I was on a little trip this weekend and I used the travelling time to play some Phantom Hourglass as a preparation for the upcoming Zelda game Spirit Tracks. I probably won't have the time again with New Super Mario Bros. Wii coming this Friday, so this was my best chance. And of course I didn't replay the entire game, I more or less just finished a file, which I have started about a year ago. Back then I was doing a little experiment, I tried to get to 3rd and 4th sea charts in one run and then I played the last three dungeons in the opposite order, meaning Mutoh's Temple first, then the Ice Temple and the Goron Temple at the end. Getting the 4th sea chart without the Grappling Hook, the Bombchus and about five less minutes on the clock is a little challenge, but you can do it. And playing the last three dungeons in any order worked fine, too. However, I had stopped there and didn't finish the game, so now I went back a final last time to the infamous Temple of the Ocean King and I finished some open sidequests.
As for the Temple of the Ocean King, I love and hate this thing. I know this dungeon better than the back of my hand, I played it up and down again and again... and again (since the game forces you to do so). I know it so well, that I've even written a FAQ how to beat the dungeon with a filled hourglass. It's the biggest and probably only challenge for long time Zelda fans in the game and probably the most interesting but sometimes also most annoying part of the game. It's a shame, that it takes invincible enemies and a time limit to make something challenging by now. And while I knew to appreciate the Ocean King Temple, I don't really need something like it again and I was somehow shocked by the news about the Spirit Tower. But by going through the Ocean King Temple again, I became kind of hot now for some new Phantom action. The good thing is, that you will have the ability to take over Phantoms from the start. The first floors probably only will have one Phantom and as soon as you collected the three Tears of Light it's party time. And there's no time limit in the Tower of the Spirits and you don't have to go through the floors again (except for some sidequest related backtracking). So, overall you will be able to focus on the Phantom scenarios, which means the Tower of the Spirits has the chance of being a much more fun version of the Ocean King Temple.
Sidequests are also a good point. What I didn't like too much about the sidequests in Phantom Hourglass, especially during my revisit this weekend, is that there are too many random factors. Especially the ship parts. Getting collectible items on random input is very rare in the Zelda series, it's only been done before in the Oracle games, where some of the rings where found randomly. And for the ship parts, there are only so few sources available at the end of the game. The Temple of the Ocean King, the minigames (including salvaging the pirate ships leftovers), the Beedle shop and trading. Trading was not an option, because I can't go online with my DS while sitting in a train. And I doubt, that there are many people left, who want to trade their ship parts. Plus I never used the trading while completing the game the first time, so why start now? The Ocean King Temple isn't a very attractive option either, you've already played it a couple of times, no need to replay it even more. But slaughtering Phantoms and getting new ship parts for doing so can still be a lot of fun, so it's something for in between. However, my choice went to the minigames, the archery game to be accurate. I'm pretty good at it and can score 2000 points on a regular basis. You always get a rare ship part for scoring more than 2000 points and you will get a normal ship part for 1700 points. Which means, I usually get a new ship part for playing (unlike in the other minigames, where you receive also lots of treasures and rupees) and I'm able to hord tons of ship parts in a short time. But still you'll get lots of duplicates and the entire process can take its time and is pretty repetitive as well. Sometimes I buy new ship parts at Beedle's from the money, that I got for the duplicates. But overall it's a boring process. What's also annoying is the Stowfish, I needed to catch more than 30 big fishs to get one. It becomes quite frustrating after a while, at some point the probability of getting at least one should raise. I mean, even the Neptoona came in fast, but I had to fish a dozen of more times just to catch the small little bastard. Well, I wonder, what collectible items Spirit Tracks will offer and how much of them are gotten randomly again. There was word about wooden hearts and dragon scales, both sound more like something similar to the Spirit Gems, but "train parts" are a possibility. The randomness, however, was used in Phantom Hourglass to put lots collectible items in the overall small game. Since Nintendo invested more time in the development of Spirit Tracks, I hope that we will get less random items.
Overall, playing some Phantom Hourglass again got me even more excited for Spirit Tracks. But I have to say again, that I never really was unhappy with Phantom Hourglass unlike some other Zelda fan fellows who labeled it as the worst game in the series. I think Phantom Hourglass is by far not perfect, but it's still a solid Zelda handheld experience and I really love the controls, it's a lot of fun for me to navigate Link through mazes and dungeons with the Stylus. Which is why I'm looking forward to Spirit Tracks in many ways.
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