The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Nintendo has announced a new game for the Legend of Zelda series for the Nintendo DS, titled The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.



Gameplay
The game appears to use the stylus in a few different ways, such as drawing an hourglass shape to open a door, plotting out the path of a ship on the ocean, and writing numbers, though the reasons for the number writing are currently unknown. Gamers will also be able to use the touch screen to direct your boomerang shots, as shown when Link hurled his weapon towards targets on the opposite side of a chasm.

Graphically, the game has a cel-shaded look to it that's similar to Wind Waker, though there's a bit of Four Swords influence in there, as well. The Phantom Hourglass Link is almost a spitting image of his younger self in Wind Waker, with large anime-style doe eyes. The game is shown on the upper screen of the DS, while the lower screen displays your map, but occasionally, the two will switch places. The gameplay appears to rely on some of the same puzzle-based dungeon mechanics seen in previous installments, including hitting multiple colored buttons to affect different things in the world.

A brief demo also showed a fairy resembling Navi, the fairy that let you see what you were targeting back in Ocarina of Time, as well as an outdoor battle against a cool, squidlike boss that was perched atop some pillars. Link could attack from the bottom screen with projectiles, and knock the boss to the bottom screen, where he would finish him off with his trusty blade. There was also a clip of Link sailing the seas in a boat, and attacking enemies with a cannon.


 * The gameplay is mostly overhead, similar to classic Zelda titles, but the character models and also all the environments are in 3D. The rendering environment is similar to Animal Crossing for the Nintendo Gamecube, and is somewhat like the Nintendo DS version.


 * The lower touch screen will be the main gameplay area, involving such gameplay features as control of the boomerang with the stylus or drawing shapes to complete puzzles (such as the hourglass shape at the beginning of the trailer shown at GDC), while the upper screen will mostly be used as a map screen. It also appears that the map can be brought down to the bottom screen, so enabling the player to write notes on it.


 * The top screen will also be used to create a taller screen in some events, such as the battle seen in the trailer.


 * Link will have a fairy once more, similar to Navi and Tatl from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and  Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, respectively. It also appears that the fairy acts as the cursor for touch screen input with the stylus, as the trailer shows the fairy directing Link, and moving and approaching enemies ahead of Link. Oddly, there was no such fairy in The Wind Waker, which this game otherwise resembles.


 * Sailing similar to the system in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is also present. Instead of a sail boat, however, a steam boat is Link's mode of transportation. The boat's course is plotted using the touchscreen, letting the player concentrate on attacking foes.


 * This is the first portable Legend of Zelda game developed by EAD since The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening; in fact, its even supposedly developed by the same team members on both games. All other portable Zelda games since then have been developed by Flagship.


 * The game will use cel shaded graphics, similar to those from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker for GameCube.


 * The company has its top people working on the game, including Eiji Aonuma, the man commanding Link's adventures of late.

Release
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is currently scheduled to be released later this year. More information will be revealed at E3 this according to IGN interviews.

Key features

 * Mark spots and numbers on your map with the stylus
 * Direct your boomerang via the touchscreen
 * A fairy. It's uncertain whether or not this is Navi. It has Navi's voice, yet is white while Navi was blue. It indicates what Link is looking at and turns red when Link is damaged.
 * Sea / Ocean
 * Steamboat with cannon
 * Sky-high screen (double)
 * Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past's Dark World theme as trailer theme

Items

 * Sword (same as in The Wind Waker)
 * Shield (same as in The Wind Waker)
 * Boomerang
 * Bombs
 * Cannon (on boat)

Enemies

 * Red ChuChu
 * Crow
 * Rat
 * Darknut
 * Yellow ChuChu
 * Peahat
 * Octorok (tornado)