Topic: 3D "HD Remake" of Phantom Hourglass? Could it happen? Should it happen?

I'm planning on playing through Phantom Hourglass & Spirit Tracks again sometime this year, but looking back at them it seems time has not been kind to either title.

Is it possible we might get a [stereoscopic] 3D "HD Remake" of at least Phantom Hourglass [in the original top down 2D-game format, just enhanced for stereoscopic 3D]?

Personally I'd like to see the main/best parts of Phantom Hourglass & Spirit Tracks merged & condensed into a single title. Probably the last thing anyone else would want but I'd just love to see what Nintendo would come up with if they were to do that.

It would be cool to have another sequel to Phantom Hourglass, this time in 3D but not sure how practical that would be. A remake of both in the form of a hybrid of the two edited down and merged & condensed could make it viable and a more interesting experience.

Would people like to see another Phantom Hourglass sequel, or at least a re-release of Phantom Hourglass re-skinned and tweaked for 3D, or would people want just an outright new sequel to Phantom Hourglass, possibly with trains, boats and maybe even flying mounts?

No thanks (so sayeth one of the biggest Zelda fans you'll find on this site).

I recently re-played both PH and ST, and they both still hold up to what they are. 3D remakes (or remakes in general) are unnecessary; though that being said, i must admit that i would like to see versions that don't rely upon stylus-movement. They are towards the bottom of my rankings of Zelda entries, but still good, solid games.

Just bundle them together and slap on some 3D, it'd be a perfect budget release for the 3DS.

Have to agree with @the_shpydar. They're solid games, just not the best Zelda games. They still play fine though. So no, I don't see any reason for HD remakes.

Just could also probably add button support, so that the whole game isn't touch screen only, but as a option. (forced for some things because buttons would be difficult for everything lol) I would buy this.

I'd rather have a 3D or just straight port of The Minish Cap, to be honest.

"Man, I'd be really hyped for another Zelda remake soon! Especially if it's Phantom Hourglass." - no one

Kind of what I was thinking but with new textures and maybe a few tweaks here and there. I think they're really cool games but the textures look really rough compared to what the 3DS is outputting. I'm not sure that they'd ever get a full ground-up remake but just a re-skin would probably be enough and might not be too costly to breathe a bit of life back into them.

As for the whole 3D thing, I guess I should have specified stereoscopic 3D renditions of the existing top down 2D environments. Not sure the stories contained in the games would really warrant a full 3D action-platformer re-build.

Minish Cap was probably my favourite of the handheld Zeldas before Phantom Hourglass but I've pretty much had my fill of those...to the point that it almost put me off of playing Link Between Worlds, but I do now have one of those on its way to me from Amazon. Windwaker is probably my favourite Zelda to date and I have a copy of the HD remake that I'm looking forward to playing, even though I don't have a Wii U yet.

I'd like the next 3DS Zelda to be another in the Windwaker-type, toon-link series, but in full SuperMario3DLand type polygonal 3D...I think that would be unbelievably cool.

I don't think it will happen since they are still compatible with the current system. There is nothing to pretty/remake. Potentially the next system will have a wind Walker/phantom hourglass spin-off similar to A Link Between Worlds.

This would be a great idea. To bad Nintendo has not released the ambassador games to the public. At this point we just have to hope it will be on the next handheld. Or play on Wii at home.

I think just a basic higher-res re-skin and an e-shop release, maybe with a little streamlining? ...might be a good idea. As good as they are they could really use a graphical upgrade. I'd imagine it would be cost-effective? Although Spirit Tracks tanked pretty hard...why I think it would be cool to see them edited down and condensed into a single package (because spirit tracks is kind of a hard-sell but combining the two things could be a really exciting proposition), but...that means more work, which means higher costs...etc. etc. and at that point your getting towards new sequel levels of effort I guess.

@Haru17 Minish Cap in the Link Between Worlds engine would be amazing. I didn't realize how much I wanted that until now.

