The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is good. If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, it’s gallivanting around Seattle from location to location while playing this game. I probably wouldn’t have had time to play the game had it not been a portable title and thus the genius of Zelda on handheld systems is undeniable. I mean, we all know Zelda’s good, but Zelda that fits in your backpack is way better. While in the past the series has sacrificed graphics and gameplay to make Link portable, the advent of the Nintendo DS means this sacrifice is no longer necessary. The end result is a quirky game that manages to mix the old charm of Zelda with the high paced world of today relatively seamlessly.

And yes, I know that sounded pretty lame.

Let me start off with saying that the Phantom Hourglass’ visuals are stunning. When I first opened the game and typed in my character’s name, I was biting my lip with apprehension. I was afraid it wouldn’t be anything too special. I had recently finished the Minish Cap, which was the predominate Zelda game for the GBA, and while it was cute, it still had a decidedly 2d feel that was both nostalgic and annoyingly linear at times. I was worried that Phantom Hourglass would bring about the same feelings. Rather quickly, though, instead of biting my lip, my jaw was agape. It looked like Windwaker on my DS. It was Windwaker on my DS. My Gamecube had been shrunk down to a DS. It was some of the best cell-shading I have ever seen, and the details were immense. Link’s expressions tell a story better than most voice acting could ever do, and the sea is expansive—the waves felt endless, even if they weren’t.

Of course, visuals aren’t all that makes a game. Luckily Phantom Hourglass is fairly consistent in other departments. Its controls have been a subject of controversy in recent forum discussions and blog posts, because as some of you know, they’re stylus only. You have to use a stylus. You can’t use the control pad. You can’t use A and B for anything other than menu selection. You have to tap the screen to slash, draw circles to do a spin attack, and other interesting combinations for more of Link’s actions. I’ll concede here that I think Nintendo should have implemented a traditional option for older Zelda gamers who are used to the previous controls, perhaps one selected on the start of a new file, but I’ll also argue that once you adjust to the stylus, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

In other words, it’s not so bad. Plus the stylus only features are downright awesome at times. The game will have you yelling into the DS’ microphone and blowing on it to attract NPC’s attention and solve puzzles respectively. This is pretty innovative, if a bit embarrassing to do in public at 9AM while on the downtown crowded bus (yes, I was that girl, in the black coat, making out with her DS as she sipped Starbucks coffee—fuck off already). Another cool feature is the ability to draw on maps for making notes and outlining puzzles. You might find a hint on a wall of a dungeon room that shows a weird arrow outlining a path. If you scribble this down on your map, you might find out ten or fifteen rooms later that you have the solution to a rather complex puzzle before you. This eliminates a lot of the tedious backtracking Zelda is infamous for.

Unfortunately, this also makes the dungeons a lot shorter. I beat the first dungeon, the Fire Dungeon, in the first day just from my commute to school to work to home. I expected it to be longer and when it was over, I was a little disappointed. I realized quickly that it was mostly because instead of wandering from room to room, or looking for a key for twenty minutes straight, I had jotted down all the notes and therefore was extremely well-oriented throughout gameplay. Instead of lost in a slew of corridors, I was a green man with a mission. I got in there and out like that.

I also have to say that just because dungeons are shorter doesn’t mean they’re worse. The dungeons are very creative with good boss fights and rewards. Traditional Zelda items show their faces almost immediately—the boomerang being the first item you obtain as you enter the world—and make you feel at home, even if the controls may not initially. Some of the dungeons are very intricate and well-planned. A good argument would be that perhaps Phantom Hourglass cuts down on the amount of time played in a dungeon solely because it does eliminate the backtracking, which almost goes into quality versus quantity. Do you really want a longer dungeon simply because you have to retrace you step a hundred times before you get to the boss? You could even look at Phantom Hourglass to Zelda along the vein of what Resident Evil 4 did for the RE series. RE4 made ammo more frequently available, as well as inventory space while reducing the puzzles, making it less annoying and essentially eliminating needless backtracking to spaces for an item left behind or a puzzle unsolved because it required you to grab a piece of paper and write a combination down. The end result was 2005’s game of the year, and what is probably the best installation of the series since Resident Evil 2. In some ways, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass did just this for the Zelda series.

It’s giving it a breath of fresh air, even if it is a little too easy.

The cast of side characters in Phantom Hourglass is also solid. Ciela may be an annoying fairy and a Navi-wannabe, but her presence is comforting in its own way. Linebeck may be unnervingly self-serving at first, but give him time and you can see his true colors, or at least laugh when he calls Link a “green little monkey.” Because of the graphics, a lot of the little characters such as people you meet on islands are given more depth as well; seeing the son tear up in the beginning of the game when he says his father left his family is touching, and the way Link lights up when he accomplishes anything toward his goal is endearing. Much like Windwaker, the player feels somehow attached to their world and the people within it—a point arguably Twilight Princess should have touched upon, yet somehow didn’t.

Speaking of Windwaker, one last point about Phantom Hourglass would be that it does involve sailing. It is, after all, a sequel to Windwaker (though if you missed out on WW, don’t worry about missing out on the storyline as Phantom explains all of it in the introduction). Unlike Windwaker, however, the system has been simplified—for the better. It is more easily handled, and feels less like a hellish water level than an autopilot on the expansive seas. I really enjoyed sailing in this game as opposed to Windwaker, where one had to change the wind’s direction and other irritating features to make the sea less daunting.

In the end, what we have here with The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is a rare thing in the video game world: a sequel that holds its own and is groundbreaking. Phantom Hourglass uses all of the Nintendo DS’ hardware, and its flaws are negligible at worst. While it may not be the game of the year (though I would contend it’s the DS game of the year, at least), it’s a very solid addition to the Zelda series and is by far the best portable Zelda game in the series’ history. In all honesty, saving the world while wearing a green tunic has never been so stylized, and it certainly hasn’t been this fun in a long time–since the N64 days, at least.

The Good: A solid addition to the Zelda series, good gameplay, groundbreaking graphics, great plot
The Bad: No traditional controls sans stylus, average sound, gameplay way too easy
The Ugly: The Linebeck and Link pairing fangirls will write about
Final Score: 9.5/10.0

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 2:03 am and is filed under Video Games, Reviews, New Releases, Nintendo DS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.