Let's Play the Portable Legend of Zeldas! (Now playing Spirit Tracks)

They also tend to leave out the part where if you don’t pony up, and/or don’t meet the standards of the creatures sharing your house, they can range from mischievous (breaking plates and tying your shoes together) to downright nasty (killing pets and abducting children).

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True power is obliviousness to your permanent homelessness.

They don’t seem to like being spotted or directly acknowledged though, which is sort of an issue when they’re demanding payment as well.

The Fae were rarely reasonable, and generally played by their own rules. Literally; they frequently had their own set of rules that they were actually compelled to follow.

Fairies: Actually huge jerks.


The Zelda franchise’s first foray into the dual-screened, touch-screened DS is a spotty affair. Developed much like a tech demo for the DS as every early game for the system was, Phantom Hourglass is controlled almost entirely with the touch screen and makes sure to take advantage of every gimmick the DS allows. People inherently disliked this, despite it working perfectly fine. It’s not a particularly good-looking game, having the graphical strength and detail of a low-tier PlayStation 1 game. And its story is a bit thin, especially after Wind Waker, feeling like an arbitrarily tacked-on detour that doesn’t even try to recapture the magic of similar sequels Link’s Awakening or Majora’s Mask.
However, the strengths of most Zelda games are in full effect here: the control scheme is plenty easy to get used to, with most of the weapons being perfectly tooled for a touch screen. The dungeons and puzzles are all fun and cleverly designed, and for a visually unimpressive game, it does translate the expressiveness of Wind Waker’s art style to a portable system well. It’s not a great game, but it’s an undeservedly overlooked one.


PizzaJoe returns! Fresh off his adventure in Wind Waker, he and Tetra’s band of pirates sail right into the sights of the Ghost Ship. Tetra jumps aboard like a brazen idiot, PizzaJoe falls and drowns, and he wakes up on an island in an unknown part of the ocean. A chipper fairy named Ciela, a mysterious old man named Oshus, and a twat with a boat named Lineback help him on his journey to find the Ghost Ship and rescue Tetra.


This will be an essentially-100% run. I.E.: I will be getting all of the major collectibles including Heart Containers and Spirit upgrades, and yes that includes the fishing, but I won’t be wasting my time on ship parts.
I am joined this time by Mugiwara Yoshi and Skippy Granola, though due to our various erratic schedules, Skippy had to drop out after part 6.
I am also playing this game’s much better sequel, Spirit Tracks, at the same time, but it’s going up entirely for my Patreon patrons first before it starts going public.

Fabulous post-video art by Lore Cox/Mischievousart!



(By Brenna Okazaki)


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Minish Cap

Not every game manages to go bad at the exact halfway mark. It’s almost impressive.

Feckin birds again

Phantom Hourglass

Freakin’, you know. Boat captains.

Minish Cap

Blue sky at night/Angel delight
Blue sky in the ground/Don’t fall down

It’s funny that, at the start of the video, you mention how easy it is to forget you even have a Gust Jar, and then you go to the Cloud Level full of wind puzzles… that don’t use the Gust Jar. Zelda games have a ton of items that become almost entirely irrelevant after the dungeon you get them in, but it might be cool to have a late game dungeon that’s built around puzzles using an under-used early game item. Sort of like a midway between the usual Zelda “1 dungeon, 1 item” progression and Breath of the Wild giving you all your tools at the beginning of the game.

The Cloud Tops and the palace contained within are probably my favourite areas in any Zelda game thus far. It’s almost like the Deku Leaf from Wind Waker was given a more complex area to work in and given a large speed boost. When you know your way around, it’s very fun. The music all throughout this area is also top-notch.

It’s strange because the rest of the game is so compact and tightly designed, that everywhere else wants you to take things really slow. The Cloud Tops is very empty, and due to its design it doesn’t allow for any Kinstone gimmicks on the overworld component. Compared to the rest of the game, the area could seem somewhat empty and boring, but the verticality and speed is really what sells it for me.

Let the wind carry you, and your children fight for you.

Phantom Hourglass

It is at least a Zelda game.

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Minish Cap

I was a little too pleased with myself for that title pun that I had to use it again.

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Guess who still can’t remember he has the Gust Jar

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crthemighty nicely captures gunkle’s deadpan face during Ezlo’s advice.

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Phantom Hourglass

Unfortunately we didn’t get to record as many parts for this as I’d hoped before I finally started the LP like I promised, so PH will be on a minor hiatus until we can build up more of a backlog.

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Minish Cap

This is why I usually LP games I’ve finished before.

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And that’s a wrap for Minish Cap. Thanks again MeccaPrime for joining me for this and the previous portable Zeldas! The thread will be on hiatus while more Phantom Hourglass gets recorded, but I’m hoping we’ll be back within the next couple months.