Nintendo shows big balls: to launch a continuation of a game having raised the controversy at the time of its publication. That the series is called Zelda, that does not guarantee of anything excellence of its games and several proved besides the disappointed of Wind Waker on GameCube, its style childish and its long stroll in boat having made quiver more than one fan. Let us acknowledge it: the game had failures and the producer stipulated itself that certain portions of Wind Waker were horrible. However, it would seem well that the originator and his team wanted to be made off forgive fans of Zelda by repairing the errors of Wind Waker in the design of The Legend Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, one of the best games of action and platforms to have embraced Nintendo DS.
Phantom Hourglass is the direct continuation of Wind Waker and takes seat a few months after this last. Link, at the time of a voyage in open sea in company of Tetra, is seen quickly plunged in a new adventure when this one is made remove by a mysterious ghost ship. Slightly amnesic at the time of his alarm clock, the young adventurer will become acquainted with a small fairy which will guide it through its new adventure which, you suspect it well, will carry out it to save the world of a terrible threat. Phantom Hourglass is thus not a game as memorable as of other titles of the Zelda frankness in the sense that he proposes a traditional history of the young hero having to save the beautiful one and the orphan of the claws of large malicious. Even if the universe of Phantom Hourglass is populated high characters colors and attaching, one does not feel as impregnated in the history as in, for example, Ocarina off Time or even Twilight Princess. Less black and tragic, Phantom Hourglass is more centered on humor that on the drama, which will disappoint those somewhat expecting a very major scenario.
One of the innovations of Phantom Hourglass is its controls, which revolutionize the way of gaming Zelda. Thus, you will have to make slip your stylus on the touch screen to make walk or run Link, attack enemies in their typing above and make use of the stylus in order to benefit from the objects which you will collect. For example, with the boomerang, you will have to trace the trajectory of your throw then to slacken the pressure exerted by your stylus. All in the game is controlled only by the stylus if it is not that you can select the active object of your inventory using the button L. Although that can horrify certain gamers, I certify to you that the whole functions very well and adds an at the same time fresh and original dimension to the Zelda frankness. Controlling Link using the stylus asks certainly for a time of adaptation, but will reach to you easily that point after a few minutes of game so much the whole intuitive and is extremely well conceived by Nintendo. The use of certain objects, whose arc and boomerang, are as much more precise with the stylus as with the buttons and the cross, making easier the attacks than one can carry out with these weapons on the enemies. To note that you will collect, with the wire of the game, the fairies whose capacities could be increased through spheres to pile up in order to temporarily increase various your characteristics, of which the force or defence.
Zelda is a series recognized for its headaches, particularly in its keeps. Extremely fortunately for the amateurs of the frankness, the headaches presented in Phantom Hourglass are quite as intelligent and pleasant to supplement that in the games of passed and take effectively favors possibilities of Nintendo DS. Indeed, you will be able from now on to register notes on the charts of the game in order to point out certain indices or places to be visited to you, which is very useful throughout the search. Moreover, certain portions of the game will force you to take notes and to carry out this task is very easy since Nintendo effectively separated the functions from the game on the two screens of the console. You will be able constantly to make rock the chart presented in the screen top towards the screen of bottom in order to register notes there, thus allowing to note in real-time any relevant information about treasures to discover or of indices on headaches to be supplemented.
However, some problems arise with this great use of the touch screen. Certain movements of Link are sometimes confused by the game and you will see that it will sometimes happen to you to go instead of running. The roulade is a movement very difficult to carry out and badly conceived by Nintendo since it is necessary to trace small circles on one of the edges of the touch screen to make roll Link. To take this last with its hand also blocks part of the screen and, unfortunately, you will never see completely your environment on the touch screen since your hand will hide a portion of this one, especially with the layouts which you will carry out using your stylus. To note that the access to the inventory is also problematic, not being paused game when one wishes to change active object. For example, if you wish to change object to pass from the bomb to the boomerang in order to strike an enemy, you will have to change active object very quickly since your adversary will not be stopped to leave you time to select another object. To pause the game when one reaches his inventory or to allow to have more than one active object would have been extremely appreciated so much that can be harmful in our experiment of game, especially at the time of the engagements.
Phantom Hourglass benefits also from the two screens of the Nintendo DS by dividing on the occasion the action. For example, it will sometimes happen to you to face certain boss in the screen of bottom while taking account of its position in the screen top. Even if the microphone is not often made profitable (after all, to game with a portable console a little everywhere and to shout can be as ashamed as unpleasant), this use is extremely well established in Phantom Hourglass and contributes to the general pleasure felt at the time of the completion of enigmas. In addition, those has already gamed in Hotel Dusk: Room 251 will recognize certain functions of this last in some headaches of Phantom Hourglass, which is also likely to surprise those not having gamed with this game of investigation of Nintendo on the NDS.
