One of the big new features in version 3.0 of Animal Crossing: New Horizons were the "Slumber Islands", where you can create up to three in three different sizes. They let you freely design without the limitations of your actual island, which is perfect to realize ideas that otherwise would have been too large or inconvenient. And one of the ideas I had was recreating an island from The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.
In November 2021 the 2.0 update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released and said to be the last major one. Luckily, four years later Nintendo has changed their mind about it and added a variety of new features alongside a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition for the game. This includes a collaboration with The Legend of Zelda, so let's take a look together!
Let's actually start with the Zelda stuff, though pretty much all of it was shown in the announcement already. The only thing that hasn't appeared in the official footage was the Heart, which can be picked up in the same style as the Rupee(s).
It's generally a lot of fun to fully change into either Link or Zelda with a wink of your shiny new Tri Rod. I've never been 100% happy with the dress-up options in this game, even though there is quite a lot, but now I'm content. This is all I will need going forward. Well, it would have been nice if there was a second variant for Princess Zelda, like her appearance from the classic games or even Echoes of Wisdom, but what we have is lovely.
The interactions with the different items are also really neat. The Triforce makes the intro sound from A Link to the Past, the Goddess Statues bring their signature glow and you can wake up the Decayed Guardian. You can also "collect" the Rupees and Hearts, where it's a lot of fun to create some (secret) trails with them on your island. The Rupees can even be customized into six different colors (green, blue, red, purple, silver and gold), while the Goddess Statue has adorned variants based on Kakariko, Goron City and Rito Village.
Sadly, the treasure chest did not return, where it also could have had different variants from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Instead, the Master Sword will play the typical key item melody when you touch it... It also would have been nice if there were a second set of wall and floor, e.g. one based on the Sheikah Shrines. This would have been a great fit for designing indoor environments.
But the largest omission are certainly the Zelda villagers who are not returning from New Leaf. Both Mineru and Tulin feel quite special with their designs and are fantastic additions to the game, where I was quick to add them to my island. However, I could have a whole Kakariko Village filled with characters from the Zelda franchise if Nintendo wasn't so selective about this.
A good excuse would have been if the recent additions introduced new personality subtypes, a C-type so to say, where they get special dialogues revolving around their respective franchises. Mineru and Tulin could have forever talked about Hyrule, the Demon King and Secret Stones, for example. But that's not the case, where instead they both got the plain A-type and act like any other villager in the game.
To be fair, their designs are quite sophisticated and detailed, e.g. Mineru actually opens her third eye whenever she is surprised, which certainly has surprised me the first time. But otherwise we're looking at low effort implementations, where they could have done the same for Epona and friends. It's just that then they really would have needed more floors and walls based on Zelda to make their houses more distinct from each other.
What has been a real treat are some of the smaller improvements, especially everything revolving around the storage and crafting. Not only can you have up to 9000 items now stored away, it will automatically take items from your storage when you're crafting things on your island. This frees up almost 25% of your inventory, because you now can just keep the different crafting materials, like wood and stone, in the storage, instead of always carrying some around.
And yeah, there is the new batch crafting functionality as well, where both of this probably only got added for the new hotel DIY deliveries. You can even now buy 50 Customization Kits at once and they also can be used from your storage, where customized items will score you a few extra hotel tickets. These are all good improvements, but it feels like Nintendo was purely concerned about crafting things for the hotel and nothing else, because there are plenty of other things in this game that could use some streamlining.
And the new megaphone, which is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, is absolutely horrible. It rarely ever works, where it just calls Kapp'n most of the time for some reason. Maybe he's the fallback, but why would they make a character who always sits in the same place the fallback? And when the characters are inside buildings, they won't respond anyway, so it won't help you with villagers lost inside the museum. At least the loading times on Switch 2 are faster, so a restart (which resets your villager's positions) isn't as annoying as it used to be.
