OK, so I’ve not quite finished it. My guy is standing outside the final boss room at the bottom of the big dungeon, I don’t want to do that fight as it will show up on the save screen and my wife will be annoyed at me for clocking it before her. She’s just outside the big dungeon at the moment. Anyway, I’ve played enough Zelda games to know what’s about to go down, so far there have been no big surprises and I don’t think it’s about to turn into a rhythm action game or anything.

First things first, as I alluded above it’s pretty much your standard Zelda game. That is to say it’s right up there with some of the best games ever produced, solidly entertaining and fun throughout. It feels a little churlish to complain about such a solidly enjoyable game but that’s still what I’m about to do.

Possibly at great length.

I’m not really going to talk about the plot (it’s the standard Zelda thing: Do some dungeons, collect some weapons, forge the master sword, save the day) but insofar as it’s possible to spoil a video game through discussion of mechanics and structure I might be doing that…

This is what it looks like:

Here are the problems I have with it.
Lack of Autosave
I lost about 2 hours of play thanks to this, including having got an extra heart which I never managed to regain. Every other Zelda game saves your progress whenever you dock or leave a map tile or exit or enter a building or dungeon. Why not this one? Especially considering the portable nature of the hardware I would have thought this feature a must.

3D Graphics
Whilst constrained in their normal top down mode the 3D rendering works well, allowing for smooth animation and accurate collision detection. As soon as the camera changes angle, which it does rather too much, all the worst aspects of 3D graphics are exposed: Blocky textures, pop-up, the lack of ceiling in dungeons.

‘Sailing’
To get between the fun bits of the game the player is required to plot a course between islands and then click on approaching enemies as your friend (Played by Richard E Grant in Withnail mode) drives you there. Leaving aside the crappy boat design this is a really time consuming activity that just isn’t enjoyable. The much maligned sailing in Wind Waker had elegance and fluidity of control, in and of itself it was a fun activity even if some perceived it as padding. the sailing in Phantom Hourglass has no such saving grace. This means that the game lacks any kind of connective tissue and thus the sense of scale and exploration that even the most modest of earlier Zelda titles generated is completely missing. This is the games most serious flaw and if I hadn’t had the Xmas holidays I don’t think I would have had the inclination to play through these sections to get to the meat of the game. So hooray for Jesus!

Dungeon Complexity
Guiding Link around dungeons and engaging in combat and puzzle solving is a simple joy. It’s a shame that the dungeons only reach a satisfying level of complexity on the very last temple. Early Zelda dungeons are always more or less linear puzzle solving affairs. Solve a puzzle move to the next section, rinse repeat. Around the forth dungeon is normally where stuff really kicks off, the player is asked to consider and reason with the structure and behaviour of large subsections of the dungeon, often involving several interlocking puzzles. My favourite recent example of this is the Yeti’s house in Twighlight Princess and the all time classic is the fiendish Water Temple in Ocarina of Time.

Forced repetition.
There’s one particular dungeon that the player is required to do repeatedly. Whilst I like the fact that it can be replayed and the player is rewarded (faster time, more treasure) this sort of thing shouldn’t be mandatory in a Zelda game. Again it feels like padding.

Anyway, enough moaning. Here are the high points.

The Hookshot
This hoary old favourite, freed from the orthogonal constraints of earlier 2D titles and the flow breaking perspective shift that accompanies it’s use on the 3D Zeldas, finds its ultimate expression in Phantom Hourglass.

Bomb Chus
A new weapon designed to make full use of the touch screen interface. Basically Bomb Chu’s are guided missiles, but they’re bombs in the shape of mice rather than missiles. They are guided though; you draw their path with the stylus and off they go. It’s a totally inspired idea, just a shame there weren’t more complex puzzles which required their deployment. I really hope they make another DS Zelda soon so that I can use there guys some more.

Drawing on the map
My favourite puzzle in the whole game is where you have to map a new island and it turns out to be the shape of a …. actually that would be a spoiler, one of too few ‘wow that’s cool’ moments.