The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

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The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is the first Legend of Zelda game for the Nintendo DS, and is also confirmed to be a sequel to The Wind Waker.

The development team for Phantom Hourglass has many returning developers from The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, many of whom, in turn, were close to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.^[1]

Graphics

The games graphics are done in the style of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. The game is played with a top down perspective, but with 3D graphics. The trailers released by Nintendo show that there are also full 3D cut scenes. The character models and the environments are in 3D. The rendering environment is similar to Animal Crossing for the Nintendo GameCube, and its DS sequel, Animal Crossing: Wild World.

Phantom Hourglass uses the old top-down perspective.

Gameplay

As mentioned before, the trailer shows traditional gameplay in the style of The Wind Waker. Link is shown in a field, in a dungeon, on a ship, and battling an Octorok. Along with the Octorok, the familar Moblin and a fairy make appearances.The gameplay in this Nintendo DS game is mostly overhead. The touch screen is used to show the main gameplay, used to control Link, or to solve puzzles (such as the hourglass shape at the beginning of the trailer shown at GDC), while the upper screen is mostly used as a map screen. The map can also be brought down to the touch screen, allowing the player to write notes on it. It will also be used to create a taller screen in some events, such as the battle scene in the trailer. Some boss battles use both the top and bottom screen. The microphone is used as well.

Story

Template:Spoiler The game is a sequel to The Wind Waker, set several months after its events. At the start of the game, Link, Tetra and her pirates are at sea looking for the Ghost Ship rumored to ply the waters in that area, taking sailors and residents of the nearby islands. Tetra, convinced that the Ghost Ship is simply a bunch of trouble-making pirates, is determined to teach them that pirates have rules, too. When a mysterious ship appears in the middle of a dense fog, Tetra jumps aboard to explore. Almost immediately after, a shriek is heard. As the ship pulls away and begins to vanish with her on board, Link attempts to leap over and save her only to fall into the water himself.

After having a vision of Tetra being surrounded by darkness and calling for his help, Link is washed up on Mercay Island and meets a fairy named Ciela, whose appearance is similar to that of Navi from Ocarina of Time, even possessing the same voice. The fairy has lost her memory and decides to team up with Link. On Mercay Island, Link meets an old man named Oshus who provides him with a sword. Link travels to the far side of the island and rescues Captain Linebeck from the Temple of the Ocean King.[9] In doing so, Link secures the use of Linebeck's customizable steamship to travel throughout the overworld (initially restricted to a single quadrant, but expanded as he acquires more sea maps).

In the first half of the game, Link must rescue three colored spirit fairies: the red Spirit of Power, Leaf, from the Fire Temple; the blue Spirit of Wisdom, Neri, from the Wind Temple; and the yellow Spirit of Courage from the Temple of Courage. However, upon defeating the Courage Temple's keeper, a giant hermit crab known as Crayk, the rescued fairy is colorless and appears just like Ciela. Ciela wonders why this is, but cannot remember anything due to her amnesia. As Link and Linebeck are about to leave Molida Island, Oshus then arrives, using his magical walking stick to fuse Ciela with the colorless fairy to become a yellow fairy, revealing that she is the Fairy of Courage. Evil Phantom Bellum, the main antagonist, is a plant-like monster that absorbs life-force.

Linebeck and Link then set off to pursue the Ghost Ship. After rescuing four sisters from imprisonment onboard, it is revealed that they are in fact phantoms themselves. Defeating them, Link obtains the key to where Tetra is being held, but he discovers that Tetra has been turned to stone. The old man Oshus then arrives and reveals that he is in fact the Ocean King himself. According to him, a few years ago, an evil plant monster named Bellum appeared, hungry to eat life-force. He used this absorbed force to create powerful monsters, including the dungeon bosses and the phantoms in the Temple of the Ocean King, and used them to seal away the three fairies of Power, Wisdom, and Courage. Ciela, the Fairy of Courage, was able to split herself in two to flee, but in doing so, she also lost her memory. The Ocean King tried to fight Bellum but failed, using the last of his power to clone himself, born again as Oshus. He then created the Phantom Hourglass so that someone could use it to venture through the Temple of the Ocean King and defeat Bellum.

Oshus then reveals that the only way to defeat Bellum is by obtaining a weapon known as the Phantom Sword. Oshus asks Link to visit the smithy Zauz on his island. Zauz asks for three pure metals as necessary ingredients for the sword; the Crimsonine, Azurine, and Aquanine pure metals are on Goron Island, the Isle of Frost, and the Isle of the Dead, respectively.

