I’ve been a huge fan of the DS ever since I discovered Elite Beat Agents. The compact size means I have the ability to game between classes, when I’m in line, and when I generally am stuck waiting. It’s fantastic to be able to whip out my DS on a moment's notice and suddenly become immersed in a great game.

Most of the games I’ve played on DS so far have been strong, well-constructed games. Fortunately, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is no exception. I was surprised by its simplicity, as it has a pared down item and inventory system, especially compared to the complicated DS version of the RPG Final Fantasy III. The game moves quickly, as most dungeons can easily be beaten in half an hour or less.

Phantom Hourglass’s simplicity should not be mistaken for that of a children’s game. While it is relatively easy in terms of difficulty, it is a very clever, well-designed experience. Objects such as bombs hardly harm you when you accidentally set them off and deadly falls only remove a small portion of your health. This friendly system encourages exploration and doesn’t punish you for mistakes. The controls are primarily based on touch with the stylus, and with the small screen, this makes it easier to mess up than with a console.

Although I am not opposed to difficult games, the ease of Phantom Hourglass makes it a lot of fun for a more casual, portable experience. Its GameCube predecessor, The Wind Waker, had more complicated puzzles and levels, and I sometimes found myself frustrated. I have only been stumped on a couple of occasions in Phantom Hourglass, and most of that was realizing that I had to interact with my DS in an unconventional way (i.e. blowing into the DS microphone to blow out a candle in the game).

For a DS game, Phantom Hourglass is incredibly immersive. The tasks are given out quickly and there is little lag. I feel as if I am part of the story from the very beginning and that I am actively influencing the world. The game lets you do most of the work on your own. Also, the fact that the default name for the main character is my name (the game takes it from your DS) makes it all the more personal. Suddenly, it’s me who’s saving the day, not a group of heroes like in the RPGs I often play.

I have very few complaints about this game, as I feel that the simplicity and stylized drawings create a charming Zelda interpretation. However, my main complaint would be the simplicity of the combat system. There are two basic attacks, made with a stylus slash and a stylus circle. I rarely use the slash, as I have had a hard time making Link slash the enemy instead of running into its attacks. The circle attack is fairly effective, but doing it too many times in a row makes him dizzy (while cute, it limits this attack).

The touch controls can also be a little bit impractical in one other feature: the map-drawing feature. I find it very handy how you can draw and make notes on your map with the touch screen. Unfortunately, many of these maps are very small on the DS screen, so it becomes hard to write anything legibly. I have resorted to little dots and lines mostly, as anything else is pointless. The game is fairly forgiving in terms of marking things, so it is never a huge problem; it’s just slightly inconvenient not to be able to make intelligible notes.

Overall, I fell that Phantom Hourglass is a very strong game. The simple design makes it accessible, even when I could only play it for two minutes at a time. While the touch controls can be a little bit limiting, the idea of making notes on a map is a nice innovation. I have enjoyed the levels I have played so far and look forward to playing it again soon.  

Five months ago, in that basement classroom we Interactive Entertainment majors can call home, I had my first taste of Zelda. I wrote about it on this very blog last October and how impressed I was with the puzzles and charming fantasy world. I thought about buying a GameCube to play it, but it was good thing that I didn’t. Two months later, I had a Wii.

My excitement with Wii games temporarily made me forget that the Wii had backwards compatibility. I had forgotten about playing Zelda until I stumbled upon the Wind Waker strategy guide in a used bookstore for $3. This guide is hard to get for under $30 these days, so I was very excited. I then bought a used GameCube remote and memory card. Now I could play Wind Waker again.

I wanted to savor my return to The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. I sat down on a Friday night and played to my heart’s content. With the help of the strategy guide, I felt like I got a lot more out of the first hour of the game (which is how far I had played before without any help). I already knew what to do for the most part, but it was neat to know certain things, such as which spots to avoid if you don’t want to trigger events yet.

I also discovered some new content in previously-visited areas of the game, such as a mini-game. There was a pig-herding side quest on the island. When I first played, I simply thought it was fun to run around with a pig over my head. However, I now knew that there was a purpose to this silliness. I usually don’t care for mini-games, but I found this one to be fun because of the novelty factor. Some games, like Spyro, have silly herding games with creatures you kick and then make annoying noises. You have to do mini-games like this to move forward. In Wind Waker, this herding game involved pigs that would run away from you but were never too hard to catch if you used your brain. The pigs were believable and not aggravatingly stupid. I felt like I had accomplished something simply by being able to catch the pig, especially since I was rewarded with the amusing animation of a plump pink piglet squirming above my head.

