Little-seen Zelda sequel finds new life on Wii U Virtual Console

By Danny Cowan Published May 12, 2016

zelda wind waker sequel rereleased on virtual console zeldads header — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Nintendo’s latest cross-platform digital lineup marks the return of a classic game in The Legend of Zelda series that, until this week, remained exclusive to legacy Nintendo DS consoles.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, originally released in 2007, is now available for a new generation of Nintendo fans via the Wii U’s Virtual Console service.

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Phantom Hourglass follows up on 2003’s The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, casting toon-shaded protagonist Link on a new journey. Unlike previous games in the series, Phantom Hourglass features a touch-driven control scheme, requiring players to make ample use of the DS stylus and microphone throughout.

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The new Wii U Virtual Console version of Phantom Hourglass renders the formerly dual-screen game via the Wii U GamePad’s touchscreen, and the controller’s included microphone allows for a fully featured port that retains all gameplay mechanics featured in the original DS game.

Also on the Wii U eShop this week is a long-awaited port of Team Meat’s indie platformer Super Meat Boy. First released via Xbox Live Arcade in 2010, Super Meat Boy makes the jump to Wii U with all of its original content intact, save for a revised soundtrack courtesy of music group Ridiculon.

Minecraft: Wii U Edition players can also look forward to the Super Mario Mash-Up Pack, which introduces a lineup of new playable characters along with Mario-themed music and item textures.

Over on the 3DS eShop, Nintendo has rolled out a new Disney-themed version of its instructional app Art Academy. Disney Art Academy includes more than 80 tutorials designed to help players learn how to draw classic Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, along with newcomers from recent animated films like Frozen and Inside Out.

Other newly released eShop games include the retro arcade adventure 8-Bit Hero, puzzle-platformer sequel Color Symphony 2, twin-stick shooter Tachyon Project, match-three puzzle game Queens Garden, and word puzzler Wordsup Academy.

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Gaming

Lego flowers are up to 30% off, and they make great holiday gifts

The LEGO Icons Poinsettia Building Set and its box.

Flowers are beautiful and timeless gifts, but their only disadvantage is that they won't stick around forever. If you want to give them for the holidays, why not take advantage of Lego deals? Building these Lego gifts will be a memorable experience, with the bricks eventually turning into gorgeous artificial flowers. If you like the idea, take a look at the offers that we've rounded up below, and if any of them catch your eye, we highly recommend proceeding with the purchase immediately because these discounts, just like real flowers, will not last long.
Lego Icons Poinsettia Building Set -- $35 $50 30% off

You can't have the holidays without Poinsettia flowers, so you can't go wrong with the Lego Icons Poinsettia Building Set. At 608 pieces, it's not for rookie Lego builders, but once you're done, you'll get posable Poinsettia flowers with green leaves and five star-shaped clusters of red leaves with yellow cyathia at the center, all in a woven-basket flowerpot. It's 30% off, for a $15 discount on its original price of $50, resulting in a lowered price of $35.

Gaming

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: all Vatican Medicine Bottle locations

Indiana Jones standing in the jungle.

There are dozens of notes, items, weapons, and artifacts to pick up while touring the world in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Most of these collectibles are good for earning Adventure Points or solving some puzzles, but there's only one that you can trade for a permanent boost to Indy's stats. Specifically, the Medicine Bottles hidden in Vatican City can be traded in for Adventure Books that either raise your HP or stamina bar permanently. That makes these little hard-to-find vials even more valuable than the ancient treasures you will find. If you want to get as much HP or stamina as possible, then you will need to find every last one. Here's the location of all the Medicine Bottles.
All Medicine Bottle locations
There are 15 Medicine Bottles in Vatican City in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. They will only pop up once you begin the A Remedy for All side quest, but you will also need to do the A Nun in Trouble and The Mad Priest quests to access some of them. We have marked all the bottle locations on the map below, as well as more detailed instructions below if you are having trouble reaching any of them.

