Video Game / The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

aka: Phantom Hourglass

Take Control of an Epic New Adventure!

Ciela: Linebeck! You fled the second you heard about monsters in the temple!
Linebeck: No! Of course not! I suddenly got worried about my ship!

The fourteenth game in The Legend of Zelda series, released in 2007, Phantom Hourglass is a sequel to The Wind Waker and stars the Hero of Winds once again. Unlike previous Zelda games, there was also a single central dungeon, the Temple of the Ocean King; beating other dungeons would allow the player to progress farther in the Temple, which would open up more dungeons, and so on. The Nintendo DS game is entirely stylus-based, with the bottom screen consisting of most of the action and the top screen containing a map that the player can bring down and mark for clues.

The plot picks up right after The Wind Waker, with Link sailing with Tetra's crew on the trail of the mysterious Ghost Ship. When the ship is in sight, Tetra goes aboard and disappears, prompting Link to go on after her. He is tossed from the ship, and wakes up on a strange island where a fairy named Ciela finds him. During his quest to save Tetra, he meets up with Linebeck, the captain of a steam boat, and the wise but mysterious old man Oshus. Oshus gives Link the titular Phantom Hourglass to ward off the curse placed over the Temple of the Ocean King by Bellum, a demonic creature that is steadily sapping the life out of the realm. It's up to Link to find Tetra and slay Bellum before he sucks the last of the realm dry.

The game also includes a two-player battle mode, playable either over local wireless or online, where the players compete for control of Force Gems in alternating rounds, either controlling Link or a group of Phantoms.

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This game provides examples of:

• 11th-Hour Superpower:
  • The Phantom Sword, which sure would have come in handy a lot sooner than you're able to get it, as it's the only thing in the entire game that can kill the Phantoms in the Temple of the Ocean King.
  • Then there's Ciela's ability to create Time Spheres, which give Link the ability to freeze time. You only get it during the two battles against the Big Bad.
• 100% Completion: The ship parts, which are obtained through random loot renewed daily. Some of these are at the very bottom of the Temple of the Ocean King, meaning you'll visit the dungeon time and again, every day, if you want to completely fill your collection.
• Addressing the Player: While most games are normally just straight examples of Hello, [Insert Name Here], The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass also has an element of this. As part of a Justified Tutorial about the touchscreen, you're asked to sign for a parcel. Much later on, this signature reappears unexpectedly.
• Air-Aided Acrobatics: Some wind geysers can be used to reach high places, and bombs can even be used in conjunction with them to blow up obstacles that are place too high. The areas you're jumping from/to are narrow enough that overshooting is ludicrously common.
• All Just a Dream: The game looks like it pulls this in the ending cutscene, only to have Link pull out one of the artifacts he found, and then see one of the characters he met. Judging from the dialogue near the end of the game, as well as The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks featuring descendants of characters that appear in the predecessor, it's more likely a parallel universe.
• Already Undone for You: One of the main features of the Temple of the Ocean King. No matter how many times you make your way through it, the puzzles you've completed will always reset themselves if you so much as step outside.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: The Japanese, European and Korean box arts got a colourful spread of Link and Linebeck sailing about, the American art has them in moodier poses with a brown-shaded Ghost Ship as the backdrop.
• And Another Thing...: The game includes a sword-wielding pirate, Jolene, whom you fight on your ship at least twice. Every time you defeat her, she gives one of these lines - most of them quite lame and irrelevant.
• Animal Jingoism: The Ocean King, who resembles a whale, is tormented by the evil creature Bellum, a demonic squid.
• Animated Armor: The game has the central dungeon being patrolled by suits of armor called Phantoms, who are completely invincible (at least, until you get the Phantom Sword). If one of these scores a hit on you, you lose a full heart, 30 seconds off of the titular hourglass, and are sent back to the start of the floor. They come in three flavors: regular (blue), fast (red), and teleporting (gold).
• An Odd Place to Sleep: At the start of the game, Link is sleeping in the middle of Tetra's ship.
• Aquatic Mook: Several enemies make their debut in the game, such as Geozards, Flying Fish, Eye Plants, Cannon Boats, and Pirate Ships.
• Attack Its Weak Point: There's a particularly fun (if easy) variant involving whacking a seesaw with the hammer in order to reach the giant golem Eox's weak point.
• Auto-Revive: The purple potion brings Link back to life should his Life Meter be depleted.
• Back Stab: The dangerous Phantoms can only be defeated from behind (and only if you have the proper weapon to do so). If your sword if powered up by the Spirit of Power, you can still stun them, though.
• Badass in Distress: At one point, Link loses his sword and gets caught by Bellum's tentacles. Surprisingly, Linebeck saves him.
• Bag of Spilling: Not even Link’s sword and shield from the previous game are carried over into this one. Even his ability to swim is lost. Before, he could swim as long as the swim meter didn't run out; now, he sinks like a stone, losing a little energy and appearing on shore.
• Bandit Mook: Crows steal Link's Rupees on contact, and if he is not quick enough to defeat them (the Rupees will lie on the ground for a moment) they will fly away with them.
• Bathtub Mermaid: The Old Wayfarer is fascinated by a mermaid he's seen and wants to bring her home to live in a small pool he's prepared. Link finds the mermaid, who's excited by the prospect and seeks out the Old Wayfarer and can later be visited in the pool. She's not really a mermaid, just a human who likes to dress up as one.
• Big Bad: Initially, whatever it is on the Ghost Ship is the villain (though that's kept a secret). Upon clearing the Ghost Ship, it's revealed that Bellum is the cause of all the various events, setting up for the remainder of the game.
• Big, Bulky Bomb: There are floating barrels of boom scattered all around the Great Sea. You don't see them as anything much- just another obstacle to be blasted out of the way. Until one day you stop right alongside one and realize it's 6 times as tall as Link.
• Bigger on the Inside: Not only do islands look a lot smaller while you're sailing than they do on land, they also have larger varieties in elevation like cliffs, hills and peaks when you're viewing them from your boat that aren't as evident when you're walking around on them.
• Blade Lock: The lock is won by scrabbling the stylus over the screen rapidly. Against a recurring Mini-Boss, it's the best way to win, and it's also needed to stun the final boss.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: The golden cannon you can get as part of the golden boat set.
• Boss Remix: The maritime battle against the Bellum-possessed Ghost Ship is accompanied by a sinister remix of the overworld music. There's also a remix of Linebeck's theme for the final battle, with snippets of Bellum's Theme mixed in to emphasise the former's possession by the latter.
• Boss Subtitles: The game mixes things up by putting the subtitles after the boss's name (eg., "Blaaz, Master of Fire"), which is continued in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.
• Bottomless Pits: Deep holes in the ground are a recurring hazard in the dungeons, and Link loses half a heart if he falls into them. Curiously, the pits can also be used to the player's advantage, as knocking a Phantom into the void is the only way to kill the creatures before obtaining the Phantom Sword.
