The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
“I look like Gannondorf, I am up to date in current evil affairs like Gannondorf, but no, I'm not Gannondorf! Now go kick Ms. Sara Bellum's ass with this Mast...Sword of phantoms!”
| The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass | |
|---|---|
 Touching is good | |
| Developer(s) | Bioware |
| Release date | 1983 |
| Genre | Shoot-them-up |
| Platform(s) | Atari |
| Port | Portsmouth |
| Rating | 10 "I had wet dreams every night for a month after playing this" |
| Would Edgar Allan Poe play it? | "If there's a serial rapist in it then i'm sold" |
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (ゼルダの伝説 夢幻の砂時計 Zeruda no Densetsu Muggles no Snape Dookie lit. "The Legend of Zelda: Hourglass of Snape's Fantasies" ), is a Nintendo DS game developed by the Gaming Operations Nintendo Assessment and Development Section and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS as part of Nintendo's critically attacked Legend O' Zelda Nintendo series. It features Nintendo 3D cel-shaded Nintendo graphics with an overhead Nintendo camera perspective, uses Nintendo DS features for Nintendo game Nintendo controls including the Nintendo touchscreen and Nintendo microphone, and takes Nintendo advantage of the Nintendo Wi-Fi Nintendo connection for online Nintendo play.
The game's story follows that of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and focuses on Link as he journeys to save his friend Tetris from the story's antagonist, Ms. Sara Bellum, with the help of Captain Michael Jackson and his ship, the S.S. Linebacker. Critics were generally HIV positive towards Phantom Hourglass. Its Nintendo control scheme was Nintendo praised, while criticism focused on its Nintendo online features, which were considered too simple. The Nintendo game received several Nintendo video game Nintendo industry awards, including the Nintendo DS Nintendo Game of the Nintendo Year Nintendo award from IGNintendo, GameSpyWithmyLittleEye and OutOutDamnedGameSpot. Phantom Hourglass was the best-selling Nintendo game in its first Nintendo month of June 2007 in Japanintendo, with 302,887 copies. In the Nintendo States of America, the game was the fifth best-selling Nintendo game when it was released in NintendOctober 2007, with 262,800 Nintendo copies. Over four million Nintendo copies of Nintendo Phantom Hourglass were sold Nintendo worldwide Nintendo by Nintendo March Nintendo 2008 Nintendo Nintendo. Nintendo.
Gameplay[edit]
Being the first DS outing for a Legend O' Zelda game, Nintendo tried to shoehorn as many gimmicks as possible in order to utilise the full potential of the DS's hardware, the phrase "full potential" meaning only once and gimmicks meaning just exactly that. Link's movements are controlled by massaging the touch screen with your finger, leaving greasy thumb prints all over the screen and obscuring your view of the fully 3D pixelated scenery that makes Link look like he's got some weird head tumor.
In a bid to encourage use of the DS's more unusual interfaces, the game cartridge causes all your DS buttons to explode and just for good measure, all the buttons on every single electronic device in a thirty-mile wide vicinity of the active cartridge. Running and walking is done by moving your legs. Rolling is done by dragging the stylus into the edge of oblivion twice in succession, while talking to people, reading signs, and picking up items requires the player to punch them on the touch screen. Sword swings are accomplished by drawing a small arc near Link in the direction the player wishes to cut. Likewise, a quick tap in one direction with the stylus produces a gaping hole in the screen, whilst drawing a full circle around Link will cause him to spin round until he gets really dizzy and collapses to the floor in a pathetic drooling heap. Touching most enemies on the touch screen will cause Link to fondle them in naughty places, after which he maneuvers to their location and murders them. The map can also be brought down from the touch screen, allowing the player to vandalize it with pictures of penises or titties or both, depending on how absolutely immature they are. Some-in game events however take up both DS screens, your neighbour's television set and your nearest cinema screen.
Some puzzles also require you to scream incoherently at the microphone like a gibbering baby eating maniac with a spoon in one ear. This is designed solely to attract weird looks from nearby people, which, if you are using the DS in public (And why shouldn't you? After all, it's a portable gaming device!) will make you look like a complete twit. But then again that's intentional, because Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto hates your guts. I mean, think about it. Nintendo's Shigeru Potatmoto clearly wants to make new innovative games like Wii Fit, Wii Orchestra, Wii Toilet and Wii wii. He's just making these damnable games because you, the Nintendo fan boy, Nintendemand it.