1.
Once you finish the A Nun in Trouble mystery you will get Guiliana's Key. Take it down the Borgia tower and find the gap you can swing over with your whip and unlock the door with your new key. The bottle is just ahead on a box in the corner.
2.
While you're doing The Mad Priest side quest you will be given the Sewer Key and sent down below the city through the Tower of Nicholas V. Once through the locked gate, climb up and swing across the upper area onto a ledge leading to stairs going up into the palace. The bottle is at the base of these stairs.
3.
Go behind the Post Office building and look for the bottle resting on a wooden bench.
4.
Starting from the Belvedere Courtyard, head down the street toward the Post Office, and take a right into the short alleyway. The bottle is on the table next to a set of closed doors at the end.
5.
At the entrance to Via Di Belvedere, go into the Blackshirt's tent. There is a Medicine Bottle among the belongings on the long table.
6.
Climb up the scaffolding of the church being constructed near the Borgia Courtyard. Use the chandelier to swing to a window and onto a balcony, then platform to the left onto a rooftop where a single guard is posted near the bottle.
7.
From the Borgia Courtyard, go east from the entrance toward the Apostolical Palace. Find the area where the construction workers are stationed and locate the bottle on one of the barrels on the ground floor.
8.
Sneak or wear a disguise to enter the Blackshirt Barracks. Once inside the upper floor, the bottle is in a room just next to the staircase leading from the first floor.
9.
Head to the southern side of the Tower of Nicholas V and find a staircase up to the Passetto di Borgo. Take it all the way to the Castel Sant'Angelo and up another set of stairs to a dead end with this Medicine Bottle.
10.
Go through the main doors of the Apostolic Palace via the Borgia Courtyard and sneak or fight the many guards inside to get to the center of the room below the staircase. The bottle is on the little working area set up here.
11.
While you're in the Apostolic Palace, make your way all the way up to the top floor into the bright green room. Guards will be outside so you can either fight past them or sneak in through an adjacent room and across the balcony. Either way, the medicine bottle is on one of the desks against the wall.
12.
Back outside in the construction site outside the palace, go into the wooden storage shed and grab the bottle on the bench below the bulletin board.
13.
This bottle can't be obtained until you go through the main story far enough to meet Gina. Once you have and got out of the Underworld, use a zipline on the balcony to get over to a nearby rooftop. From here, find the hole in the fence to slip through into a tent where a group of guards are undressed to wash themselves. The bottle is on a bench next to a disguise you can snag if you haven't already.
14.
Putting that disguise to good use, infiltrate the restricted area to the north of Belvedere Courtyard and hug the south fence until you find a hole you can sneak through to get into a tent. The bottle is on the table in the middle of the room.
15.
For our final bottle, you must have the Blackshirt Uniform, so take a second to change. Now that you look the part, head to the Blackshirt Barracks and find the tent that needs the Blackshirt Key to open. Open it up and snap up the final bottle.
How to use Medicine Bottles to upgrade HP

Gaming

How Astro Bot charmed its way to becoming our Game of the Year

Game of the Year: Astro Bot

The process of picking one “game of the year” is a journey marked by second-guessing. Not a December goes by at Digital Trends where we aren’t agonizing over our annual top 10 list. Do we actually love Baldur’s Gate 3 as much as we think or are we giving in to the pressures of critical consensus? Is Elden Ring a lame year-end pick when we could be celebrating something like Immortality that still sticks with us years later? Are we weighing independent games enough in our deliberations? These are the kind of questions that keep us up at night as winter begins.

This year, we were faced with a similar mental puzzle. After 12 months of obsessively tracking our GOTY front-runners in detailed spreadsheets, one game was left standing: Astro Bot. The delightful platformer had won our hearts thanks to its precise platforming, good-natured attitude, and toylike design. It seemed like a no-brainer, but it was still hard to combat that lingering doubt as one question still haunted us.