• Boundareefs: The lack of boundareefs on the edge of the map doesn't mean the game averts this trope: there are many conspicuously aligned reefs placed through the map to create wide corridors forming an "N" on the world map. Also, several islands are almost completely encircled by obvious Boundareefs, most glaringly the Isle of Ruins: there is only one opening in the ring surrounding it, which is conveniently blocked by a cyclone that must be dissipated with a Plot Coupon.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Collecting and equipping all ship parts in a single set will give the S.S. Linebeck three extra hearts, which is useful for naval combat. Collecting all of the super-rare, super-expensive golden ship parts will give the ship... four extra hearts. It makes for a stylish ship, but finding even one part of the golden set before the end of the game takes luck, and none of the sea obstacles warrant the extra heart gotten by grinding for all of them.
• Break the Haughty: Linebeck gets a bit of this at the end of the game. Bellum corrupts him and forces him to attack Link. Once the player defeats Bellum, Linebeck has a My God, What Have I Done?? moment before dropping to his knees and apologizing for his jerkassery.
• Build Like an Egyptian: One of the last areas Link visits on his quest is the Isle of Ruins, which contains a lot of pyramid-like architecture built by the long-gone people of the Cobble Kingdom.
• The Bus Came Back: Various enemies make their return in the game, such as Ropes, Like Likes, Pols Voices, Gels, Hardhat Beetles, Terrorpins, Crows, Hinoxes, Gyorgs, Ocean Octoroks, Miniblins, Rupee Likes, and Rock Chuchus, as well as the first appearance of a Gleeok since Oracle of Seasons.
• Catchphrase Interruptus: A silly variant happens at one point. Link (being a Heroic Mime) does not have a spoken catchphrase, but he does have that standard animation and tune every time he holds up an important item, and that's what gets interrupted.
• Chain of Deals: There's one that spans through all four quadrants of the World of the Ocean King, and involves all characters that travel in ships (except Jolene). It ends in Molida Island, where Link receives a scroll that teaches him the Great Spin Attack. Notable, this was the last game in the series to employ this trope.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • A more minor example than most, but two of the earliest characters you meet in the game, the fortune teller Astrid and her deceased assistant Kayo, are later revealed to be descended from the ancient Cobble Kingdom, the ruins of which are unearthed and explored later on in search of one of the Pure Metals.
  • Zauz is a double example. You have a chance to visit his island when you first explore the northwestern sea, before Oshus directs you to him later as the only person who can forge the Phantom Sword. Certain hints from his appearance and dialogue also suggest that he, like Astrid and Kayo, is related to the Cobble.
• Chest Monster: You can occasionally come across Rupees just sitting out in the open. These are attached to an antenna on a Rupee Like (monsters that look like a giant blancmange with a maw on top) that would pop out of the ground and try to suck you in and steal your Rupees if you get close enough.
• Circling Birdies: Link becomes dizzy if he uses the Spin Attack too many times because the touch screen controls allows you to execute the attack much faster than in most other games. Link will also get dizzy if he rolls too many times.
• Collection Sidequest: Treasure Charts and Spirit Gems. The former, like in The Wind Waker, pinpoint sunken collectibles; the latter are used to obtain unique upgrades. The game also has the numerous Ship Parts for the boat, divided in eight categories based on specific areas of the vehicle (cannon, stern, etc.)
• Colossus Climb: A variation occurs with Eox in Mutoh's Temple, as you get catapulted on top of it by hitting ancient seesaws with the hammer.
• Colour-Coded Timestop: When Link uses one of the Phantom Spheres to stop time during the battle with Bellum, the game turns grayscale until the timer runs out.
• Commonplace Rare: You must repeatedly visit the cursed Temple of the Ocean King in search of largely ordinary sea charts with which you can navigate between islands. At least the first two are marked with specific locations of the spirits Link is searching for, and the last one encompasses a forgotten kingdom that no one’s visited in living memory, but there’s nothing about the southeastern sea that necessitates having the temple’s chart to explore it.
• The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: The Gossip Stone that runs Harrow Island will not tell you that you can (and are likely to) lose money beyond the usual fee until you have already paid the latter. Even worse, it claims you can randomly find a Treasure Map regardless of whether this is actually the case or not. There are several, and there is no way to tell how many there are left (and that some of them won't appear at all until you have completed the Sea Chart).
• Consolation Prize: Inverted; when you send a lottery ticket to the mailbox, and you supposedly don't win, you get a ship part as a consolation prize. When you do win, they forget to put the prize alongside the letter, so you receive nothing at all.
• Console Cameo: Dee Ess Island very clearly resembles a Nintendo DS, more specifically an original model.
• Conspicuously Selective Perception: There are a few places where Link has to sneak around. The main dungeon, in particular, is full of "Phantoms", invincible (until the end) guards that chase Link as soon as he enters their line of sight or runs on one type of floor - but have no reaction beyond brief puzzlement to being hit in the back by a grappling hook that snags whatever they're holding. Justified by Phantoms being single-minded magical guardians.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: In The Wind Waker, Ganondorf, after breaking free from the seal that contained him, had started to outgrow his original evil nature and become a more complex figure who wanted the Triforce to restore Hyrule despite still wanting to control it. In this game, Bellum is a mindless beast who is trying to break free from its own seal and only seems interested in consuming life force. Also unlike Ganondorf, Link does not know of Bellum's existence until midway in the game. Even their signature hideouts fit this. The island-based Forsaken Fortress was designed by Ganondorf to repel any intruders, and he abandons it partway through the game. Bellum's Ghost Ship is mobile and lasts the entire game, and it was designed to use rumors of treasure to lure people in to have their life force drained.
• Control Room Puzzle: The game has various areas with multiple switches within. They usually include stone tablets with the proper switch sequence written on them in cryptic form.
• Cosmetic Award: Beedle's "Complimentary Card," which sounds like it can be exchanged for a free item. When you redeem it, he compliments you.
• Dark Reprise: The game does this with an extremely dramatic and tense remix of Linebeck's theme used for the final battle, where Link is forced to fight him after he is possessed by Bellum.
• Death's Hourglass: The titular hourglass protects Link from the temple's curse. But only as long as its sun-ray-charged sands keep falling. Once the hourglass runs out, Link's life force is drained, which usually results in a Game Over when you're stuck too deep in the temple.
• Demonic Possession: Linebeck is possessed by Bellum in the end of the game, becoming a buffed up, nearly indestructible Phantom.
• Developer's Foresight: You can never board the Ghost Ship again once Tetra is recovered from it. Knowing this, should you leave the Heart Container behind, the Mailman will carry it to you with a letter with no return address. However, if you refuse to take it then, that Heart Container is unobtainable for the rest of the game.
• Die, Chair, Die!: Unlike in most prior games, you can kill the chickens, by picking them up and throwing them to the water. You have to jump into the water too, however; otherwise, they bounce from an invisible wall surrounding the land.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: The Ghost Ship. It's suitable for the final dungeon, because Tetra is there, but you still need three more items and you haven't explored half of the ocean.
• Drunk on Milk: There's a milk bar on Mercay Island, where your adventure begins. Try to order something, and the bartender says Link is too young to drink there.
• Dual Boss: Gleeok in the Temple of Ice - while its two heads are attached to one body, that body is never seen, although the same is not true of Gleeok in other games.
• Dungeon Bypass: To make up for its more irksome qualities, the Temple of the Ocean King is riddled with shortcuts that can be exploited with the proper items on return trips, allowing you to access keys and switches earlier than intended and even skip entire floors, should you know how.
