First announced back in early 2006, “Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass” has been a highly anticipated title both in Japan and in the West. About a year later, the ARPG is finally released in Japan so was it worth the wait? You bet it was! The story this time tells of a young girl named Tetra, the head of a group of pirates who Link is travelling together with. One day she decides to sail off to an area where no other pirates dared go to. There were rumours of a ghost ship appearing and abducting people. Those people were never to be seen again. Keen to reveal the truth, Tetra goes on the lookout for the ship. Suddenly, it appears before them and Tetra is taken away. Now Link must go rescue his friend!


Link needs to save his pirate friend, Tetra!

The game begins with a short sword swinging tutorial which is understandable considering how the controls are almost completely touch screen only now. You tap on enemies to charge into them, slide across the screen to swing your sword and draw a circle to do a full swing. Sierra the little fairy acts as your cursor and wherever your stylus points to, Link will go in that direction. How fast he moves depends on how far your stylus is away from the centre of the screen. Very simple and actually works great.


Gameplay remains unhindered by the mainly touch screen controls.

Although you can play the entire game using the stylus alone, tapping on icons to change weapons and use items, it’s actually better if you utilised the D-Pad or buttons too. With it you can pull down the map and access the two main menus quickly and I can assure you that you’ll be doing this a lot throughout the game. While roaming the multi-level dungeons and different islands in the game, you’re faced with a huge variety of puzzles and I mean huge.

Taking full advantage of the two screens, I found myself frequently jotting down notes and diagrams on the maps as I ran about reading the various hints scattered in the areas. There really weren’t many dungeons where I didn’t have to glance at my notes on the top screen before I could move on! Not only do you have to workout what diagrams to draw, you also get to make use of the mic, blowing into it and even shouting! The unique DS feature where you have to close it to solve puzzles is also back which all greatly increases how immersive the game can get!


There’s a lot of note taking and weapon switching to solve puzzles.

The variety in the game doesn’t stop at puzzles because the monsters can be just as fun to defeat. Starting with only the basic sword to fight with, eventually you obtain a few more weapons to help you navigate the dungeons and defeat enemies who become a little more complex to beat as you progress in the game. Enemies start off easy when you can kill them with a quick slash of the sword and some good timing but as you go to the harder islands, you start switching between two different weapons. For example, one of the bigger monsters will fling you away when you get up close so you have to shoot it at its weak spot with an arrow first before you can finish it off with a sword. It’s great fun and certainly beats the normal button bashing! It’s also the reason why I said it’s better if you used the D-Pad or buttons too.