Your residents won't be the only ones lost on your island after this update. Easily the biggest change comes with the new hotel, which is ran by Kapp'n's family. At least now when he's sitting at your dock all day long, he's basically home...
This is a smaller version of the paid Happy Home Paradise expansion, except that this is properly integrated into the actual game and has a real impact on your island. In the expansion you were making these vacation homes for individual characters and there was no real reason to ever revisit them once you're done. It was its own little cosmos, where your villagers can appear on your island and in the resort basically at the same time...
But the hotel and its rooms, of which there are eight fixed ones in total, become essentially a part of your main island. As a result tourists will now arrive as guests, in addition to the rare person on the campsite. And unlike the campers they will freely wander around, where they even can go into shops and the museum, which completely changes the feel of your island, which used to be a fairly exclusive place. It now truly becomes a resort, whether you like it or not.
You can also visit the tourists in their rooms, which gives you an incentive to actually make these rooms look nice. However, without the Happy Home Paradise DLC you will be missing a number of design options. This isn't just about items, like the partition or the pillars, because you won't be able to change the size of the room or their soundscape, for example. And this makes the hotel feel like another hook to get you into buying the expansion if you hadn't already.
Luckily, it doesn't seem like you can make a bad job here. The Happy Home Paradise had this awkward scoring system, where you have to spend at least 20 minutes designing a home. That's not the case here, so you can just quickly throw something together and get your 200 or 300 hotel tickets out of it.
And then there is the question whether you even want any of this to begin with. Maybe you have a themed island and carefully curated villagers, where you don't want any tourists running around. In that case your only option is to forever ignore the hotel, which will lock you out of many of the new furniture items, including the retro Nintendo systems.
At least you can provide your unwelcomed guests with clothing matching your island. In my case I went with the outfits of Tulin and Mineru combined with Majora's Mask and Tri. Both headpieces glow in the dark, which make them quite the eyecatcher.
But there also isn't really much to do with these tourists. If you happen to run into one of their former residents, they will remember you for some heartfelt moments. Tourists that have visited your island before will also remember you, where you can learn the names of everyone over time. But here's a missed opportunity by not letting you do more.
First of all, they only ever stay for a single day, which certainly should have been longer to make it seem like they are actually on a vacation and not just some randomized game feature. It especially makes putting any effort into the VIP rooms completely pointless, because you will be designing them for a single night. It would have been much more realistic and dynamic if the tourists were staying for a random number of days, arriving only when there are free rooms.
And if the tourists were to stay longer, this could have allowed the player to form a bond with them, maybe even in the form of some activities, like different games. At the end of their vacation they then could send you a letter with their photo as their thanks. Now, that would be truly engaging! I have never considered collecting the photos of all possible villagers as a realistic goal, but if it was working like this, then I would certainly attempt it and have a reason to play much more from now.
As a reward for doing all the stuff around the hotel you can order some new furniture items, as well as a series of new special items around Nintendo. These include the NES, Super NES and Game Boy, which even let you play a game on them, just like in the classic Animal Crossing games.
However, this is by far the biggest disappoint in this entire update. There is only one given game for each system and it's probably not the one you would pick. The NES lets you play Ice Climbers, for example, yikes...
And despite this massive limitation, they still had the audacity to ask for a Nintendo Switch Online membership in order to start them... Plus, the systems only really cover the basic subscription and not even all of that. There is no GBA, no N64 and no GameCube for you to enjoy here. In the very least they could have added a Game Boy Pocket and Color.
I'm not expecting them to give you access to the entire library here, but they could have made this a bit more playful. You should be able to customize the systems to swap their cartridge from a selection of eight different games. Let me pick The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening, please.
The other big new feature next to the hotel is the ability to create your own dream islands. They are just not called "dream islands", because that was already a thing to share your main island at any time. But it uses the same entry point: any bed, where you will be greeted by Luna in your dreams, who will guide you the whole thing.