• Eldritch Abomination: Bellum lives far beyond the reaches of man, mostly acts through avatars and projections, is completely impossible to reason with, is either not sentient or has a mind that is so thoroughly alien that it can't be defined in human terms, and is otherwise totally apathetic towards other life aside from needing to feed off of it. It isn't even evil or malicious, per se, more just a force.
• Enfant Terrible: The Obviously Evil Cubus Sisters, at least while they still appear human.
• Enter Solution Here: One way they show off the DS's features is to allow you to write notes on maps. To make sure you get maximum use out of this feature, the solution to a puzzle is frequently given somewhere else in the dungeon, and you're supposed to write it down when you find it.
• Escort Mission: The Ghost Ship. Link has to escort three sisters to the safe spot where the fourth sister is. They give bad advice, scream and alert all the enemies in the area if they get too close to a Skulltula, and in general act like they're trying to sabotage you... which they are, which only makes it better in that you get to kill them once they reveal their true colors.
• Expansion Pack World: The game is set in some other region of the Great Sea we saw in its predecessor, Wind Waker that is also a parallel world.
• Exposition Fairy: Ciela fills this role for most of the game, though Leaf and Nari also occasionally serve as this.
• Face Death with Dignity: The Cubus Sisters surprisingly do this, praising Link for his skills on Dead Man's Volley before fading away.
• Faceless Eye: Bellum's most prominent feature is the single eye on his body, nested inside his mouth. As a squid-like parasite, he doesn't need a fully-formed profile.
• Fairy Battle: The game has Jellyfish that occasionally pop out of the water, but do not attack, and can be shot for free Rupees.
• Fairy Companion: There are 3 different ones (Ciela, Leaf, and Neri) that can each be powered up to raise attack, defense or have the sword beam.
• Fake Longevity: You constantly have to re-visit the same temple to get the next map to go fetch the next Plot Coupon. There's only a handful of waypoints around the temple, so there are levels you will constantly revisit. And no, they don't stay opened, so you have to re-do the puzzles each time (although most, but not all, can be skipped or become much easier with newly acquired items).
• False Innocence Trick: Aboard the Ghost Ship, you find and rescue four unfortunate young sisters kidnapped by the ship and bring them to safety, but with each one, they get increasingly Obviously Evil, from their randomly cackling or giving blatant Anti-Advice for killing the monsters or suddenly blaring out lines like "FALLEN! FALLEN! They are the Fallen!". When all four are reunited it should come as no surprise whatsoever that they reveal themselves to be hideous monsters and start a game of Dead Man's Volley.
• Fantasy Keepsake: The game ends with Link waking back on the pirate ship, the game's whole adventure being seemingly a dream...up until he pulls the Phantom Hourglass from his pack, and sees Linebeck's ship on the horizon.
• Feed It a Bomb: Multiple enemies are defeated this way. Some enemies try to suck you up to digest you — little do they know that you've got your explosive charges ready.
• Fighting Your Friend: The final boss is actually your buddy Linebeck possessed by Bellum.
• Final Dungeon Preview: The Temple of the Ocean King, being the final dungeon explored at the start of the game. Due to a curse, the dungeon will gradually drain Link's health until he obtains the Phantom Hourglass which allows time in the temple without taking damage. As you progress the game, you gain more time and able to explore deeper in the dungeon obtaining sea charts and able to get to the end once you obtain the Phantom Sword to face the final boss.
• Fishing Minigame: The Old Wayfarer gives Link a fishing rod for completing the first leg of his sidequest, letting him fish in the open waters whenever he finds a fish silhouette in the water. Of the five fish you can capture (not including the Stowfish, which can be found attached to the other fish), showing the Old Wayfarer a Loovar nets you an improved lure for fishing up bigger fish, obtaining a Rusty Swordfish (one of said bigger fish) has him give you a ship part and inform you of the legendary Neptoona, and you can exchange the Neptoona with him for a Heart Container.
• Flaming Sword: If you return 10 Power Gems to the spring at Spirit Island, and equip the Fairy of Power, Link's sword becomes coated in flames. Ten more and they burn hotter and the tip is literally aflame.
• Flying Postman: The postman you meet in this game is winged, somewhat inexplicably (he's not a Rito).
• Forced Transformation: The game has an inversion, as the Ocean King, normally a great whale, has his power sapped by Bellum and spends most of the game as old man Oshus.
• Forced Tutorial: You're playing the exact same Link from The Wind Waker and you still have no choice but to re-learn sword play.
• Fortune Teller: Astrid, the only living resident of the Isle of Ember. Once you've freed her from her basement where she was trapped, she'll thank you by foretelling the correct path you must take to advance in your quest.
• Four Is Death: The fourth dungeon in the game is the Ghost Ship, which steals the life force of any unfortunate victim who approaches it, and the dungeon's boss is a quartet of ghastly demons.
• Free-Sample Plot Coupon: The titular Phantom Hourglass comes equipped with ten minutes' worth of Sand of Hours when you first obtain it. Some of this is admittedly thanks to the boss of the first dungeon Link defeated just previously, but most dungeon bosses only give two minutes' worth of sand, which would still leave eight of them unaccounted for.
• Funny Background Event: Used rather frequently, mostly with Linebeck. The most notable one is him leaning on the petrified Tetra while listening to Oshus describing the horrors of Bellum, then frantically trying to stand her back upright. Also, near the end of the game, the ship is flooded and you see Linebeck being washed away.
• Gaiden Game: The game is a side-game following up The Wind Waker, detailing one of Link's and Tetra's adventures during their quest to find a new land to settle.
• Gangplank Galleon: The fourth dungeon is the Ghost Ship, which is a haunted pirate ship.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The two Giant Eye Plants and the Massive Eye (a flying whale monster), which suddenly appear as ship-combat bosses when Link tries to dock at certain islands throughout the story (their designs imply that they're minions of Bellum, but nobody in-game confirms it). The second Giant Eye Plant only shows up during the last leg of the optional Trading Sequence, making it even more unexpected.
• Ghost Ship: Word-for-word! Searching for it is the main plot for the first half of the game, and even then the Ghost Ship returns during the battle against the Final Boss.
• Go for the Eye:
  • The Phantoms, which are invulnerable except for the eye in their back, and even that can only be used to stun them for most of the game.
  • Bellum has many, many eyes in octopus form which you must attack; when he possesses Linebeck and becomes a superpowered version of the Phantoms, and, like the Phantoms, has an eye on his back (albeit a much bigger one).
  • Most of Bellum's monsters have the same eye as Bellum, or at the very least some variation of it. The Hinoxes, for example, cannot be approached by Link at all unless you fire an arrow in its eye first, thus stunning it.
• Gotta Catch Them All: Spirit gems and (like in The Wind Waker) treasure charts for sunken treasure. The game also has boat parts and eschews Pieces of Heart in favor of full Containers like the NES games, often earned through difficult minigames or bought at expensive prices in shops.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: The Grappling Hook makes a return from The Wind Waker and is one of the most versatile weapons in the series. On top of being used to grab things, it can also be used as a tightrope and a human slingshot.
