Is Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass a bad game or not that bad, just not a good Zelda game?

I had a blast with Phantom Hourglass & Spirit Tracks. Both really good games, but not the best games in the franchise

My first handheld game, was 12 years old. Loved Linebeck, sailing around and the touchscreen controls & dungeons.

The Ocean Temple or whatever it was called made me so frustrated. I had so much time though that it mattered less when I had to traipse through it again. Nowadays I wouldn't have the same patience (or time)!

The repetition is so fucking infuriating.

Spirit Tracks was far and away the better DS game.

I love it, its a really interesting entry in the series. I wanted to like Spirit Tracks, but I legitimately just could not physically do the flute blowing and couldnt get past the snow area lmao. So fuck that game

As a game i think it is ehh to okay with some fun experimentational ideas.

As a Zelda game I think it's fantastic and might be one of my top 3 in the entire series.
It's just so gosh darn charming I cant help but love it, and Linebeck is a great character.

A step down from previous Zelda handhelds overall, but it brought some interesting things to the table. Good game.

It just never clicked with me. The whole thing felt tedious from the offset. Not my cup of tea.

I've completed a dozen Zelda games and I always remember Phantom Hourglass fondly. I had more fun with Phantom Hourglass than Link to the Past (which I've never finished).

Its a terrible game

Having dove back into it recently, the touch-screen puzzles are incredibly creative so I can certainly understand why it's one of Aonuma's favorites from a design standpoint, but the Temple of the Ocean King repetition is such a bummer.

Playing Spirit Tracks for the first time recently and don't care for it, either. It's a shame because I'm probably Wind Waker's biggest champion. :(

It's a great game with rubbish music (outside of the main theme) and a lame antagonist/final boss. Its flaws aren't major and it's a great time overall (screw you all, I loved the Temple of the Ocean King! I loved the time limit mechanic and the way you could tear through the floors you've already been to with the new items!)

Played it again recently and it's brill overall!

Sprit Tracks is a step above it though. It's one of my favourite Zeldas actually!

It's a better Zelda game than Spirit Tracks

I think it was a great adaption of the Zelda franchise for the DS - playing to the systems strengths. Touch controls were on point. Loved the drawing aspect of the boomerang. The central re-occurring dungeon did get annoying though.

Never made it very far into Spirit Tracks though. Couldn't do the blow thing. Maybe my Mic was busted.

La Leganto said:

This is impossible in a world where Majora's Mask and Skyward Sword exists.

I really hope that Aonuma never touch a Zelda game again.

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Skyward Sword isn't even directed by Aonuma.

I thought both Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks were decent games ruined by the awful stylus controls, sometimes I hate how Nintendo shoehorns in gimmick controls for games that don't need it.

I liked it, the Temple of the Ocean King was kind of annoying, but not as much of an irredeemable bore-fest as the internet would (hyperbolically) make you believe.

The puzzles were, meh, for some of them I just looked it up online to spare me of the tediousness (although I solved THAT riddle by accident).

The music, except for the SAME TRACK IN EVERY DUNGEON was alright, although I REALLY love some standout tracks like Linebeck's theme and the Great Sea.


On a seperate note, the "Good game but bad [insert series here] game" expression is absolutely stupid, stop it.

A good game ruined by a horrible repetitve dungeon. I was ready to finish the game, but the last trek through the ocean king temple was just too boring.

It's generally considered very good far as I know. It's got some structural issues with the exploration and the controls are occasionally wonky but hell what a cool game.

Can't remember a whole lot about it or Spirit Tracks. However, i remember not liking it and not finishing it.

It's throughly mediocre

Actually it might be a better game than Wind Waker.

It's my favourite LoZ game.

I've played all of them from OoT onwards, though I wouldn't really call myself a fan of the series. And I tend to like weird stuff...

I'm sure I would have liked Phantom Hourglass better if it had been a new IP rather than a Zelda game. The (relative) absence of exploration would have been a minus but not an affront to my sensibilities. I'd grade the dungeons more gently against Okami's rather than Twilight Princess's. And I probably wouldn't have wasted any outrage on the sailing if it were just a bland mechanic in a new IP and not part of a pattern of increasingly bad overworlds from Nintendo.

