Phantom hourglass was a lot more enjoyable of a game than I expected, and doesn't deserve the hate it gets at all. At first when I found out that the game was only controlled through the stylus it put me off continuing to play game, as it seems very tedious and I was looking forward to this being another 2D Zelda game but with Wind Waker's world and graphics as I haven't been able to play that game yet, but thankfully after an hour or so I got used to it pretty easily and found it was a creative albeit unnecessary way that makes this game standout and is a great method to make the player use all of the feature that's included in the DS, with this probably being the first game on my 3DS that's had me use my microphone.
Apart from the stylus controls, everything else is what you'd expect from a 2D Zelda game, and I found the characters, locations and method of traversal was good but much easier and more compact due to being on a DS but it probably made the experience more streamlined so I didn't mind too much. The only real negative I have to say about this game is having to return to the Temple of the Ocean King, as you have to go there 5 times, and the fact you have to redo some sections feels like such a waste of time even though new items you acquire does make the process faster. I feel like if they'd made it into one big dungeon that you go to at the start and then return to at the end would remove this problem entirely, as you'd still feel the satisfaction of finally being able to kill the Phantoms, but remove the painful experience of going back and forth several times in a pretty uninspired dungeon.
Overall, Phantom Hourglass was a fun, smaller Zelda story and definitely is overhated, as whilst I do agree this game would've been nicer if it had used the d-pad and the 4 buttons, Nintendo decided to try something different and I feel for the most part it worked. Also Linebeck is one of the best Zelda characters.
Apart from the stylus controls, everything else is what you'd expect from a 2D Zelda game, and I found the characters, locations and method of traversal was good but much easier and more compact due to being on a DS but it probably made the experience more streamlined so I didn't mind too much. The only real negative I have to say about this game is having to return to the Temple of the Ocean King, as you have to go there 5 times, and the fact you have to redo some sections feels like such a waste of time even though new items you acquire does make the process faster. I feel like if they'd made it into one big dungeon that you go to at the start and then return to at the end would remove this problem entirely, as you'd still feel the satisfaction of finally being able to kill the Phantoms, but remove the painful experience of going back and forth several times in a pretty uninspired dungeon.
Overall, Phantom Hourglass was a fun, smaller Zelda story and definitely is overhated, as whilst I do agree this game would've been nicer if it had used the d-pad and the 4 buttons, Nintendo decided to try something different and I feel for the most part it worked. Also Linebeck is one of the best Zelda characters.