Even if I adored the often clever headaches of Phantom Hourglass and the original use of several of his objects, I must acknowledge that the difficulty of the game disappointed me. This last is too much easy and the indices to supplement the headaches are very often too explicit and in too great quantity, removing most of the challenge offered. The majority of the keeps are also shorter than in other Zelda, Nintendo has even removed the charts and the compasses of the keeps which however were well appreciated within the other games. The keep of the king of the seas (who will be the first to which you will face) is also frustrating and wearying to supplement since you will often return there at the time of your search in order to seek indices there on the place where to return to you to continue your adventure. However, on each occasion, you will have to remake the same levels and to supplement the same headaches with hardly some small alternatives of once with the other.
The voyages on water are probably the worst idea recently integrated into the frankness Zelda. You will have to trace the road which will borrow with this last through the seas of the game. During your voyages, you will have to supervise the neighbourhoods of your ship since the seas will be filled of pirates and creatures wishing to run your fleet. On the other hand, the ship never seems to go rather quickly to join a bench of fish and you will see that you will have difficulty in fish the various marine species of the game. In addition, the game makes it possible to modify the boat of Line beck using parts which you will find in trunks and at the bottom of the seas. A more thorough system of modification making it possible to acquire parts improving truly our boat would have been extremely pleasant to use instead of the rather poor system than one offers to us and not being, in end of line, than a pretext to change the appearance of our ship.
The voyages in boat of Phantom Hourglass passably annoyed me all the same, even if they are less long and wearying that those of Wind Waker. Nintendo reduced the size of the seas, included more gates and furnished the voyages of more than simulative elements, in particular of the enemies whom one can bombard with blows of gun and more islands to be discovered and, later on, to explore. There are as more treasures to fish out as in Wind Waker and the fact of having to acquire them through a mini-game is more simulative than if that were done automatically. Despite everything, I deplore the presence of these voyages in boat in the Zelda series since they are far from as being amusing as those of other Zelda where one walks to back of horse or even to foot. To trace a road then to observe its neighbourhoods during a few minutes in the hope to see an enemy or an unknown island particularly did not amuse me. Fortunately that these voyages are more interactive and courts that in Wind Waker differently, my disappointment towards these means of transport would have been even more important than in Wind Waker while knowing than many gamers complained about the marine voyages of this last.
Graphically, Phantom Hourglass is one of the games more surprising of Nintendo DS. The result with the screen is splendid, the environments being very coloured and the characters moving with a great fluidity. If you did not like the models of characters of Wind Waker, you are likely not to more like those of Phantom Hourglass, especially which they are very pixelized when the camera approach their bodies. However, if you like the concealment-shading, you will be happy to learn that the effects of particles, smoke and water are slightly less pretty than those of Wind Waker, which is far from being a defect taking into account the power of the Nintendo DS. In fact, Phantom Hourglass is a game which one appreciates truly by his visual beauty so much the environment 3D surprises on a console with the power limited all the same. It should be noted that it is impossible to move the camera when one travels to foot, which is a little problematic when one wishes to draw or strike a target far from Link with an object. Unfortunately, although the pieces of music are good, they are not as memorable as those of other Zelda, which is explained partly by their former presence in Wind Waker. In fact, several musical samples were taken again of Wind Waker, which removes part of their charm. The sound effects are also of good quality, although they are them also similar to those of other Zelda (in particular on the level of the cries of Link).
Side lifespan, as I mentioned, the game is not particularly difficult and the majority among you will pass to through in about fifteen hours, at most. However, the game abounds in secondary searches and mini-games, of which treasure hunts, contests of shooting to the arc and ball of gun and the harvest of ruby in quantity (finally) unlimited allowing getting many objects. If you wish all to carry out in the game, you will have some for more than twenty hours, which is extremely acceptable for a game of the kind. A portion multiplayer is also present, even if it is not as simulative as Four Swords was it in time. In fact, the multiplayer mode opposes two gamers, one directing Link and the other of large armoured guards of the name of Spectra. Perhaps who knows, will be entitled us to Zelda on Nintendo DS proposing at the same time a complete portion solo as well as co-operative and competitive a multiplayer mode which could, in addition, to be gamed on line?
Tags: Zelda on the Nintendo DS
