By Anthony Swinnich on June 11th, 2008

Be prepared to use a stylus to do anything in the game. Walking is as simple as pointing at a spot and watching Link head there. Tap villagers and other characters to talk to them. Attacking is performed by slashing at enemies with the stylus, and rolling (the most inconsistent feature by far) is performed by scribbling circles at the edge of the screen. Of course, the special items like the boomerang are present, and they’re subject to this reimagined control scheme as well. Draw a path for the boomerang to follow and it will do just that.

All the control elements work well separately, but mixing them together can prove a frustrating mix, especially when fighting. Rolling has always been an integral part of the Zelda combat formula since its introduction but good luck trying to work that into a battle here. Even more frustrating is when you knock an enemy backward and you can’t reach them with your sword swipes. By the time you get Link to run forward they’ve usually recovered. If movement were mapped to the D-pad, this wouldn’t be an issue, but unfortunately that’s not the case.

Other touch-screen additions should be welcomed with open arms, however. Bombchus are finally useful because you can actually draw the path they’ll take. Being able to make notes on the map is a God-send as well. If there’s something you want to return to later, make a note of it. Plotting the course of your boat (this is a sequel to The Wind Waker after all) is as simple as drawing the path on the map, and shooting enemies is as easy as pointing at them to fire the cannon.

Sailing around the surprisingly large world is engaging at first, but it eventually gets tiresome, especially with enemies and other obstacles that pop up all-too-frequently. There are quite a few islands to visit on the four parts of the map, but you’ll discover some on your own as well. There’s also a mini-game where you lower a crane to pick up sunken treasure, though that becomes a hassle eventually. Not only do you have to sail to the ’X’ on the open ocean (which is usually in the middle of nowhere), you have to fight enemies on the way there. It doesn’t help that the crane-lowering game isn’t all that fun to begin with.

Even with all the ill-fated "innovations" and other frustrations, the core quest in Phantom Hourglass is a competent, if unoriginal adventure. The game follows the same basic foundation (a three temple first act, four or five more after that then the final temple and battle) but some of the details have been changed. The game isn’t set in Hyrule (they are, in fact, traveling around on a boat), and the main villain isn’t Gannon (or Vaati). Of course, like any Zelda title, it’s the dungeons that make up the bulk of the fun; the more challenging they are the better they’re remembered. This means that Phantom Hourglass will likely be remembered as a middle-to-low quality Zelda, partially because there wasn’t one part in any dungeon that should leave experienced players scratching their heads for more than 10 seconds. It will also be looked back upon with some level of scorn by many because of The Temple of the Ocean King.

The Temple of the Ocean King is by far one of the worst ideas ever put into a Zelda title. This multiple-floor dungeon is timed. There are enemies that take time away when they hit you. The puzzles are more busy-work than they are thinking puzzles. You have to play the same floors, with the same puzzles, multiple times over the course of the game in order to go any further. Sometimes the weapons you pick up through the course of the game will create shortcuts, but there are never enough and they never seem to lessen the pain of having to play the same dungeon over and over again.

Phantom Hourglass is an ambitious first Zelda for the DS, but it lands far behind previous handheld titles in the series. Hopefully the inevitable sequel will nix the irritating parts like sailing and over-use of the touch-screen and focus on the good elements, like the map notations and creative item applications. This is the best only Zelda on the DS, and it’s one of the better games on the system when sailing with the rest of the library. However, when it’s compared to the rest of the series it sits toward the bottom of the sea.