absolute frustration, with enemies plaguing you in some areas and sometimes sending your ship into the bottom of the ocean, where you're greeted with a nice "Game Over" screen and sent back to the start of your voyage. You are allowed to customize your ship with parts you find in various places, and matching parts helps increase the ship's vitality, but the ship's base health is usually fine to get where you want to go, provided you can get your cannon to fire accurately and don't succumb to the sometimes unfair enemies that plague Phantom Hourglass' seas. While at sea, you can also salvage for treasure, which involves controlling the speed and movement of an underwater crane as it goes to pick up underwater treasure crates. There are underwater creatures waiting to thwart you, though, and if you hit too many of them your salvage arm will break. That wouldn't be a big deal, except for the fact that your arm's health is persistent. So yes, if you get hit on one treasure hunt, you'll carry that damage over to the next run. For what is essentially a minigame, this seems unnecessary, and the game exacerbates the problem by only allowing repairs to your crane at one location.

Luckily for your broken crane, you'll be in that location a lot, since you're required to visit and revisit it in order to progress through the game. Early in the game, you'll receive an item called the Phantom Hourglass, which allows you to travel into the Temple of the Ocean King. The Hourglass only has a limited amount of time to let you explore the temple though, so after travelling inside you must defeat the next dungeon boss to increase your max time and allow yourself to move deeper into the temple to unlock the next item you need to move on. There are also invulnerable guards patrolling the temple, and if you alert one of these guards, you must run to a designated "safe spot" or suffer their wrath, which includes shaving some time off of your Hourglass and sending you back to the entrance you came from. But the woes of the temple don't stop at the guards. Unfortunately for you, after you leave the temple, you have to go back through the entire thing again, so after every dungeon you'll go back to the temple and replay it until you get to the next level. New items help you save time on further run-throughs by opening previously blocked paths, but I guarantee by the end of the game you'll still be sick of the place. In fact, the most satisfying part of the game may also be in this dungeon, since eventually you're able to take out revenge on the guards for all the time they've made you waste.

All in all, the gameplay is a mixed bag. At times, when it avoids its usual patterns, the game really shines. But for the most part, the game has you repeating the same actions over and over, humorously mirroring the repetition that the game demands in the form of the Temple of the Ocean King.

Story - 7/10

The plot of Phantom Hourglass is a continuation of the story from Wind Waker, but for those who didn't finish that game (myself included) a dandy little recap is given in the form of storybook-style cutouts. Not only are these beautiful, they're informative too. The story from that point on is largely formulaic, wherein the unsuspecting Link slowly grows in power and works to defeat the evil plaguing the land. The characters you meet are lively though, and the story is at least enough to make you press on in the name of completion. It's not a great story, but it's certainly good enough to make you want to beat the game.

Longevity/Replayability - 7/10

The game takes a decent chunk of time to finish, I'd estimate I spent 12-15 hours on it. If you want to collect every last item in the game, or played really slowly, you could probably squeeze 20-25 hours out of the game, but once you've beaten it, it's essentially over. There is some attempt at multiplayer but I never played it because, in honesty, has anyone ever purchased a Zelda title for the multiplayer? (Reviewer's note: the Smash Brothers series doesn't count)

Final Opinion - 6/10

This is the Zelda series' first foray into full touch control, and I hope it's the last. The game suffers from a lack of precision, and while the game would be far too easy without that, it still feels gimmicky at times. Phantom Hourglass is an entertaining game, but on almost all counts, it is unimpressive. In all honesty, the only reason I completed the game was because I plan on trading in some games in order to get new ones, and I couldn't bear to turn in the game when I hadn't completed it. If you're looking for a new DS game, you could do worse, but if you're looking for a game that makes you really driven to complete it, you could also do a lot better. If you're a hardcore Zelda fan, you'll love this anyway, since the series still has its trademarks, just implemented differently. This game is fun, but flawed.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/20/07

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