Bellum is a giant blobby creature with a prominent eye and five tendrils, each of which has a pad with an eye at the end. The first phase has Bellum in an ooze bath occasionally spitting ooze at Link. Link uses the grappling hook to remove the ooze from Bellum, and eventually pulls Bellum over for a chance to whack his eye. After enough damage, Bellum rises from the ooze bath and Link has to run up stairs to the upper levels of the arena to shoot the eyes on the tendrils, which are holding Bellum up. After all the eyes are down, Bellum falls back to the ooze pit. The cycle repeats with Bellum going up one more level, and this time when he falls, he spits out a ball of energy.
That ball of energy turns out to be Ciela’s missing memories and powers. It turns out she’s not just the spirit of courage, but time as well. Oshus contacts her, but with her memory back, she knows what to do herself. When Link returns to the lowest level to resume fighting Bellum, Bellum comes out of the ooze pit and starts zipping around unpredictably. Ciela has a counter: she creates Phantom Spheres with let Link use the Phantom Hourglass’ power to stop time. (The player has to draw an hourglass in the box that pops up – without the game being paused, so I was basically frantically scribbling and hoping it was close enough.) With time stopped, Link can pound Bellum’s eye until Bellum loses control, eventually falling into the ooze pit and apparently exploding.
With Bellum defeated, the temple (or maybe just the boss room) begins collapsing, and Link and Ciela are nearly crushed. Oshus, with some of his power restored, teleports them to Linebeck’s ship, where Link appears directly above Linebeck and falls onto him. Oshus had also used some of his power to restore Tetra; when she recovers, she thanks Link, Ciela, and Linebeck (after he draws attention to himself) for saving her. Link’s starting at Tetra with a giant goofy smile the whole time, and just as they reach for each other, Bellum reaches out through a portal in the ceiling and grabs Tetra.
Everyone goes outside to see Bellum heading toward the ghost ship with Tetra. He possesses the ship, starting a naval combat sequence between the ghost ship and the SS Linebeck. The ghost ship’s covered in eyes, giving Link a place to shoot. After enough hits, the Ghost Ship begins to sink, giving Link and company a chance to head over and check things out. (Before that happens, Linebeck or Ciela prompts the player to save.) As they come over, Bellum rises, still holding Tetra, and flies into the ghost ship’s mast, knocking it over onto the Linebeck, sinking it with Oshus still aboard. While everyone’s looking at that, Bellum grabs Link as well, fortunately knocking the Phantom Sword loose in the process. Linebeck takes the sword and stabs one of Bellum’s remaining tentacles, causing him to drop Link and Tetra. It doesn’t work so well for him, because Bellum starts wrapping him up instead, but with his last bit of strength, he throws the Phantom Sword back to Link.
Bellum possesses Linebeck, turning him into a Phantom with Bellum’s body on the back. When Link stops time to try to hit Bellum’s eye, he finds it closed, so Ciela tries to get close to see it (the view on the DS’ top screen), but gets grabbed by Bellum. When Link wins a blade lock with Bellumbeck, Ciela is knocked free for a few seconds, long enough to toss a Phantom Sphere to Link. Then Link waits for the eye to be open, stops time, and runs around to hit the eye. (Bellumbeck has a spin attack that Link can counter with a spin attack of his own leading to a blade lock. Very cool.) After enough hits, Bellum separates from Linebeck and explodes into golden sand, which Link absorbs into his sword as the skies lighten up.
Linebeck comes to and apologizes to Link for what happened; Link’s gracious, and even Ciela has kind words for him for once. Then everyone remembers Oshus, but it’s okay – the sand leaves the Phantom Sword and returns Oshus to his natural form: a giant whale, who leaps from the sea, splashing the big piece of the ghost ship everyone’s standing on. (Link stays upright. Linebeck gets swept off his feet.) He thanks everyone for their good work, and remembers his promise to Linebeck, who only wants his ship back. Ciela’s shocked, and Linebeck grabs her and starts trying to pull her apart by the wings. I think it’s meant to be funny, but yikes.
The Ocean King has one last thing to reveal: His world is separate from Link and Tetra’s. They’ll have to return to their world, while he and the spirits stay in his. Ciela says her goodbyes to Linebeck and Link, and the credits roll, with illustrations of Link’s adventures like Niko’s drawings from the beginning. After the credits, Link and Tetra wake up on the considerably more intact ghost ship in their world as Tetra’s ship pulls up alongside it. They return to Tetra’s ship, and Tetra yells at the crew for taking so long to find them. They say it’s only been ten minutes, and whatever adventures… oh, it’s Link’s Awakening all over again. Except the ghost ship disappears, and as Tetra and her crew debate, Link finds the now-empty Phantom Hourglass in his pocket, and looks out to see and sees the SS Linebeck sailing away.
The touchscreen controls were natural and mostly easy to pick up (never got the hang of rolling, but it was only useful for knocking rupees out of trees). I’ll admit I didn’t think I’d like the Temple of the Ocean King much (or at least would get sick of it), but as I said earlier, it’s well done. Unfortunately, that’s more than I can say for most of the rest of the dungeons, which were unmemorable and the game’s weakest point. I’d put Phantom Hourglass somewhere alongside the Oracle games overall.
