A mere Phantom of Legends
| Platform | Presentation | Controls | Variety | Audio | Depth | Value & Fun | OVERALL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nintendo DS | 7.00 | 6.00 | 5.00 | 7.00 | 6.00 | 5.00 | 5.67 |
| General Information |
| Previously played game in the series: All |
| Gameplay Description |
| The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is an action-adventure game in the famed Legend of Zelda series. You take control of the hero of time in a direct sequel to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker in the events immediately following that game. The Zelda games are often considered almost a genre unto themselves, as they span a wide variety of genres into one overarching adventure. You travel dungeon to dungeon, collecting new items, solving puzzles and defeating enemies and bosses. Battle is comprised of tapping and making gestures on the touch screen. |
| Dedication Meter | 90.00 |
| It's an adventure, so it's going to take some time to get through. You can play it off and on well enough, but you'll have to push yourself through a dungeon that you have to repeatedly return to, although this could be argued as actually not really getting any more out of the game. | |
| Presentation | 7.00 |
|
Immediately striking about Phantom Hourglass are the character models, which are vivid and beautiful, despite some graininess due to the DS resolution in combination with the cel-shaded style. In terms of the main characters, animations, boats and water, the game does an incredible job of recreating the atmosphere of The Wind Waker. However, on closer inspection, the awe loses a bit of its charm upon realisation that there are NPC clones everywhere. A strange similar point is the distinct lack of likable characters. It's as if the focus of the design was to make the player hate everyone he came across in the game. The person you're with the most is a thieving coward, people to which you look for help rip you off or blackmail you, and any and every question asked of you requires a "Yes" answer and will insist no matter how many times you refuse. Where the visual design is a huge letdown is in the dungeons. The dungeons in Phantom Hourglass are arguably the ugliest, most uninspired, dingy dungeons ever seen in a Zelda game. The majority are the same bland brownish smears that by themselves cause question as to the decision to match the style of The Wind Waker. In terms of the dual-screens, most of the game has a handy map on the top screen, which also lets you keep notes--a feature that should catch on quickly. The game also does some imaginative things with the screens in boss battles, making otherwise simplistic battles very engaging. The main issue throughout the game, though, is your view, which is too close.  Phantom Hourglass (left) and The Minish Cap (right) The developers apparently realised this too late and the sloppy fix of the screen scrolling for ranged items such as the boomerang is terrible. Often times, switches are placed out of view and the player just has to instinctively realise that there's something off-screen. It also become an issue when trying to move quickly or with large enemies in that there is just inadequate time to react. |
|
| Controls | 6.00 |
|
Phantom Hourglass is controlled entirely with the touch screen, save for the optional D-pad shortcuts (or face buttons for lefties). While the controls are functional, as a whole they are a failure as they are worse than the previous button layouts, and the touch features bring little to nothing to the table. Walking around is perfectly fine, you can quickly get to where you want to go if you're just running somewhere. However, given your character moves in any direction like the 3D games and not only eight as in the 2D ones, the method of leading your character with the stylus makes link turn sluggishly and move somewhat like a vehicle, which loses a lot of manoeuvrability in combat. This can be explained by the fact that in the 3D games, you would lock onto the enemy and strafe around--this is not the case with Phantom Hourglass. The loss of all lateral movement fundamentally changes, and ultimately cripples the combat. The result is that enemies that are pretty much entirely solve-once-puzzles of "do this first", otherwise you just tap on them and they're dead. There are a couple enemies that don't do this, though, and are consequently broken. First up are the Skeletons previously seen in A Link to the Past, which are basically the same, but programmed poorly. These enemies jump when you try to hit them, thereby avoiding your attack. However, in A Link to the Past, you could hit them when they came down because, well, they were on the ground again. In Phantom Hourglass, you just miss anyway. The second are the Like-Likes, which have been in virtually all Zelda games and are enemies that trap you inside themselves and hurt you. These are basically invulnerable to your tap attack, which is the only reliable thing the controls allow, save the spin attack. If you tap on them, you jump immediately get sucked in and hurt. This is mostly due to the overly long suck-in range which basically just warps you in from extensive, annoying distances. Also useless is rolling, which may or may not work, and only seems to consistently function toward the bottom and virtually not at all to the right. However, I get the