• Guest-Star Party Member: For part of the dungeon on Goron Island, you switch control between Link and Gongoron, the son of the Goron tribe's chief. You get to play as him again in the race on the nearby Dee Ess Island after you clear the dungeon.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • The crest pointing to the Sun Key. Who would have known that you're supposed to close the DS to put the marking on it? Ciela even congratulates you on figuring it out! It's even harder to figure out if you're playing it on a Nintendo 2DS, where sleep mode is activated by a switch, or the Wii U Virtual Console, where you have to go to the Home Menu or Virtual Console Menu and back. At least the original DS solution does have a logical connection as you are physically putting the two maps together, if in a more meta way than most would expect, while the later methods are basically arbitrary.
  • If you don’t know that the DS has a microphone, then any puzzle requiring you to use it can turn into this, since the characters don’t do a very good job communicating what you’re intended to do. They’ll usually only tell you to “call out” to get someone’s attention, but don’t bother to clarify that they’re addressing the player, not Link himself.
• Gusty Glade: The Isle of Gust features many wind currents as well as wind geysers. It's necessary to work around them to reach the resident dungeon (Temple of Wind).
• Healing Potion: This game and Spirit Tracks have the classic red potion which restores 8 hearts, the unique purple potion which automatically revives Link when he dies, and the yellow potion which completely refills Link's health.
• Heart Container: This is the first game since the NES era to have full containers only; to make up for this, the containers found outside the dungeon bosses are much more difficult to find as they're only given after completing devious minigames or buying them at very high prices in shops. This is repeated in the game's sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: There's the hilarious "Oh, do you know how to walk?", due to the touchscreen being used for movement, rather than the D-pad.
• He Was Right There All Along: The boss on the Ghost Ship that won't show up until you get all four of the "sisters" together. Justified in that the Sisters themselves are the boss.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: When Linebeck refuses to enter the Ghost Ship, Ciela refers to him as a "Cucco." Cuccos are chickens in all but name and ferocity.
• Hostage Spirit-Link: The archery minigame mixes in girls with the ghost targets; hitting them is -50 points and resets the score multiplier to 1.
• Humongous-Headed Hammer: A magic Hammer is collected in Mutoh's Temple. While much smaller than the Skull Hammer of the chronologically previous game's fame, it's still impressive considering it's wielded by a tiny fairy, especially for Charged Attacks. And because it is Ciela who uses it, it's required to defeat enemies and press switches placed in spots that are unreachable for Link himself, including the weak points of the dungeon's boss (Eox).
• Ice Palace: The Temple of Ice. It is where the Azurine, one of the Pure Metals needed to forge the Phantom Sword, lies. In addition to slippery floors, it has several pits that can only be avoided with the help of the Grappling Hook.
• I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!:
  • The Cubus Sisters, once you figure out they are lying to you. (Which should take all of two seconds).
  • A Goron tells you that, since you're an outsider, he shouldn't tell you that the Elder's home is right over there, in this spot on your map! (Of course, the home is a big and obvious cave anyway.)
• Immediate Sequel: Not long after the events of The Wind Waker, which ended as Link and Tetra began their search for a new land, the pirates encounter a Ghost Ship which Tetra goes to explore. Link falls overboard whilst trying to pursue her, and ultimately washes ashore on an island from which his new journey commences.
• Implacable Man: The Phantoms cannot even be stunned until you get the bow about halfway through the game, and cannot be defeated until you get the necessary legendary sword shortly before the end of the game.
• Interface Spoiler: The game has you pursuing the Ghost Ship after Tetra is kidnapped. When you finally catch up to it, you may be quick to realize that only half of the sea map had been revealed up to that point.
• Intergenerational Friendship: While the fairy Ciela rightfully calls out 20s-30s Linebeck for being a coward, he seems to develop a real friendship with the twelve-year-old Link, even helping him save the world.
• Internal Homage: The 'self proclaimed hero' is a giant shout-out to The Wind Waker. He tells Link, as a joke, that the kaleidoscope he found (belonging to someone from the Ho-Ho Tribe) belonged to his sister (as if he had one anyway), referencing Aryll giving Link a telescope; he dresses similar to Link with a heart on his buckle instead of a swirl, having blue boots instead of brown, and having a pom pom on the tip of his cap; calls his ship the 'Prince of Red Lions' in reference to the King of Red Lions; and in the trading sequence accepts the Hero's New Clothes, which is what Link got on the Second Quest in The Wind Waker.
• Invisibility: Crayk turns invisible, and can only be decamouflaged by shooting its eye with an arrow.
• Invisible to Normals: The Hero's New Clothes, making a return appearance from The Wind Waker. Allegedly they can only be seen by very honest people.
• Invisible Wall: When you attempt to go off the Great Sea's map, you'll always stumble upon an Invisible Wall.
• Item Get!: Generally played straight, but the game contains a number of hilarious subversions and parodies:
  • At the beginning of the game, Link attempts to hold up a small key while not being able to stand straight from Linebeck shaking him too hard, accompanied by a broken version of the Item Get! sound effect.
  • On the first floor of the Temple of the Ocean King, Link can open up a chest and proudly present... nothing. The chest contained the small key that Linebeck gives him a bit later.
  • Once Link rescues the Spirit of Courage (which is oddly silent since it's the inert half of Ciela's powers), he looks more concerned than excited as he holds it above his head.
  • When Link receives a "mysterious" gift (which is invisible clothing) from the Man of Smiles, he does his usual animation, but with a disturbed expression.
  • This game features Rupoors, negative black Rupees that subtract money. Whenever Link gets one, a distorted version of the Item Get music plays, and Link looks upset. Unfortunately, he still cannot stop himself from compulsively picking up every single one of them that he touches - even ones that are just lying on the ground - and holding it up over his head for the world to see.
  • After Zauz forges the Phantom Sword, he tells Link to take it back to Oshus, who can finish the job. When you meet Oshus, he asks Link to take out the Phantom Hourglass. For no reason whatsoever, Link decides to (unnecessarily) go through his typical Item Get! motions. However, Oshus, apparently not in the mood, grabs the hourglass from Link mid-motion, leaving Link with his hand in the air and... nothing in it!
• It's All Upstairs From Here: Inverted with the Temple of the Ocean King, in which Link climbs downward in-between the game's other dungeons, using equipment he finds inside of, and/or en route to, these other dungeons to bypass previously insurmountable obstacles, up to and including asking a fairy spirit he'd just freed to open the way forward. The final dive is part of the endgame, as reaching the temple's lowest depths triggers the final battle.
• "Jaws" First-Person Perspective: Crayk, the boss of the Temple of Courage. You can still see from the normal top-down perspective, but the boss is invisible, so you have to rely on its viewpoint on the top screen in order to hit it in the eye with an arrow.
• Jolly Roger: Pirate Ships are little boats with only a canon on them that fly a small white flag with a black skull and crossbones, a color-inverted Jolly Roger.
• Keep the Reward: At the end of the game, Linebeck is given a wish by Oshus for anything at all; everyone assumes he will wish for treasure, but having "grown" he wishes for nothing more than his ship back, which was destroyed in the course of the story, since it's the thrill of sailing on the seas that's the real treasure.
