Game Review:

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Nintendo DS
A Review by 56k Warning

THIS IS MY FIRST REVIEW, so I figure I should put a couple things out there. The way I’ll be doing this is dividing the game up into categories, giving the overall grade, then breaking it down. Different parts of the category give different amounts of points. I think of myself as a very tough grader. At the end there’s the overall score then a bit of finishing review, then finish it up with it’s value (basically whether you should buy it or not, says the highest price I’d pay). I’m doing this as spoiler free as I can (but just to be safe, you might want to skip over the paragraph about plot). I hope this is good...

Once in a while, a game comes out that completely revolutionizes gaming. The kind of game that revives the console and sets the standard for every other game that comes out after it. The kind of game in which people buy the console just for the game.

Well, Phantom Hourglass didn’t cut it.

Not to say it wasn’t a good game, it’s better than pretty much every other DS game (well not quite but you get the picture). Nintendo did a bunch of things right, a bunch of things wrong, but it’s still a Legend of Zelda title and it’s still a game worth buying.

THE GAMEPLAY: (overall 80/100)
So obviously, Nintendo used their touch screen technology to make different style of control. And the controls were fun. For about 20 minutes. Then the stylus got in my way. And I started rolling instead of slashing. Or I would place a bomb instead of throwing it. They get points for innovation, but really, just stick with what works. (10/15)

The graphics and music, not much I can say. I admit it, I loved the graphics from Wind Waker and I was excited to hear that this one was going to be similar. Though nowhere near WW quality, it was still great. I have to point out though, Link’s eyes were kinda big. Also, the music was decent, great for a portable game but not quite what I expect from a Zelda game. (13/15)

The puzzles. Oh the puzzles. The most important part of a Zelda game (LoZ is a puzzler, especially the portable ones). Of course, there were moments of epic awesomeness, such as the island with no map (no spoilers here), and I’m sure happy that there weren’t too many puzzles that involved pushing a completely random block to open a door. But a couple puzzles seemed not only out of place, but just plain stupid (remember the sun with the map… ugh). A lot of the puzzles had major hints and a ton of them were recycled from old games. A good puzzler has puzzles that have people banging their heads on a wall until they figure out what to do. And then even when they do figure it out, it takes them 10 tries just to get it right. All in all, I say they were good but definitely easy. (20/25)

The storyline was sort of odd. There were a lot of parts that a 5 year old could have seen coming, but there were a decent amount of twists as well. As soon as you load up the game and hear that fairy talk for the first time, you learn that she “lost her memory.” Riiiight. That’s not suspicious or leading up to future plot elements. A great twist however was when you rescue Tetra (no I’m not going to spoil it for you). Never saw that one coming. The story was also pretty short. Yeah they can’t fit much data on a DS game cartridge but I was still disappointed in how quickly I beat the game. (21/25)

There was a bunch of other things put into the game. Before you ask, no, I’ve never played the online multiplayer in this game. But the biggest new game play element was sailing, completely different from how it was in The Wind Waker. What you did was draw a line on the map, and then the ship would follow that line. It got to be tedious in some cases and the ship sailed unbearably slow. But it still was quite a bit better than it was in WW. Drawing on the map may have been the best idea for a video game ever. No joke, every single map where it’s possible to draw on probably has something written on it. It was just that useful. (14/15)

Last (and definitely least): the mini-games. Legend of Zelda games are always choc full of games to get rupees, bigger quivers and bomb bags, heart pieces, and other similar things (there’s something like 10 different games you can play in OoT). This one had a few too, but they were boring and only worth doing once to get the reward. There was fishing, which was easy once you figured out what to do but the in-game instructions were terrible. Also there was the game were you shoot targets with a cannon. Since the mini-games aren’t that important they aren’t worth too many points, but they could have been loads better. (2/5)

So the big question is was it worth the buy. I say yes, though if it cost the same as a console game I’d say get your other games first. It was good, yeah, but there was just too much missing. As I said earlier, they did some things right and some things wrong, but that’s not a good mix. The overall value is about $40, just right for a DS game. Good job Nintendo, but please, do a better job next time.

Overall Score: 80/100