The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass features a new control style, similar to Twilight Princess, which was released a year ago. Unlike Twilight Princess, the stylus control doesn’t make for a better Zelda. Moving Link is smooth, but it feels like you lose the precision control experienced in previous Zelda games. Certain maneuvers like the roll are difficult to pull off. Luckily, these moves aren’t a prominent feature of the game, so it doesn’t have a huge affect on gameplay. The stylus does benefit Zelda in some ways, however. All the items, while familiar Zelda fair, control brilliantly with the stylus. For example, not only can you throw the boomerang in this Zelda, but you can control the exact path it takes, and hit multiple targets.
Phantom Hourglass is my least favorite Zelda game in years, but it still has enough enjoyable content to make it worth playing through. The parts of the game that irritated me most were the sea voyages, and a dungeon that you must play through over and over on a time limit. Although controlling a ship gives you a sense of freedom and adventure that Zelda is famous for, the voyages are far too long and mundane. A common complaint with this game’s prequel, the Wind Waker, was the long sea voyages. Be prepared to sail even longer on the calm seas of Phantom Hourglass. Even more irritating than these voyages, is the of the Ocean King, which you must enter 6 times and repeat many of the floors you’ve completed before. In this dungeon, you must be stealthy, solve puzzles, and battle enemies, all in a time limit. If Nintendo would have included a couple extra dungeons instead of this repetitive area, I would have gave the game a higher score.
Despite these annoyances, Phantom Hourglass has some amazing features that make it worth a play through. The dungeons and towns have enjoyable and sometimes mind boggling puzzles that utilize every feature of the DS from the mic to sleep mode. Even though most items you get on your adventure are from past Zelda games, many of the puzzles are unfamiliar, which is refreshing. The boss fights are ingenious and more difficult than their counterparts in the console Zelda games. It is a shame, only one dungeon utilizes an ally you can switch between. The boss’ weak points are sometimes easy to figure out, but taking down these huge beasts is another challenge.
The soundtrack in Phantom Hourglass is solid, but it could have used a few more songs. Most songs in the game are repeated multiple times, but at least many of them are of good quality. There are no voices in Phantom Hourglass like previous Zelda games, but there are sound effects for characters voices.
Phantom Hourglass is a stunning DS game graphically. While it is not quite up to par with Wind Waker on Gamecube, the graphics are better than the N64 Zelda games and resemble the Wind Waker in a top-down style similar to past portable Zelda games. Amazingly, this game is able to run the graphics engine on both screens in boss fights. Both screens are needed to tackle these massive bosses.
If you’re a hardcore Zelda fan, I recommend playing Phantom Hourglass. If you’re a casual video game player, this game may be too difficult or repetitive for your tastes, because of a few factors of the game I mentioned above. I’m excited to see what Nintendo does with the controls for the next Zelda.