• Knights and Knaves: A variation of this trope is found on the Isle of Frost, where Link must find out who's the (always lying) Yook among six potential suspects.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: If you have yet to play The Wind Waker and still want to play it without being spoiled, you might want to delay playing Phantom Hourglass, as it summarizes the plot of the former game in the opening cutscene.
• Lampshade Hanging: One of the talking skeletons whines about not being able to use the D-pad and buttons.
• Lethal Lava Land: Isle of Ember, and by extension the Temple of Fire which is located there. Due to the lava pits, the only way to hit certain switches is by using the Boomerang.
• Level-Map Display: Both this game and the succeeding Spirit Tracks have the map displayed on the top of the PlatformDS screen.
• Lost in Translation: The game contains an island called Dee Ess Island, which as the name suggests, looks exactly like a Nintendo DS. However, the French name for the island translate to "Island of Ess(es)". This is because in French, the word "de" means "of", and apparently, "Dee" was translated as "de". This means that the island's name's pun is lost on the French. The name is correctly translated in the New World versions of French, perhaps because Nintendo of America handles translations for all of North America. Italian belongs to the same language family as French, but the name was translated properly in that language, making a clever pun ("Diesse" sounds both like "DS" and "di Esse", "of Ess" in Italian).
• Loves My Alter Ego: A village girl on Molida Island fantasizes about the hero who took down the Ghost Ship. Dismissing Link, she only asks him to hand over a treasure map to said hero.
• Malicious Misnaming: Linebeck calls Link and Ciela by any number of degrading nicknames (rarely the same one twice) right up until they head into the Very Definitely Final Dungeon — whereupon he admits that he envies Link's heroic resolve. After a moment, Ciela realizes he's finally used her name.
• The Maze: The Phantom Corridor on the Isle of the Dead, which can only be traversed with directions given to Link by the spirits of the sages buried outside. The nearby Maze Island also provides several maze challenges that Link can clear for rewards.
• Medium Awareness: A puzzle in the game involves producing a stream of air to set windmills spinning. Blowing into the DS' microphone does the job.
• Mega Dungeon: The entire game consists of finding items in dungeons in order to progress further into the Temple of the Ocean King, obtaining what is necessary in order to go and clear more dungeons, rinse and repeat.
• Metroidvania: The Temple of the Ocean King is a huge dungeon which contains maps and keys to access the other smaller and self-contained dungeons, which in turn hold the items and keys needed to progress further into the temple (and make previous sections simpler and quicker to pass through), while the overworld holds sands for the hourglass which allow you to explore for longer periods of time before having to turn back. Both the sands and the items from each smaller dungeon are needed to safely and successfully navigate the massive dungeon.
• Mineral MacGuffin: The Pure Metals, which are necessary to imbue, onto Link's sword, the power that will help him triumph against Bellum.
• Mini-Boss: The game features an odd approach, as its few mini-bosses (Jolene, a bigger-than-usual Eye Plant, a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere near Goron Island and a group of Phantoms in the Temple of the Ocean King) are all fought in the overworld except the latter one; the normal dungeons avert this trope, opting instead for regular enemy ambushes in certain rooms.
• Mini-Dungeon: The pyramidal tombs in the isles of the Cobble Kingdom, where the corresponding four Cobble Knights rest. Link has to visit and clear all four of them in order to find a way into Mutoh's Temple, the island's only proper dungeon.
• Moment Killer: Tetra finally gets better from being Taken for Granite, and Link and Tetra look one another in the eyes. Smiling, they reach their hands out to one another in slow-motion, and just as they're about to touch, Bellum bursts through the ceiling and steals Tetra away.
• Mook Bouncer: The invincible Phantoms in the Temple of the Ocean King will send you back to the beginning of the current floor, sans 30 seconds of your precious time, if they manage to hit you.
• Mook-Themed Level: The Temple of the Ocean King is strongly patrolled by Phantoms, and much of the dungeon's gameplay has to be done while hiding from these dangerous enemies, as well as running away from them when Link is spotted.
• Moon Logic Puzzle: There is a puzzle in the Temple of the Ocean King where you have to stamp your map with a mark to find the next spirit. The stamp is on the touch screen, your map on the top screen. How do you mark your map with the stamp? Close the DS so the stamp is "pressed" into your map. This still makes some clever sense if you're playing on a 3DS, but will prove impossible to figure out to anyone playing the game for the first time on any console that doesn't have a clamshell design; playing on other consoles like the 2DS or Wii U require the player to enter sleep mode or back out into the home menu.
• Most Definitely Not a Villain: The Cubus Sisters are constantly giggling and sabotaging your efforts to rescue 'them', but since it's a But Thou Must! situation you can't just leave the little brats to rot. When they're all reunited, they drop the masquerade and challenge Link to a boss battle.
• Musical Spoiler: The easy way to tell if you're being chased by the Phantoms in Temple of the Ocean King (other than the giant "I HAVE YOU NOW" or whatever across the bottom of the screen) is by listening to the music changes. When the ominous music goes away, you know they've stopped chasing you.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The game is bookended with Link's Awakening references: it begins with Link on a ship caught in a storm and ending up washed ashore on an island, and ends with Link meeting a whale-like creature who returns him to his own world where his adventures seemed to be All Just a Dream.
  • There are also some analogies with Majora's Mask. It's a direct sequel to a prior Zelda game, has Link freeing trapped guardian spirits (the Ocean King and his helpers/the Four Giants), an emphasis on time limits (the Hourglass/the three-day cycle), a Big Bad with tentacles and big yellow eyes who seems more like a destructive force of nature than a thinking, plotting villain (Bellum/Majora), a yellow fairy companion with a bit of an attitude (Ciela/Tatl), and the game's overworld having four major regions, with the fourth of them being the former homeland of extinct societies (the Cobble and Ikana Kingdoms). Also, the very last song you hear is the theme for the forest sage of the game's direct prequel (Saria's Song/Makar's Prayer).
  • The eyes on the boss "doors" and keys reminds one strikingly of Vaati's eye motif, and Vaati turns Zelda to stone in order to drain her Light Force, while Bellum turns Tetra (Zelda) to stone to drain her Life Force.
  • Gleeok makes its first appearance since Oracle of Seasons, but is given powers similar to that of Trinexx from Link to the Past (one head shoots fire, the other shoots ice).
  • The method used to defeat Pols Voices - by shouting into the microphone and then slashing them with the sword - was borrowed from the Japanese release of the original game.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Cubus Sisters' name comes from succubus, female demons who tempt men. Meanwhile, their master Bellum's name can literally be translated as "war".
• Nice Mean And In Between: The crew of the S.S. Linbeck includes Link (a brave, passionate hero), Linebeck himself (a greedy Lovable Coward), and Ciela (a Nice Girl with an abrasive streak).
• No Fair Cheating: You can play a minigame where you dig for treasures. However, you are told to stop digging and leave the minigame area after you have obtained ten treasures. If you choose to ignore this and attempt to dig up an 11th treasure, you'll be given a warning. Attempting to dig up another one will result in a 100-Rupee fine, and yet another one will have all of your Rupees taken away. If you continue to dig for more treasure after you're broke, you'll be banned from the minigame. How do you get unbanned? By apologizing and paying a 300-Rupee reinitiation fee.
