Was PH Really That Bad?

I think it looks cool. I havent played it, but i want to!

The controls were really fun,the boat scenes are kinda boring though,and the Temple of the Ocean King is really,really,annoying.
I really liked it ,Linebeck has to be my favorite character too,hes pretty funny XD

Originally Posted by Aerem the Wise

You know what I mean. The sword that you get after the first part wasn't "the Master Sword."

How is getting a new sword a bad thing?

I personally realy enjoyed the game. It was fun to explore, the control scheme worked fantastic and the bosses were amazing

It gave me a feel of a console Zelda on a handheld

List of things I did not like about Phantom Hourglass:

- The overworld was the most boring one I've seen in the series and, indeed, among the absolute worst I have ever seen. The almost excrutiatingly slow sailing, combined with lack of real-time control, really made it the most boring experience in the series.

- Speaking of overworld, the optional islands (in Wind Waker I think of those small havens as a part of the overworld, I thought it'd be fair to do so here, too), aside from just being very few, were also pretty bland, boring and had really, really obvious puzzles.

- Speaking of islands, the main ones were also boring and had piss-easy puzzles.

- Speaking of piss-easy puzzles, add some incopetent battles and you've basically got the entirety of the dungeons. Oh, the EXACT SAME song and excrutiatingly bland tileset spread across all the dungeons with little as no exceptions was really inexcusable in every way. Every dungeon felt the same, with the only differences being the variety of (piss-easy, mind you) puzzles, nothing else. The DS is capable of MUCH more. Hell, the GBA is capable of much more, as demonstrated by Zelda's very own Minish Cap. This is just really lazy. Really, really lazy. Bad work ethics, Nintendo : \

- Actually, speaking of the exact same songs and excrutiatingly bland tilesets spread across large areas, with that I pretty much summed up the entirety of the game's aesthetics. In fact, speaking of aesthetics:

Originally Posted by Aerem the Wise

The DS is a portable system and can't handle as much graphics as the GC or Wii. That is wh they didn't have the smooth transitions from leaving the island and going to the sea. That is also why everything looked a bit spiked. As an amateur game maker myself, I know that this was because of the DS's graphics capabilities. It couldn't handle the detailed models they used in TP, OoT, MM or TWW.

And yet games like A Link to the Past and Minish Cap, both of which were on vastly inferior consoles, were much more distinctive in terms of graphics. Seriously, the DS is capable of much more, it's just because Nintendo persists to use bad 3-d rather than good 2-d, which is, uhh, stupid. Well, that's what I feel, anyway. Some might feel that 3-d is inherently superior to 2-d. But that's just up to them.

- Half of the bosses was just really, really bad. The first two were almost scaringly easy and simple. Gleeok was also really, really easy. Shamingly so, in fact. Final boss was also very unsatisfying.

- Also, the Temple of the Ocean King was the single worst dungeon in the history of Zelda. Not because it's designed badly, no, but because you're forced to go through the same parts OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER etc. That is seriously the worst artificial lengthener since straight, empty corridoors with no aesthetical purpose.

So far, we've got the most monotonous game in the series since the NES games. But at least those had great music that created very powerful atmospheres, in Phantom Hourglass it's just bland and boring. Nothing really going on, nothing interesting at all. The battles are also boring and the puzzles are piss-easy. Now let's go into the good stuff:

- The controls were amazingly smooth and well-done. There's...nothing bad about it whatsoever.

- Some of the bosses are really good! The third was great and so was the dodongo. Most of the others were, err, slightly fun at the very best. And yet...eh.

- It's a good timewaster if you have nothing else to do. Playing isn't exactly grating, I guess that's...kind of a good thing?

So yeah, overall, pretty awful and excrutiatingly repetitive and boring, but somehow manageable if you have no other game to play. Some of the bosses were pretty cool and the controls were good.

Yes, horrid.

The game would have been more enjoyable for me if the controls and gameplay wasnt so awkward. I hated the stylus control, i couldnt get Link to go and do what i wanted very easily. Plus i found the Temple of the Ocean King to be reduntant and really boring.

The game wasn't awful, it was just bland. It felt like the Zelda formula had been mushed into a thick, tasteless paste and then rammed down my throat. The Ocean King dungeon was some of the worst padding I've ever seen in a game (and I've played Wind Waker). Not to mention the fact that most of the puzzles and dungeons were almost part for part taken from Link to the Past and excused by the whole 'there are new controls this time! so it's new!' philosophy.

I feel really guilty about it, because I really wanted to like it; I love Twilight Princess despite many thinking otherwise. I just couldn't enjoy it though. It's a monotonous and insipid game.

