Touch Screen Madness ruins yet another game
posted by HotWax (IDAHO FALLS, ID) Nov 16, 2007
Member since Oct 2004
4
out of
13
gamers (31%) found this review helpful
Like most Zelda games, Phantom Hourglass features a rich world filled with brilliant story-telling and good character development. The cast of characters this time around are charming (even Linebeck after awhile) and memorable, and there's no question that, as far as storyline goes, this game earns its place among its peers as another great classic... Or it would, if it weren't for those darned touch screen controls!
Having to control literally EVERYTHING Link does by touching the screen might sound like an interesting novelty at first. Trust me, before long you'll be cursing Nintendo for allowing this terrible control scheme to muck up an otherwise great game. The basic controls are simple -- touch where you want Link to go, tap an enemy to have Link perform a leap attack, touch villagers to interact with them, and so on. The trouble comes when you start picking up more exotic abilities. For example, you must slash clumsily across the screen in the general direction of your enemies in order to do a sword-swipe, you draw a large circle to do a spin attack, and you must (supposedly) make small circles "at the edge of the screen" to cause Link to roll. The last move in particular is one that'll have you gritting your teeth in anger -- the only times I ever managed to do it were on accident. It's not all bad, of course. Items like the boomerang and bombchu that allow you to draw a path on the screen work great. On the other hand, items such as the bow and arrow or the hookshot are often harder to control than they should be.
This title could be a hundred times better if Nintendo threw out 95% of the touch controls and used the touch screen only for the cool features -- drawing on the map, plotting a course, etc. As it is I can only in good conscience rate this game as "Fair". Sorry, Nintendo, but after nearly 3 years since the launch of the DS, you should have known better than to ruin yet another potentially great title by making it touch-screen only.
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