he UPS guy delivered our copy of the Japanese import this morning, and we dug into the game immediately. First, a warning: If you don’t have a rudimentary grasp of Japanese, you’re in for a pretty confusing time. Even with a walkthrough, you’ll be missing out on much of the story. A lot of the puzzles are nearly impossible to fake your way through, too. That said, stumbling our way through the first few hours made us crave the North American release even more.
The game takes place after the events of the Wind Waker, with players resuming control of the GameCube games’ incarnation of Link. Fans of that title will be relieved that the DS manages to faithfully recreate the signature visual style, even on the torqued-down portable’s hardware. After saving Tetra from Ganon, Link and the pirate crew sail off for more adventure before running into a ghostly ship. Tetra, bold adventurer that she is, hops aboard to further investigate. Link tries to follow suit, but he’s not quite as athletic. After taking an unexpected dip, he wakes up on a beautiful tropical beach. And we’re off…
The biggest change in the Phantom Hourglass is the control scheme. Rather than use a modified version of the console controls, as the Game Boy Zeldas have done in the past, Phantom Hourglass fully takes advantage of the DS’s unique hardware. Pressing on the D-pad only opens up a menu screen—you’re not going to be moving Link anywhere with it. Instead, you use the stylus to direct his actions. Pressing and holding a point moves Link in that direction—the father that point is from him, the faster he’ll run. If you want him to creep along, keep your stylus close. Otherwise, he sprints around the map at a steady clip. To attack an enemy, tap it with the stylus. To pick up an object, tap and hold it. The controls are intuitive and work well, though they do feel a little gimmicky. From what we played, we haven’t seen any reason why a traditional control scheme wouldn’t have worked just as well. The stylus is put through its paces with a nifty map-notation system, however. Players can jot down on-screen notes while exploring, which makes it easier to remember points of interest in dungeons.
The beginning of the game is typical Zelda stuff, with characters rewarding Link for clearing stones from an area and training him in the fine art of combat by attacking stumps. They’re as vibrant and detailed as the environments, which is to say they look great. The amount of detail packed onto the DS’s screens is pretty amazing, with all of the little touches that Zelda fans have come to expect. Even the purple whirling clouds that enemies leave in their wake made it intact from Wind Waker.
We explored the first dungeon, which was suitably basic. Puzzles included grabbing a key from a pesky mouse and navigating through a poison gas-filled room. Colored globes and spiked floors were present, and we can only imagine how their presence is going to be a completely unwelcome sight in later levels.
After working our way through and rescuing a trapped sailor, we gained access to our ship. Unlike the ship in Wind Waker, this time around you’re in charge of a relatively boring steamship. It doesn’t look like you’re going to have any conversations with your boat this time around, either. What it lacks in personality, it more than makes up for in utility, however. Rather than moving around by controlling the wind direction, navigation is now controlled by drawing your course on the screen. From there, the ship basically drives itself, and players are able to kick back and enjoy the view as you chug along. We spied some sea creatures along the way, though we weren’t able to do anything with them at this point—it looks like that’s going to have to wait a while.
The enemies we’ve seen so far have been pretty simple, which isn’t that shocking. Basically, expect the usually beginning menagerie—bats, rats and other assorted creepy-crawlies. We saw a few skeletons, but they hadn’t yet mustered up the enthusiasm to animate themselves and fight. If we know Zelda, it’s only a matter of time.
The multiplayer mode is worth mentioning, too. You’ll only need one copy of the game to compete with a friend. Players take turns between controlling Link and a trio of dark knights. As Link, you run through the map, grabbing triforces and returning them to your base. The player controlling the knights tries his best to thwart Link’s moves by tracing patrol paths on the screen. It’s basically the same thing we played at GDC a few months ago, but it’s just as fun now as it was then.
We’ve barely cracked the surface of the game, so we can’t speak to things like game length and larger dungeon layout. We’ve all seen video of Link tossing his boomerang around, and it wouldn’t be a Zelda game without hookshots, arrows and bombs. That familiarity is comforting, but let’s hope we run into some DS-specific items. So far the game seems to use the system’s hardware well, and it would be a shame not to do even more.