Originally Posted by TourianTourist

You, Sir, are not a minority. The bad opinions on forums are normally the minority. Phantom Hourglass is the youngest Zelda game and already the fourth best selling (not counting multiplatform releases). It sold 4,83 million copies, which is great. 99,9% of those people, who bought the game, never go online in forums like these to complain about Phantom Hourglass, like few people do here.

Well, dude, I was just going by the posts before mine in this thread. They were calling the game easy, terrible, boring, etc. And plus I've seen a lot more of that sort over in the Handheld Zelda board. Besides, the first sentence in the first post says, "A lot of people around here really seem to think that PH sucks." That's all I was going by, not whatever 99.9% (wherever you got that number) you say is keeping their opinions to themselves, which I highly doubt in the first place.

I think Phantom Hourglass is a very, very good Zelda game. It some sweet controls and made good use of the DS. It had a great character (Linebeck), and I thought it had the same Zelda magic that WW had. Some of the items and bosses were creative. I thought PH was extremely easy most of the while, but the Temple of the Ocean King was a good challenge, along with being a unique idea.

I think it's funny that the same people who criticize the game for being easy also say they thought the Temple of the Ocean King was too frustrating and annoying.

PH was alright for a game, but it was kinda shabby for a Zelda game. There was nothing in it that really stood out or that I really liked. Most of its impressive parts were just surfing on the success of other Zelda games.

I was going to make a thread just like this, but about TP, because I like TP a lot and people on here are always saying that it's a bad game, when I think it's great.

I understand what you're saying, so I will admit that I have been guilty of trashing PH more than it deserves. Sorry.

I think that the controlls were weird, and it was REALLY unrealistic. I think it is ok, but it just doesn't measure up.

I really liked Phantom Hourglass. The story was good, and some of the dungeons had some clever puzzles. Some of the scenes were pretty funny too. XD

Originally Posted by Diabetic Link

I think that the controlls were weird, and it was REALLY unrealistic. I think it is ok, but it just doesn't measure up.

What on earth do you mean by "unrealistic"? All Zelda games so far have been buttons and the very closest they have come to realism is with TP where you merely point to aim your bow.

Originally Posted by Ashanark

I think it's funny that the same people who criticize the game for being easy also say they thought the Temple of the Ocean King was too frustrating and annoying.

Well, just to add my two cents here.

Frustrating and annoying = Difficult?

For me, that Temple was frustrating and annoying, not because it was difficult (it was actually quite easy, what with the HUEG abundance of time you had) but because you had to go through the exact same sections over and over and over! No matter how you look at it, that is just really bad design! I mean, sure, in the first room where you can just run straight through, it's pretty understandable, and I can almost forgive a lot of the earlier rooms that had basically fifteen seconds of playtime.

But when you get further into the temple and have to repeat puzzles that take up, what, five, ten minutes? Those really, really long puzzles that span three floors? Three huge floors? THAT is what I find annoying and frustrating about it.

Not to mention the fact that it's a stealth section, so just rushing through it and finishing it off quickly isn't nearly as much of a possibility as it would be. In fact, if it was a series of fantastic battles that awed me each and every time, I'd probably love it!

But that's besides the point. Forcing the player to go through the exact same stuff over and over is just awful design.

And please, don't pull the "Oh but you can use the items you get to do it quicker!" argument, not only will you have to go through those quicker routes multiple times, too, but it also won't really change more than a fraction of the overall time.

the game is to easy,the temple of the ocean king is a little annoying.that's all I have to say about it.

It's an entertaining little game to test out new type of gaming. Not a big7homeconsole game or even much of a full length hand-held game but entertaining. I don't hate it, but it's not my favourite.

True: Half way through you can skip all previous parts of the dungeons. A find the items save a lot of time. Don't flame new ideas or Ninty will never try new things.

Phantom Hourglass wasn´t my favorite... It wasn´t a game for me. As in Wind Waker, I hate sailing the ocean. Something i hated even more though was the Ocean King Temple. Really terrible and a pain in the *** even after you get the Phantom Sword. I prefer running around in a land with "ground" ! Anyway... not a bad game, but not worth the money here in Sweden. >_>
Do note that this is just my opinion.

I think that PH was a really good game.
But for some reason once I finished it, I found it pretty boring.
The controls for me, I just didn't like it. Just using a stylus. I need all of the controls. :<

Instead of writing a novella as to why I dislike Phantom Hourglass, I'll summarize with the following words: Tedious, monotonous, repetitive, repetitive, hand cramping, uninspired and aesthetically bland.

I'm not a fan of the 100% stylus control either.

It was ok, but the graphics weren't too great and it was short...