• Non-Natural Number Gag: You can find Rupoors instead of Rupees in some treasure chests. As their name implies, they have a negative cash value. And yes, if Link opens a chest, he will always take the Rupoor if there's one inside.
• Noob Cave: There is a cave in Mercay Island that precedes the entrance to the Temple of the Ocean King. The first floor of the temple itself counts as well.
• No Peripheral Vision: Happens with the Phantoms, though they at least have the excuse of wearing helmets. In addition, they don't see you even if you're directly in their line of sight as long as you're far enough down the hallway.
• No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: The game has very linear dungeons that feel claustrophobic as a result, although the world is a little less linear (it being a wide ocean like that of The Wind Waker helps).
• Not Completely Useless: The items in the trading sequence, which otherwise serve no useful purpose — the kaleidoscope, for example, looks ridiculous if you don't know why you have it.
• Object-Shaped Landmass: There is a location known as Dee Ess Island that looks practically identical to a Nintendo DS, with several items hidden at places corresponding with parts of the handheld. The whole thing serves as a Development Gag to a planned Gamecube-shaped island that was supposed to be included in The Wind Waker.
• Obviously Evil: The Cubus Sisters. Seriously, this is what the youngest sister says when describing her "captured" sisters.
  Youngest Cubus Sister: Fallen! Fallen! They are the fallen! Excuse me. I don't know what came over me.
• Ocean of Adventure: Being the sequel to The Wind Waker, the game takes largely the same approach for its main setting and atory, but is uniquely set in a distinct Pocket Dimension that naturally takes the form of a sea dotted with reefs and islands home to peculiar natives and ancient ruins.
• Ominous Fog: Fog rolls in on the Ghost Ship to emphasize its eeriness.
• One of These Doors Is Not Like the Other: The only way to get through one island's maze temple is to first visit the local graveyard. This is actually a double solution. The inscriptions on the knights' tombstones provide the correct path through the maze, but the positions in which the tombstones are situated relative to each other also shows you the correct shape to draw later to open a dungeon.
• One-Time Dungeon: The fourth dungeon (the Ghost Ship) - and only the fourth dungeon - is an example, but partially averts one instance of Permanently Missable Content because it's a case of Developer's Foresight.
• Or Was It a Dream?: While Link and Tetra are first led to believe it was All Just a Dream, Link finds the Phantom Hourglass on him and sees Linebeck sailing away in the distance.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: A girl just pretends to be one for fun. A big hint is her wearing a swimming ring as she swims around.
• Out of Focus: Tetra compared to The Wind Waker, due to being a Damsel in Distress for most of the game.
• Overworld Not to Scale: A hybrid approach. You can freely go anywhere the ocean water permits you, and there are a few things to keep you occupied (like shooting rocks or monsters) in the process, but these maps exist primarily to facilitate travel, and most actual gameplay interaction is inside each given destination.
• Paradiegetic Gameplay:
  • At one point you're required to transfer a seal on the top screen to its corresponding location on the map on your lower screen by closing your Nintendo DS and reopening it.
  • Pol's Voices return as enemies, and can be stunned by blowing in the DS' microphone.
• Parrying Bullets: You can stop arrows by hitting them with your sword. This requires decent timing to do, and it's just easier to either use your shield or dodge the arrows entirely.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Ciela turns out to be one once you get the hammer. When you equip it, it's wielded by her instead of Link, meaning it can be used at range!
• Pit Trap: The 8th floor of the Temple of the Ocean King has a fake safe zone only distinguishable by the fact that all the other safe zones have animations, while this one is static. And by falling into it.
• Pivotal Boss: Eox's first phase, where Link must use the catapults around the arena to fly into the air and hit the golem's weakpoints. Bellum's first phase has Link climbing up a spiraling staircase bordering the pool of water where it resides. The second phase is a partial example, as the heroes try to hit the Ghost Ship's "eyes" on both sides, but the S.S. Linebeck doesn't get to fully surround it, instead in a semi-circle.
• Place of Protection: The safe zones in the Temple of the Ocean King. Phantoms can't see or enter them, and time doesn't drain from the Phantom Hourglass when Link is in one.
• Player Death Is Dramatic: In relation to previous games, Phantom Hourglass changes it up by having the camera pull out after Link collapses and then it fades to black.
• Player-Guided Missile: While the Boomerang or a Bombchu is in use, the player can sketch out a custom flight path with the stylus, though they have no control over them during their motion.
• Play Every Day: There's a random selection of ship parts in shops, sidequests and a long central dungeon, reshuffled daily. You can completely ignore it if you simply want to finish the game, but if you want to collect one of each ship parts...
• Plot Coupon: Three Spirits, then the three Pure Metals. The Spirits allow Link to access the Ghost Ship to rescue Tetra (or what's left from her), while the Pure Metals are used to forge the Phantom Sword, capable of defeating Bellum.
• Point of No Return: Subverted. At the bottom of the Temple of the Ocean King, the bridge leading to the final boss collapses behind you once you're across it, seemingly leaving you with no way to return to the surface. Once Leaf, Neri, and Ciela remind you that they're there for you, though, a pool of blue light appears to warp you back to the temple's entrance, if need be.
• Poison Mushroom: The game features "Rupoors", which directly reduce the number of Rupees Link is currently carrying when found. A minor key version of the series' trademark Item Get! fanfare plays when a Rupoor was found, complete with Link holding the item above his head but looking none too pleased about it. One area in the game consists of a maze with Rupoors for walls, requiring Link to walk carefully to avoid them. And to make it more difficult, Keese are flying around the area — and half of your projectile weapons pick up Rupoors.
• Pop Quiz: After arriving at Goron Island Link must seek the Goron Medal to enter the Goron Temple. The elder Biggoron tells him that he must first become a member of the Goron Tribe, which first involves talking to every Goron in the city followed by returning to him for a pop quiz on the island and its inhabitants, with a few questions having obvious answers thrown in.
• The Power of the Sun: Link's life force is protected inside the Temple of the Ocean King for only so long as sand remains in the top half of the Phantom Hourglass. To explain why he can't just turn the hourglass over, it requires being taken outside and exposed to sunlight in order to restore its power once its time runs down.
• Precocious Crush: An odd one. After defeating the Ghost Ship, if Link returns to Molida Island, he'll encounter a girl near the dock who wasn't there on his previous visit. She swoons over her mental image of the hero who defeated the Ghost Ship and gives Link a treasure map to give to the hero, who she seems to think is much older than him.
• Puzzle Reset: The game's resident Mega Dungeon, the Temple of the Ocean King, must be revisited over and over. Each time, all previously-solved puzzles have reset themselves and must be redone in order to advance farther down in the dungeon. For extra difficulty, visiting the dungeon is always a Timed Mission.
• Quicksand Sucks: Zig-zagged. There's only regular sand in both the desert-themed Isle of Gust and its dungeon the sandy Temple of Wind (the actual threat is the wind currents and geysers, sand is harmless otherwise); but in the Goron Temple, all sand can suck anyone within and is deadly for Link (luckily, his Bombchus can navigate through them just fine).
