I’ve played all of the console Zelda games, and some of the hand held ones. I initially missed out playing Link’s Awakening on the Gameboy and Gameboy Color, going back and playing through about a third of it on my Gamecube’s Gameboy Advance adapter. I can’t say it compelled me to finish it. A little too dated and clunky I think, but I did play through Oracle of Ages for the GBA. That was an excellent hand held Zelda to play through, and I’m still planning on popping its complementary title Oracle of Seasons in my GBA adapter and playing that. I loved playing the original Link to the Past when they brought it to the GBA. It is an experience that can be replayed many times in console or hand held format.
What I love about hand held Zeldas, is that they carry on the mantle of the traditional perspective and gameplay found in the original Legend of Zelda on the NES, and of Link to the Past on the SNES, while the console Zeldas progress and refine the 3D adventures. Even if it seems that the spirit of Legend of Zelda games are threatened from time to time in the console 3D titles(Twilight Princess), having these hand held games to fall back on is sort of comforting.
The Minish Cap continued the proven consistency of the top-down perspective and “Link to the Past” style of graphics. As soon as I began playing it I felt instantly familiar with the universe it presented and had fun playing it. Besides the top-down perspective and graphics, I guess my familiarity with it made sense as it was developed by the same independent developer that developed Oracle of Ages(Flagship). The game was great dungeon and over world gaming from beginning to end. Well, the end of Minish Cap was excruciating in that the final boss(bosses?) were incredibly challenging. I tried to beat the final boss several times, and then had to give it about a months rest before I tackled it again and beat it. I would definitely play it again.
I hate judging a book by its cover, but I was skeptical of Phantom Hourglass from the first time I saw it, hell, I was skeptical of the DS from the first time I saw it. The bulk of my complaint springs from somewhat the same issue as I have with the Wii, but less so. I LIKE the stylus and touch screen controls on the DS, and the dual screens as well. I just don’t want to see stylus controls being added to gameplay simply because they are there. I don’t want to see vital gameplay elements adapted to merely take advantage of the hardware. Elite Beat Agents works awesome with the stylus, as does Brain Age and Clubhouse Games, but when New Super Mario Bros came out the stylus did not control Mario! Much like the traditional Zelda mechanics, 2D sidescrolling Mario games demand a certain control scheme…a directional pad and two buttons! New Super Mario Bros was a solid sidescroller.
The artwork troubled me right off the bat, because it was obvious they (Nintendo EAD Software Group No. 3) were cramming The Windwaker’s graphical style into Phantom Hourglass. The characters in Phantom Hourglass weren’t crisp and bold and colorful like they were in The Windwaker. The characters looked fuzzy, and only pseudo-cel-shaded. Phantom Hourglass was still top-down perspective, but definitely not the same graphical style. There are a lot of complaints about the sailing from place to place, which really didn’t bother me. What bothered me was dragging the stylus around to move Link, and being forced to use stylus swipes to swipe my sword. Most of the time my meaty little fist holding the stylus was obscuring the screen in a way that I haven’t noticed with other stylus-controlled games. I much prefer pressing a button to swipe my sword, and holding it in to perform a twirl attack. The only convenience I will concede(and that could’ve been made the only combat/control use for the stylus) is the secondary weapons like the boomerang and the grappling claw. Those worked really well, and I think enhanced the gameplay.
Other complaints that I’ve identified with are Link’s rolling mechanic, and the Temple of the Ocean King. I like rolling Link into things to shake trees and such, but due to the crazy stylus input to perform this roll, I maybe did it twice, and those times were on accident. Having to endlessly revisit the Temple of the Ocean King and do timed stealth runs was pretty tedious, and not fun. It was okay when the phantom blade came around and I could actually kill those knights, but man, what an artificial game extender. Overall, I was definitely disappointed by this Zelda release. I really hope the hand held Zeldas don’t proceed in this same fashion. My recommendation is to go back and play some other hand held Zelda, namely the Oracle series or Minish Cap. Those were real Zelda games.
