First revealed at the 2006 Game Developer's Conference in trailer form, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass surprised gamers with an amalgamation of the 3D stylized graphics from the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and the traditional top-down isometric gameplay that's been isolated to the Game Boy ever since Ocarina of Time rocketed the series into the third dimension. The demo available at this year's E3 doesn't show any areas that weren't present in that initial trailer, but we were able to gleam a great deal more information during our playthrough.
Phantom Hourglass is the direct successor to The Wind Waker, both in style and storyline. Several months after the events of the GameCube game, Link and Tetra discover an abandoned ship in the midst of a dense fog. Tetra finds herself in danger after attempting to explore the ship alone, and Link falls into the sea after an attempted rescue. He washes up on the shores of a strange island, and sets off in search of Tetra. While the backwards connection to The Wind Waker is quite evident, it's anyone's guess whether the game will connect forward to Four Swords Adventures and A Link to the Past, the two titles that follow the story told in The Wind Waker chronologically.
The E3 demo was broken into four distinct areas that could be chosen from the start, but playing through one would invariably lead to another, so I'll discuss them in the order that they naturally flowed.
Your first taste of the game puts you on a steamboat in the great sea. While traversing the sea in The Wind Waker used a wind-based system that was under your direct control, Phantom Hourglass removes any direct ability to steer. Instead, you use the stylus to draw a course that you'd like your ship to follow. This course can be cancelled and re-penned at any time, and there's a slider on the right side of the touch screen that allows you to vary your speed between stopped, medium, and fast. This control scheme primarily serves to let you focus on other tasks while sailing, such as manning your canon. The canon is activated by tapping on an icon in the upper-right corner of the touch screen, can be aimed by dragging your stylus in various directions, and is fired by tapping anywhere on the screen.
The first part of the sea voyage is relatively uneventful, but eventually you start to be accosted by a variety of enemies. Puffer fish jump out of the water and fly towards your boat, and octorocks surface and shoot projectiles in your direction. You have to blast them with your canon, receiving hearts and rupees for your efforts. You're eventually directed to plot a course towards a particular island, where you encounter your first boss. An odd tentacle of sorts rises from the water, with a head and a giant eye perched on top. The pilot of your boat tells you that you'll need to keep moving in order to attack it, so you can take that opportunity to edit your course to something that repeatedly passes by the foe. The boss shoots green balls of mucus at you on an interval, which you need to intercept with your canon before they manage to hit your ship. It will then open its eye, which you can strike directly with your canon. After you repeat this pattern several times, you'll defeat the boss, receive a heart container, and land at the dock on the island.
Special attention needs to be directed to the graphics on this part of the demo, as while the sea isn't nearly as dynamic as the one in The Wind Waker, it still represents it very faithfully. Canon balls splash into it with great fanfare, and the same surface effects from the GameCube game are emulated quite well.
While the boat system was fairly interesting, the real core systems of Phantom Hourglass were exhibited upon coming ashore. None of the buttons on the system affect the game in any way -- all control is performed with the stylus. Link is accompanied by a fairy that hovers around him while he's standing still, but it will mark the spot where your stylus touches the screen when you start to interact with the game. Basic movement is performed by dragging the stylus around the environment. Link will walk in the direction of the stylus, and his speed will be determined by how close he is to the point of contact. It's virtually identical to the stylus control found in Animal Crossing: Wild World, though it seems quicker and more refined.
As all interaction is performed with the stylus, there are a bevy of actions that you can perform by tapping on different things and moving the stylus in different ways. The following table will highlight those that were prominent in the demo.
As all interaction is touch-screen dependent, menu access is present on the screen at all times. The lower-left corner of the screen has a "Menu" button that slides out to the right across the bottom of the screen when tapped. It contains your rupee count, red "revive potion" count (red potions now function like fairies in older Zelda games, and auto-revive you when your health runs out), and has "Map" and "Sea Chart" buttons. The Sea Chart button brings up a map of the sea including the island that you're currently on (the same map you drew your course on in the Ocean demo), and the Map button brings the map of the current area down to the touch screen (it's normally situated on the top screen). This serves a grander purpose -- you have the ability to use the stylus to annotate your map. You can draw on it as you see fit, and use that functionality to make a note of where key points of interest are.
