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The recently released Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass has been the only game lately that has managed to dislodge Pokemon Diamond from my DS slot.  It’s a game that reeks of first party game design.  Namely, it takes advantage of many of the DS’ features in ways that aren’t immediately obvious.

There are of course several wind based puzzles requiring you to blow into the systems microphone to blow out candles or spin windmills.

There’s puzzles where you have to speak into the  microphone to get someone’s attention.

There’s plenty of rubbing and touching going on with the screen.

The most unique so far really stumped me however.  The game asked me to “Press the seal to the sea chart” in order to transfer the location of something special to my sea chart.  Then it drops an odd mirrored image of the map with a symbol on it on the top screen.

Ok, that’s simple.  I pull out my sea chart.  Now what?  I tap and rub and press.  I leave the screen and manually mark my map.  I try to leave but my annoying fairy friend won’t let me.  Then it dawns on me.

Press the map to the seal.  Bring up the seal image.  Bring up the sea chart map.  Close the DS.   Upon reopening the DS, the seal has transfered to my map.  Very clever indeed.

Then the game presented me with an irritating challenge.  In order to buy a necessary item I have to “Yell as loudly as I can into the DS”.   Great.  Now I need to find a chance to scream at my DS without causing everyone around to think I’ve gone nuts.  I’ll have to do it tomorrow morning on the drive to work.