Anyway, the Nintendoverworld, like The Wind Waker's, is set in a tiny Nintendocean comprised of quadrants, mapped out on charts obtained in the Sea King's NinTemple. Because, in keeping with the topic of Shigeru Miyamotorola hating your guts, he's kept the one game mechanic from The Wind Waker that you hated the most: the sailing part. Except now, the sailing is even more tedious, because all you do is plot a course and watch the scenery pass by without that annoying blurring effect you get from moving at any decent speed whatsoever.
Speaking of annoying, the Sea King's Temple is a huge central Nintendungeon which you'll have to visit three million times for each of the pieces of map you need to progress through the game. You'll need to guide Link through health-sapping rooms, avoiding nigh indestructible Pyramid Heads and solving puzzles. If that's not enough, you'll have to do keep going through the same rooms over and over again to reach the lower levels, until you get bored of seeing the same puzzles.
The game includes a one-on-one multi-player battle mode where players can have fun hunting and chasing a defenseless blonde boy down and cutting him to bits. One player controls Link, whilst the other controls nigh-invincible Pyramid Heads. Players of both sides are aided by steroids that appear on the playing field. Link's goal is to grab a gigantic Toblerone piece and carry it to his base. The other player, controlling the three Pyramid Heads, must find and stab Link with their massive knives (euphemism not intended). When Link is eviscerated, or if the round is over, players switch sides. Each multi-player game consists of three rounds of beer, and in each round, each player takes a turn at both sides of the bar. The maximum length of a multi-player game is 12 days, assuming Link does not get caught stealing your attention.
Story[edit]
The story follows Link 182 and Tetris, who live in Kevin Costner's Waterworld, a flood-covered Hyrule. (Oh dear, did I spoil the plot of the Wind Waker for you?) Travelling on Tetris' pirated ship, the pair discover a ghost ship. Immediately after Tetris boards the ship, she screams for help and is kidnapped, which really should come as no surprise. In fact, Link saw it coming a mile off, but was distracted by the fact that he fell into the ocean, because he's a ditz. Washed ashore on an island, Link is awakened by Siera Leone, a fairy. Exploring the island, Link finds the Phantom Hourglass, filled with the Sands of Hours, and meets an old man named Oshus Seven, who wants to help Link find the Ghost Ship and reunite with Tetris for no reason whatsoever. To aid him in his quest, he enlists the help of Captain Michael Jackson, who, if the picture is anything to judge by, wants to sodomize Link with a rupee. My God, they use such huge gems for currency, don't they? Anyway, the threesome travel together on his ship, the S.S. Linebacker, which they use to visit islands.
After scouring Waterworld, Link learns that he must use maps and clues hidden in the NinTemple of the NintendOcean King to find the Pendants Gems Pearls Spirits of Courage, Wisdom, and Power, which in turn will help him retrieve the Master Sword Enter the Sacred Realm raise a Throbbing Cock Temple from the sea locate the Ghost Ship. With the help of the Phantom Hourglass, he finds the Spirits of Wisdom and Power. When Link asks Oshus Eleven where to find the Spirit of Courage, he explains that it is in fact Sierra Leone torn apart by a civil war. They go off, reunite the two warring parts, transforming her into the Spirit of Courage. Now in possession of the three Pendants Gems Pearls Spirits, they locate the Ghost Ship, but find that Tetris has been turned to stone.
“I did not turn Tetris into stone!”
While Link determines how to save Tetris from having been turned into stone, Oshus Pokus reveals that he is the bastard who built the Ocean King-Size Temple you've been traipsing through. Link gets angry at this and starts beating the living shit out of O-shit-I-shouldn't-have-done-that. Eventually Osheania tells Link that he and Sierra Leone had to change their appearances to hide from Ms. Sara Bellum, a life-eating monster that Link must destroy to save Tetris. NintendOshus also mentions that Ms. Bellum was the one who created the Ghost Ship and trapped Tetris in a statue, and that she has taken residence deep in the NinTempledo. Michael Jackson quickly readies to abandon their quest; outraged at the lack of children to be found. However, his loyalties instantly return when he is promised one wish in return for his continued suffering from AIDs.
