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Tuesday 15 January, 2008
“The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass” (Nintendo DS)
GameLog entry #1:
SUMMARY (quotes taken from game manual)
"The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" (2007) for Nintendo DS is an action/adventure role-playing game in which the player controls the protagonist, Link ("the boy in green"), from a third-person 3D perspective using the DS stylus and touch screen. Picking up its story where the GameCube's "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" (2003) ended, Link must rescue Tetra (aka Princess Zelda of the Kingdom of Hyrule) from the evil Ghost Ship, which vanished into the ocean fog soon after she boarded it "to investigate." In an attempt to rescue her, Link fell into the sea, washing ashore on a nearby island, where the game begins...
GAMEPLAY
"Phantom Hourglass" is the first DS game I have played, and I was impressed by how easy the system is to use and enjoy. The stylus controls everything in the game, and it is to the designers' credit that it has been implemented so well you don't want to go back to fiddling with the control pad or A/B/X/Y buttons. Want Link to attack an enemy? Just tap the stylus on the enemy, and Link does the rest. Want to talk to the shop owner? Tap him. Pick up that chicken? Just tap it. I love the simplicity of this design--I don't have to remember what individual buttons do! This makes for far more engaging gameplay.
The game can be broken down into multiple "mini quests" that the player embarks upon in service of the larger goal in the story--the rescue of the Princess (a cliché, to be sure, but it works as a "legend" I suppose). The Nintendo designers draw upon the psychological principle of variable reinforcement to pepper these mini quests throughout, thus the game is made compelling to play. For example, Link must charter a ship off the island, but he can't do that until he finds (and frees) the captain, and he can't do that until he has a sword. Completing these mini quests is fun, and compels the player to continue playing.
As in other Nintendo games I have played ("Super Mario 64" for Nintendo 64 comes to mind), characters in "Phantom Hourglass" like to break the fourth wall. That is, there are times when they are aware they are in a game and are telling Link/the player how to perform a game action ("do this with the stylus to do this"). This is clearly useful to beginning players (and people who skipped reading the game manual), but would be taboo (I would think) in a game striving for realism.
Link doesn't say much, and it is sometimes a little confusing as to who is talking. All of the dialogue in the game is text (no recorded speech, owing to the limitations of the cartridge format), but that is fine. What is a little awkward is that in a conversation, Link will not say anything, whereupon a character will respond with something like "What?!? You're looking for the Ghost Ship?" We probably know what Link would say, but it breaks the flow of dialogue when we must intuit that Link has spoken.
Other observations:
The graphics are in the style of "The Wind Waker" (not the more recent, “realistic,” and less cartoony, "Twilight Princess"). The cel-shaded characters are appealing, particularly Link, with his large, anime eyes. The sprites (blocks of textures on the ground, plants, trees, etc.) remind me fondly of the original NES game, but are, of course, much nicer to look at. The music is also quite well done (as seems to be typical of the Zelda series). I particularly like the delicate "shop" music that plays in interiors on the first island.
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