After leaving the shoreline, you'll soon come upon a village populated sparsely by Wind-Waker-inspired NPCs. After a few brief chats, you'll gather that there's a dungeon somewhere on the island, guarded by a red door. In order to pass this door, however, you'll need to draw a particular pattern on its surface. If you've seen the original Phantom Hourglass trailer, you already know what needs to be drawn on the door -- and you can actually skip the rest of the field demo and go straight into the dungeon. Those less informed, however, will be encouraged to wander out into the field for clues.
The field looks like a 3D rendition of Hyrule Field from The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. Everything is very pastel and stylized, but the 3D rendering allows for some nice animations and interactive elements. Chuchus (amorphous blobs that infested the world of The Wind Waker) and crows are your primary enemies as you traverse your surroundings, each easily dispatched by some well timed taps of the stylus. You'll also come across your first item in the field -- a shovel. Items are accessed via an "Items" button in the lower right corner of the screen that slides out to the left across the bottom of the screen when tapped. (Note, the primary menu functions found in all other Zelda games no longer take up the whole screen, and instead are represented as a thin strip along the bottom of the screen.) When you equip the shovel, it will appear as an icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. Tapping on it will bring it out, and tapping on the ground near Link's feet will prompt him to dig. I wasn't able to dig up anything especially grand during my play time, however -- just various hearts and rupees.
The real point of the field is to teach you the pattern to draw on that red dungeon door. As you explore, you'll come across several (five) stone obelisks. Examining them will reveal an order, such as "second" or "third and sixth", though more verbosely phrased. The savvy gamer will take this opportunity to bring their map down to the touch screen, mark the location of each obelisk, and write down the order mentioned on them. Once you've marked down the locations, you'll notice that they form a distinct hourglass shape on your map. If you scamper back to that red door, drawing that hourglass shape using numbers you noted on your map as the stroke order will grant you access to the dungeon.
Phantom Hourglass is the direct successor to The Wind Waker, both in style and storyline. Several months after the events of the GameCube game, Link and Tetra discover an abandoned ship in the midst of a dense fog. Tetra finds herself in danger after attempting to explore the ship alone, and Link falls into the sea after an attempted rescue. He washes up on the shores of a strange island, and sets off in search of Tetra. While the backwards connection to The Wind Waker is quite evident, it's anyone's guess whether the game will connect forward to Four Swords Adventures and A Link to the Past, the two titles that follow the story told in The Wind Waker chronologically.
The E3 demo was broken into four distinct areas that could be chosen from the start, but playing through one would invariably lead to another, so I'll discuss them in the order that they naturally flowed.
Ocean
Your first taste of the game puts you on a steamboat in the great sea. While traversing the sea in The Wind Waker used a wind-based system that was under your direct control, Phantom Hourglass removes any direct ability to steer. Instead, you use the stylus to draw a course that you'd like your ship to follow. This course can be cancelled and re-penned at any time, and there's a slider on the right side of the touch screen that allows you to vary your speed between stopped, medium, and fast. This control scheme primarily serves to let you focus on other tasks while sailing, such as manning your canon. The canon is activated by tapping on an icon in the upper-right corner of the touch screen, can be aimed by dragging your stylus in various directions, and is fired by tapping anywhere on the screen.The first part of the sea voyage is relatively uneventful, but eventually you start to be accosted by a variety of enemies. Puffer fish jump out of the water and fly towards your boat, and octorocks surface and shoot projectiles in your direction. You have to blast them with your canon, receiving hearts and rupees for your efforts. You're eventually directed to plot a course towards a particular island, where you encounter your first boss. An odd tentacle of sorts rises from the water, with a head and a giant eye perched on top. The pilot of your boat tells you that you'll need to keep moving in order to attack it, so you can take that opportunity to edit your course to something that repeatedly passes by the foe. The boss shoots green balls of mucus at you on an interval, which you need to intercept with your canon before they manage to hit your ship. It will then open its eye, which you can strike directly with your canon. After you repeat this pattern several times, you'll defeat the boss, receive a heart container, and land at the dock on the island.
