At the end of the game, I still don't like the touch movement. It's something you get used to - not in a "learn how to take advantage of it" way, more in a "learn how to make it less inconvenient" way - but it's never a really enjoyable system. To be fair, they didn't have much in the way of alternatives; the game requires analog movement (different walking speeds), among other things, which would be perhaps even more cumbersome using the DS's digital buttons. Anyway, as I've said, the rest of the game is good enough for you to get past the control hassles.

The presentation is something I haven't really mentioned. Being a handheld game, and trying to emulate the flawless presentation of Wind Waker, naturally I had my doubts, but Phantom Hourglass delivered fairly well. The graphics are of course rough in some places, but I found myself appreciating the visual style even before the intro cutscene was over. There are some cases where the audio is sketchy, but for the most part, the game's sounds and soundtrack have been architected to sound impeccable. Several themes, like the fairy music for instance, are aurally indistinguishable from the modern, home-console compositions.

One of my favorite things about the game in general is the comical cutscenes: almost every animated scene in the game has a dialog joke and/or slapstick. Where Wind Waker might be seen through its cutscenes as lighthearted and innocent, Phantom Hourglass is genuinely humorous.

I haven't mentioned the multiplayer or wireless modes, and that's because I haven't even touched them. There is a multiplayer game of hide-and-seek that sounds kind of fun, but I haven't really been motivated to try it (since the same mechanics are joyfully implemented in two dungeons of the single-player game). There are also some methods of trading certain in-game items (like ship parts) with other players, including a passive Tag Mode. If you're interested in fully customizing the ship, this seems like the only way to go, but it's in no way necessary for beating the game.

I don't have an exact time, but if I had to guess, I'd say I finished in somewhere shy of 20 gameplay hours. There are more extras for me to collect, too, including some sunken treasure and some mystical items of power to charge up my stuff, but right now there's little in the way of a good guide to show me where what I've missed might be - in any event, a completionist could probably squeeze more out of it. There are eight dungeons all-told, if you're interested in those numerics.

Something I didn't even notice until I was most of the way through the game was how many of the fundamental Zelda laws were changed in Phantom Hourglass. I mentioned the lack of heart pieces before, but then there's also how the Dungeon Map has been totally reworked; there's no Compass (although there are magic statues that can show you where chests are); the Big Key is an item Link physically carries to the boss door. The whole 'Zelda' thing was really revamped for the DS, and yet, I didn't even really notice the changes as I was playing through them because of how intuitive it was within the game formula.

To make a long story short, this is a superb game. Learn to live with the controls and you've got yourself a real gem.

Progress: Saved the Ocean King

I've been pouring myself into Phantom Hourglass at every available opportunity. I really, really like this game. It's damn fun to play - the dungeons are pure genius. Sprinkle in island puzzles - in the form of cartography challenges and treasure hunts - and it's just awesome. The story isn't as compelling as Wind Waker's or Twilight Princess's, but moreso than Minish Cap's; for a handheld-sized presentation, it's really remarkable. But I still, still don't like the controls.

Navigating the ship is something I thought would turn out very poorly, but it's actually one of the cooler features of the game. When you're at sea, you bring up your sea chart and plot out your course using the stylus. More often than not, you'll simply draw a line (avoiding obstacles in the way) between yourself and your destination. Sometimes you'll need to bring up the chart again and readjust, such as to evade or chase another vessel, but fortunately this juggling act doesn't come up very often.

The first upgrade your ship gets is a cannon, which operates similarly to Wind Waker's, except that it doesn't use your bombs; the cannon's ammo is infinite. Once you get it you'll start running into enemies at sea that need to be blasted to kingdom come, and firing on them is a simple matter of tapping them on the screen.

The second ship upgrade is the grabber arm, which you use like Wind Waker's maritime clawshot to retrieve sunken treasure. The difference here is that the grabber has HP, and bringing up chests invokes a minigame that requires you to avoid mines. Repairing the grabber arm costs rupees, and you can only repair it at the main port, so there's a strong motivation to take it slow and avoid mines rather than try to barrel through the minigame.