feeling this is a DS-by-DS issue. It doesn't really matter, though, since if you roll a few times in a row, your character gets dizzy. Another by-product of the touch-only controls is that managing your items has significantly changed over past games, much for the worse. You can have one "active" item and the rest available by a menu expandable in the corner. Since everything is done by tapping on the touch screen, you can't just immediately use an item. Instead, you must tap on the icon in the corner, then use it. Additionally, ranged items you can't move while using them, because you aim or draw the path with the stylus. Worst of all, the selection from the expandable window, and the drawing of the path of ranged items is all real-time, making everything a big pain. A simple fix to most of this would have been to allow the assignment of items to the D-pad or face buttons from a static menu when the game is paused. Instead, due to the albeit valiant insistence that the game be accessible, the game has lost all accessibility it once had, and then some, as well as making it all ways a worse experience. Using the DS to draw paths of items is a good theory that has problems in practice. Trying to fight a battle in a boat while having to constantly chart a path is obnoxious. Having to chart a path while having any other concern is obnoxious. Also regarding boating, you attack using a cannon by tapping on the screen. Seems simple enough, except the context is no longer there, and you're tapping at dots. Anything that's at all at a distance you can't be sure where you're firing and have to keep firing in the general direction until something hits. Meanwhile, you are the camera, which means if your charted path turns, your camera doesn't turn and you have to stop and adjust. Both these issues are present right up to the final boss. |
|
| Variety | 5.00 |
|
For the most part, Phantom Hourglass is standard Zelda fair, just less of it. Well, less if you don't consider playing the same dungeon over and over as quantity, which you shouldn't. Everything is lacking compared to earlier games. Fewer items, fewer enemies, fewer towns, fewer dungeons. To clarify, just saying fewer dungeons would be unfair, as The Minish Cap and The Wind Waker were both similarly lacking; however, those games had complete dungeons. The dungeons in Phantom Hourglass are terribly developed, short and entirely unimaginative. Items, as mentioned, are fewest in series, disregarding Four Swords Adventures and the Philips CD-i games. Both NES Zelda games had more items than Phantom Hourglass. There is also not a single new item in the entire game. Even the sword, called the Phantom Sword, wasn't even redesigned to look any different than the Master Sword. Boss battles are very well differentiated and completely unique to the game and are exemplary of the creativity the rest of the game sorely needed. Eahc makes a different use of the dual screens and touch screen in ways that aren't slap-you-in-the-face blatant. One new addition is the ability to collect boat parts to improve your boat stats. It's a bit annoying that to get the stat upgrades, you need to use parts of the same type, as some may prefer the eclectic look. It's a nice addition nonetheless. What wasn't a nice addition was the continued insistence on sailing. It's a bit different in Phantom Hourglass, though, as you have to draw your course, then the boat goes automatically. It boils down as with The Wind Waker to sitting there staring at the screen, unable to go do something else because that one enemy may pop up and kill you. To its credit the trips are shorter, if only because of a much smaller world, and there are more enemies. Sailing ultimately ends up feeling like the same awful rail shooter over and over. |
|
| Audio | 7.00 |
| Nearly the entire soundtrack is taken from The Wind Waker with relatively underwhelming results. The distinctive Wind Waker tracks are welcomed, but a few updates would have been a boon, and the dungeon music is incredibly uninspired and bland. Wherever there seems like there should be a new track, there's just something that seems like a placeholder for when the composer finishes. | |
| Depth | 6.00 |
|
The biggest wealth of depth is unfortunately buried underneath an obnoxious time limit in the previously mentioned repeated dungeon. As for the rest of the game, certain design choices doom the game to simplicity. The excessive zoom leads to timid enemies that move slowly. The single-weapon access system makes battles that require items blatant and pointless. Tapping on enemies leave very little in the way of combat variation or tactics. Puzzles in the game are strange to describe, due to the obscure definition of what the DS is relative to the game. Without specifics, there are puzzles that require the functions of the DS without any logical link between the system and game making one wonder what exactly is supposed to be happening in the game to cause an effect. Trying to get clever with the functions has made logical puzzles completely without logic. Which leads into an issue I had hoped was dead and buried, and that's token use of the DS functions. Why does Phantom Hourglass use the microphone at times? Because it can, and that's the only reason. This is common, where the only reason why something is used is the fact that it's there and not because it would be fun or practical. It's also doubtful anyone wants to speak or blow into their DS while out and about, which is typically the point of a portable system. Fortunately, if you're clever you'll just swipe your finger across the microphone. |
