In the past, handheld iterations of the Zelda series have really tried their best to equal their console elders blow for blow. Sure, the plots were usually side-stories, but the complexity and sheer mass of gameplay was definitely up to par with the best the console games had to offer. Phantom Hourglass seems to... buck that trend. For better or for worse, it's a much simpler and more streamlined experience than the Zelda titles you may be used to.
The list of casualties is robust; acquirable dungeon maps and compasses, wallet upgrades, bottles, and even pieces of heart are nowhere to be seen. Even more notably, your stock of usable items maxes out at less than half of what series veterans may be used to, and there isn't a single new toy among them.
One could theorize that these simplifications were due to a conscious effort to market the game towards the Nintendo DS audience: the sea of new gamers that may have whimpered at the sight of a Zelda title in the past. Sure enough, the early portions of the game are almost insultingly easy, with aid being force-fed to you at every turn, and puzzles effectively aping paint-by-numbers style solutions. Thankfully, while this hand-holding persists at least vaguely throughout the entire adventure, it lessens significantly as you progress.
Phantom Hourglass, when you really get into it, becomes a case study in how less can easily be more. Your tiny stock of familiar items all feature new functionality that vastly increases their overall usefulness, often in fashions that greatly benefit from (or depend utterly upon) the game's touch-screen design. Better yet, while dungeons still rely primarily on the particular item extracted from their very depths, you'll find yourself using all of your other items relatively frequently throughout the adventure. Their small numbers help mitigate the specialization found in previous titles, and create one of the first universally useful inventories in a Zelda game.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the Temple of the Ocean King, a mega-dungeon that you will return to repeatedly throughout the game. Every item that you obtain elsewhere will let you dive deeper into this labyrinth, and often allow you to bypass earlier floors using previously-inaccessible shortcuts. Though some satisfaction can certainly be gleamed from seeing the new ways you can tackle each floor upon your attempts, monotony is quick to set in. This isn't helped by the need to proceed stealthily at all times, due to invincible guards that patrol the temple's every corner. It was a novel idea, this dungeon that required such repeated traversal, but one that I feel ultimately caused more annoyance than it was worth.
In most other respects, luckily, Phantom Hourglass is a joy to play. The later dungeons can be quite fiendish, and there are tons of things to do throughout the ocean overworld. The ability to write on your maps using the stylus hearkens back to the days where young and excited gamers wrote down notes with a pen and paper while exploring their latest NES adventures. The otherwise trying Temple of the Ocean King can actually become relatively enjoyable if you exploit your maps and jot down every detail to expedite future visits. The map notation also allows for some illustrative puzzles that finally give the poor shovel a meaningful role.
As a side-story pseudo-sequel to The Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass features the same cartoony graphical stylings as its predecessor. Even though the DS pales in comparison to the GameCube on a technical level, Link and co. manage a truly astounding set of expressive animations that actually rival previous games in the series. Linebeck, the captain of your ship, is especially well scripted, both physically and textually. I found myself chuckling at his abuse of the eager-to-please Link quite regularly. I wouldn't be especially put out, in fact, by the notion of this particular version of the Zelda universe, cast and all, being featured in more games down the line.
Curiously, the touch-screen interface that seems to borrow so heavily from Animal Crossing: Wild World (and that functions quite admirably, by the way) is merely one of several systems that the two games happen to share. Not only do you customize the boat with which you traverse the overworld, but the pieces for the boat are acquired via randomly stocked shops and doled out as rewards for various tasks, not tied to singly-defined chests or objectives like traditional Zelda collectables. One shop's appearance is even based on the DS internal clock, as is the restocking of others.
I'm not actually entirely thrilled about these parallels. The ability to trade ship parts with friends online (which again mirrors Animal Crossing) helps with the fleshing out of one's collection, but I prefer my Zelda-playing to be a bit more explicit. I still don't have a full collection of ship parts, and all I can do is hope that what I need will be found via any number of entirely random methods. This, complementing the early hand-holding, seems to be another case of pandering to the DS audience in a fashion that can easily grate on the nerves of long-standing Zelda fans. I do have to note, though, that the surplus of ship parts in stores is a big part of what makes the economy in this title so enjoyable. Rupees are still overtly plentiful, but for the first time ever there are tons of expensive items to actually spend them on.
I think I can appreciate the idea of a simpler and more streamlined Zelda, due to its handheld nature. Putting aside how it may better suit the DS audience, it's nice to have something that you can play in short bursts, or that doesn't require the same level of commitment as the console games. It's still a good game, and dropping some series conventions that exist only for convention's sake is something I can always endorse, though I hope they take it even farther in the future. Phantom Hourglass is an admirable first step.