Despite my appreciation for this game, I did learn one important things: I should really spend more time practicing jumps. There is one portion where you must swing on lanterns to get to platforms in a pirate ship. I had a lot of trouble with this thre first time I played, and my previous attempts provided no help when I had to do it again last Friday. Fortunately, I made it through by telling myself each time that it would be the last time. Then, I discovered that all my time spent jumping on lanterns was actually meant to help me. The pirate ship drops you off on an island fortress that also has several lantern jumps. Usually it was only one at a time (and not a string of them). I was glad I had some practice because it significantly reduced the number of times I fell.

Even if I do have a little trouble with jumps at first, I do learn eventually. This is no fault of the game and I actually appreciate a good jump now and then. After all, it’s much more fun to virtually rope jump for me because I’m way too scared to perform many of those stunts in real life. I really enjoyed my experience in Wind Waker and I look forward to playing it more again.  

As an aspiring game designer, I knew that I had to play Zelda sooner or later. Embarrassed not to immediately associate the name “Link” with happy childhood memories unlike many of my peers, I decided I could avoid Nintendo no longer. I had always had a PlayStation and never bothered to play Nintendo games (due to the seemingly limited options available for games on their consoles) and had never been a big fan of Mario. Yet the Zelda series kept coming up in class discussions and casual conversations. As an RPG fan as well, I was long overdue to play Zelda.

Fortunately, my professor brought The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker to class today. I jumped at the opportunity and sat down to play. I was engrossed in the game and found the island strikingly similar to that in the original Kingdom Hearts. I played for a good twenty minutes before noticing that a few people had gathered around to watch. I offered to let them play, but was glad when they declined. I was finally getting the hang of the controls and the style of the game.

When a mystical bird flew in with a girl in its talons, I was quickly reminded an article on Shigeru Miyamoto. It talked about his sense of exploration and fun. The colorful world of Zelda held the distinctive, imaginative style that has defined Miyamoto’s games since the original Mario series. I began to see why such a fan base has grown.

An hour later, class was over. Sadly, I could not save my progress or return to play Zelda later. However, I was excited to play again. I even considered buying a GameCube. I would not mind playing that hour again because it was a lot of fun.

When I returned home, another game in the same genre was waiting in my mailbox: Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. I had an opportunity to play it later in the day. After feeling stressed from the week, I was glad to have a fun game to play (after having rented so many games exclusively for my school project).

This game started out with a lengthy cinematic process. Once into the game, however, it was mainly platformer action. I enjoyed the playful style and friendly characters. One particular task, herding creatures resembling water buffalos into a pen for a farmer, reminded me of a very similar task in the third Spyro game. I player for a couple hours.

However, I ran into much more frustration in Jak and Daxter. I was continually dying, but there wasn’t a limit on the number of lives. Toward the end, I believe I spent about ten minutes trying to beat a boss. I kept dying, but about 80% of the time I died was from carelessness during the simple jumps to get to the boss. I was so angry about losing that I lost my focus. I was so stubborn that I kept at it over and over again, and finally beat the boss. I played a little bit longer after that, and got stuck. I was still upset from beating the boss and quit around 1 a.m. to get some sleep.

After playing both platformers, I began to wonder why one had appealed to me so much more than the other. Both games were made into best-selling series. Both had whimsical creatures and bright, playful levels. The characters and stories were rich. It seemed to come down to the puzzles and difficulties. The Zelda game felt more intellectual and charming, such as when you could discover that you can hide under barrels to avoid getting caught unarmed. The Jak game had more meaningless mini-games, such as catching 200 fish (catch only two of the three types and the speed at which they swim increases) or the animal herding. It reminded me of Kingdom Hearts II and getting frustrated with ridiculous tasks.

While both games may be strong, I believe that they do appeal to different types of players. Zelda requires more of a puzzling mind, where you have to ask yourself how you can use what you know to solve the problem. Jak and Daxter gave less initial guidance but left the world so open that you had to discover things for yourself that had less bearing on mental challenge and left more to chance or physical skill. While both games satisfied my need to run around and collect items, I found that Zelda was more fun, simply because it was crafted like a puzzle; all the pieces were there and you just had to figure out how to use them. I felt like I was respected as a player to solve simple challenges that were attainable with a little thought. With Jak, the action was there, but the cleverness and subtlety was not.

I am not sure whether the fluidity of Zelda was due to the countless iterations and since the beginning of the Zelda series or simply more compatible elements (simple puzzles as opposed to mini-games in the same game type). However, I do think that the Jak games would appeal to players who are less inclined to want to think through a puzzle and simply win by pushing through the incidents of ridiculously menial tasks.