You get save slots for three additional islands, which you can delete and restart at any time. You can pick between three sizes: small, medium and large. The small one has the size of the little islands that you can reach via Nook Miles and large is the same size as your main island. You're also given one of four different patterns for how the Slumber Island can look like.
And then you're free to change the landscape and decorate as you please, where you can use anything from your catalog (making cataloguing everything quite valuable) and even summon any villager you ever had before on your island. Your house will also be there, which can be fully changed and redecorated from scratch.
This is huge... at least to me. Over the years I had a couple of ideas of what I could do with my island, but which would have turned into a massive waste of space. One of those ideas always has been making a gallery of all the insect and fish models, which I have all collected as one of my previous goals in this game, only to put them into my storage at the end. But there is simply not enough space to display them all on my island, especially since I like to keep things more practical and gameplay-oriented.
However, here I can now design a whole insect and fish island and take all the space I'll need for this. Sadly, you can't invite special characters to these dream islands via amiibo, so that I could have invited C.J. and Flick.
Another idea I had was recreating some island from The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, because the Nintendo DS Zelda games feel quite similar to New Horizons with how the landscapes are structured and with how you move around. For example, you can jump across gaps on elevations. That basically invites you to remake something for the fun of it. And the best candidate seemed to be Maze Island, because it's square-shaped and only uses simple elements, while the idea itself isn't a stranger to Animal Crossing either. Of course you wouldn't want your main island to be a maze, but it's the perfect thing to built for one of your Slumber Islands. So... that's what I did:
It took me a whole Sunday and getting this right came with some frustrations, but I had fun in the process and I'm proud of the end result. I will show this off in greater detail at a later point, together with my updated main island.
The Slumber Islands are also great for simply prototyping. Maybe you have an idea for a change on your island, but you want to see how it looks first before you invest the time, effort and Bells to make it happen on your real island.
The golden rule of Nintendo is always to leave something to be desired. And should they eventually give their customers what they desire, this shall still leave new things to be desired. It has always been like that... But they are not completely deaf to feedback and maybe we will be getting a version 3.1 in the near future, which may address some of the aforementioned issues:
Those are really just small suggestions that would make the recent additions a bit more wholesome and polished.
It's been a while since the latest Zelda addition to the Nintendo Music app. And they are not exactly ending the silence with a banger, because The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass has probably the weakest soundtrack in the series, right next to Four Swords.
There are a few standouts within those 80 tracks, like Linebeck's theme, but the rest of it either borrows from The Wind Waker or is quite minimalist. The worst offender is that cavern interior music, which plays the same five notes in a loop.
Still, I've always had a soft spot for the game and actually liked it more than its successor, Spirit Tracks. But the second Nintendo DS Zelda game certainly had the better soundtrack, there is no denying that. Maybe we will be getting this next month? Overall, I'm hoping that they will get back to a monthly streak and bring a lot more Zelda goodness over the course of the 40th Anniversary, like Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess, Link's Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom.
3D video games are usually known for being played from a first person view or a third person view. Either you interact with the world from the eyes of your playable character or you watch your playable character from an outside camera, which can be still or locked to your character or even controllable.
The Zelda series even uses both methods, where you normally play in third person, but you can also switch into first person view to look around or aim with certain items, like the Hookshot or the Bow. In the Metroid Prime games it's actually the other way around, where you normally play in a first person perspective from Samus' eyes, but go into third person for certain actions, like the Morphball.
But what if I told you that there are instances where both Zelda and Metroid are offering a 2nd person view? And what's even a 2nd person view?
The different perspectives in video games stem from writing, where there can be three different point of views for the narrative:
In 1st person the story is directly told by the main character or one of the characters in the story, while a 3rd person narrative is talking about all the characters from an outside perspective. But in second person view, which is quite rare, you're basically told by someone else what you're doing...
