Phantom Hourglass turns one year old! Thoughts?
Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 6:34pm by Jake
This week (October 1st) marks the one year anniversary of The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass. With 4.30 million copies sold around the world, the everlasting strength of the portable titles in the Zelda franchise are obviously unstoppable.
How did you like Phantom Hourglass? I personally loved the visual style, puzzles, and praised the touch control method, but a few aspects held it back. Mainly the unavoidable ‘Temple of the Ocean King’ which put a halt too many a gamers progress. This massive temple required the player to constantly redo the dungeon in between normal temples. This was a good concept on paper, but gave the final product a dreaded chore. Beyond that rut, The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass is a spectacular DS title which no handheld owner should be without.
Have you beaten it yet, or is it still in a pile of “need-to-play” games?
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Still in my stack of 30+ “need to complete” games.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:50 pm
I liked it.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Didn’t like it. But then, I haven’t really liked Zelda games as of late. They’ve gotten further and further away from the original titles, which were the ones I loved. Ocarina was about as far as I could stomach the changes, everything after that has just been… not Zelda. At least not the LoZ I grew up with.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I liked it. The only real problems I had were the temple, and it was far to short and easy.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:50 pm
I’m currently in that temple thing and don’t wanna play the game becuase i dread having to play through that stupid thing again.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Never finished the game because of the stupid temple parts. That seems to be the biggest problem with the game. But besides that I have really enjoyed it, I just haven’t gone back to it in a while.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:34 pm
need to finish. Haven’t touched it in many months. Not sure why – is a fantastic game. Maybe I just need games with 3-5 minute durations with my busy lifestyle.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Like Joltman it’s sitting in a pile of 30+ games that need to be played and beaten. I’m so far back…I’m still working on Castlevania Portrait of Ruin right now.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Wow…a year already? Seems like only last week I was picking my copy up.
As for the game, I think the game is good but not great. I’m a huge Zelda fan and I’ve like all of the games (the real games, the CDi games don’t count). The graphics and animation are outstanding. I thought it had the right amount of sea travel. And it utilizes the touch screen very well. I was a bit a skeptical about the stylus controlling all the action but it works very well.
But the actual progression of the story I thought was weak. Going back into the Time Temple or whatever it was called got really old. At one point I actually put the game down and stopped playing for a few weeks because I was tired of doing that.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Beaten. Great.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I never rushed through a Zelda game, praying for it to end, like I did with Phantom Hourglass. The main temple was a chore (I HATE TIME LIMITS), and the rest of the game was not very memorable.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I got to the last part of the temple and quit. There were so good ideas in it though.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Bought it, didn’t play anything else until it was done. The Temple of the Ocean King was unfortunately a cheap way to extend the play time of the game. It wasn’t awful, but it did get pretty tedious. Loved the story, graphics and the touchscreen gameplay, but it was admittedly pretty easy.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Other than the Temple I loved it. It had a ton of great replay value after you’d beaten the story mode – all the minigames (there were tons!), killing the phantoms in the temple of the ocean king, getting ship pieces, getting force gems, etc. The online was meh though. I always got my ass kicked.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I was enjoying it until I had to repeat the temple of the ocean king… i’m up to the 4th trip inside it and I just haven’t been bothered, it’s tedious and stressful, same reason I never played much of Majora’s Mask.. I HATE time based pressure in games.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:03 pm
My son beat it, and he really seemed to enjoy it (I’ll have to ask him about the water temple thing).
I’ve recently picked it up and played for a little while. Even though controlling everything with the stylus is interesting, I can’t really say that I’m a big fan of the idea. Trying to get Link to somersault into a tree, for example, is to hit-and-miss for me. Sometimes I can do it, and other times I can’t. I prefer controls that work better for me. I will give a lot of credit to the style and graphics of the game though. Very nice looking.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
The Temple of the Ocean King was the only problem with that game, in my opinion. With gorgeous visuals and fun, intuitive controls that actually worked really well, everything else about Phantom Hourglass was absolutely wonderful.
Actually, the enemies could have stood to be harder, but it was still a lot of fun.
Anyway, Happy 1 year, Phantom Hourglass!
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
I didn’t like it at all. Probably the worst Zelda game I’ve ever played.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:46 pm
game sucked, touch controls ruined it.
October 4th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Have, played it, and still not beat it. Should get around to doing that someday. Add this game to my list of games I have not finished yet.
October 4th, 2008 at 12:43 am
Still in a pile of “games I have not yet bought and have no desire to buy whatsoever.”
October 4th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Ugh. Hated it.
October 4th, 2008 at 3:58 am
Game is absolutely jawesome.
