Review: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

My last post put me in the mood to write a quick review for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, which I beat this weekend (I originally stopped playing about 3/4 of the way through). The game got extremely high scores, and I cannot figure out why.

1. There's not a single memorable moment in it.
2. I didn't care for a minute whether I'd save the girl.
3. Every dungeon looks and feels identical.
4. The game is all about exploration, yet a major part of the game features a tight time limit and thus punishes exploration.
5. The stylus controls work fine, but so what. Aside from the nice control over the boomerang and ability to take notes, the controls are probably the worst in any Zelda game since the NES. Certainly a huge downgrade from The Wind Waker, which introduced a great combat system.
6. Newsflash: stop making people waste huge amounts of time sailing from one destination to another.
7. I've never been less excited to watch a closing cinematic.
8. Link's main companion is annoying and unpleasant to look at.

On the positive side, I did like the opening and closing slideshows.

(By comparison, I thought The Minish Cap was great.)