The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is an action-adventure game^[4] with gameplay similar to the other games in The Legend of Zelda series. The player controls Link, the protagonist, and explores the world to find new items, information, and allies to help him save his friend Tetra and defeat the antagonist Bellum. The game is divided into two gameplay types: sailing between islands, and exploring the islands and their dungeons on foot. While on land, Link discovers and utilizes many items, including the classic boomerang, bow, and bombs.^[5][6] When sailing, the game shows a map of the area on the Nintendo DS's top screen, and a 3D top-down view of Link and his nearby surroundings on the lower touchscreen. The player can bring down the map from the top screen to the lower screen to make notes. During certain events, including most boss battles, a 3D view is shown on both screens, allowing the player to have a wider view of their surroundings. The player controls Link with the stylus, moves him by pointing to the sides of the screen, and uses the stylus to interact with objects and people or attack foes by pointing at them. To travel between islands on the Great Sea, the player controls a paddle steamer called the S.S. Linebeck. The player can plot a course by drawing on a sea chart, redraw the course to make any necessary alterations, shoot at enemies that attack the ship using a cannon, and jump to avoid obstacles.^[5][6][7]

The game includes a one-on-one multiplayer battle mode. In an arena, one player controls Link, while the other player, on defense, controls three Phantom Guardians. Players of both sides are aided by power-up items that appear on the playing field. Link's goal is to grab a Force Gem and carry it to his base. The other player, controlling the three Phantom Guardians, must find and catch Link before he returns any Force Gems. When Link is caught, or if the round is over, players switch sides. Each multiplayer game consists of three rounds, and in each round, each player takes a turn at both sides. The maximum length of a multiplayer game is 12 minutes, assuming Link does not get caught. The game supports multiplayer both locally and online through the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, as well as Download Play. The game is the third The Legend of Zelda game to include multiplayer, following Four Swords and Four Swords Adventures.^[5][6][7][8]

Phantom Hourglass introduces the game mechanic of a large dungeon central to the game's story, in this case the Temple of the Ocean King. Link visits the Temple multiple times during the course of the game's story, in order to obtain sea charts that allow him to sail to other parts of the ocean. Throughout the game, the Temple has a curse placed on it that drains Link's life whenever he is inside, but upon obtaining the Phantom Hourglass, Link is able to explore the Temple without being affected by the curse for a limited amount of time. In addition to the curse, Link must contend with Phantoms, a type of enemy exclusive to the Temple. Phantoms are invincible for the most part, necessitating the use of stealth in order to get past them. "Safe zones" are scattered throughout the Temple, and allow Link to avoid both the Phantoms and the Temple's curse. As Link progresses through the game, he is able to access deeper levels of the Temple and stay inside for longer. The Temple, including the puzzles within, will reset whenever Link leaves, but as he obtains new items, he can unlock new routes and shortcuts that enable him to travel through the Temple quicker. All this is done similarly to a dungeon crawler.

Following the events of The Wind Waker,^[b] Link and Tetra travel the Great Sea aboard her ship, when they encounter the Ghost Ship. Tetra enters it and is heard screaming. Link fails to come to her help and falls into the ocean. Washed ashore on Mercay Island, Link meets Ciela and her grandfather Oshus, and both agree to help him rescue Tetra. Link enlists Captain Linebeck, who reluctantly agrees at the condition of a treasure. The group sails the Great Sea and learns the Ghost Ship can be found by collecting the three Spirits of Power, Wisdom, and Courage. After freeing the Spirit of Power, Link obtains the Phantom Hourglass, which helps him explore the Temple of the Ocean King and find the remaining Spirits.

While rescuing the Spirit of Courage, the group notices a similarity to Ciela. Oshus arrives and reveals Ciela suffers amnesia after being attacked by Bellum, a monster who consumed life and Oshus, as the Ocean King, banished him in his Temple's slums; Bellum then created the Ghost Ship to trap his preys. With the three Spirits rescued, Link locates the Ghost Ship and rescues Tetra, only to find her lifeless and petrified. Oshus then task Link to craft the "Phantom Blade", the weapon capable of defeating Bellum and rescue Tetra. Sailing the sea, Link finds the pure metals and, fused with the Phantom Hourglass, gains the Phantom Blade.

