Action role-playing game
An important influence on the action RPG genre was the 1986 action-adventure, "The Legend of Zelda", which served as the template for many future action RPGs. In contrast to previous action RPGs, such as "Dragon Slayer" and "Hydlide," which required the player to bump into enemies in order to attack them, "The Legend of Zelda" featured an attack button that animates a sword swing or projectile attack on the screen. It was also an early example of open-world, nonlinear gameplay, and introduced new features such as battery backup saving. These elements have been used in many action RPGs since.
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Issues that were mentioned in reviews regarding the game included its more casual gameplay compared to previous "The Legend of Zelda" games, which was not well received by some. GameSpy felt that the game was both easy and approachable enough for casual gamers to play, but sufficiently rewarding and challenging to satisfy hardcore fans of "The Legend of Zelda" series. IGN believed the game to be "more casual than we'd like", but still found it captivating, entertaining, and "a true adventure worthy of the "Zelda" name", calling it "different, but it's still the real deal". GameTrailers stated that the short dungeon levels and hand-holding exploration are "outright disappointing", but when comparing "Phantom Hourglass" to other Nintendo DS games, they conceded that it was still an impressive game, but just a good game when compared to "The Legend of Zelda" standards. 1UP.com pointed out that the biggest problem with "Phantom Hourglass" is that it falls back on using innovations from previous "The Legend of Zelda" games, rather than including new and original ideas: "Innovation arrives in tiny steps, touch screen controls be damned."