The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

But what, you might reasonably ask, about the game itself? You know - the actual business end of a Zelda, the dungeons, the overworld, the puzzles?

At this point we almost have to rein in our frothing praise - almost. Phantom Hourglass is short (though still pretty weighty by DS standards), and easy. None of the six regular dungeons will trouble you for more than a couple of hours, and most of your time outside them is spent sailing the high seas, or exploring islands and caves that might as well be tiny outdoor dungeons. Towns are small, and side-quests and collectable treasure are minimal and completely optional.

It's inevitably a little disappointing, but also a relief. This is a compact, manageable game that quietly drops some of Zelda's more cumbersome traditions. And though the dungeons may not be hard, they're still superb experiences - heavy on puzzles and new ideas, light on repetition and back-tracking. In this case it really isn't damning the game with faint praise to say that it feels like it's over too soon.

Many who played Wind Waker will regard sailing around the overworld with trepidation, but that's mostly misplaced. It's much smaller and the winds don't matter - you plot your paddle steamer's course on your chart - leaving you with more freedom to explore and less distance to cover. The rest of the game is so very densely packed that you're grateful of a chance just to watch the world go by (or batter it with cannon fire), and the ability to customise your ship with parts salvaged from the sea bed is a compelling, if totally pointless, distraction. You'll end up taking circuitous sea voyages just for the sake of it, just to spin your time in this lovely miniature world out a little longer.

One last, and rather important, thing. The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed we wrote "six regular dungeons" up there. The seventh, the castle of the Sea King, is a sort of uber-dungeon in a style quite new to the Zelda series. You return to it between each other temple, each time getting a little further thanks to the treasures you find, and the increasing power of the Phantom Hourglass itself, which keeps you alive in its poisoned air. Effectively this gives you a time limit - and that's not all. The castle is patrolled by invincible guards who take not just health but time when they hit, so you need to watch their movements on the map and stay out of the way, Metal Gear-style. Thankfully there are 'safe zones' where the guards can't see you and the clock doesn't tick.

The castle's against-the-clock stealth can be frustrating, as can its insistence on repetition, but without it, Phantom Hourglass would be half the game it is. (Well alright, three quarters.) It joins the controls in making this a breath of fresh air in a series which - especially in its top-down variant - is in danger of getting stale. And it is designed with the combination of brutal ingenuity and light touch that only the very best Zelda dungeons are. Once you get into its rhythm, you'll consider coming back to it after finishing the game to do speed runs, squeezing every trick and secret out of it to shave seconds off your total time.

The castle is also responsible for Phantom Hourglass' fine multiplayer mode, a game of hide-and-seek where one player controls Link, trying to steal treasure, and the other plots paths around the maze for three guards, trying to stop him. It's feather-light but very clever and ruthlessly addictive, and you can play it online, ad hoc or by download play. In any other game it would be a standout feature; as it stands, it's just another example of how Phantom Hourglass is the DS game that has everything.