The list of casualties is robust; acquirable dungeon maps and compasses, wallet upgrades, bottles, and even pieces of heart are nowhere to be seen. Even more notably, your stock of usable items maxes out at less than half of what series veterans may be used to, and there isn't a single new toy among them.
One could theorize that these simplifications were due to a conscious effort to market the game towards the Nintendo DS audience: the sea of new gamers that may have whimpered at the sight of a Zelda title in the past. Sure enough, the early portions of the game are almost insultingly easy, with aid being force-fed to you at every turn, and puzzles effectively aping paint-by-numbers style solutions. Thankfully, while this hand-holding persists at least vaguely throughout the entire adventure, it lessens significantly as you progress.
Phantom Hourglass, when you really get into it, becomes a case study in how less can easily be more. Your tiny stock of familiar items all feature new functionality that vastly increases their overall usefulness, often in fashions that greatly benefit from (or depend utterly upon) the game's touch-screen design. Better yet, while dungeons still rely primarily on the particular item extracted from their very depths, you'll find yourself using all of your other items relatively frequently throughout the adventure. Their small numbers help mitigate the specialization found in previous titles, and create one of the first universally useful inventories in a Zelda game.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the Temple of the Ocean King, a mega-dungeon that you will return to repeatedly throughout the game. Every item that you obtain elsewhere will let you dive deeper into this labyrinth, and often allow you to bypass earlier floors using previously-inaccessible shortcuts. Though some satisfaction can certainly be gleamed from seeing the new ways you can tackle each floor upon your attempts, monotony is quick to set in. This isn't helped by the need to proceed stealthily at all times, due to invincible guards that patrol the temple's every corner. It was a novel idea, this dungeon that required such repeated traversal, but one that I feel ultimately caused more annoyance than it was worth.
In most other respects, luckily, Phantom Hourglass is a joy to play. The later dungeons can be quite fiendish, and there are tons of things to do throughout the ocean overworld. The ability to write on your maps using the stylus hearkens back to the days where young and excited gamers wrote down notes with a pen and paper while exploring their latest NES adventures. The otherwise trying Temple of the Ocean King can actually become relatively enjoyable if you exploit your maps and jot down every detail to expedite future visits. The map notation also allows for some illustrative puzzles that finally give the poor shovel a meaningful role.
As a side-story pseudo-sequel to The Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass features the same cartoony graphical stylings as its predecessor. Even though the DS pales in comparison to the GameCube on a technical level, Link and co. manage a truly astounding set of expressive animations that actually rival previous games in the series. Linebeck, the captain of your ship, is especially well scripted, both physically and textually. I found myself chuckling at his abuse of the eager-to-please Link quite regularly. I wouldn't be especially put out, in fact, by the notion of this particular version of the Zelda universe, cast and all, being featured in more games down the line.
Curiously, the touch-screen interface that seems to borrow so heavily from Animal Crossing: Wild World (and that functions quite admirably, by the way) is merely one of several systems that the two games happen to share. Not only do you customize the boat with which you traverse the overworld, but the pieces for the boat are acquired via randomly stocked shops and doled out as rewards for various tasks, not tied to singly-defined chests or objectives like traditional Zelda collectables. One shop's appearance is even based on the DS internal clock, as is the restocking of others.
I'm not actually entirely thrilled about these parallels. The ability to trade ship parts with friends online (which again mirrors Animal Crossing) helps with the fleshing out of one's collection, but I prefer my Zelda-playing to be a bit more explicit. I still don't have a full collection of ship parts, and all I can do is hope that what I need will be found via any number of entirely random methods. This, complementing the early hand-holding, seems to be another case of pandering to the DS audience in a fashion that can easily grate on the nerves of long-standing Zelda fans. I do have to note, though, that the surplus of ship parts in stores is a big part of what makes the economy in this title so enjoyable. Rupees are still overtly plentiful, but for the first time ever there are tons of expensive items to actually spend them on.
I think I can appreciate the idea of a simpler and more streamlined Zelda, due to its handheld nature. Putting aside how it may better suit the DS audience, it's nice to have something that you can play in short bursts, or that doesn't require the same level of commitment as the console games. It's still a good game, and dropping some series conventions that exist only for convention's sake is something I can always endorse, though I hope they take it even farther in the future. Phantom Hourglass is an admirable first step.