In the Temple's slums, Link defeats Bellum and is teleported out, where Tetra is freed. However, Bellum arrives and take Tetra and Ciela away, and apparently kill Oshus. While confronting him, Link is knocked unconscious, and Linebeck injures Bellum. However, Bellum possesses Linebeck and Link is forced to fight them. Link kills Bellum, rescuing Tetra, Linebeck, and Ciela. The Phantom Hourglass's sand then whisk away in the sea. Oshus, having survived, reveals his true form as a white whale and leaves with the spirits. Link and Tetra are teleported away, when his crew insists their adventure was only a ten minutes long dream. Link is then confused when he notices the Phantom Hourglass in his hands, and Linebeck's ship afar.^[6]

Development started in May 2004, at which point the game still had gameplay similar to Four Swords Adventures.^[9] At a press conference in Japan for the Nintendo DS in October, Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo said that they were thinking of bringing Four Swords to the DS,^[10] which was later confirmed by Eiji Aonuma at E3 2005.^[11] In 2006, Nintendo presented the keynote address at the annual Game Developers Conference, where they also revealed Phantom Hourglass for the first time and presented a demo. Nintendo also revealed that the game would be released in late 2006.^[12] For the holiday season, Nintendo launched two special edition Nintendo DS bundles, each in a different color, on November 23, 2007. One of the bundles, the Gold edition, was emblazoned with The Legend of Zelda's signature Triforce logo and sold alongside Phantom Hourglass.^[13]

The same development team that worked on Four Swords Adventures also worked on what would become Phantom Hourglass. In the game's first prototype, the action took place in the upper screen while the touchscreen was a flat map that allowed Link to be controlled. However, the developers believed that this interface caused the player to be too disconnected from the game's action, thereby prompting them to switch the two screens. They felt that this interface would appeal to Japanese players, who they said prefer simple interfaces. The developers added a battle mode that was played over Wi-Fi to appeal to American players.^[14]

The game takes advantage of the Nintendo DS's stylus in several different ways. The player can draw shapes to open certain doors and plot out the path of ships on the ocean, among other tasks. The device's touchscreen can also be used to direct Link's boomerang.^[12] Phantom Hourglass features cel-shaded graphics similar to those of The Wind Waker, with some influence from Four Swords Adventures. Link and Zelda's appearances in Phantom Hourglass resemble those from The Wind Waker.^[12]

At E3 2007, Aonuma said that Phantom Hourglass "opened up the [Zelda] series and [gave] a fresh, new control scheme to the aging Zelda formula".^[15] He also said that, despite the disappointing sales of The Wind Waker affecting him personally, he still wished to continue the game's style in another Zelda iteration, leading to the inspiration for Phantom Hourglass. Aonuma believed that the game's simple controls, with the help of the Nintendo DS's touchscreen, helped make Phantom Hourglass the first Zelda game to attract casual gamers.^[15]

Phantom Hourglass was released in Japan on June 23, 2007, in the rest of the world in October, and in South Korea on April 3, 2008.^[33] According to Metacritic, it received "universal acclaim".^[17] Praise focused on the use of the Nintendo DS features, while criticism targeted its more casual gameplay compared to the previous games in The Legend of Zelda series.^[17] Phantom Hourglass was the best-selling game in its debut month of June 2007 in Japan, selling 302,887 copies.^[34] In the United States, Phantom Hourglass was the fifth best-selling game in its debut month of October 2007, selling 262,800 copies.^[35] As of March 2008, 4.13 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide, with 910,000 of those copies in Japan.^[2]