Lastly, you can get a fishing rod. Yes, fishing! Chase a fish shadow on the sea chart, and use the rod to engage the fishing minigame. It's a simple gesture-oriented affair, and in the end, you get... well, a fish.

On top of all the deep-sea activities, there is a ton of stuff to do in the world of Phantom Hourglass. It strongly embraces the Zelda philosophy of a litany of background quests, while at the same time making it surprisingly easy to skip it all and move right on to the next part of the main quest.

Something that's been bugging me throughout is that there are no heart pieces. Bosses give up full heart containers, and I actually just bought another full container off a ship merchant (the only one I've seen so far), but in general my HP is being capped at a relatively low level. This has the net effect of making the game more challenging than most Zeldas, as the amount of enemies you encounter and the damage they deal actually scale proportionally with the amount of health you have.

Progress: Looking for more Sea Charts

I may as well just say it - I don't like the controls. I knew I wouldn't, going in; controlling a character with a stylus just isn't something I take to. For its part, I will say that they're not as bad as I anticipated, but after spending an hour and a half with the game I'm still liable to accidentally swing the sword, roll around, or leap to my death. And of course, there's the little matter of the hand getting in the way of the action screen. The other touchscreen uses, thus far including puzzles and the super-cool boomerang, are excellent; but I'm just not a fan of using it to walk and run.

Nevertheless, Phantom Hourglass has engaged my full attention in short order. The introduction is little more than a cute little throwback to Wind Waker, but the real adventure wastes no time in presenting itself. It all begins very mysteriously, ala landing on Koholint in Link's Awakening, and I am compelled to drive through the game and figure things out.

In the prologue of the game, after recapping the defeat of the Evil King by Link and the "handsome pirates," Tetra boards a ghost ship to keel-haul its treasure. A scream lets out, and Link attempts to come to her rescue, but plunges into the sea and eventually washes up on Mercay Island, where a fairy (of the "HEY HEY HEY LISTEN" variety) named Ciela offers to help Link in his quest. Curiously, she says she doesn't remember anything about her life from before she came to the island.

The first real dungeon of the game, on the Isle of Ember, is marked at first on the map with the emblem of Din's Pearl from Wind Waker. This emblem recurs at the end of the dungeon, and defeating the boss frees a red fairy who calls himself the Spirit of Power. Here it is revealed that two more such spirits - of Wisdom, demarcated by Nayru's Pearl, and of Courage, by Farore's Pearl - must be rescued in order to catch up with the dreaded Ghost Ship.

The dungeon design, just as I've come to expect from a 2D Zelda, is magnificent. The puzzles are already becoming really interesting, as the stylus-guided boomerang is the first item (other than sword and shield) Link comes across, and even the first dungeon requires some crafty boomerang-ing.

The multiplayer mode has been public knowledge since some of the earliest previews of the game: Link must find Force Gems and bring them to safe spots, all the while evading Phantom guards, using Metal Gear Solid-style map radar. What hasn't been talked about as much, is that the game's recurring quasi-hub dungeon, the Temple of the Ocean King, has this same mechanic, and not instead of typical dungeon puzzles, but in addition to them. Also, there is a limit on how much time Link can spend in non-safe spots within the Temple! As the game goes on, he must venture deeper into the sublevels of the dungeon to recover more treasure, but even the first few are delightfully challenging.

I'll talk more about charting and driving the ship next time, but I must mention that you can customize the ship with special parts, which appear to be able to affect its performance and resilience. Awesome.

