Phantom Hourglass Why Do So Many Fans of Zelda Hate Phantom Hourglass?

[jakemiller1230]

Their are so many threads on various sights that trash the LOZ Phantom Hourglass and i can't see why. I love the gamse and think it really has charm. Sure it was lacking in terms of difficulty with dungeons and the controls were shaky at best. Those points are true but why do some people fail to look at the positives.

1.The TOTOK was great and a difficult part of the game at times. The items made each floor different and you improve your time by using your new item which makes the dungeon fun not repetitive. Plus it adds the stealth element that many people really wanted to be added to the series.

2.The sailing from WW was bad and we all were frustrated at times no matter how much you love the game. PH improved the sailing greatly by making it faster and letting you pre determine where the ship was going. I think this was great and cold not have been any better.

3. The story was fun and confusing at the same time. Linebeck was a cool character and awlays makes me laugh.

 

[Blue Canary]

PH is one of my favorites. I would always bring it to school and play it during breakfast. Everyone wanted to play.

 

[DuelMark]

Phantom Hourglass is one of the weaker games in my opinion, though it still had some pros.

The sailing was worse than The Wind Waker IMHO, at least the boat in there I can control the movement of and just drawing the path feels boring.

The usage of the stylus for pretty much everything got old VERY fast.

 

[r2d93]

I've completed it 3 maybe 4 times and I have to say it's nothing special.

Not that it's bad at all (good soundtrack, good characters, charming, good bosses, etc) but nothing really stuck out at all to define PH as a truly great Zelda game.

The lack of WOW factor coupled with it's flaws are why people don't like it as much. I really disliked TOTOK and found it tedious, and I thought the sailing was far worse and boring than WW's.

While it's true that people don't give PH enough credit in general, it really doesn't have anything to prove itself as one of the great Zelda titles

 

[Blue Canary]

I've completed it 3 maybe 4 times and I have to say it's nothing special.

Not that it's bad at all (good soundtrack, good characters, charming, good bosses, etc) but nothing really stuck out at all to define PH as a truly great Zelda game.

The lack of WOW factor coupled with it's flaws are why people don't like it as much. I really disliked TOTOK and found it tedious, and I thought the sailing was far worse and boring than WW's.

While it's true that people don't give PH enough credit in general, it really doesn't have anything to prove itself as one of the great Zelda titles

I agree that TOTOK was tedious.

 

[JoeDeLait]

I don't think there is anything to hate about it, it just isn't quite as good as the others, but you can expect that from the first game on an entirely new console. I actually thought the touch controls worked very well. Also, though it wasn't my first, it was the Zelda game that got me hooked so I will never be able to hate it.

 

[Vanessa28]

It was my first Zelda Game and also the first one I finished. It was not a bad game at all but I can see why people dislike it. I think mainly because you have to use the stylus all the time and also because of The TotOK. Not necessarily the Phantoms (I had a lot of fun with them) but mainly because of the time limit. That must have ruined it a bit for some fans

 

[Salem]

As everyone said, doing each floor from the temple of the ocean king again every time is dumb, but is there any positive aspect to it at all?

Also the sailing is still boring to some, apparently people didn't like the touch controls either, but I liked them.

 

[Emerald]

As the first DS Zelda, Phantom Hourglass was a nice 2.5D title. At first I was a bit skeptical about the stylus-exclusive controls, but I have to admit, as I played the game more and more, they became much more fluent and fun. The sailing in Phantom Hourglass was much more fun than it was in The Wind Waker. Shorter distances between islands, unlimited cannonballs, and more enemies and boats in the sea added a nice touch. The main plot was nice and long. My only gripe was Tetra not having a major role because I loved her character in The Wind Waker and I was looking forward to seeing her again. Linebeck was one of the best characters the Zelda series has seen in my opinion. Phantom Hourglass's one setback would have to be the Temple of the Ocean King; I think that's the most common gripe for people with the game. I found it more fun than others do, especially hiding from Phantoms and watching the time limit, but I have to admit that it was a drag to have to repeat some of the parts multiple times. Luckily that was fixed in Spirit Tracks though I still prefer Phantom Hourglass overall. Phantom Hourglass is in the middle of the pack for me with Zelda games, but it's one of my favorite handheld Zelda games and it's at least in my top 50 games. I can't understand how anyone could hate Phantom Hourglass!