Computer and Video Games called Phantom Hourglass one of the few "masterpieces" on the Nintendo DS, which made it "worth every penny".^[19] Believing that Phantom Hourglass improves on everything that was great about its predecessor, The Wind Waker, GamePro predicted that the sequel would be another successful game in the franchise.^[22] Although feeling that the game does not live up to the standards set in Twilight Princess, Game Informer still felt that the adventure is worthy of The Legend of Zelda series, and noted that it "has enough great stuff going for it" for them to consider it one of the year's best video game adventures.^[21] GameZone enjoyed the "spectacular blend of touch-screen combat, brilliant puzzles, and Wind Waker beauty" in Phantom Hourglass, calling it a "can't-miss adventure" and one of Nintendo's and the year's best games.^[27] Hyper's Jonti Davies commended Phantom Hourglass for its "perfect controls and supreme world and dungeon designs", but criticized the game for only giving around 30 hours of gameplay.^[36]

GameRevolution appreciated the game's graphics, and noted that it uses the Nintendo DS's features better than any other game for the console.^[23] Praising its "innovative" and "fun" control scheme, GameSpot felt that Phantom Hourglass gave a new life to several of the series' age-old concepts.^[24] X-Play wrote that Phantom Hourglass definitely felt like a The Legend of Zelda game, calling it another successful video game for the franchise and a "must-have" for anyone that owns a Nintendo DS.^[31] The Onion's entertainment newspaper The A.V. Club remarked that Phantom Hourglass exploits the Nintendo DS's touchscreen to the fullest extent in an imaginative and genuinely fun way.^[32] In a perfect 5-star review, Empire stated that Phantom Hourglass is one of Nintendo's greatest achievements and a contender for the best handheld adventure in console history.^[37]

Issues that were mentioned in reviews regarding the game included its more casual gameplay compared to the previous The Legend of Zelda games, which was not well received by some. GameSpy felt that the game was both easy and approachable enough for casual gamers to play, but sufficiently rewarding and challenging to satisfy hardcore fans of The Legend of Zelda series.^[25] IGN believed the game to be "more casual than we'd like", but still found it captivating, entertaining, and "a true adventure worthy of the Zelda name", calling it "different, but it's still the real deal".^[28] GameTrailers stated that the short dungeon levels and hand-holding exploration are "outright disappointing", but when comparing Phantom Hourglass to the other Nintendo DS games, they conceded that it was still an impressive game, but just a good game when compared to The Legend of Zelda standards.^[26] 1UP.com pointed out that the biggest problem with Phantom Hourglass is that it falls back on using innovations from the previous The Legend of Zelda games, rather than including new and original ideas.^[18]

Finding it difficult for hardcore gamers to fully enjoy Phantom Hourglass, Nintendo World Report claimed that the game's lack of alternative control schemes was a telling sign that Nintendo did not have The Legend of Zelda fans in mind when creating the game. They still described the game as "decent", but felt that it departs from the rest of the series and that Nintendo should have taken the risk in creating innovations for this game.^[29] The American newspaper The New York Times enjoyed Phantom Hourglass for the most part, but complained about the timer in the Temple of the Ocean King as unnecessary and gimmicky, remarking that the game's dungeons are only "fun to go through once, but none of them are fun enough to go through 20 times". They noted that the time spent traveling through dungeons "removed all thoughts of it being perfect".^[38]

Several websites named Phantom Hourglass the 2007 DS Game of the Year, including IGN^[39] and GameSpy.^[40] It was also mentioned in Best of the Year lists from Wired,^[41] Time,^[42] and Edge.^[43] The game received Editor's Choice awards from GameSpot and IGN.^[24][28] It was also named Best Adventure Game by 1UP.com.^[44] The game was designated the Best Handheld Game at the 2008 Golden Joystick awards,^[45] the 2008 Game Developers Choice Awards,^[46] the 2007 GamePro Editors' Choice awards,^[47] and the 2007 Spike Video Game Awards.^[48] At E3 2006, Phantom Hourglass was designated as the Best Nintendo DS Game by GameSpot^[49] and the Best Handheld Game at the Game Critics Awards.^[50] In 2008, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awarded Phantom Hourglass with Handheld Game of the Year,^[51] along with a nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Gameplay Engineering.^[52] The game placed 38th in Official Nintendo Magazine's 100 Greatest Nintendo Games of All-Time.^[53]

• Official website