Link, Tetra and her pirates are at sea looking for the phantom ship rumored to ply the waters in that area, taking sailors and residents of the nearby islands. Tetra, convinced that the phantom ship is simply a bunch of trouble-making pirates, is determined to teach them that pirates have rules, too. When a mysterious ship appears in the middle of a dense fog, Tetra jumps aboard to explore. As the ship pulls away and begins to vanish with her on board, Link attempts to leap over and save her only to fall into the water himself.
After having a vision of Tetra being surrounded by darkness and calling for his help, Link is washed up on Melka Island and meets a fairy named Sierra, whose appearance is similar to that of Navi from Ocarina of Time. The fairy has lost her memory and decides to team up with Link. On Melka Island, Link meets an old man named Shiwan who provides him with a sword. Link travels to the far side of the island and rescues Captain Lineback from Sea King's Temple.
In the first half of the game, Link must rescue three colored fairies: the red Fairy of Power, Reef, from the Fire Temple; the blue Fairy of Wisdom, Nelly, from the Wind Temple; and the yellow Fairy of Courage from the Temple of Courage. However, upon defeating the Courage Temple's boss, a giant lobster known as Leyard, the rescued fairy is colorless and appears just like Sierra. Sierra wonders why this is, but cannot remember anything due to her amnesia. As Link and Lineback are about to leave Molde Island, Shiwan then arrives, using his magical walking stick to fuse Sierra with the colorless fairy to become a yellow fairy, revealing that she is the Fairy of Courage. Lineback and Link then set off to pursue the phantom ship. After rescuing and defeating four sisters from Hell, Link and Lineback discover that Tetra has been turned to stone. The old man Shiwan then arrives and reveals that he is in fact Umiou, the Sea King. According to him, a few years ago, an evil plant monster named Beramuu appeared, hungry to eat the Force. He used this absorbed force to create powerful monsters, including the dungeon bosses and the phantoms in Sea King Temple, and used them to seal away the three fairies of Power, Wisdom, and Courage. Sierra, the Fairy of Courage, was able to split herself into two to flee, but in doing so, she also lost her memory. The Sea King tried to fight Bellum but failed, and he too divided himself into two. Shiwan then created the Phantom Hourglass so that someone could use it to venture through the Sea King Temple and defeat Beramuu.
Shiwan then reveals that the only way to defeat Beramuu is by obtaining a weapon known as the Phantom Sword. Shiwan asks Link to visit the smithy Sauz on his island. Sauz asks for three steel crystals as necessary ingredients for the sword; the scarlet, azure, and verdure steel crystals are on Goron Island, Ice Island, and Dead Man's Island, respectively.
Link sails to Goron Island where DaiGoron, the tribe's chief, asks him a quiz to admit him as one of the Gorons. Link defeats Bongorongo in the Goron's Temple and saves MaiGoron, a child Goron that becomes Link's controllable sidekick throughout the temple, in the style of Kafei in Sakon's Hideout, where the player must alternate back and forth between the two. Link then sails to Ice Island where he resolves the situation among the snow penguins and snow monkeys. The two races lived peacefully on either side of the island for 100 years, until recently, a snow monkey invaded the snow penguins' village and disguised itself as one of them. Link defeats the Gleeock in the Ice Temple and receives the Azure Steel. Lastly, Link sails off to Dead Man's Island where he must talk to the spirits of four knights and then finally Muto himself, the king of the ancient Daiku kingdom. Link defeats an ancient rock soldier known as Oisu and receives the final verdure steel crystal.
After taking the three steel crystals to Sauz and having him forge the Phantom Sword, Link returns to Sea King Temple and journeys to its bottommost floor, where Beramuu lurks. Link and Sierra defeat Beramuu with the help of Phantom Spheres, which enable Link to freeze time and attack Beramuu's weak spot. Beramuu then appears to be defeated and Shiwan, the Sea King, then arrives to warp them to safety. On Lineback's ship, Tetra is unfrozen and thanks Link for all his trouble. When Link is about to reach out to hold Tetra's hand, Beramuu suddenly appears and kidnaps Tetra, then takes over the phantom ship. Link and Lineback chase after the phantom ship and attack Beramuu's tentacles in a marine battle, sinking the ship. Finally, on the ship's ruins, Beramuu possesses Lineback and turns him into a sword-wielding Darknut. Link defeats the possessed Lineback in a sword fight (as in the style of Ganondorf in Twilight Princess), and Beramuu is finally defeated and disintegrates into the Sands of Time.
Shiwan reappears as the Sea King, a blue whale, and says that the Fairies of Power, Wisdom, and Courage must leave with him to their world. Shiwan asks Lineback to make a wish, and Lineback replies that he hopes to find treasure. Link and Lineback say their goodbyes to Sierra, with Lineback pretending to not care about her. Then, the credits roll while a collage of Link's new adventures (in the graphical style of the introduction) is shown. Later, Link and Tetra find themselves aboard the repaired phantom ship. Soon after, Nico sails by and Link and Tetra reboard their own ship. Nico asks what Link and Tetra had been doing for the past ten minutes, and asks Tetra if she just had a bad dream, which Tetra denies. While the pirates argue, Link gasps, noticing that the phantom ship has seemingly disappeared and is nowhere to be seen. Link reaches into his tunic and fishes out an empty Phantom Hourglass. Link then runs over to the opposite deck of the ship, where he sees Lineback's steamboat sailing off into the distance. Link smiles in relief and there, the game ends.
Gameplay: Phantom Hourglass uses the lower Nintendo DS screen for gameplay and the upper for maps.
Since I cannot post picture yet, just go to Wikipedia, and type, Phantom Hourglass, or go to IGN/Game websites.
Release Date: JPN June 24, 2007
NA October 1, 2007
EUR October 19 2007
AUS Holiday 2007
Pictures:
