The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

[Rensch]

So I understand it's out this week in North America. Anyone played it yet?

I'm excited about this game and according to the reviews the 100% touch controls work out very well. I will not import it as it will release in Europe in just a week or two but I'm excited nonetheless.

[glitch]

I was looking forward to it for quite a while, but I heard that the game is a breeze, which was one of my main problems with Minish Cap, so I'll wait until it hits bargain bins before picking it up.

[John]

Zelda game's don't usually hit bargain bins...

But anyway, from what I've heard, this game's going to be great, really looking forward to the UK release now.

[txa1265]

It is excellent!  I would say it is no easier than Bioshock - and the point in each isn't about the difficulty.

[John]

Loving this game so far. I was unsure how the control scheme would work, but outside from performing a roll, everything works extremely well. The dungeons are good so far, and there's a fair amount of new ideas demonstrated. The map system works particularly well.

[Craig]

Thanks to a new Gamestation opening, I managed to get this game for £10. It is fantastic. Though I need to stop myself playing so much as I'm already through the first three dungeons.

The controls work really well (though simply tapping an enemy to kill it means combat can be really easy) and I'm pleased to say that they've made writing on the map even more useful than it would have been in previous Zelda games, there's really been a lot of thought put into it. Rolling was difficult at first, but that's because the in game description is crap. If you read the manual, it says to draw a tiny circle at the edge of your screen whilst running, not just drawing a tiny circle regardless. So it's best to make a line from Link to the edge of the screen then draw a circle without lifting up the stylus.

And it's also managed to fix two things that have always bugged me in Zelda games. You're not limited to a measley 200 rupees until getting a bigger wallet, meaning there's no opening chests to find a 50 rupee piece wasted. I'm not even sure there is a limit. But what's more, there's acctually a point to getting rupees now. There are things that are worthwhile buying! If only to bling up your ship.

The multiplayer is really good too, I may try it over the internet later - anyone fancy a game?


Quick question though, can you do anything with your treasure other than sell it? I feel like I should keep on to it rather than selling it, but I'm not sure why.

[Rensch]

And it's also managed to fix two things that have always bugged me in Zelda games. You're not limited to a measley 200 rupees until getting a bigger wallet, meaning there's no opening chests to find a 50 rupee piece wasted. I'm not even sure there is a limit. But what's more, there's acctually a point to getting rupees now. There are things that are worthwhile buying! If only to bling up your ship.

Yeah, that definitely sucked in earlier games.

Anyway I will pick up a copy tomorrow. I'm very curious about the new controls. Can't wait to play it.

[Rensch]

Well, i've got a copy of the game and I think it's brilliant. The touch screen elements are implemented really well. Controlling is a breeze. Only the rolling doesn't really work that well, but you don't use it much so it's not that big of a deal.

[Craig]

To be honest, the only reason I used it before was that it was slightly faster than running.

[Craig]

This post contains spoilers, I have made them white text so they are harder to read, but they are still visible, so er... you've been warned or something.









The abilities you get from the power gems (those tear drop things) are pretty nifty -

SPOILERS (in white so highlight to read)
The red ones (of power) give you a flaming sword
The blue ones (of wisdom) make your shield better and even stun lower enemies
The green ones (of courage) make you shoot stuff from your sword. And not even at full health, yay!
SPOILERS

The game reminds me a lot of a link to the past, and my only complaint is that it could use an overworld rather than the ocean. But that's only when thinking about it, when playing the game I don't notice it too much and you are only limited about where you can go due to not having the right map for it rather than not having the right item yet. I really must slow myself down, though as at this rate I'm going to finish it quite soon

The items are fantastic, though. The boomerang is just fun to play with, writting your name and stuff but they get better, as later on you get...

SPOILERS
Bombchus - which I completely forgot about, but you can draw your own path for. And also the grappling hook, which at first I was disapointed was not the hookshot, but you can use it in so many different ways it's fantastic

The bosses are really amazing too. I think it's the third one that has been my favourite.

A quick technical question, though. I thought the DS could only manage 3D on one screen at a time? Some of the bosses clearly have it on both screens, and not just a video of 3D on one of them, either, as it corresponds to what you do. Techincal wizzardry?

[sim]

I think it's more like, one screen can use the GBA processor while the other uses the DS one? I believe the GBA processor was capable of very basic 3D so I'm guessing they really pushed it to its limit on that screen.

[MattP]

There is a register that controls which screen is currently having 3D content rendered on it. If you toggle this register on alternate frames, you can have dual-screen 3D, although at about half the framerate you would otherwise have.

The main processor actually controls both screens. The secondary processor basically acts as an input processor. In commercial games, it runs a binary supplied by Nintendo which just handles interrupts, button presses, Wi-Fi data transfer, microphone recording, sound output, etc.

[n8littlefield]

My (limited) understanding of the DS 3d abilities is that it can render a 3d image across 2 screens or render the same 3d image from two different camera angles for the screens as well.   So if the boss battle simply spans both screens the system can do that just fine.

Similarly, the first Over the Hedge game renders one 3D scene - the top shows it from the character perspective and the bottom shows it from an overhead perspective like a map.

I think the issue is more that it has a struggle with trying to display two separate environments on the two screens - which like it was mentioned is possible, but very limited in power.

[MattP]

Not to sound 'cocky', but I've actually done some development on the DS and have researched the technical capabilities quite a bit.

To my knowledge, there is nothing that would make rendering a different scene on each screen harder than rendering the same scene twice.

Each frame, the game sends all the geometry it wants to render to the 3D hardware (the actual process is a little different, but I'm sure you don't want to hear the boring details about allocating VRAM blocks and such). If the game is rendering the same scene from two different angles, it has to resend all the geometry again anyway.

[Rensch]

I never heard it's not possible to have 3D on both screens at one time. All boss battles in this game are displayed like that.