• Real-Time Weapon Change: The game utilizes the touchscreen by having all the items in the lower left corner ready for use with a quick tap. The small number of items in the game compared to other Zelda games is actually more conducive for this. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, despite using the same engine and mechanics of its predecessor, averts this trope as the item inventory does pause everything when it's opened.
• Removable Shell: At the end of the game's third temple, the crustacean boss Crayk is essentially an enormous hermit crab. The first phase of the battle involves shooting Link's invisible opponent in the eye using the convenient camera references, and then slashing at the purple orbs supposedly keeping Crayk's shell in place. Once they're all destroyed, Crayk freaks out and the shell explodes, leaving it pretty easy to take down using a few more arrows - not to mention how obvious the game makes Crayk's tail out to be. During the same fight, Link is also able to swing his sword around at the little Crayklings in order to restore health, which in taking two hits each, breaks the little crabs' shells in the process.
• Rewarding Inactivity: There's this section in the Temple of the Ocean King where you have to close the DS to put the location of an important key on your map. The instructions are very unclear, however, leading many players to close the DS and give up. When they opened the DS again, the mark is now on the map!
• Roaming Enemy: There is a female pirate named Jolene who randomly appears on various maps as type 2 and patrols them as type 3. If she sees you have to escape or fight her off if she boards your boat.
• Sand Worm: There are green worm-like enemies (which are literally called Sandworms) that chase and try to eat Link if he moves any faster than walking speed across certain sandy areas.
• Save-Game Limits: The game lowers the series' usual save file limit from three to two.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: Beehives can be found on trees, and if Link knocks them down the angry swarm will attack him. In the manga adaptation, after Link accidentally knocks a beehive down, he actually fears for a moment that he'll die from the stings.
• Schmuck Bait: Played straight and subverted with the Obviously Evil Cubus Sisters on the Ghost Ship. Played straight when one of them tries to lure you into opening a treasure chest with a small Rupoor (-10 Rupees) and spawns a Reapling. The only clue you get is when she tells you it's the left of two treasure chests and says "and left is the one that's not right!"; subverted when another warns you not to shoot the Reapling guards in the back lest you piss them off - it turns out that it's the only way of stunning them, making it much easier to slip past (it’s also effective against Phantoms as well making this an effective tactic throughout the entire game.)
• Sealed Good in a Can: The Ocean King isn't entirely sealed away, but so much of his power has been sapped by Bellum that he's been reduced to the form of Oshus, a weak old man. Once Bellum is slain, he regains his powers and turns back into his original whale form.
• Sea Mine: There are Octomines during the treasure-salvage minigames that evoke this look, being spiked balls with eyes that explode if you make contact with them with either the crane hook or the treasure chest you're salvaging ^note the chain linking the hook and the boat is, by necessity, non-interactive with the mines.
• Second Hour Superpower: You earn the Phantom Hourglass after finishing the first dungeon, the Temple of Fire, when you're told to return to the Temple of the Ocean King a second time.
• Self-Deprecation: One of the corpses in the Temple of the Ocean King laments that he was unable to use the pad controls instead of the touch screen. The latter is how the game is controlled, as it's a Nintendo DS game.
• Shifting Sand Land: The Isle of Gust and two desert-themed dungeons: Temple of Wind and Goron Temple. The Isle of Gust and Temple of Wind are sandy locations with numerous wind currents emerging from the floor; Link can use his shovel to dig through sand to look for Rupees and hearts, and take advantage of the wind gusts to place bombs into high targets he wouldn't be able to blast otherwise. The Goron Temple, on the other hand, is filled with quicksand, so Link cannot walk through them; he instead has to use the Bombchus to guide them up to beyond the quicksand to activate distant switches.
• Ship Level: There are several small boats Link can board, as well as Jolene's Ship and the Ghost Ship. Each of the small boats is located in a quadrant of the World of the Ocean King, and there's a late-game Chain of Deals sidequest involving the characters who respectively pilot them. Jolene's Ship is a Boss-Only Level, as all you do when you're ambushed by it is to defeat Jolene in a Mini-Boss fight (always on Linebeck's behalf). The Ghost Ship is a proper dungeon, and in it you're searching for Tetra while dealing with the haunting enemies that roam it (the Reaplings).
• Shockwave Stomp: Eox's downward punches are strong enough to unleash a dusty shockwave once the punch hits the floor.
• Shop Fodder: Goron Amber, Ruto Crown, Regal Ring, Pink Coral, Pearl Necklace, Dark Pearl Necklace, Zora Scale, and Helmaroc Plume. Interestingly, their value and rarity varies greatly from game to game, so what may be commonplace in one game can be worth a lot in another. This also applies to extra ship parts as well.
• Shout-Out:
  • During one of Jolene's later ambushes, she reveals that she knows that Linebeck is hiding in the wooden box. When she calls out to him, the only thing you see coming from the box is an exclamation point.
  • Biggoron's quiz initiating Link into the Goron tribe resembles Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, including a Gorohint lifeline and "Is that your ultimate answer?"
• Sinister Scythe: The Wizzrobes in this game wield them to reap some Sands of Hours from Link should they hit him in the Temple of the Ocean King.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Isle of Frost, home to reindeer-penguin-human hybrids called the Anouki and yeti-like Yooks. Its dungeon is the Temple of Ice, which has lots of slippery ice to be crossed with help of the Grappling Hook.
• Smashing Survival: When Blade Lock is in effect, you have to rub the stylus furiously across the touchscreen to win.
• Some Dexterity Required: The game states that in order to do a roll, you need to draw a circle near the edge of the screen. Most players were rarely able to pull this off, and discovered that merely doing a quick stroke towards you and then back away will do the roll quite well.
• Sound of Darkness: Phantoms in the Temple of the Ocean King make an eerie noise as they spawn, and are beings of darkness created by Bellum.
• Spin Attack: Bellum's final form uses this, but Link can cancel it out with an opposite spin of his own.
• Stealth-Based Mission: The Temple of the Ocean King is an infamous example. It must be visited several times throughout the game and is populated by indestructible Phantoms that will hunt down Link relentlessly, reverting his progress and draining precious minutes from his time limit should they manage to strike him.
• Stalker with a Crush: The pirate Jolene. When Linebeck robbed and left her she didn't take it lightly.
• Stock Beehive: Beehives resembling stout yellow cones with their flat surfaces dotted with cells can be found hanging on trees throughout the game.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option: On the Ghost Ship, Link has to "rescue" four little girls, "the daughters of the house of Cubus." It becomes increasingly obvious that they're evil, but there's nothing else to do but "help" them.
• Super Drowning Skills: Falling into water is the same as falling into a pit or lava. How Link forgot how to swim between The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass is a mystery.
• Super Spit: Bellum spits out toxic goo for the first phase of it Final Boss fight.
• Surveillance Drone: The Phantom Eyes. If they spot you, they'll summon Phantoms to your location while sticking themselves onto you to try and slow you down.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Ciela. She even has the same voice as Navi. HEY! LISTEN!
• Sword Beam: The game allows you to do this when you equip the upgraded Spirit of Courage.
• Sword of Plot Advancement: The Master Sword may not be in this game, but the Phantom Sword is. During the second half of the game, Link has to gather the Pure Metals that allow Zauz the blacksmith to forge the weapon destined to destroy Bellum.