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| Value & Fun | 5.00 |
|
To get right to it--the Ocean King Temple, which you have to go through six times throughout the game, is the worst section of any Zelda game ever made or published by Nintendo. For starters, they are timed, stealth, puzzles. Timing logic puzzles, particularly ones in which you have to move a character around, doesn't work. On top of running around during a time limit, you have to deal with "Phantoms" that patrol the halls. These are very slowly moving enemies that will chase you if they see you, and you can't destroy. If they hit you, you go back to the start of the floor and lose time. The levels require patience, yet have a time limit. The Ocean King Temple in Phantom Hourglass requires knowledge of where several different elements are, and you can't solve the puzzle in order to continue until you do, but if you take your time checking those things, you'll run out of time. The temple is split into several floors, and each time you return, you can go a little further, but you have to repeat the same puzzles again. To summarize the Ocean King temple, it's the part of a game that makes you not want to play the game again, then makes you do it over and over. It wasn't fun the first time, it wasn't fun the sixth time. Even ignoring that massive gaping flaw in the game, there are other issues that hurt. The battle is worse than ever because the controls don't work, they were a failed experiment. If you just have to tap on the enemy, it's too simple; if you have to use an item, it's entirely cumbersome. The item are bad in every respect. Managing them during the game was a terrible idea--leave the real-time weapon switching to Genji. Even once chosen, having to switch between the sword and the item is just as bad. And after that, there are only a few items, none of which are new. The game on occasion also likes to screw with series staples out of convenience, then not tell the player. For example, there is an early "puzzle" in which you must step on a switch to lower some spikes, behind which is a key. The trick is that it's a switch that resets when you step off of it, which is common in many Zelda games. What is not common is that for the first time in twenty years, the boomerang can pick up keys. Sailing, the part that most (not all) disliked about The Wind Waker, and so they bring it back with hard to control battles. Unfortunately missing are the charismatic cast and world of The Wind Waker, which while visually similar is very much without its charms in Phantom Hourglass. As terrific as the boss battles are, they are simply overshadowed by problem after problem that seem as though they beg the player to quit. Everything new is mediocre, and everything old is worse than ever. |
|
| Value & Fun (with online) | 5.00 |
|
Online play is basically an online version of the Ocean King Temple, if you didn't get enough of it in the game. There are "force gems" scattered throughout a level, and you take turns over three rounds trying to carry the gems back to your starting safe point while the other player controls three "Phantoms" which as in the single player campaign, are enemies that patrol and will give chase if an intruder is spotted. One hit and you're done for the round. The player controlling the hero can only see the Phantoms on the top screen (which displays the whole map) while carrying a force gem, which in turn slows him down. The player controlling the Phantoms can see the other whenever he's not in a safe point, where he is invulnerable. Disregarding the fact that you do this to the point of sheer hatred in single player, there are issues plaguing the multiplayer. The biggest problem that makes the game virtually unplayable is the control of the Phantoms. You have to draw out the individual paths in real-time, which on its own is a pain to manage all three. But aside from that, you have to draw paths through tight corridors and the path is easily cut off and you have to trace it again. Additionally, the Phantoms have a cone of vision, except you can't control which direction it is and leaves gaping holes. It becomes a game of throwing the Phantoms in a direction and hoping for the best. Additional problems are that the limited view is very pronounced and if you actually see a Phantom on the bottom screen, you've got basically no chance to react. Significant lag occurred in a few of what little I played of the online. This really isn't anything notable. |
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| Overall | 5.67 |
| The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is a failed experiment that should be immediately forgotten. The DS functions don't work well outside of boss battles, and everything else is a downgrade from all previous Zelda games. If you've played all the Zelda games, you probably got this immediately anyway. If you haven't, get any other and stay way from this one. | |
| Overall (with online) | 5.67 |
| The online mode is abysmal. Forget its existence. | |
Posted by Ellyoda Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:00:00
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