The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Why.. just why, Nintendo?

Once upon a time, handheld The Legend of Zelda was anticipated with similar fervor to the console behemoths.  This was seen as recently as 2005, when The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap was released.  That might never again be an issue, thanks in large part to Phantom Hourglass.  Despite raving reviews (though, as has been alluded to on here time and again, it's not difficult for games to receive universal acclaim anymore), Phantom Hourglass was a joke from the very beginning, for an assortment of reasons.  The first being that it just sucked.

The first thing you'll notice about Phantom Hourglass (outside of the fact that it looks like shit) is that you have to control Link by using the stylus.  You poke where you want him to walk and constantly poke everything to make him do stuff.  While it works, at times, it's a total pain in the ass compared to traditional controls.  Especially when you have to do stuff really quickly and Link is slowly reacting to your pokes.  Not to mention your hand will probably get stiff within a half hour, which sucks ass when you're playing a long(ish) adventure game that takes time to get through.  Why couldn't they even give you a fucking CHOICE as to which control method you would use, what the FUCK?  And about the only innovation we actually get from this is the ability to write notes in the dungeon.  That's about it.

Decisions, decisions...

Phantom Hourglass follows soon after the events of the epic GameCube Zelda, The Wind Waker.  You'd think that maybe they could draw from the excellent storyline we experienced then to craft this game's plot, but you'd be horribly disappointed.  Nothing about this game is remotely memorable, and I had to look on Wikipedia to even remember what happened in this game.  After reading it, I have again forgotten exactly what the fuck happened.  Let's see, they come across a ghost ship and Tetra (retard) jumps on board and something happens.  Link ends up on some island, and there's a fairy or some shit, and then he meets Linedick, who is a total pussy.

Tetra is somehow turned to stone and needs to be rescued (surprise), and Linedick leans against her frozen form and nearly breaks her (which would've been fucking hilarious and made the game so much more interesting).  While there are many dungeons for you to complete, you constantly have to return to the same goddamn dungeon over and over and do the same puzzles over and over again.  Why a Zelda game needs such filler is unknown, as the games already have a shitload of puzzles.  Anyway, some plant thing is behind all the evils, and Link has to kill it.  Then Nintendo fakes us out with a Link's Awakening it-was-all-a-dream ending before showing Linedick's ship and proving that it actually did happen.  Assholes.

If only....

What really pisses me off about the game is that they cut out almost all of the adventuring that made The Wind Waker so awesome.  A lot of fans (retards) complained that the sailing was too drawn-out and boring in The Wind Waker, so they decided to let you draw out the path of your ship in Phantom Hourglass and let it move on its own, effectively leaving the game to play itself.  You get to shoot a cannon some.  A grand adventure, right?  Most of the islands are fairly worthless though, so you won't even find yourself free-roaming much anyway, because Nintendo apparently thinks its fans are too stupid to figure out where to go if they're not given a straight path all the time. 

Linedick forces a favor from our hero.

Phanton Hourglass also follows many of the recent games in the series in that there is nothing remotely difficult about this game whatsoever.  The bosses don't take much thought, nor many hits to kill, and they certainly don't do much damage to Link (which is really pathetic because even that pussy Linedick rapes Link, as pictured above).  The puzzles are a breeze, save for perhaps some of the ones in the annoying Temple of the Ocean King.  We do, however, get The Legend of Zelda's first-ever competitive online multiplayer mode.  Which is pretty fun, but suffers from the same weakness as most DS online multiplayers: there is no punishment for quitting mid-match, and you're not awarded for your opponent's rage-quit.  Therefore, most of your wins will never count because just before victory, your opponent disconnects, meaning the match never happened.  Get with the fucking times, Nintendo.

5/10