 

[Blue Canary]

As the first DS Zelda, Phantom Hourglass was a nice 2.5D title. At first I was a bit skeptical about the stylus-exclusive controls, but I have to admit, as I played the game more and more, they became much more fluent and fun. The sailing in Phantom Hourglass was much more fun than it was in The Wind Waker. Shorter distances between islands, unlimited cannonballs, and more enemies and boats in the sea added a nice touch. The main plot was nice and long. My only gripe was Tetra not having a major role because I loved her character in The Wind Waker and I was looking forward to seeing her again. Linebeck was one of the best characters the Zelda series has seen in my opinion. Phantom Hourglass's one setback would have to be the Temple of the Ocean King; I think that's the most common gripe for people with the game. I found it more fun than others do, especially hiding from Phantoms and watching the time limit, but I have to admit that it was a drag to have to repeat some of the parts multiple times. Luckily that was fixed in Spirit Tracks though I still prefer Phantom Hourglass overall. Phantom Hourglass is in the middle of the pack for me with Zelda games, but it's one of my favorite handheld Zelda games and it's at least in my top 50 games. I can't understand how anyone could hate Phantom Hourglass!

I agree.

 

[Beauts]

I didn't like Phantom Hourglass because I found it weak and tedious story-wise, like as has been said, the sailing was the worst thing ever, and I hated using the stylus. It's not my least favourite Zelda game but it's pretty close.

 

[Painmaster212]

My main gripe with PH (and ST) was the "touch only" controls,the weak story and the having to go back over and over to that same temple were complaints but only minor.

 

[Spirit]

I cant speak for anyone else but here are my personal reasons as to why i hate PH.

first and foremost , PH should have been on a different console, the hardware was too primitive at the time to make all that PH should have been.

PH is WW2, yet the freedom of sailing was completely ravaged; merely drawing and following a line is not how sailing in Zelda should be done post WW, had PH been a 3d game then it probably would have been brilliant. PH brought a lot of extra features to WW's concepts such as building your boat and adding features which had effects on combat and speed and defence, it was a nice little strategic element and something we couldnt so in WW, we could go fishing too, something oddly not in WW despite fishing being a big Zelda staple and the world of WW being full of water... its just that on the DS these elements were completely buggered.

The feeling of exploration was completely abolished by having the sea divided into such small quadrants, again if PH had been a 3D game on a more powerful console there wouldnt hav been a reson for this dividing of the overworld but as a result the sea ends up being far too small and too much of a chore to want to navigate, and its boring as hell to draw a line and just wait until you get to where you're going, the feeling of control is completely gone.

On land Ph also fails, the combat stylus sytem was a little better in ST becuase things were a little refined but in Ph attacking rolling and moving were a pain to do in the heat of the moment, so too was item equipping in a hurry because all you can do is touch the screen it takes too long to do anyhting which would have been solved via more than one button command.

As for design PH suffers there too, the temple of the ocean king is a mess of an idea and thank god it was fixed for ST, but as it stands PH has three gameplay ideas that run against each other and end up in a train wreck- stealth, time limit and stylus control served to make the heat of the moment encounters in that temple a pain in the arse. it was also a pain when the damn thing reset on every visit.

The final fight with bellum and the time stopping mechanic was abysmal too, never really given to you in a clear fashion and again with everything else going on it could a right royal pain to do the simplest of commands with such a hands on battle.

As for the good of PH i do like some of the islands (the Dee Ess island is stupid) and it is nice to see more of my favourite game's world, and a lot of the characters are cool, I like Oshu, i like Linebeck and that creepy guy who so wants to bed the mermaid, its an exciting world but it is let down by the console it is on, PH should have been more than what it is, its a shame that it was on the DS since the GC, WW or 3DS could have done such a better job.

 

[Katana_Kito]

I can see why people wouldn't like Phantom Hourglass: the Ocean Temple is annoying since you have to repeat the temple including a new level each time. Other than that, I can't think of anything else. If you overlook the Ocean Temple, i think it's a fun game. Phantom Hourglass and Twilight Princess is tied as my favorite.

 

[pkfroce]

TOTOK wasn't that bad... Except I would always panic when a phantom saw me... But seriously, that game wasn't the best and it wasn't the worst either.