• Tagline: "Take Control of an Epic New Adventure!"
• Taken for Granite: Tetra, aka Princess Zelda. For the second time in the series.
• Take Your Time: The game lets you wander off halfway through the final boss battle if you get a Game Over. While the Big Bad is holding Tetra hostage. Lampshaded when Linebeck calls Link on it after you return to the ship after playing a minigame.
• Taunt Button: In the battle mode, you can use the D-pad to show your Link cheering, gasping in surprise, or pouting.
• Tech-Demo Game: The game employs every single hardware function of the DS, including its ability to fold closed, at least once to solve puzzles or defeat monsters.
• Technicolor Death: All bosses except the Ghost Ship's boss turn into gold, disintegrate partially, explode into a column of sand, and then the sand freezes in midair.
• Tennis Boss: Wouldn't be a Zelda game without it. You have to beat the Cubus Sisters in a game of Dead Man's Volley.
• Thanking the Viewer: Towards the beginning of the game, you - the player - are asked to sign for a letter. At the very end of the credits, your signature appears.
• This Way to Certain Death: The Temple of the Ocean King, the central dungeon, has many skeletons of previous adventurers scattered through its halls. In an interesting variation, all of them still retain their spirits, who will give you clues to help succeed where they failed.
• The Three Trials: The game does it twice: First, Link must rescue the Spirits of Power, Wisdom, and Courage to find and access the Ghost Ship, then find three pure metals to get a sword capable of hurting the Big Bad.
• Tightrope Walking: The Grappling Hook can be used this way. Have two wooden stacks present, draw a line between them with the hook equipped, and then walk over it.
• Tile-Flipping Puzzle: In Mutoh's Temple, there are grids that consist of red and blue tiles. With the Hammer, Link can hit a tile and flip it alongside the surrounding tiles. Depending on the case, Link has to either have all tiles in a grid match the same color or make an interactable grid match an unreachable one.
• Timed Mission: The Temple of the Ocean King must be completed before the Phantom Hourglass runs out of sand, otherwise it will drain Link's health at a quick rate.
• Time Stands Still: Ciela gains this ability just before the battle against Bellum. It must be used to freeze time during the split second when the monster opens its eye, allowing Link to take a proper shot at it.
• Toggling Setpiece Puzzle: Red and blue barrier blocks are present in the Temple of Fire, and as usual only the red blocks will be active by default. Once Link collects the Boomerang, he can guide it onto seemingly impossible-to-hit orbs with the help of the touch screen of the Nintendo DS, thus overlapping with Trick Shot Puzzle, and toggle off the red blocks while toggling on the blue ones.
• Trick Boss: Dongorongo. The battle is fought with Link and Gongoron, in which Link is stuck on one side of a sand pit, and Link has to wait until Gongoron knocks the boss over to attack. After you defeat it, the door leading to the pure metal opens, a bridge appears, and Gongoron leaves to get the pure metal for you. After you cross the bridge, the boss gets up. Cue the second phase of the battle.
• Trick Shot Puzzle: There are puzzles involving shooting arrows through a series of devices that alter their trajectory and send them elsewhere (ideally, into a switch). One such puzzle requires the player to string his grappling hook rope across a gap and then bounce an arrow off of the rope to hit a switch.
• Tropical Island Adventure: Like its predecessor, the game takes place on a series of tropical islands on a sea, this time the World of the Ocean King.
• Tutorial Failure: The game tells you to "draw little circles at the edge of a screen" to perform a roll. This is before the sword tutorial, which explains that a bigger circle anywhere on the screen will make Link spin with his sword out. In reality, the rolling technique is more like making a wiggling motion at the edge of the screen—an average player trying to draw circles will just make Link flail around with his sword.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: At one point, the game asks you to transfer the crest engraved in a wall mural onto your sea chart by pressing them together. The way to accomplish this is simply by opening up the chart so that it's on the bottom screen, and then closing the Nintendo DS.
• Unique Enemy: The Pols Voice, which only show up twice in very specific places in the Temple of Courage.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: Rolling four times in a row causes Link to get dizzy, likely in response to the players who abused the rolling from previous games.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The game shakes up the usual formula by portraying its Mega Dungeon, the Temple of the Ocean King, as the very last dungeon in completion order. You even get to visit the very last floor before the game's climax (in fact, you have to do it in order to unlock the last quadrant of the World of the Ocean King, as it's there where the last regular dungeon lies). The catch is that the large door located there can only be opened when you manage to defeat all Phantoms in the area, for which you must have forged the Phantom Sword with the Pure Metals guarded in their temples. Beyond the door is the area where the Final Boss (Bellum) awaits, but you only fight it there in the first two phases, as the other two take place in the overworld.
• Victory Fakeout: The fifth boss in the game, Dongorongo. Possibly foreseeable, as "defeating" him doesn't trigger his Critical Existence Failure.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • While you're sailing, a flock of seagulls will gather behind you. You can shoot them.
  • Link can attack cuccos with any of his weapons; however, overdoing this will cause a flock of angry cuccos to attack him. However, they can't retaliate if you throw them into the ocean to drown...
• Villain-Beating Artifact: The Phantom Sword is the one weapon capable of beating Bellum, though none exist in present time. To make it, Link needs to gather three Pure Metals found in the game's later dungeons and bring them to Zauz the blacksmith; he forges the blade of the weapon, and Oshus completes it by fusing the blade with the Phantom Hourglass.
• Vortex Barrier: The Isle of Ruins is blocked by a huge whirlwind that can only be dispelled by collecting the Regal Necklace from the Isle of the Dead.
• Warp Whistle: A variation — writing symbols on a blank slate summons golden frogs who use typhoons to transport the ship to various parts of the ocean.
• Waterfront Boss Battle: Gleeok is fought in a flooded chamber in the Temple of Ice, where the dragon remains half-submerged and only leaves its necks and heads above water. Link fights it while standing on an emerged platform, resulting in a very back-and-forth fight as Link can't leave his perch and Gleeok is a Stationary Boss that doesn't leave its spot, and the battle mostly consists of reflecting Gleeok's Breath Weapons back at it, and later of using a grappling hook to pull the heads across to where Link can reach them, while trying to ride it out its periodic flooding of the platform.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Despite the fact that Linebeck's original (and subverted) reason for going with Link at all is to make money and plunder stuff.
  Linebeck: Hey, good for you! Taking a break from saving the world! Class act!
• Wolfpack Boss: The Diabolical Cubus Sisters are a quadruple boss fight, and the main opponents of the fourth dungeon (Ghost Ship).
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Once the adventure is over and Bellum is defeated, Link and Tetra find themselves floating on the inert Ghost Ship. According to Tetra's crew, the amount of time they spent on the ship: about 10 minutes!
• You Shouldn't Know This Already:
  • Drawing the Cyclone Slate symbols before being told about them will not let you warp.
  • In the Temple of the Ocean King, there's a red door on which you have to draw a Triforce in order to get the southeastern map. It doesn't work before you meet Zauz.
  • Also, you need to seek out an old wayfarer's hideout on Molida Island at one point in order to find the correct route through the foggy passage to the Northwestern Sea. If you try following the correct path before you've read it from the map in his hideout, you'll just get sent back to the start, as normal.

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