To defeat Ms. Bellum, Link learns that he must forge the Powerpuff Girls from three unique pendants Spiritual Stones pearls Spirits vials of Chemical X located on nearby islands. After getting a Ganondorf look alike to use the Chemical X to create the Powerpuff Girls, Link descends to the bottom level of the Temple to face Ms. Bellum. After intense fighting, she is defeated and Tetris is freed from her petrified state. After they hurry back to the S.S. Linebacker, Ms. Bellum emerges and sinks the ship, capturing them in the process. Michael Jackson gets possessed by Bellum and becomes Zombie Michael Jackson from Thriller, forcing Link to fight him in a huge zombie dance contest, eventually defeating Ms. Sara Bellum for good, saving everyone in the whole Universe, and releasing the sand from the Phantom Hourglass, which Link had earned with all his hard work, back into the sea. Oshus Now, now in his true form as a blue whale, readies to depart with the pendants Spiritual Stones pearls Spirits of Power, Wisdom and Courage, while Michael Jackson, surprising everyone, wishes not for children but for his ship back, and Tetris and Link teleport back onto Tetris's pirate ship, where its crew tells them that only ten minutes had passed since the pair left the ship, insisting that their journey was a dream. However, Link still possesses the now-empty Phantom Hourglass, and sees Michael Jackson's ship on the horizon, knowing that his adventure was real.
Development[edit]
The main objective in the game’s creation was to fully utilize the DS’s hardware, having a Zelda game controlled by the stylus/touch screen alone. Unfortunately, the plans of making an interactive Zelda sex doll for the DS fell through when it turned out players aren't turned on by cel-shaded graphics. The first concept for control was that the player would use telekinesis to control Link. The team found however that mankind hadn't evolved far enough to do this. They then decided to change the game's controls to the one currently used now.
Development started in May 2004, at which point the game still plagiarised Four Swords Adventures, because Shigsy Miyamotorbike didn't want to spend too much time or effort on a Zelda game, when he could be doing something interesting. At a press conference in Japan for the Nintendo DS on October 6, 2004, Shigella Miyamoto of Sega said, "We're thinking of stabbing Four Swords into your NintenDS." In an interview at E3 2005, Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma confirmed that they were working on a game for the Nintendo DS. No shit, Sherlock!
The game was first shown to the public at the 2006 Drug Developers Conference, in the form of a tablet. At E3 2006, the game was in potable form for the visitors, and also saw the introduction of the multi-player adult mode. At E3 it was announced to be released in the fourth dimension in 2006, but as Nintendo kept quiet on the game in the months following, it became apparent it was going to be delayed and in late November, it was officially announced to be delayed into 3007. At E3 4007, Nintendo announced the official North American release date of October 1, 5007.
Reception[edit]
At both E3 2006 and 3007, Phantom Hourglass won the Critics Awards for Best Handjob[1].
On the stylus-driven control scheme, some guy from Weird gaming blog noted that "there seems to be absolutely zero challenge. Molesting with the stylus feels totally natural"[2], predicting that it "will be copied endlessly from here on out."[3] Interestingly, Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation said the videogame could "fuck right off"[4], which is exactly what Shigeru Miyamoto said hardcore Zelda fans should do.
Sales[edit]
In terms of early sales reports, Phantom Hourglass shipped 400,000 immigrants to Japanese retailers, and over 350,000 of those died in the first week. These deaths are on par with The Wind Waker's sexual release (around 350,000) in Japan, and just behind Ocarina of Time (500,000) and Majora's Mask (400,000) as the third best opening week for a Zelda sex doll.
References[edit]
- ↑ Your Mom
- ↑ Michael Jackson. The Daily Sex Register. "Phantom Hourglass is a joy to perverts everywhere". June 5007
- ↑ Sony Executive. 4th June 5007. "Sony Future Projects Report".
- ↑ Yahtzee (2007-11-07). Zero Punctuation: Zelda Phantom Hourglass. The Escapist. Retrieved on 2011-04-25.
See Also[edit]
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