The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - Reception

Reception

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass was released by Nintendo in Japan on June 23, 2007, in North America on October 1, 2007, in Australia on October 11, 2007, in Europe on October 19, 2007, and in Korea on April 3, 2008. The game was considered to receive "universal acclaim", receiving aggregated scores of 90% from Metacritic and 89% from GameRankings. Praise focused on the game's use of unique Nintendo DS features, while criticism targeted its more casual gameplay compared to previous games in The Legend of Zelda series. Phantom Hourglass was the best-selling game in its debut month of June 2007 in Japan, selling 302,887 copies. In the United States, Phantom Hourglass was the fifth best-selling game in its debut month of October 2007, selling 262,800 copies. As of March 2008, 4.13 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide, with 910,000 of those copies in Japan.

Computer and Video Games called Phantom Hourglass one of few "masterpieces" on the Nintendo DS, which made it "worth every penny". Believing that Phantom Hourglass improves on everything that was great about its predecessor, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, GamePro predicted that the sequel would be another successful game in the franchise. Although feeling that the game does not live up to the standards set in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Game Informer still felt that the adventure is worthy of The Legend of Zelda series, and noted that it "has enough great stuff going for it" for them to consider it one of the year's best video game adventures. GameZone enjoyed the "spectacular blend of touch-screen combat, brilliant puzzles, and Wind Waker beauty" in Phantom Hourglass, calling it a "can't-miss adventure" and one of Nintendo's and the year's best games. Hyper's Jonti Davies commended Phantom Hourglass for its "perfect controls and supreme world and dungeon designs". However, he criticized the game for only giving around 30 hours of gameplay.

Game Revolution appreciated the game's graphics, and noted that it uses the Nintendo DS's features better than any other game for the console. Praising its "innovative" and "fun" control scheme, GameSpot felt that Phantom Hourglass "gives new life to several of the series' age-old concepts". X-Play wrote that Phantom Hourglass definitely felt like a The Legend of Zelda game, calling it another successful video game for the franchise and a "must-have" for anyone that owns a Nintendo DS. The Onion's entertainment newspaper The A.V. Club remarked that Phantom Hourglass exploits the Nintendo DS's touchscreen to the fullest extent in an "imaginative and genuinely fun way".

Issues that were mentioned in reviews regarding the game included its more casual gameplay compared to previous The Legend of Zelda games, which was not well received by some. GameSpy felt that the game was both easy and approachable enough for casual gamers to play, but sufficiently rewarding and challenging to satisfy hardcore fans of The Legend of Zelda series. IGN believed the game to be "more casual than we'd like", but still found it captivating, entertaining, and "a true adventure worthy of the Zelda name", calling it "different, but it's still the real deal". GameTrailers stated that the short dungeon levels and hand-holding exploration are "outright disappointing", but when comparing Phantom Hourglass to other Nintendo DS games, they conceded that it was still an impressive game, but just a good game when compared to The Legend of Zelda standards. 1UP.com pointed out that the biggest problem with Phantom Hourglass is that it falls back on using innovations from previous The Legend of Zelda games, rather than including new and original ideas: "Innovation arrives in tiny steps, touch screen controls be damned."

Finding it difficult for hardcore gamers to fully enjoy Phantom Hourglass, Nintendo World Report claimed that the game's lack of alternative control schemes was a telling sign that Nintendo did not have The Legend of Zelda fans in mind when creating the game. They still described the game as "decent", but felt that "it’s also a game apart from the rest of the series. It just feels different, and I think it demonstrates that Nintendo is reluctant to sail into the murky waters beyond Wind Waker." The American newspaper The New York Times enjoyed Phantom Hourglass for the most part, but complained about the timer in the Temple of the Ocean King as unnecessary and gimmicky, remarking that the game's dungeons are only "fun to go through once, but none of them are fun enough to go through 20 times". They noted that the time spent traveling through dungeons "removed all thoughts of its being perfect".

Several websites named Phantom Hourglass the 2007 DS Game of the Year, including IGN and GameSpy. It was also mentioned in Best of the Year lists from Wired, Time, and Edge. The game received Editor's Choice awards from GameSpot and IGN. It was also named Best Adventure Game by 1UP.com. The game was designated the Best Handheld Game at the 2008 Golden Joystick awards, the 2007 Game Developers Choice Awards, the 2007 GamePro Editors' Choice awards, the 2007 Spike Video Game Awards, and the 2008 Interactive Achievement Awards. At E3 2006, Phantom Hourglass was designated as the Best Nintendo DS Game by GameSpot and the Best Handheld Game at the Game Critics Awards. The game placed 38th in Official Nintendo Magazine's 100 Greatest Nintendo Games of All-Time.