If we translate this to video games, you would view your playable character from the eyes of someone else. So, a second person view still is like a first person view, just that you're not playing as that person. And after watching a video about the 2nd person view in Driver: San Francisco, I had this little epiphany about how Zelda was using this unique perspective in a very memorable moment:
It's the boss fight against Crayk in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. In this fight the boss turns invisible, but the second screen lets you watch the action from the perspective of the boss — which is a 2nd person view. You still aim with your bow on the lower screen, but you have to do it in a way that you're pointing directly at Crayk's face on the top screen.
It was truly an out of body experience and is one of the examples where Phantom Hourglass tried some really unique things with the hardware. The game isn't exactly a fan favorite, but you have to give credit where credit is due.
Of course, this use of a 2nd person view is more or less only suitable for gimmicks, like this particular boss fight, so it's probably not something where you would design an entire Zelda game around it. But it's still interesting to see how it can lead to some crazy interactions. And maybe this can be used for something more extensive in a future Zelda title.
So, what about Metroid? This is actually a simple one, because basically all classic first person shooters on consoles with a split-screen multiplayer, like for example GoldenEye 007 or Turok 2: The Seeds of Evil on the Nintendo 64, offer multiple 2nd person perspectives. Everyone's screen is a second person view except for your own and you can even use this to spot yourself in the action.
The Metroid series had this with Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, which came with a very traditional multiplayer mode:
In the above screenshot you can see how the two players on the lower screens are watching each other, probably in the middle of a fight. And this is where the 2nd person view comes into play. Part of the fun of these old couch-multiplayer shooters was basically cheating by looking at what your enemy is doing and where he's going.
It's a shame that there wasn't anything like it afterwards, but maybe Metroid Prime 4 will offer an interesting multiplayer mode as well, maybe even something that uses split-screen.
While replaying Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, it became very apparent to me that these two games are going to be the next big Zelda remakes, maybe even made by GREZZO. I know that a lot of Zelda fans are probably sick of remakes / remasters by now, especially Twilight Princess HD seems somewhat unnecessary at the moment, but it's also partly our own fault, since we literally begged for Majora's Mask 3D to happen.
Anyway, I'm not talking about this generation, but about the next with the NX and whatever there may come. Right now you can still play these games on both Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, so there's no direct demand. We all want Zelda U next and if we get bored in a couple of years, let us have these.
The current Wii U versions certainly do tell their age. The Nintendo DS wasn't really great for 3D graphics starting with an entire lack of shading and quite pixelated 3D visuals. When I rode the train in Spirit Tracks, I constantly imagined how the beautiful the game world would look like in a 3D or HD remake. Of all Zelda games, these two certainly would require the graphics update the most, since early 3D graphics didn't age well – unlike 2D sprite graphics, which still look fine today.
A lot of Zelda fans also probably would wish for optional button controls and after coming from Tri Force Heroes I also felt the urge to play these games with the GamePad in my hands. However, while an analog stick or slide pad certainly offers the same precision as the touchscreen controls, it would not offer the same speed. This is very obvious with the archery minigames, where there's no way that you would be able to pull off a high score with button controls. You really need that point and click speed.
But for the most part I could see the games working with button controls, at least during top-down view. The boat and train rides on the other hand were really developed around touch, but even there I could imagine that you would steer with the left analog stick, view around with right stick and precisely aim with the gyroscope. That could work just fine. This way you could also play the games on a 3D screen...
This needs to change so badly. There's an annoying level of grinding required in both games, if you want to complete your collections of Ship Parts and Train Cars. And fighting a random number generator is usually not the best use of your gaming time. In Phantom Hourglass the massive size of the collection was an issue, where getting the last few parts could take quite long, while in Spirit Tracks they improved the system, but made some treasures super rare for you, so you would have to trade with others.
