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Genre(s): Action, Adventure
Designer: Eiji Aonuma (producer), Daiki Iwamoto (director)
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Console(s): DS
Rated: E for Everyone
Nintendo's Legend of Zelda franchise has been through many iterations since its 1986 debut. In 1993, Link's Awakening became the first handheld Zelda, and 1998's Ocarina of Time was touted as Zelda's breakthrough into the 3D realm. In 2007, Zelda finally made its way onto the Nintendo DS, in the first ever touch-controlled, online Zelda, Phantom Hourglass. That's a lot of firsts, but it's clear after a playthrough of the game that it's also the first Zelda game in a while to really let me down.
Those who protested the cel-shaded "Celda" style of Windwaker (2002) will be disappointed to know that Phantom Hourglass continues the motifs of that game, right down to its story and visual style. Link is now living a peaceful life again, sailing the seas with Tetra and her pirate gang. Soon, however, they come across the infamous "Ghost Ship," and Tetra is attacked and kidnapped while within it. In order to save her, Link must team up with a fairy named Ciela and an unscrupulous sea captain named Linebeck.
Of course, the game pans out almost exactly like every Zelda you've ever played. There are magic stones, a mystical sword, and nine dungeons to complete. Luckily, this game takes a leaf out of Majora's Mask's book and creates a story that adds to the previous game rather than simply mimicking it. This time, you are riding in a boat with two other companions, and the plot ends up being much more about side characters and their personalities than any Zelda since Majora's Mask.
In terms of truly new additions, Phantom Hourglass relies heavily on touch control, to the point where the face buttons never actually perform any significant functions in the gameplay. Link moves toward wherever you point on the screen (a la Animal Crossing), attacks when you pull the stylus across the screen, and uses an item when you tap it on the top-right. That means an almost excessive amount of tapping, which makes one wonder why the face buttons aren't used more. While it's cluttered and hard to learn, I won't deny that it is a refreshing experience for longtime Zelda fans.
Puzzles, minigames, and even driving Linebeck's ship are all controlled by the touch screen, often to great effect. Phantom Hourglass even mixes up the format a bit with boss fights stretching across both screens, adding a surprising new dimension to the game. The other important addition is the use of the touch screen as an interactive map, where the player can take notes and draw pathways: a truly brilliant use of touch control.
The dungeons can often become too easy, a common complaint about the game. However, I didn't find many problems with the difficulty curve, since there practically is none. Instead, there is a sort of difficulty scatter-plot, without any real feeling of increasing difficulty. Exacerbating these problems is a massive, tiring central dungeon. Players will have to brave this terrifyingly long (and timed) fortress at least six times in the game, and since each run is linear, Link restarts at the entrance for every 10-to-20-minute run.
Phantom Hourglass also serves as a reminder that the DS has indeed reached a plateau when it comes to graphical capabilities. The game (rendered in full 3D) looks competent, but not spectacular, just as we have seen with previous first-party DS endeavors like Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, and Metroid Prime. Oh, and I just couldn't get over how downright UGLY Link's bug eyes look in this game.
Finally, Phantom Hourglass packs some multiplayer punch as well, including the touted online mode, the first of any Zelda title. The battle mode is fun, if it sometimes feels less like a Zelda game and more like a strategy game. Sadly, only two players can play at once, unlike the other prominent multiplayer Zelda, Four Swords. I sadly didn't have a chance to play the online component.
Phantom Hourglass is not the revolutionary move to the DS that Nintendo had hoped it would be. It uses the touch screen for nearly everything, and while sometimes this results in a cluttered interface, there are many, many moments when players will find themselves delighted by the brilliance of a puzzle or the ease of control in a certain area. Some may decry difficulty inconsistencies and dungeon design problems, but a charming storyline and fun puzzles make Phantom Hourglass a highlight of the Nintendo DS library and a worthy, if imperfect, successor to the Zelda legacy.
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| Graphics/Sound: | 3.5 |
Overall:
(3.0 stars) |
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| Gameplay: | 2.5 | |||
| Design/Story: | 3.5 | |||
| Lasting Appeal: | 2.5 | |||
Genre(s): Action, Adventure
Director: Eiji Aonuma
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Console(s): Gamecube, Wii
Rated: T for Teen
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is one of the most anticipated games of 2006. It has been heralded as quite possibly the best Zelda game ever made. It lives up to these aspirations almost perfectly, but falls short just enough to hold it back from the true greatness it was thought to possess. The story is classic Zelda fare. A young farmboy named Link has his friends kidnapped by evil monsters. While chasing them, he unwittingly enters the Twilight Realm, a strange area of half darkness and twisted creatures. There, he is transformed into a wolf, and captured by the Twilight Beasts. With the help of the strange twilight creature known as Midna, Link escapes and returns to his true form. He proceeds to travel the land of Hyrule, searching for his friends and stopping Twilight from conquering the world.
