Topic: Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks Reviewed

The game has been reviewed in the latest ONM mag which I recieved early through the post today. They gave it a creadible 91%, gold award.

Its beautifully presented, has the best story of the zelda series next to majora's mask (they say), fixes the flaws of phantom hourglass, and has clever twists, items and gimmicks. It is a little too familiar and isn't a series high point though.

Insta-buy

Australian ONM or UK ONM?

best story next to majora's mask and fixes the flaws of PH, yet not a series high point? I don't know, sounds pretty good to me. I pretty much always end up enjoying anything zelda though, so i'd probably enjoy it no matter what.

Instabuy for me whatever people say but its nice to see good reviews.

What did they give Phantom Hourglass?

@Adam 95%.

So this game improves on Phantom Hourglass, according to them, and gets a worse score. This magazine is getting more credible by the minute.

You know, all this talk about Nintendo games being really good, but not getting good/fair scores has me a bit worried (my opinion changes about every time I wake up ). I feel like this could be the start of the end of Nintendo. Yeah, I know that this is the most overused, over exaggerated thing to say when you're worried about Nintendo, but let's look at another game related piece of entertainment; the FPS genre. The FPS genre now seems to be what Nintendo/most SNES game were in the golden age of gaming. The games were always good, no matter how unoriginal/copy 'n paste they were. It kinda scares me that this is a possibility instead of some over worried fanboy's opinion.

I really have no idea how you can compared modern FPSs to the SNES. I'm frankly disappointed to read that. The SNES deserves more respect.

There are plenty awful FPSs, and plenty awful SNES games. Also, this is Nintendo's official magazine, and the score is good. Not only is it nothing to worry about since it's a good score, but it's also nothing to be happy about because the score is meaningless. Not only does this come from Nintendo's official magazine (meaning it has to be praised because it's a Zelda game), but it also contradicts itself by calling the game an improvement and giving it a lower score.

If you care about scores at all (and I don't see why you would, they have little effect on Nintendo's sales generally -- and even then, that's assuming you for some reason care about Nintendo's sales), wait until an at least pseudo-disinterested source reviews the game.

I don't take reviews as absolute truth. In my opinion the main point of a review to mention good and bad features for the prospective consumer. The score down the bottom is only one persons opinion.

Got my copy of ONM too and thought I'd just elaborate on a few points brought up by other commenter's.
Firstly the 'fixes flaws' of previous game comment relates to train travel versus the boat of Phantom Hourglass, basically whilst you still have to slog from one side of the track to the other, there is less backtracking and it's more enjoyable due to strategic panningng to avoid the 'evil' locomotives. They also mention that people found the whole Temple of The Ocean King frustrating, whilst there is a similar concept called Tower of Spirits, the time constraints have been removed and you don't have repeat any floors you've previously conquered, you can just dash up a central staircase

I think the reason they have given a lower score (rightly or wrongly) than they gave Phantom Hourglass, despite the flaw fixes is that "it's all a little familiar" - I think this a little unfair given that not everybody would have played the first game, therefore eliminating any familiarity. Maybe on that basis they should have given a slightly higher score or taking the two games as a comparison i.e flaw fixes Vs familiar aspects - just call it a draw and give the same score.

Roopa132 - You can Pre-order it via GAME (.co.uk) here in the Uk and get the pre-order bonus, they ship worldwide, I'm no DS expert but it'll work on your DS and probably all others ( I believe DS games are region free - I might be wrong but I'm sure someone on here can answer that). You'll boost our crappy economy too (hehe)

ONM prolly won't post the review online (they want you to buy the mag) but they have posted an article answering readers question - take a peek

http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=13252

Minish Cap wasn't a series high point but it's still one of the best GBA games ever, and a brilliant game in itss own right...so this one sounds like a win to me! (Glad to hear the story is great. After reading about it I was surprised how deep and interesting it sounded)

This happens a lot with sequels, and not just with ONM, but with any website or magazine that does game reviews. I'll never understand it, personally.

Good to hear. I'd rather there was no hub temple to begin with, but at least there's no time limit and no repeating sections.

I actually liked the Ocean King Temple. Thought it was a great addition to the series. Unfortunatly, millions of other people dissagree with me.

When the PH game it was the first Zelda game on the DS that used the DS controls so it was new and fresh. This uses these same controls (although applying to new Zelda gimmicks) that we are all used to now as the DS has been around for a long time. Its a bit like the Pokemon games where they improve on the last game, but because of fundamental similarities you can't give them higher marks necessarily. You're getting too hung up on the figure tbh. A game can be better than the last game but not necessarily score higher as it doesn't push the series as much further (eg. the latest PES and Fifa games for 2010). Its as much to do with teh time of release and what other games are available on the market at the time too.

I'm not hung up on the marks at all. It was just two sentences. I just thought it was contradictory, which it is.

But I do disagree with your reasoning. I don't see what originality has to do with the score at all. You have to understand that some people will play this game without having played the first, so why should it be considered worse because it is like a game that many people haven't played? A game has to be judged on its own merits. Originality should not enter the equation at all as it's really irrelevant. I would rather play a good game that is just something old improved than a bad game that is completely "fresh."

Interesting. Was going to pre-order this, but I have enough stuff to play right now, so i'll wait until Christmas. Either way, it's gonna be worth the wait, game looks fantastic!