Phantom Hourglass: Cannon Island

Trying to head directly north to the northwestern part of the sea doesn’t work; a giant cyclone scoops up the ship and drops it back south. There’s a line of rocks in the southwestern part, but what appears to be a gap is actually blocked by some really big rocks. There’s no way through there, either, although Linebeck suggests that if they had a cannon, they could blast their way through. Back on Mercay Island, there was a guy on the docks who asked Link if the ship had a cannon, but they didn’t. He said there was a place to get one to the south, and since it’s not the Isle of Ember, it’s got to be the other island in the area… called Cannon Island. Well, that’s promising.

On Cannon Island, Link meets the postman for the first time, and this version’s a cherub. After he flies off, Link proceeds to the one building he can access, Eddo’s Garage. They don’t have any cannons for sale at the moment, so Eddo’s locked himself in his workshop so he can finish one. Eddo’s apprentice, Fuzo, suggests that if Link really wants to talk to Eddo, he can go around the long way, but warns him it’s not a safe path. Still, he opens the gate and lets Link go. The monsters aren’t particularly tough – most annoying are bees which are tiny and easiest to kill with a spin attack. The true challenge of the path is, starting with the cave Link needs to pass through, there are a bunch of bomb flowers; Link needs to pick up bombs and run them to where he can throw them to explode what needs exploding. The timing can get tough.

Eventually, Link makes his way through to Eddo, who’s impressed Link’s come this far. He hypes up the cost of the cannon, making it sound terribly expensive, but then names the exorbitant price of 50 rupees. Once again, I wonder how the economy of this world works, but whatever, Link found more than that getting through Cannon Island, and surely he’s not going to come all this way to get something he needs to progress and decide, eh, too expensive. Now that that’s done, Eddo is going to get to work on a salvage arm so Link can get treasures. Before leaving the island, Link meets the postman again, delivering a letter from his boss asking Link to be nice to the postman. (Afterward, he says it was a little weird to read.) And, once again, the DS features show up with Link signing that he got the delivery really meaning that the player signs for it.

Now that Link has a cannon, sailing becomes dangerous. I know that the sailing in Wind Waker was not the most beloved feature of that game, and it kind of feels like Nintendo took those fan complaints, printed them out, and rolled them up and smoked them while laughing at them. Some things are better: Linebeck’s boat is steam-powered, so Link doesn’t have to mess with the winds. Also, firing the cannon – my big dislike from Wind Waker – is a lot more user-friendly than with the King of Red Lions – ammo is unlimited, and aiming and firing is all one motion controlled, of course, by poking the screen where you want the ship to fire – and items dropped by aquatic enemies are automatically picked up. I might even find Seahats tolerable under these conditions, but they’re not around. On the other hand, combat’s more dangerous; rather than working off Link’s health, the ship has its own meter, and every hit drains one heart. As for navigation, drawing the path you want the ship to take is fine if you’re not going to change your mind about where you want to go, but rerouting means opening the chart again and drawing a new path.

The cannon blasts through the rocks Link and Linebeck saw earlier, and almost immediately afterward, the sky turns cloudy and the ghost ship appears. Linebeck’s desire for treasure overwhelms his cowardice, so he’s cheering for Link to chase after it, and here’s where the repathing starts to become annoying. As the ship crosses into the northwestern quadrant, the fog picks up, and eventually becomes impenetrably thick. It lifts a little bit, but the ship’s back near the quadrant boundary, and the ghost ship is nowhere to be seen. Linebeck (or maybe Ciela) says the fog that leads sailors astray is a feature of the ghost ship, and we’ve only had catching it as our end goal since the end of the intro; why did no one think that might be important to mention before now? Anyway, going forward is no longer an option, so Link heads back to look for clues that will lead the ship through the fog.

Next: X marks the spot.

Phantom Hourglass: Sands Through the Glass

Back on Mercay Island, the shipyard has opened by the docks. Here, Link can swap out parts of the ship to upgrade Linebeck’s ship. There’s a treasure chest here with a part so he can try it out. Using multiple parts from a set upgrades the ship’s stamina, so maybe for now Link may as well stay with Linebeck’s default parts. There’s not much else to do, so it’s time to check out the Temple of the Ocean King again. As Link enters, Linebeck comes in behind him, warning him that if he goes in unprotected, he’ll end up like the skeletons lying around the entrance. He tries to scoot off to leave Link to explore the temple, prompting yet another argument between him and Ciela [1], and it’s like okay, game, I get it already, he’s a coward and she doesn’t like that very much.

Oshus shows up to spare the player too much arguing, and says Link’s impressed him by freeing the spirit of power and might have a chance against the ghost ship after all. He points to an altar near the entrance deeper into the temple, where an hourglass sits. As Link approaches, the altar explodes with sand. At Oshus’ direction, Link takes the hourglass and the sand pours into it. It’s the Phantom Hourglass, which can protect Link from the Temple’s energy drain as long as it has sand in the top. (Linebeck brings up the idea of flipping it back over, but it’s magic sand and being drained depletes the magic until it’s restored. Going outside restores the magic, but also resets progress.) Defeating certain monsters, like Blaaz, gives Link more sand, and thus more time. Linebeck asks Oshus how he knows so much, but Oshus says he’s not ready to reveal all his secrets, because of course he’s not.

The first floor, that Link explored before, is mostly bypassed this time: the way forward isn’t blocked, and Leaf can open the door leading deeper into the dungeon. The next floor is patrolled by armored enemies called Phantoms, which Link can’t fight. So, stealth mission it is, although unlike many other stealth missions in the series, being spotted isn’t an instant fail. If Link can get to a safe zone before he’s caught, the Phantoms won’t be able to get to him, and they’re not smart enough to camp the zone waiting for him to come out so they can grab him. Small mercies; combining a stealth mission and timed mission is approximately like combining a vision test with a blindfold. (The Phantoms can also hear noises Link makes like breaking pots, but still can’t get into safe areas.)

This trip through the temple requires passing through three floors. The first two are basically Link sneaking around doing dungeony things to get a key to open the door forward. The third floor is a lot more complex: Link has to gather three gems to place into sockets to open the way forward. One of the gems is behind a locked door, and the key held by a Phantom (a helpful skeleton/ghost/hint dispenser tells Link this in case the player doesn’t notice the doubled-up icon on the minimap), so Link needs to dispose of the the Phantom by waiting till it walks over a trap door and then sending it falling to its doom. In addition to normal pots, there are two special kinds of pots to help Link advance: red pots create small safe zones where they break, and yellow pots restore some time to the Phantom Hourglass.

After the three puzzles are past, Link comes to a safe floor. His life doesn’t drain, and there are no Phantoms, so he can just head over to the treasure chest with the next part of the sea map and claim it. Once he does, a portal leading to the surface opens, and armed with what he came for, Link heads through. Back at the seaport, he finds Linebeck minding the ship. The map’s covered in dust, making it hard to read, so Link gets to blow the dust off the map, which of course is the player blowing into the microphone again. The cleared map has an island marked with Nayru’s symbol, so that’s where the Spirit of Wisdom probably is, and Link’s next major destination.

Next: Getting armed for the journey.

[1] I just realized that even though I don’t think I’ve misspelled her name, I’ve been reading it wrong (as “Celia”) and probably saying it wrong in my head.