But Phantom Hourglass should simply follow the approach of Spirit Tracks. Instead of finding the Ship Parts everywhere, you simply buy them from treasures. The best place would be the Treasure Teller in Mercay:
It makes a lot of sense. He has the money and the goods, while he lives right next to Mercay's shipyard. This certainly makes more sense than finding gigantic Ship Parts in small chests... Just replace all those with treasures, which you then use to buy the Ship Parts. In the game one treasure corresponds to one set of Ship Parts in their values, like this:
And I wouldn't go for crazy prices like in Spirit Tracks, since there are so many Ship Parts. I would simply make it so that one treasure gives you a Ship Part of the corresponding set. So, from a Ruto Crown you can get a new tropical part. And from a Regal Ring you earn a golden part. That way you won't keep getting duplicates, like in the original, where you might find five Golden Chimneys in a row, but not that Golden Wheel that you still need. Here you simply would get another gold part, as soon as you find another Regal Ring. And if you've already completed the gold set, you can still sell the Regal Rings for 1500 Rupees, which was their original use.
In Spirit Tracks they just have to get rid of the random rare treasures per savegame. Treasures of the same price should all have the same chance of appearing. This already would improve and fasten things a lot.
But additionally they should also add more spots, where you can find a specific treasure. The game already has this partly: you can get Stalfos Skulls from killing Stalfos, you can get Bee Larva from destroying bee hives, and you will always get a Regal Ring in the Lost at Sea Station. They could do more than that, e.g. scoring high in the Goron Target Range always gives you Goron Amber. Something that makes sense.
Tri Force Heroes showed that appearances alone don't matter: the outfits in the game might look interesting, but they most importantly give you different abilities. And this could even be adapted here in various ways by completing a set of Ship Parts and Train Cars. So, each completed set would offer a certain perk next to the additional hearts. These could be things like:
For example Demon Ship and the Dragon Train scare enemies away, so you won't get attacked as often by pirates and the like. The Iron Ship and Skull Train could offer stronger cannons, while the Cake Train makes its passengers extra happy, so you don't lose points as easily. Stuff like that.
Since improving the game flow was a big thing in all Zelda remakes so far, the Nintendo DS Zelda games certainly wouldn't be an exception. I guess, the Temple of the Ocean King is the first thing that would come to mind for many Zelda fans, but I personally enjoy it the way it is. They could add more midway points though. Some people only have an issue with repeating sections, so let them skip them. I never use the midway point, because I want to use shortcuts for an optimal time, but I wouldn't mind the option.
But I personally would look more into Spirit Tracks when it comes to improving things, starting with the slow train rides. Just make it faster, problem solved. Add a 3rd gear and maybe a 2nd reverse gear. And maybe even add some of these insane Tears of Light on the overworld for light speed travel. Those could even be unlocked by Force Gems and new tracks, since some of the additional tracks are quite useless. Naturally, the boat in Phantom Hourglass also could need an additional gear, but thanks to the teleporting the boat rides are not as tedious already...
The whole Phantom mechanics in Spirit Tracks could also be smoother. Maybe add a way to control the Phantom directly, instead of just drawing paths. The Phantom should also be faster and less prone to run into obstacles.
With Phantom Hourglass I would also want the fishing to be improved, so it's less random, especially getting a Stowfish. Spirit Tracks on the other hand needs a bigger Rabbit Net, which you should get after collecting 10 Rabbits or so. The minigame is way too annoying the way it is...
Hero Mode from the start. Clear thing. Easy Zelda games are too easy.
With Phantom Hourglass they could also add something similar to the "Take 'Em All On!" challenge, where you fight lots of enemies and have a way to rebattle all bosses again. Don't lock it behind amiibo though...
This review was originally published on ZeldaChronicles (formerly known as ZeldaEurope) and got translated for this blog in 2022 by the same author. Nintendo had provided a download code.
On November 13th both The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, the two Nintendo DS Zelda titles, became available on the Wii U eShop for 9.99€ each. Let's take a look at how both games play on the current home console and what you will have to keep in mind before purchasing. Both games got fully completed for this review.
Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks were originally released for the Nintendo DS in 2007 and 2009 respectively. And thanks to their touchscreen controls, they are amongst the more controversial Zelda games. Regardless of whether you like the stylus-only input or not, the games offered some other weird ideas and concepts in addition...
Phantom Hourglass is the direct sequel to The Wind Waker and takes places on the ocean as well. But this time you're traveling on a steam boat, whose course has to be drawn on the map. To obtain the required sea charts you will have to visit the infamous Temple of the Ocean King multiple times, an enormous dungeon with a total of 14 floors, where initially you can only explore a few of them. These floors are patrolled by the so-called Phantoms, invincible enemies that you need to avoid. Also, the temple will drain your life energy, unless you are inside a safe zone or there is still sand running through the eponymous Phantom Hourglass, which essentially adds a time limit to the dungeon. Needless to say that the Temple of the Ocean King is quite controversial: some hated it, others welcomed the challenge (where the dungeon at least had some, unlike the other temples in the game). Other things of note are Linebeck's prominent character, the excellent Spirit Orb collectible, as well as the rather minimalistic soundtrack.
Spirit Tracks on the other hand was a lot more melodic, where two years after the release of Phantom Hourglass Nintendo took up its game mechanics again and tried to implement them in a different way. Instead of a steam boat, you now take control of a steam train in order to reach new areas. Before you can do that, you need to get the Rail Maps from the Tower of Spirits, this game's central dungeon. Unlike the Temple of the Ocean King, however, you don't have to repeat the same sections multiple times and there is no clock running in the background. Plus, you now can also take control of a Phantom, one at a time, which leads to some unique gameplay ideas, where you have to play cooperatively. Partly, some of those ideas were even brought back in Tri Force Heroes with its "Totem" mechanik. On the other hand Spirit Tracks is much more linear, gated, and slower than its predecessor, for a rather dull game experience with little freedom.
So, both games have their similarities, differences, strengths, and weaknesses. And you can now discover for yourself which one you prefer on the Wii U, where both titles have been released simultaneously for the Virtual Console.
Once you're playing Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks on the Wii U GamePad, which is the only option because of the touchscreen controls, you will quickly get the feeling that both games should probably be on top of Nintendo's list for potential remakes. The pixelated 3D graphics haven't aged well at all and you will clearly notice the lower frame rate (despite it being stable), especially if you have played Tri Force Heroes right before, which is simply much better on these regards. The Nintendo 3DS game(s) will also make you miss their more traditional controls, where you steer Link via the analogue stick. While the touchscreen controls were a good choice for the Nintendo DS, since the games wouldn't have played as well with the D-pad alone, it's a different story with the Wii U GamePad in your hand(s), which is much larger and heavier than the Nintendo DS and therefore makes playing with the stylus in one hand quite uncomfortable.
Since Virtual Console games only get emulated and not ported, you will either have to make do with the touchscreen controls or wait for an actual remake. If you pick up the Virtual Console versions, however, then it will be advised to support the GamePad somehow, e.g. on a table or your lap. And you should definitely install one of Nintendo's screen protectors, because the many sword strikes with the stylus will leave small scratches.
If you follow these advice, then it will play mostly fine, and you also get all possible screen settings. You can split things, so that the Nintendo DS touchscreen is fully on the Wii U GamePad and the upper Nintendo DS screen gets displayed on the TV. Otherwise there are six different configurations for having both screens on the GamePad (and TV), where four of them come with support for left- and right-handed modes.
One even lets you use the Wii U GamePad vertically, which makes best use of the screen size and can be quite comfortable with the GamePad resting on your lap or a table. The option to have one screen in a bigger size and the other small next to it is also interesting. Since the upper screen gets mostly used for displaying the map in the Nintendo DS Zelda games, it's a good choice for using the GamePad horizontally, at least for the most part.
