Sea Information

The high seas of Phantom Hourglass are an adventurer's best friend…and worst nightmare. There's plenty to see and do on the open seas, so here's a brief guide on what to expect.

Combat

There are lots of enemies out on the water, ranging from the easily killed to the annoyingly difficult. Most easy enemies can be dispatched with a single blow from your cannon, but the tougher ones will take multiple hits before going down, and some will even submerge themselves and become unhittable. If you come across a tough enemy, find a port nearby and steam to it; docking and undocking will clear the map near you.

Beedle's Ship

Beedle is a seaborne merchant that floats around between all of the four map quadrants; he'll usually appear on your present map shortly after you transition in. If you dock with him, you can buy a variety of objects. His stock rotates over time, so check back often to find new and expensive goods; he eventually starts selling ship parts, some of which are worth over 5,000 rupees.

Beedle will also sometimes be replaced with an assistant of his, who wears a golden mask. This assistant appears only very rarely, but will sell you a Heart Container. Visit his ship whenever you see it, and eventually you'll get lucky.

Beedle also offers membership rewards. If you spend enough money at his shop to earn 20 points (this will take around 2,000 rupees to be spent with him), you'll earn 10% off all future merchandise purchases, as well as a Freebie Card, which will let you pick any item that he sells and buy it for free. There's also a Gold membership at 50 points, which presumably has many more fabulous prizes for you.

Adventurer's Ships

There are four Adventurer's Ships roaming the high seas, with a different one appearing in each quadrant of the map.

Southwestern Sea

The Ship here features a down-on-his-luck adventurer who keeps getting boarded. Climb onto his ship and help him kill the enemies in exchange for treasure.

Northwestern Sea

The Ship here has a self-styled swordsman. He'll offer to teach you some tricks of the trade. Hit him with your sword each time you board him for a reward. He progressively gets harder to take down, and will eventually start fighting back with a stick; if he hits you three times, the match is over. On the other hand, if you manage to keep fighting him and get up to 100 hits on him, he'll give you a Heart Container. You can do this pretty early on in the game, so it may be worth trying out!

When you get the Hero's New Clothes from the Northeastern adventurer, give them to this guy in exchange for the Kaleidoscope.

Southeastern Sea

This Ship features treasure collectors. They'll pay top dollar for the treasure that you manage to collect.

Northeastern Sea

The Man of Smiles rules over this boat. Defeat the enemies here, then continually talk to him for your reward. If you choose the Mysterious reward, he'll give you the Hero's New Clothes, which don't do much, but which take up a slot on your Collection screen, at least. He'll also give you a treasure map. Presumably you can keep boarding the ship for more rewards.

Jolene

Jolene is a female pirate who is constantly on the lookout for you. Or, more accurately, for Linebeck, who you ride with. They have quite a history together.

When Jolene spots you, she'll come after your ship. If you run, she'll try to torpedo you to death; you can jump over these torpedos with the jumping feature of your ship. It's usually better to just run right towards her, though. When she boards your ship, you'll have to fight her off; she'll usually attempt a big lunge that you can dodge, then attack from the side. A few hits and she'll run off, leaving Linebeck to give you progressively better rewards.

Sunken Treasure

As you play the game, you'll find lots and lots of treasure maps. These will leave little X marks on your sea charts. After you unlock the salvage arm for your ship, you can head to these dots and select Salvage from the menu to attempt to grab the treasure off the ocean floor.

This can be easier said than done, though. The salvage arm will have to get all the way to the bottom of the ocean, and apparently every single square foot of the seas here has a large array of explosives beneath it. The salvage arm has five hit points, and will lose one whenever it hits a bomb or a cliff. You can change the speed at which it dives, so it's usually best to yank back the speed as soon as you get into danger. Only the tip of the salvage arm can hit anything; the chain can overlap with the bombs here without a problem.

When you reach the bottom of the ocean, you have to guide your grappling hook to the treasure chest; if you miss, then you fail, and you have to start all over again. When you grab the chest, you then have to pull it all the way back up to the ship. This makes the target for the bombs and walls that much bigger and clunkier.

With a little practice, you'll get the basics of salvaging down, but it can still be difficult to salvage properly. If you get your salvage arm banged up, return to Mercay Island and speak to the dockmaster there; he'll fix it, for a price.

Golden Frogs

There are a number of golden frogs in the seas here, six in all. You'll know when you're near one because they'll start jumping out of the water, giving up shiny sparks from their bodies.

You can't do much with the golden frogs until you've spoken to their king. He dwells on an uncharted island in the northwestern sea. If you go to the eastern side of the sea here and follow the rocks up to the north, you'll find the hidden island, which actually has no map even when you land. If you can unlock the path to the center of the island, you'll be able to speak to the king, who'll give you a special slate.

After obtaining the slate, you can return to the golden frogs and hit them with your cannon. Doing so will cause them to give over a symbol. Mark the symbol in detail on your map. With that done, you can draw the symbol on your slate when you stop your boat, allowing you to instantly travel to where you found the golden frog. Pretty handy!

Minigames

As per usual, Phantom Hourglass features a number of minigames that you can partake in as you travel around. You can find some of these on uncharted islands (such as the DS Island on the south side of the southeastern sea, or the Bannen Island in the northwestern sea), and some will become available on islands after you visit them for the first time (such as Romano's Shooting Range on Molida Island). Some of these will have substantial rewards (such as a Heart Container for besting Romano's minigame), but for the most part, the best you can hope for is treasure and ship parts, neither of which are vitally important unless you plan on trading items with your friends. Since you can easily beat the game without partaking in any minigames, we won't cover them in depth here.