Progress: Found the second Sea Chart

A few more hours in, the game's mechanics are much clearer. The game's director has made explicit mention of a Legend of Zelda influence in its design, and it shows; starts in a small town guarded by a divine spirit that sets you on your journey; leads to a mission to fight back a wave of evil overtaking the world; there's even a small fairy-like companion who gives you advice and guides you on your way. Most of the game is focused on adventuring, but there is also action in the form of simplistic combat sequences. Of course, if you want to make a good, engaging game, Zelda is hardly a bad place to draw inspiration.

One striking thing about Ōkami's design is that it more directly orients the player, at least in my experiences so far. There is still a sense of mystery in how you solve puzzles and otherwise drive the story - but Issun, your diminutive assistant, will always tell you where you should head next or if you're going into the wrong area. It's a 'free' enough design that figuring out your own way remains challenging, and yet it's also restrictive enough to prevent you from wasting time on wild goose chases.

The Celestial Brush is a really cool gameplay mechanic - but controlling it is still a pain. Drawing a straight line of considerable length is nearly impossible. I really feel like the location of the analog stick on the PS2 controller is at fault here, but in truth any joystick would be just as troublesome. It would be perfect for Wii pointing of course; shame that Clover isn't around to port it and rake in the dough.

The highly-stylized graphical look of the game is pretty disorienting at first, due to exaggerated shadows making some things hard to see. But in general it's really stunning and extremely cool. I have to mention though, that it is pushing the hardware a little further than it appears comfortable with - some detailed areas have a bit of slowdown, and a realtime cutscene I watched earlier, with blooming flowers and speedy camera pans, was actually so strenuous that the music was audibly cutting in and out. Again, shame it probably won't see a modern retouch.

Progress: About to enter Agata Forest

The first thing about Ōkami, and I mean this literally as in it occupies the first 15 minutes of your New Game, is that it is steeped in Japanese Shinto myth and is particularly mindful of a legendary plot. I haven't delved too deeply into it so far but it's very evident that this is, if perhaps not story-driven, at least very intricately woven into the fabric of ancient tales. This manner of storytelling, combined with the game's infamous and extremely distinctive aesthetics, make for a really unique experience.

Like I said - I haven't gotten very far, but the gameplay is at least passable. As of yet there are three facets: adventuring, e.g. moving around, jumping, and smashing headlong into clay pots; combat, which is currently not dissimilar from the clay pots; and drawing, used both outside of combat to solve puzzles, and in it to weaken enemies. The drawing is a very cool idea, with a multitude of abilities available based on gesture recognition in the control stick paint strokes. But, due to the PS2 controller's left analog stick being in a fairly unintuitive orientation, I'm running into a bit of a learning curve in mastering this controller stick art.

Progress: Kamiki Village

Miserable.

Of course, I knew this going in. Fistful of Boomstick - not just a licensed game, not just based on a series of B-movies, but a game whose express focus is the absolute mindless-est of mindless violence - is just as bad as you'd expect even before you see the pitifully poor title/menu screen. Environments are restrictive and utterly uninteresting. Combat is dull. Hell, you need to collect save tokens to save your game, and if you don't, guess where the checkpoint is? Nowhere! The game is made up of a handful of laborious levels, and a limited number of pickup save tokens are the only thing between you and restarting them from the beginning.

Worth mentioning is the frank impossibility of several combat situations. Compare it to games like God of War or Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, where, when surrounded by enemies, you must strategically continue striking all of them in order to prevent each from felling your character. No, in Fistful of Boomstick, you are virtually locked on to an enemy perpetually, in spite of the occasional swarm of deadites descending upon you from all directions. A slow death and an undoubtedly inconvenient save location are all but assured.

I'm still not sure if I'll bother coming back to this later to try and finish it, because so far, the only redeeming quality is that Bruce Campbell himself has provided and read a treasure trove of classic Ash lines. As should be expected a couple of them quickly became quite repetitive, but there is a certain inner joy in hearing his take on zombie invasion and the Necronomicon.