However, there is no option to display both screens right next to each other without a gap. This is fine with Phantom Hourglass, because the game takes a gap into account for displaying scenes that go over both screens, e.g. certain boss battles or the shooting gallery. But Spirit Tracks doesn't do the same and here it would have been nice if there were an option to remove or reduce the gap, so that these scenes look better. But this was already an issue with the original game.
Another problem with the original Spirit Tracks have been frame drops on the Nintendo DS, e.g. when being attacked by those tanks. But the game runs smoothly on the Virtual Console, which is fantastic.
Sadly, all those display options came at the expense of the usual controller setting, where you can freely change your button layout. For some reason this not possible with the Nintendo DS games any longer. Of course, with Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks it's not a big deal, because you will play via the touchscreen the entire time. But having the Virtual Console menu on ZR can be an issue whenever your GamePad rests on something while playing, because then the menu might be accidentally triggered. And here it would have been good if you could simply assign it to a different button.
All things considered, Phantom Hourglass actually plays quite nicely on the Wii U GamePad, where it was fun to play through the game via the Virtual Console once more. Spirit Tracks on the other hand doesn't get along with the microphone of the Wii U GamePad, especially when you want to play the Spirit Flute. Already with the Whirlwind item you will notice that you have to blow quite strongly in order for it to work, but playing the flute feels like a physical impossibility, because the GamePad won't allow for continuous blows...
There already have been similar issues on the Nintendo 3DS, which may be caused by the integrated noise cancellation of the microphone, which makes it impossible to play the Spirit Flute like you could on the older Nintendo DS models. And this creates a frustrating obstacle, where you just want to put the game aside... The Wii U also doesn't give you any options for configuring the microphone, but Nintendo really should have done something to make the game work, e.g. a button to simulate microphone input.
If you're familiar with Phantom Hourglass, then you will know about the infamous puzzle where you had to close your Nintendo DS. The Nintendo 2DS already had the same problem and the solution is also the same: you activate the Sleep Mode, which in this case gets achieved by calling the Virtual Console menu. This gets noted in the Virtual Console manual, but there are no hints about this in the game, which will certainly cause some confusions.
Also confusing may be some orphaned features in the games, specifically the Battle and Tag Modes. This gets addressed in the manual as well, but nothing was done to make them inaccessible, unlike in Oracle of Ages & Seasons on the 3DS Virtual Console, where you couldn't talk to the Blue Snake and so on. Quite the opposite, Phantom Hourglass even lets you open the Wi-Fi settings of the Nintendo DS! This is of no use, of course, because you can't play Virtual Console games online on the Wii U. But in the least Nintendo could have removed the menu entries in the game, so you won't be baffled by it in the first place.
The Tag Mode, which basically was a predecessor for StreetPass, also can't be used any longer, so you won't have the possibility to trade treasures and Ship Parts with other players. This may not seem like a problem at first, because you technically can find everything on your own, but the probabilities for them are biased, so that you will find certain treasures more often than others, which is different for every save file. This was to encourage you to use the Tag Mode and quite a problem a in Spirit Tracks, where getting all the necessary treasures for the Train Cars is a grind otherwise.
Luckily, you can use the Virtual Console Restore Point to put your luck a little more in the right way by reloading your game right before getting a treasure, until you get whatever you need. But even such methods will only help you so much.
The internal clock of the Nintendo DS also takes a role in collecting things, where the shop offers of treasures and Ship Parts change every day and the Masked Ship only appears at certain times. The Suspension and Restore Points will save the time when they got created, however. This makes sense from a technical point of view, but can be confusing at first. To synchronize the internal clock of the Nintendo DS emulator with that of your Wii U again you will simply have to reset the game via the Virtual Console menu. But don't forget to save within the game before that.
Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks were clearly optimized for being played on the Nintendo DS and if you have the choice, then you should go for the originals. Thanks to the extensive screen settings it's still quite enjoyable to play Phantom Hourglass on the Wii U, but the same can't be said about Spirit Tracks, where Nintendo needs to do something about the microphone issues.
