Been sacrificing some sleep (and study time) to get some good time into the new Zelda, and man, I'm freakin' LOVING it. Seriously fun.

The 3D graphics look quite decent and are pretty detailed as well, and the music is pretty much what you'd expect from a Wind Waker sequel. Lots of familiar themes.
It IS very much a Wind Waker sequel, picking up right where WW left off, with Link travelling the seas with his Pirate Companions. However, this IS a Nintendo game, so before very long Tetra/Princess Zelda is whisked off by some eery Ghost Ship, and it is up to the plucky green hero to save her (AGAIN).

Controls need some getting used to though. You control Link by simply keeping the touchscreen pressed in the direction you want to go. Simply tapping the spot where you want him to move won't work, since Tapping is mostly used for interaction with objects and people. Tapping an enemy will make link attack with a jab or jump attack, making a sliding movement will have Link swinging his sword sideways, and drawing a circle around him will cause the infamous spin-attack. It all works pretty well up to that point, but when you want to have Link roll over (to bump into trees for treasure and stuff), you need to touch the edge of the screen in the direction you want to go and draw a quick circle, which so far has not worked very well for me.

The new Memo system is a total blast, allowing you to write down anything you want on most maps you have, to help you remember hints and the whereabouts of yet unreachable treasure. It kinda made me feel like I was the protagonist in a Silent Hill game
The Dual Screen thing means that essentially you will have a map displayed on the top screen EVERYWHERE you go, which has its effect on dungeon gameplay. There is NO Dungeon inventory anymore. No map, no compass and no Boss Key to keep stored in your pocket. You will have a map from the start, you don't get to know where the boss room is until you've found the big door, and if you want to know how many treasures are left you have to find a statue on each floor, and hit it with your sword for information. For a small fee it will draw the treasure location on your map.
The Boss Key is now an object that you have to carry around over your head, like some common rock, and you have to carry it all the way over to the corresponding door.

The Phantom Hourglass itself is an object that wards off poisonous atmosphere for a limited amount of time. So far this has only occurred in one dungeon, but I expect it will be used more frequently.
I have no idea about the amount of dungeons yet, but the inventory screen implies 6, not counting the inevitable Final Dungeon. Also, there's lots of caves and stuff that you have to cross to get from A to B, and they all have some puzzle elements to them, so there's plenty of fun to be had for all you Brain Training freaks out there, which is a definite improvement over some of the older Zelda games, which kept puzzles mostly restricted to dungeons.

One point of perhaps bad news, the Sea is back. It seems considerably smaller than WW's world fortunately, but there's still a lot of water to be navigated again. On the up side, you get a motorised vessel this time, so no messing about with sails and wind directions, which saves a lot of pain. You use the touch screen to draw the route you want to take, and away you go. Also your ship can be upgraded with all kinds of parts improving performance, so they actually managed to make it more or less fun this time.

Ample use is made of the touch screen abilities, and of the microphone, in rather clever ways I thought. In any case it REALLY made me appreciate the novelty of the DS, and I can totally see now why it's selling so much better than the PSP.

Anyway, GREAT game, hard on its way towards becoming my favorite portable Zelda (well, maybe not better than Link's Awakening) and I recommend it to anyone who likes fun!

Aaaaaargh! Still, the rest sounds great. Thanks for the impressions. What is the microphone used for? As I use the DS on public transport, I cringe when I hear of microphone features.

Excellent news.  I've watching a few videos online, and I can't wait until it arrives in the U.S.

I'm very encouraged by all the praise this game is getting, but I'm STILL wary about the touchscreen control, especially considering how awkward and unusable I considered it in Animal Crossing.  :\

It's mostly for blowing into. You have to blow out some candles and remove dust off maps and stuff.
There was one point where you had to shout to draw someone's attention, but honestly, I think just breathing into the mic would have worked too.

Music rip plz!

Is it absolutely necessary?  I'm often on the subway and my shouting in the middle of a crowded subway would look...retarded at best.

The shouting thing has only happened once, and like I said, I think just blowing in the mic would have sufficed.
You are at regular intervals required to use your breath to get something done, but a gentle blowing will always do the trick.

Still I felt kinda silly blowing at my DS on the train though :S

Speaking of which, maybe this is a no-brainer for people who have played more DS games than I have, but you also regularly have to draw lines and write stuff, so try to avoid too shaky environments unless you have a steady hand.

Here you go.  I refuse to listen for fear of spoilers, but I did go through about 10 - 15 tracks.

Thanks for the link!

So obviously Asuka Ota's work, by the way.

For games that only require quick breaths, I always just put my finger over the microphone. This won't work with all games, as some measure how hard you blow into the mic, but it works wonders with games like Lost in Blue 2. I'm not sure if it'll work with Zelda, but it's worth a try.