This plot is generally what you would expect from a Zelda game, though the emphasis on Wolf Link gives it an interesting twist. Zelda, however, is known for its cliched storylines. As usual, Nintendo manages to make one of the most overdone stories work once again! The plot moves along at a brisk pace, and there are a few twists and surprises to keep you interested. The storytelling is actually much more engaging than most Zelda games before Twilight Princess. When surprises and tragedies occur, you'll find yourself really feeling for the characters. Cinematics are dramatic and moving, and the epic background music is equally powerful. The ending cinematic and credits are a pleasant combination of Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time-style endings; they manage to portray both a very quiet and personal ending and a glorious, epic one. My single minor critique is the reuse of old music and concepts, which creates a nostalgic feel for Zelda veterans, but also makes it feel like we've already played this game.
Graphics are, as many knew beforehand, a fairly major downside to this game. The Gamecube and Wii versions have the exact same graphics, which are not even top-of-the-line Gamecube visuals. While textures are noticeably undetailed, polygon counts are definitely at a good level. In addition, the game pulls of looking beautiful purely through art direction. Objects and characters are designed with vibrant creativity and a very good attention to detail. In addition, the Twilight Realm is beautiful in its unusual creepiness. The ground blackens, the sky and air is filled with an orangey haze, and black pixels rise from the ground. As for more art direction, the characters have a definite style never before seen in Zelda games. Their haphazard, eclectic-looking clothing is initially recognizable as being similar to the RPG Fable. The characters have a new style for eyes as well. They are rendered with an anime style, allowing for their emotions to be beautifully portrayed. This aids in the really affecting storytelling mentioned above. Finally, enemies (there are different types for Hyrule and the Twilight Realm) are gruesome and very well designed. Saliva drips from the shiny jaws of Deku Babas, and Moblins are disfigured purple goblins with glinting red eyes.
Now, on to what everybody's been waiting for... controls! The Wii controls were adapted partway into the process of creating the game, so the game was not built ground-up for motion control. Zelda was said to be the true test of if a hardcore game franchise could move to motion sensing. The controls work well, though not flawlessly. Pointing for use in aiming arrows, boomerangs, and such is astoundingly accurate. Being the kind of person who has to keep pushing the analog tiny bits at a time to get the right aiming in Windwaker or Ocarina of Time, these new controls were a release. You simply point at where you want to shoot, using the analog stick to turn your body, hold B, and release to fire. The pointer is also used for first-person looking and menu navigation. (Both have the additional option of using the analog stick, but your Wii-playing friends will surely kill you for that) Additionally, the pointer is shown as a floating fairy when in the normal game screen. Though you can point at enemies to specifically Z-target them, the game auto-targets them without your help, rendering the annoying fairy relatively useless. (This fairy wouldn't have any relation to another annoying one, would she...Navi?)
As for the basic item and sword controls, they end up playing nearly identically to their predecessors. The sword is controlled with the accelerometer in the remote. When any movement is detected, Link swings his sword. This may sound intuitive, but when you get down to it, Nintendo just replaced the B button with "movement." (regardless of magnitude or direction) You can seriously sit back on your couch and flick your wrist to fight monsters. Even though Nintendo insists you won't, you'll find yourself getting into the movements less and less as the game goes on. Getting up and swinging your sword like an idiot is tons of fun...for a while, but you'll get tired soon enough, and only stand up when you get into really exiting sequences. On another note, the items have an interesting, though minor twist to them in this game. The D-pad has left, down, and right items. (and of course the infamous up-button advice, this time with Midna) However, each of these (but for a couple exceptions) must be equipped to B before being used. Though this doesn't help or hinder the gameplay in any way, the need to take an item out before using it is subtlely more realistic than Zelda games typically are.
One unusual complaint (for a Zelda game) that I have with this game is the lack of side-quests. While the game contained a massive world, it seemed empty, and you never felt the soul that Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Windwaker, and many other games had. In fact, it felt much like the original, where you wander a huge world killing enemies and collecting items, but never having enough interactions with humans. Of course, there are a few quests, such as collecting bugs and poes, but nothing like the mask shop or trading sequence from Ocarina of Time.
When it comes down to it, Twilight Princess is not the "greatest Zelda ever made", as many have hoped it would be. Nevertheless, it is deinitely among my top 3 to 5 choices, and will not disappoint any hardcore gamer of Zelda fan. (seriously, the two are practically the same) The story is beautifully told, the music is wonderful, and art direction is the best I have seen in any Zelda game. As we expected, gameplay is very good, and the puzzles are challenging but not frustrating. However, the Wii failed to add the innvation everyone was looking for, and the large world did not fill itself with enough mini-quests. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is an epic, emotional experience, but does not give fans everything they expected from it.
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| Graphics/Sound: | 3.0 |
Average:
(3.4 stars) |
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| Gameplay: | 3.5 | |||
| Design/Story: | 4.0 | |||
| Lasting Appeal: | 3.0 | |||
| Overall: | 3.5 | |||