Special attention needs to be directed to the graphics on this part of the demo, as while the sea isn't nearly as dynamic as the one in The Wind Waker, it still represents it very faithfully. Canon balls splash into it with great fanfare, and the same surface effects from the GameCube game are emulated quite well.
Village / Field
While the boat system was fairly interesting, the real core systems of Phantom Hourglass were exhibited upon coming ashore. None of the buttons on the system affect the game in any way -- all control is performed with the stylus. Link is accompanied by a fairy that hovers around him while he's standing still, but it will mark the spot where your stylus touches the screen when you start to interact with the game. Basic movement is performed by dragging the stylus around the environment. Link will walk in the direction of the stylus, and his speed will be determined by how close he is to the point of contact. It's virtually identical to the stylus control found in Animal Crossing: Wild World, though it seems quicker and more refined.As all interaction is performed with the stylus, there are a bevy of actions that you can perform by tapping on different things and moving the stylus in different ways. The following table will highlight those that were prominent in the demo.
| Roll | Quickly slide stylus twice in desired direction |
| Jump | Run towards a ledge or gap, Link will auto-jump off or over it (in standard 3D Zelda fashion) |
| Swing Sword | Quickly slide stylus across Link in desired direction |
| Attack Enemy | Tap on an enemy, Link will automatically swing at them |
| Sword Combo | Tap on an enemy repeatedly, or on multiple enemies in quick succession |
| Spin Attack | Quickly draw a circle around link while his sword is in hand |
| Lift/Throw Object | Tap on object to lift, tap on Link to set down, tap away from Link to throw |
| Generic Interaction | Tap on a point of interest while Link is facing it |
As all interaction is touch-screen dependent, menu access is present on the screen at all times. The lower-left corner of the screen has a "Menu" button that slides out to the right across the bottom of the screen when tapped. It contains your rupee count, red "revive potion" count (red potions now function like fairies in older Zelda games, and auto-revive you when your health runs out), and has "Map" and "Sea Chart" buttons. The Sea Chart button brings up a map of the sea including the island that you're currently on (the same map you drew your course on in the Ocean demo), and the Map button brings the map of the current area down to the touch screen (it's normally situated on the top screen). This serves a grander purpose -- you have the ability to use the stylus to annotate your map. You can draw on it as you see fit, and use that functionality to make a note of where key points of interest are.
After leaving the shoreline, you'll soon come upon a village populated sparsely by Wind-Waker-inspired NPCs. After a few brief chats, you'll gather that there's a dungeon somewhere on the island, guarded by a red door. In order to pass this door, however, you'll need to draw a particular pattern on its surface. If you've seen the original Phantom Hourglass trailer, you already know what needs to be drawn on the door -- and you can actually skip the rest of the field demo and go straight into the dungeon. Those less informed, however, will be encouraged to wander out into the field for clues.
The field looks like a 3D rendition of Hyrule Field from The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. Everything is very pastel and stylized, but the 3D rendering allows for some nice animations and interactive elements. Chuchus (amorphous blobs that infested the world of The Wind Waker) and crows are your primary enemies as you traverse your surroundings, each easily dispatched by some well timed taps of the stylus. You'll also come across your first item in the field -- a shovel. Items are accessed via an "Items" button in the lower right corner of the screen that slides out to the left across the bottom of the screen when tapped. (Note, the primary menu functions found in all other Zelda games no longer take up the whole screen, and instead are represented as a thin strip along the bottom of the screen.) When you equip the shovel, it will appear as an icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. Tapping on it will bring it out, and tapping on the ground near Link's feet will prompt him to dig. I wasn't able to dig up anything especially grand during my play time, however -- just various hearts and rupees.
The real point of the field is to teach you the pattern to draw on that red dungeon door. As you explore, you'll come across several (five) stone obelisks. Examining them will reveal an order, such as "second" or "third and sixth", though more verbosely phrased. The savvy gamer will take this opportunity to bring their map down to the touch screen, mark the location of each obelisk, and write down the order mentioned on them. Once you've marked down the locations, you'll notice that they form a distinct hourglass shape on your map. If you scamper back to that red door, drawing that hourglass shape using numbers you noted on your map as the stroke order will grant you access to the dungeon.