And if you felt silly blowing at your DS, I used to play Wario Ware Twisted on the subway and ferry o_O

What makes you think it's her?

duckroll at neogaf says the music's by Kenta Nagata and Toru Minegishi.

Aw, no download capability?

Well, some tracks sound like her work in Four Swords Adventures and New Super Mario Bros., but I could be mistaking Ota's style for Minegishi's.

I'd still love to know who was responsible for which tracks in Wind Waker.

I can only put three pieces to Minegishi's name to date.

There doesn't seem to be too much original content in Phantom Hourglass.

Famitsu gave it 39/40, no surprises.
another hit from Nintendo ^^

Yes, the music is by Kenta Nagata and Toru Minegishi.
It says so in the Instruction Manual.

It's about time this got bumped up.

I've been playing the heck out of this, and I couldn't agree more with the above statement. I was extremely wary of stylus only controls, but after playing a few hours, it's hard to imagine this game without them. Movement does take some getting used to, but the items, new and old, are absolutely tailor-made for the touch screen. Controlling the Magic Boomerang in Zelda: Oracle of Seasons was a nightmare, but the Boomerang here is a breeze to use. The newer items also make fantastic use of the touch screen; some of them probably wouldn't be feasible without it.

I also have to echo the love for the new map system. I really hope it remains the de facto standard in Zelda games from now on.

The review I read makes it sound, basically, really fun but a bit short. If I weren't on a boycot of buying stuff for $30 that isn't called Final Fantasy IV DS, I'd get it right away.

-Joshua

What's the mic used for?

I think I read you had to blow into the mic to "clear dust" off maps when you find them.

Thus far, and I've only had about two hours to play (curse you, homework!), it's been used to alert an NPC to Link's presence (forced scene) and blow out candles to solve puzzles (Link needs to stand next to one, face the candle, and wait for you to blow. No buttons or tapping involved).

They should have just called that thing a blowhole.

Thanks for the info. Doesn't sound too bad for public transport play.

Nah. I just blew into the mic when I was supposed to call out to the NPC. The mic just wanted some sort of sound; it wasn't listening for any particular pattern.

I assume Nintendo took public transportation into consideration when designing the interface.

In addition to the single-player being spiffy, the Battle Mode is quite fun too.  I'll post my friend code later when I have more time.

There is a scene where you are supposed to "yell" to get an item, and how much you yell determines the price.

That scene too is determined by how much you blow into the mic. You don't have to yell at all.

Well I finished this the other day. It's an enjoyable Zelda game. The dungeons are short, unchallenging and don't require any thought work. Bosses I found fun and the fact that they were short, for me, worked in their favour. The rest of the combat was back to total basics, stylus control meaning that most of the interesting combat mechanics (strafing, jumping, dodging, blocking etc) had to be dropped.

The last item was great fun and wouldn't have worked without stylus control. But you only get it at the end of the game and the trade-off was't worth it in my opinion. It added nothing up to that point, meant I had a stylus on my screen at all times (like having someone walk in front of the television), left some moves completely up to interpretation making them inconsistent (rolling is like trying to get Zangief to do his spinning pile driver) and led to the dropping of the combat moves. All in all, stylus control was a failed experiment in my opinion.

Loved the WW look and was really glad to see it again. It worked really well on DS. And many of my criticisms of WW didn't apply here thankfully due to the far smaller sea space meaning that there was far less nothing going on. I adored the opening and ending stills too. That style was gorgeous.

Far from being a meaty Zelda (actually it was a little like Zelda Lite), and definitely just sticking to the same old tricks, it was still n enjoyable game and nice to see Zelda make it to the DS. It would be pretty low on my list of fave Zeldas though, but then the standard of the series is so high it's hard to see that as a major negative.

As much as they'd get criticised for lazy ports, I'd love to see OoT and MM make it to DS to play them on the go.

I thought the Hourglass Dungeon was brilliant myself. The rest of the dungeons, however, were pretty linear. I guess they saved up all of their design skills for the Hourglass Dungeon.

I wasn't too fond of some of the side-quests, though. Fishing was just a chore in this game >_<

I know they say you have to draw little circles on the edge of the screen, but I just quickly "double slide" the stylus towards the edge and it works every single time.

I definitely vote against this.  Those games are too complicated to work well on the DS.  Mario 64 was a complete disaster on the DS, and I can't see either OoT or MM working any better.

I'm about halfway through the game, and I have pretty mixed opinions about the Hourglass Dungeon (assuming you are talking about the Temple of the Ocean King).  I have never been a fan of time limits in games, and I especially dislike the sneaking gameplay.  If I want sneaking gameplay, I'll load up Metal Gear Solid.  On the other hand, the dungeon is pretty clever, forces you to have a sense of urgency, and it's the only challenging part of the game.  So I'm kinda torn, but if I have to sneak, I want some freaking frag grenades and I want to be able to do the choke hold.