I just got a copy of Super Mario Galaxy on Tuesday. I’m having quite a bit of fun with it. But I’ll write about it later. This post is my little review of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. I finished the game about 15 minutes ago.
Graphics
I don’t have much to say about this. The game looks very good for a DS game. The thing I want to comment on here are the little storyboards. I love the look of the storyboards in the game. They look like little paper cut-out craft projects, it’s a great look. I’d love to see them make a 2D zelda (or any other game) that looked like that. I don’t think the DS could support it though (too high resolution textures, I’d guess).
Sound
If you have heard Wind Waker, it’s all the same. The music sound nice. The little voice clips from Link sound just like Wind Waker.
Controls
This is what matters. The game is all touchscreen, which might worry you (I was a little nervous about it). There is even a little in-game joke about it. But it works very well, on the whole. Some things, like the boomerang and arrows and grappling hook work great. Moving works very well. Rolling is a little annoying. The only real problem I had was it can be tough to switch sub-weapons (say from the boomerang to the bow) in the middle of a battle. Movement is easy, Link goes just where you’d like. They took a risk and it paid off.
Gameplay
It’s a Zelda game. It’s fun. There are some real improvements (guiding bombchus and the boomerang work well). They is some innovation that is quite welcome. There is no hookshot in this game, it’s replaced by the more flexible grappling-hook. The change is well done and makes the game seem much less formulaic. The sailing is kind of tedious. You may have read that in other reviews, but I was a little surprised. I enjoyed the sailing in Wind Waker, but I didn’t enjoy it as much here. I think it’s the enemies and pointless jumps your ship is forced over.
The only thing I really didn’t like was one dungeon. The idea of making you enter multiple times during different parts of the game, going a little deeper each time was novel and kind of fun. The time constraints weren’t that bad, but wasn’t idea. The big problem for me was having to re-solve the same puzzles, under time constraints. You get a way to skip the first 6 floors a little later into the game, but the floors after that have to be repeated, solving some puzzles 3+ times as you revisit the temple. It gets a tiring.
Overall
Nintendo did an excellent job again. I’m quite glad I got to play the game. It provided challenge without being cheap or leaving you totally stuck without something random you weren’t told about (I’m looking at you Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin).
