The first thing I'm going to bring up is the most annoying thing about the game. The classic handheld Zelda formula is still there but the game can be 100% controlled by the touch screen if you want. You can press buttons to bring up menus and such, but you move around and attack with the touch screen. You touch close to Link to make him walk and far away from him to make him run. Walking is something you can't do in previous handheld Zeldas and there are a few of them I think could use it *cough minish cap and link to the past cough*, so it was a nice touch. Attacking in this one is sort of dicey too. You touch enemies to directly attack them, and swipe your stylus to do a horizontal slash. You also roll by make little circles on the touch screen, but that's what's dicey about it. Sometimes when you try to roll it'll register it as an attack and stop Link, slash his sword and keep moving. That was annoying and one of the bigger flaws. There's only two quest logs in this one instead of the usual three, but that isn't the end of the world unless you share your game with a lot of people. The other thing I found slightly annoying is the item menu doesn't act as a pause screen anymore, it's just a little bar on the bottom that you touch to bring up the items, and you equip them one at a time a la Link to the Past. It's pretty annoying because for some enemies you're gonna need two items to beat, and it's hard to equip the other item with the enemy wailing on you mercilessly. Phantom Hourglass is a direct sequel to The Wind Waker for Gamecube, which is my favourite Zelda game next to Twilight Princess and so I bought this one thinking it would be just as good as Wind Waker. I'm not saying the game is BAD. I think the touch screen navigation is more fun than just moving around with the dpad, and it gives you a little bit more control of your movements. I just think there's too many flaws than its worth. The game starts with a cute slideshow of the events of Wind Waker (but I won't get into that), then Link, Tetra, and the pirate gang are on the boat. After some chatter, a ghost ship pulls up next to them and takes Tetra. That's your objective in the game, pretty much, you run around this place (I think it's the Great Sea, humour me though) and find a bunch of stuff in order to save her. I always liked the exploration aspect of Zelda, there's always lots to do after you beat the game, and this one's no different.
Another annoying aspect is the super duper, incredibly annoying, makes you wanna rip your hair out Temple of the Ocean King. You have to go there after every main dungeon and get a part of your sea chart so you can explore more of the sea. But you have to go through everything you went through during your previous visit to get back to where you were, and then there's a couple more rooms after that. I think it could have been designed a little bit better, but it's required to progress through the game so you can't really complain a whole lot.
Anyways, my advice to all players thinking of purchasing this game is you might not get too far if you're easily frustrated. It's all around fun, and a good purchase nonetheless.
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