3/5 ★ – JaredJDub's review of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.

Yet another game I wanted to love, but I just couldn't. The story was great, delightful even, and it graphically looks decent for a DS title. The way the game presents itself at first was astounding. But hot damn, those touch controls were terrible. Don't get me wrong, the way they implemented the touch controls was decent. But they could have just made Link run around normally with the D pad and you could assign items to buttons like in normal Zelda games. I understand that they wanted to try something new and be innovative, but it just didn't work for me personally. Luckily, there weren't many times where I had to switch items quickly, but switching became a hassle when trying different items to solve puzzles or fight enemies. You had to tap the top right of the screen to ready the item, tap to use the item, tap again on the top right to put it away, tap on the items button, tap to select your new item, then tap on that item again on the top right to ready it. I also really didn't enjoy moving around by dragging or tapping the screen. Slight movements of the hand would sometimes cause errors such as Link rolling off of a cliff cause the game thought I was trying to draw a circle on the edge of the screen instead of guiding Link down before he reaches the edge. I will also say that the ocean travelling tended to be a little tedious as well. You had random enemies coming at you from different angles, which would have been fine, but you only had 4 hearts to start for the ship as well as a very small and narrow point of view. However, the dungeons were really well put together, having a nice flow to them, and they were just the right size for a handheld title. I feel like they made it very easy for someone to complete a dungeon in one sitting, save, then turn the game off, rinse and repeat. The fighting was as decent as the touch controls could let them be. Just tap on the enemy, simple as that. The bosses each had their own weakness as is normal in every Zelda game, but the way they implemented the controls and the items with them in particular I thought was a nice touch (pun intended). The following is not effecting this game's rating: If you decide to play, play on OG hardware or 3DS. I played streaming on Twitch, so I used the Wii U game pad because it's easier to capture, and that damn thing is horrendous. I could have used an emulator, but I actually started using one, then found the controls to be even more annoying. Plus, you have to use the mic at some points, which is tedious to set up for an emulator. I still recommend playing this just for the experience of playing it as part of the Zelda series and experiencing the delightful story. Sure, the touch controls sucked, but that was the only major bad part of the game.