The only negative critiques for this game from the press were the unfortunate circumstances of a renewed “NINTENDO IS CASUALIZING EVERYTHING” fervor that most sites whipped up in a froth in a last ditch effort to make the PSP and by proxy the 360 and PS3 the “last bastions of hardcore gaming.” Context must always be viewed in reviews. It’s how Mario Kart: Double Dash!! was reamed for not having online (or kart skins), and Mario Kart Wii received no benefit for having it while being compared as inferior to Double Dash!! It would be interesting to hear what other gamers think, but too often they simply parrot the reviewer’s complaints. And since most reviewers re-declared war on Nintendo in Early 2007 after more “casualization” charges, it seems that this negativity washed over into other reviews.
I don’t understand the “repetitiveness” of the Ocean King Temple. Since you could basically map and make notes, going through it each time was simpler and simpler when you found the shortcuts. this is the Zelda game I finished in the least amount of time, because the mapping was so streamlined. In fact playing through the game was almost a fluid experience, with no awkward stops in the middle to figure out where to go. And even with that, the game itself was non-linear, as there were several islands to explore that were tertiary to the plot. It really exceeded the normal expectations for a DS Zelda.
But as always, the market bears this title out with great success, and will go down as a classic. Just like Wii Sports (although certainly not that influential).
October 4th, 2008 at 5:44 am
You guys do know that there are shortcuts in the ocean temple? You don’t have to play through everything and the time limit is more than fair.
Touch control was spot on, making notes on the map was great (especially on that island where you had to draw the whole map.
The only thing I didn’t like was that you couldn’t sail freely like in Wind Waker.
Btw: Phantom Hourglass beats the shit out of the Diminish Cap that some of the Infendo writers think is some kind of holy grail.
October 4th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Yes, I do know about the shortcuts. Even with them I thought the temple got extremely tedious and really sucked the fun out of the game.
October 4th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Great game. Shortcuts + taking notes is all you need to finish the temple everytime within 5 minutes or so. In my opinion, still the best looking game on ds.
October 4th, 2008 at 10:36 am
i played it with every spare moment for about a week when i first got it. when i got to the last boss tho i couldnt figure out what to do. i was determined to work it out on my own and not consult a FAQ and as a result i’ve not picked it up since!
generally its a fairly easy zelda game tho, I’ve never done a three-heart challenge in a zelda game before so maybe i should beat that boss and then go for a second playthrough with three hearts, start myself with a fairly easy one
October 4th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I bought the game on day one…but going back to the temple repeatdely made me get rid of the game recently. I couldn’t get into the fact that I had retrace my steps more than twice. Other than that the game wasn’t bad, it was ok, just executaed wrong.
–Posted from the Wii Opera Browser.
October 4th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I really liked it. Wind Waker is my favorite Zelda, so I was of course, a big fan of PH. To me, it felt like a cross between WW and Link’s Awakening. (The ending for one thing. Obviously. And it even had the return of those irritating, nigh-unkillable rabbit monsters from LA.) Obviously, the Temple of the Ocean King was a huge pain in the ass, but other than that, the game was fantastic. It wasn’t good as a full console Zelda, but being a portable, that was basically guaranteed. Still a great game though
October 4th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I loved the game, finished it before December came. The temple bugged me but it wasn’t so bad.
October 4th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
totally agreed on the last point. i think after a number of times of repeating the same thing for temple of ocean king, i stopped playing and haven’t been at it since. problem is i forgot the beginning parts since so much time has passed, so its going to be learning experience again. oh well. i agree with you totally though. backtracking is not everyone’s cup of tea. for me a little is ok, but a little too much makes me stop playing the game. that’s why in metroid prime corruption i tried to do backtracking to minimum, if it wasn’t required i wasn’t doing it.
October 4th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
no interest in this anymore- contra 4 still gets any ds time.
only 1 single player game i’m looking forward to now- dead space. bia3′s lack of co-op ruined it for me :’-(
October 4th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Beat it, never got a chance to try the multiplayer though. Also liked the fact that the japanese version helps you learn Kanji, too bad I don’t care to play it again at least for the time being to do that.
October 5th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
This has to be one of the most Charming DS Games i have ever played. I enjoyed every minute of it, from beginning to the end (yes even the ocean kings temple). I remember i would stay up late in the night even though i would have work the next morning just to do one more part (and subsequently doing more than one more part). This game i would give the high 9 score. Great game, in-fact i am going to go and pick it up once more, just for its 1 year birthday
October 5th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
played it. Great game but did not like the Phantom temple.
October 5th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
as a huge zelda fan (i’ve beaten every game of the series except for the oracle of ages/seasons) i never really liked wind waker and his cell shaded visuale, but, i did love phantom hourglass and i really like the toon link this time around!! also, i loved the 2D gameplay, remind me of a link to the past, my fav of the series….
i really think nintendo should exeperiment more with different visual styles, and never leave 2D in the memories bin