Link sails to Goron Island where Biggoron, the tribe's chief, asks him a quiz to admit him as one of the Gorons. Link defeats Dongorongo in the Goron's Temple and saves Gongoron, a child Goron that became Link's controllable sidekick throughout the temple, receiving the Crimsonine in return for his efforts. Link then sails to the Isle of Frost where he resolves an ancient bloodfeud among the Anouki and Yook. The two races lived peacefully on either side of the island for 100 years, until recently, a Yook invaded the Anouki's village and disguised itself as one of them. Link defeats the Gleeock in the Ice Temple and receives the Azurine. Lastly, Link sails off to the Isle of the Dead where he must talk to the spirits of four knights and then finally Mutoh himself, the king of the ancient Cobble Kingdom. Link defeats an ancient rock soldier known as Eox and receives the final Aquanine pure metal.

After taking the three pure metals to Zauz and having him forge the Phantom Sword, Link returns to the Temple of the Ocean King and journeys to its lowest floor, where Bellum lurks. The battle begins with Link using the many tools he obtained to attack the beast. Bellum then appears to be weakened, suddenly spewing a green ball of light from his mouth. Oshus, the Ocean King, then arrives and commands Ciela to take this sphere, fully restoring her memory and at last revealing that she is Ciela, the Spirit of Time and Courage. Link and Ciela defeat Bellum with the help of Phantom Spheres, which enable Link to freeze time and attack Bellum's weak spot. After Bellum has vanished from sight, the ceiling of the dungeon begins to cave in, and Link and Ciela are magically warped to safety onboard Linebeck's ship by Oshus. Tetra is finally unfrozen and thanks Link for all his trouble. When Link is about to reach out to take Tetra's hand, Bellum suddenly appears and kidnaps Tetra, then takes over the Ghost Ship. Link and Linebeck chase after the Ghost Ship and attack Bellum's tentacles in a marine battle, sinking the ship. Finally, on the ship's ruins, Bellum possesses Linebeck and turns him into a sword-wielding Darknut. Link defeats the possessed Linebeck in a sword fight (as in the style of Ganondorf in Twilight Princess), and Bellum is finally defeated and disintegrates into the Sand of Hours.

Oshus reappears as the Ocean King, an enormous white blue whale, and says that the Fairies of Power, Wisdom, and Courage must leave with him to their world. Oshus asks Linebeck to make a wish, and Ciela replies for Lineback, saying that he hopes to find treasure. However, Linebeck surprises everyone, saying he just wishes for his ship back. Link and Lineback say their goodbyes to Ciela, with Linebeck pretending to not care about her. Link looks at Ciela, lovingly taking her into his hand, and the screen fades white. Then, the credits roll while a collage of Link's new adventures (in the graphical style of the introduction) is shown. Later, Link and Tetra find themselves aboard the repaired Ghost Ship. Soon after, Nico sails by and Link and Tetra return to their own ship. Nico asks what Link and Tetra had been doing for the past ten minutes, and asks Tetra if she just had a bad dream, which Tetra denies. While the pirates argue, Link gasps, noticing that the Ghost Ship is nowhere to be seen. Link reaches into his tunic and fishes out an empty Phantom Hourglass. Link then runs over to the opposite deck of the ship, where he sees Linebeck's steamboat sailing off into the distance. Link smiles happily in relief, positive that his adventure was no mere dream, and there, the game ends.

Multiplayer

A multiplayer battle mode is also included in Phantom Hourglass. This battle mode is a one-on-one multiplayer game dubbed "Hide-and-Go-Seek" by Eiji Aonuma. In an arena, one player takes on the role of Link, while the other player, on defense, controls three Phantom Guardians. Players of both sides are aided by power-up items that shortly appear on the playing field, such as the Pegasus Shoes, a Decoy, a Time Increase and a Whirlwind maker.

Link's goal is to grab a Force Gem from one of the many zones and carry it to his own base at one side of the arena. The other player, controlling the three Phantom Guardians, must try to find and catch Link before he scores any points. When Link is caught, or if the turn-time has passed, players switch sides. A game consists of three rounds, and in each round, each player takes a turn at both sides. The maximum length of one whole multiplayer game is twelve minutes.

The game supports multiplayer both locally and online through the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Local Download Play is also supported. The game is the third multiplayer Zelda game, the first two being Four Swords and Four Swords Adventures respectively.