I can't even express how profound of a aesthetic travesty that would be. Good pixel art needs to be appreciated in the few places it exists. If you're going to do 3D then do it right: no repulsive half measures.

A Link Between Worlds even has 'half measure' in its very title.

When I said "3D Minish Cap" I meant enabling the 3D feature on its 2D graphics (like when things change depth onscreen, as they do so frequently in that game), not redoing the entire game.

@Haru17 Dude...we get it...you don't want that attributed to you...but seriously (and this is to everyone who ever reads this ever)...Tastes vary...different people like different things for different reasons, and one man's meat is another man's poison...

...that having been said...

I received my copy of Link Between Worlds yesterday and just got down to playing it today and I have to say, I'm absolutely amazed at how good it is and, yes, as with my Super Paper Mario post (which I posted before playing Sticker Star) it's made me rethink this.

I love the streamlining, I'm just really early in the game and hoping it's not got the level of complexity in level design (as with the Gameboy Zelda's and Ghost Babel) where the routes through the levels expressed as equations basically spell "Call the Nintendo Hotline"...

...as it is I'm absolutely loving it, it's fantastic, and I'm really excited about playing it...but, having said that, for sake of balance, a lot of the older Zelda's started off that way for me, before leading me into a maze with doors only unlockable (at least for me) with a product manual and a phone-number...

...but then I guess we can't all be Albert Einstein.

I guess it's left me thinking that it would probably be pretty good to be able to play Hourglass and Spirit Tracks with conventional controls in the link between worlds game engine, with the buttery smooth analog to digital fidelity, but at that point I guess it might begin to highlight the age of the game design/mechanics, not to mention that touch-control is an intrinsic part of the design mechanics.

But, all of that having been said...Phantom Hourglass & Spirit Tracks could still use a texture upgrade. Maybe the best thing to do would be to do nothing but re-skin them where needed and release them on e-shop as a double pack...

...even then I think re-working them a little might be a good idea. Or basically combining them: Larger islands with a few train-tracks here and there, but more condensed (i.e. not so long and covering so much ground) and all of the temples/dungeons from both games in quicker succession, with as much as possible of the more mundane stuff cut from the game.

...but yeah...again, at that point we're straying into potential sequel territory, so where do you draw the line with that?

P.S. But yeah...so far I love Link Between Worlds, just hoping it remains this non-frustrating throughout.

I think people have already made a good case for why a 3D remake is unlikely...that PH is compatible with the 3DS already, that it's not the most popular/demanded Zelda game, etc.

I also wonder if Phantom Hourglass would benefit from 3D...from what I remember, most of the 3D rendering was on the touch screen (with the top screen reserved for the map), so it wouldn't make use of stereoscopic 3D unless they alter the touch control element of it?

@Buizel Actually, yeah, you're right...I hadn't thought of that: all the game-play's on the touch screen.

I guess they could map it to the conventional controls and just have a system where it pauses and zooms in, swapping with the image on the touch screen for stuff like boomerang throws and drawing the routes...it could be the kind of thing where the map on the bottom screen swipes onto the 3D screen in the super-foreground covering the view of the room but revealing a zoomed in representation of what needs swiping on the bottom screen.

If it's a local map on the lower screen it could update that map with the path etc. while it's being swiped in by the player so that it's like a little transitional update for the player as the screens switch back around.

It might mean loosing some parts of the touch gameplay but I think what the player would get in return, could far exceed what would have to be removed.

Yep this would work the best. DS games rely too much on the touchscreen to be fun with buttons (drawings paths for boomerang and such), so a proper cel-shaded Minish Cap with online figurine/stones trade would benefit the game greately. On top of that it would be amazing in 3D with its emphasis on the whole "miniature" world.

I would like to see an update to Minish Cap, if it were re-worked and updated a little: I love the art-style; I've always thought of it as quite heavily influential to the art-style of Windwaker. I think it could look really fantastic in a 3DS remake.