Progress: Gave Up -- Died while trying to kill some zombie prostitutes

Wow, what a trip. Every time I thought about making a follow-up entry on my experiences in RE4, I got sidetracked by what was going on in the game and just played it instead. Starting up is a little rough - the first chapter is a real trial-by-fire, in some ways, e.g. ammo conservation, just as difficult as the late game. But what it accomplishes is placing the player firmly into its world, and keeping them in it with a compelling plot and engaging gameplay. Though the direction gets a little iffy toward the end (I was sure the game would end in Chapter 4, but a fifth one came out of nowhere), the survival thrill, strategic item management and upgrades, and shooting action are top notch.

What's more, completing the main game unlocks a ton of extras. There's Professional Mode, the obligatory hard mode; new costumes for Leon and Ashley; Separate Ways, a (shorter) five-part sidestory; Assignment Ada, another short sidestory minigame; and Mercenaries, a four-stage, five-character minigame that simply challenges the player to kill as much as possible in a time limit.

Finishing the normal game and each of the sidestories also open up new weapons to purchase in a New Game Plus-esque manner, to spice up the game in subsequent playthroughs. You keep your old weapons and items, with their existing upgrades, so it starts out easy this time - your primary goal being to gather money for an infinite-ammo rocket launcher, or an infinite-ammo machine gun.

Exemplary of the concept of immersion, RE4 is a real masterwork of game development, and the Wii version's aiming controls only serve to enhance that. Especially if you haven't played it before, this one is highly recommended.

Progress: Finished Normal, Separate Ways, Assignment Ada

Progress: Gave Up -- Level 70, 390 Engineering, 300 Riding

Back when this game was new (on the Gamecube), I heard it was awesome and borrowed it from a friend of mine. I couldn't even make it through the first ten minutes; those crazy Spaniards kicked my ass up and down the pueblo. I concluded that, though it was easier than previous Resident Evils, it still wasn't easy enough for me. So imagine my excitement when it was revealed that a Wii version was in the works, with point-and-shoot aiming that should be so easy, even a shooter simpleton - myself - should be able to handle it!

Well, I got to the part that kept killing me back in the Cube version, and, guess what, it kept killing me again. But! This time I felt more at ease retrying it, and eventually I cooked up a strategy that worked. In general, I feel like the areas with a lot of not-zombies require several retries to perfect a battle plan, which seems non-ideal to me but at least the checkpoints are closeby. Also, having just finished Metroid, the lack of a sidestep/strafe is a real thorn in my side, but I'm starting to get accustomed to it.

So the game is still kicking my ass. This time, though, I'm having fun with it. Especially the money from killing, exploring, and selling extra goods. I love money.

Progress: Chapter 2-1

Prime 3 is shorter than its predecessors, clocking in at about 14-16 hours for a first play through. It's also fairly easy, at least in Normal mode; I only felt like I might be close to dying for two boss battles, neither of which was the final one. But regardless of that, it is a damn fun game, and is really a blast.

One of the biggest differences in this installment is the storytelling, which I've hit upon before, and which Brad has described the effect of very well. In both the first game and Echoes, Samus was almost always "too late;" you could scan nearby objects for informative Lore, but these events had already happened, and so the story was more archaeological than interactive. In Corruption, it's both - there is still Lore, in fact I think more of it than in the previous two games put together, but a considerable amount of significant events actually happen as you encounter and drive them. This more traditional form of storytelling is even more powerful when combined with retrospective Lore entries you'll encounter after the fact.

The controls, of course there will be a learning curve if you're new to Wii shooters (I was), but they are really a dream when you get the hang of them. The graphics may not be what you'll get from a PS3, but they look good, and the environments are detailed with the utmost care. The soundtrack is one of my favorite things about the game: more so than the other Primes, I feel that Prime 3 has very emphatic and powerful battle themes.

I still consider the first Metroid Prime a remarkable work that I don't think Corruption can pass in artistic merit - but number three is definitely more fun to play. One of the most fun and interesting games I've played, in fact.

Progress: 100%, finished Normal mode