Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass [DS]

[saif]

That is a great feature, but I was more intrigued as obviously most people in the thread have zero Japanese skills.

That kanji->furigana system is amazing though! Very useful and keep everything looking neat. The only problem being if it skips instead of showing.

[Swallow]

I've referred to Gamefaqs exactly three times.

[J0e Musashi]

Anybody know how to get to the top right area of the main island? I found one of those eye laser things to teh SE, but I don't know what to do with it. I think it has sommat to do with it.

[saif]

iirc, find more and point them all at one point.

[J0e Musashi]

I can't find anymore though. I remember having to find 3 of them to open the God of Courage temple on Molde Island, but this is one on it's own on Melka Island. It's right near to where the bridge first collapsed.

[J0e Musashi]

Found it.

->Open Spoiler<-

You need arrows and bombs to access it. Go to the next area on the left from where you can see the island. There you'll see a crack on the wall if you haven't bombed it already. Enter and stop when you reach a treasure chest. Shoot an arrow at the eye. Proceed and exit out the cave. Stop at where the staircase ends.

Take out your bow and hold your aim to the left. When you see the eye, shoot it. Whack the stone head that came out. Touch it to aim the beam to the upper left. What it should be pointing at is a wall where you think a cave could be. Go there and bomb the middle of the wall. Travel and exit the cave, where Ganon will be waiting to battle you.

[saif]

Having completed this yesterday, I am very disappointed in it. I enjoyed it in parts but overall I found it frustrating and fiddly. It starts off fresh and interesting but after that it felt a little like a chore. The story is (as ever) gash and not involving for me at all (I tried to read most of it - the best bit of the game is arguably the touch screen kanji) and it felt like a massive retread with no real new weapons/utilities. The biggest problem was definitely the control system - I guess a lot of people like it but for me it was horribly uninvolving for battles. For the simple enemies it was just a case of tap on their heads - no jockeying for position, no dexterity required.
The boss battles always rely on one method - rinse and repeat. I know that is "classic" Zelda but were it any other game people'd say it was cack. I lost loads of hearts on the bosses due to the control method - the vast vast majority of times I felt the controls were to blame rather than myself and I never felt like I could get it to do what I wanted 100&#37; of the time. I feel good games make you feel like you have made a mistake.
The other obvious issue is the sea. Why Zelda games now feel like they have to stretch the time of play by making things so far away is something I do not understand. With the route trace method of sailing, there is little to do on the voyage and so it really is a long wait, especially for some of the fetch and carry tasks.
Its not all bad, I enjoyed the dungeons (where there were few battles) and the puzzles were pretty cool. The stylus suits puzzles and the use of the mic was also pretty clever (the map stamping was really good imo) though it is not so easy to play on the train[again stylus].
Zelda games seem to be immune from criticism, maybe I just don't like them that much as it is the first one I have actually finished in absolutely ages. Some good ideas but, imo, muddied by some poor implementation.

[J0e Musashi]

The combat is the only thing I don't really like. If sword swinging had been on a button it may have worked better, it's hard to say how they could have done it though. It's either total stylus control or total button control. It appears that mixing the two wouldn't work at all.

It's a great game that could have been better IMO. The lack of rumble pack support really bothered me. I'll deffo pick up the US one, to play through proper.

[J0e Musashi]

->Open Spoiler<-

Right, I finallly got myself up to the top right of Melka Island. I met a hippy kinda dude with a guitar. There are 3 boxes behind him, and upon talking to him it triggers some kind of wi-fi game thing. Anybody know what it's all about?

[NeilMcRae]

picked this up. This is easily the best game on the DS. Its a great followup to TWW which I loved (first zelda game i played). The maps could be a little bigger but I don't think I've seen such a good DS control game ever.

[importaku]

->Open Spoiler<-

Right, I finallly got myself up to the top right of Melka Island. I met a hippy kinda dude with a guitar. There are 3 boxes behind him, and upon talking to him it triggers some kind of wi-fi game thing. Anybody know what it's all about?

Your correct

->Open Spoiler<-

You use him for trading boat parts with other people via wifi

[MarioMark]

Just been playing the US version today and I like it a lot more than I expected to! It controls so well, near enough every part of controlling link is with the stylus, from moving him around to using the sword, and it's not a chore either, I think it's better.

I like how it looks too, Wind Waker is my favourite Zelda so I'm glad Nintendo stuck with the Wind Waker theme for this game.

[J0e Musashi]

I bet people will be confused by the stylus control. A few of my mates were. Link will walk to where you point the stylus and then stop. You don't have to continually direct him using it.

[MarioMark]

I dunno, Link stays near the middle of the screen and you just drag the stylus in the direction you want him to move. For example if you drag it right, Link will keep running right until he runs into something that's in the way. If you want him to walk then don't pull the stylus across the screen too much.

[J0e Musashi]

Nope, you can point somewhere and he goes there. Link will follow the fairy tho, so if you hold it to the right he'll keep following it as long as the screen scrolls. Try it in a single room, where it can't scroll. Point somewhere and watch him go there. Unless they've changed it for the US release this is, but I don't see why they would. My friends got stuck at a point where you have to make Link jump because they couldn't get the idea that Link follows the fairy, but thought they had to use the stylus to push Link.