I think it's a good game and a good Zelda game. Never understood the hate.

How do people remember every game they play from years ago? lol

I remember playing it but couldn't tell you an ounce of detail cause it was so long ago, I guess the fact I don't remember it at all speaks to the quality of the game. I don't remember hating it, at least.

I had the game when I was around 11, so maybe I'm a bit biased but I thought it was an enjoyable game for what it was. It was by no means my first experience with Zelda, and to me it felt like just another Zelda game but for the DS. The controls take some getting used to and so does the central dungeon, but I liked the world and story of it. Also Linebeck is still one of the best characters in Zelda.

Though, I'll admit, it's hard to remember a lot of the bosses, as the ones I remember being from the game are from Spirit Tracks. Then again, ST is one of my favorite games in the series so maybe that's why.

It was alright. I did not like the central temple mechanic though.

I found it repetitive and bland. Most of its concepts are fine, but the execution is bad — IMO, Spirit Tracks basically goes on to prove that by being "Phantom Hourglass, except good". It isn't like an unplayably awful trash fire level of bad, it's just... not fun.

(IMO.)

La Leganto said:

This is impossible in a world where Majora's Mask and Skyward Sword exists.

I really hope that Aonuma never touch a Zelda game again.

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Talk about a swing and miss.

It's not that bad, it's just bad Zelda.

The dungeons are dumbly easy, the whole game has like 10 songs, and that dungeon that you have to do several times is one of the worst things that ever happened in the entire series.

Aside from that, it's a nice little handheld game. I particularly LOVE the map drawing feature, it's a shame it didn't return on later entries, should be on every Zelda.

I like Phantom Hourglass and enjoyed it way more than Wind Waker.

The overworld, touch controls and ocean king temple ensure I will never be playing it again at any rate, regardless of how good the rest of the game might be.

Linebeck was fun at least

Outside of some structural issues, the hate for this game is generally overblown. Most just see it as the token bad Zelda game since it ultimately didn't do much for the series sort of how most see Thor 2 as the token bad MCU flick.

Bad game, not just a bad Zelda. Temple of the Ocean King is a big complaint, but what I found most annoying is the insistence on touch controls for everything. On multiple occasions those got in my way, and the experience would have been much better if we were allowed to use all of the input devices on the damn device lol

Zacmortar said:

I love it, its a really interesting entry in the series. I wanted to like Spirit Tracks, but I legitimately just could not physically do the flute blowing and couldnt get past the snow area lmao. So fuck that game

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this. really loved phantom hourglass, for whatever reason, but spirit tracks went from initially sorta interesting just eventually sorta painful :) ...

A bad zelda game is a bad game

It's a so-so game. 6/10.

"Good Zelda game" is pretty meaningless.

It's in the bottom two Zeldas along with Spirit Tracks in my opinion but it's still an alright game.

It's a genuinely great game.

It's a bad game, period. Regret ever purchasing it.

It's great, and so is its sequel.

The temple is great, whoever finished it with the best time possible knows that

phantom hourglass is a good game and a fine zelda game. there are plenty of worse zelda games than phantom hourglass. i mean spirit tracks came right after and that game is ridiculous

It's just bad.

I honestly thought it was a pretty poor game. I just quit.

Its a bad game in many fronts. Lineback is a awlful "partner", having to use the stylus for moving every centimeter in the seas was tiring and pointless, the central dugeon was not well implemented at all and having it being a follow up to windwaker was a total waste. I remenber that playing that game was the first time i worried about "modern" nintendo games. Thankfully, i played spirit tracks and my cocerns where gone.

It was my first Zelda game.
It was the game that got me into the series as a whole.
In hindsight, it doesn't hold up quite as well as the others games in the series, but on it's own, It's an amazing game that's worth playing.

justiceiro said:

Lineback is a awlful "partner"

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I didn't think it possible for an opinion to be so objectively incorrect.

I loved the gameplay and the controls. Hated the game because of that dungeon.

My hot take is that it's one of the best Zeldas, actually.

I kinda like the game, it's a shame it's such a chore to replay though.
Certainly the better of the exclusive timeline it's a part of (I mean WW and ST).