Topic: The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks to Feature New Instrument

[Stratos]

That is sad you never even knew it existed. It supported Wi-Fi and both single and multi cart play locally. It even had achievements and leveled rankings. Getting achievments gave you special ship parts and when you played other people you randomly swapped extra ship parts. That helped you complete your ship sets.

[broodwars]

Its not like me to hope for a Nintendo game to fail, but if this one did it might send Nintendo a message to quit crappifying their core franchises.

I wouldn't call this "crappifying a core franchise", just that it's another case (another being Pokemon) of Nintendo spinning its wheels with one of its core franchises as it struggles to find new representations of the same things we've been doing in that franchise for a long time.  That's a long ways from strapping a jet pack on the main character and having them run around cleaning up Sludge, or having an aircraft pilot decide to run around shooting things on the ground.   

[broodwars]

That is sad you never even knew it existed. It supported Wi-Fi and both single and multi cart play locally. It even had achievements and leveled rankings. Getting achievments gave you special ship parts and when you played other people you randomly swapped extra ship parts. That helped you complete your ship sets.

Yeah, I remembered it once I thought about it for a while, so I altered my original post to reply to someone else.  Just like so much else about Phantom Hourglass, though, it was just particularly unmemorable to me.  It was a variant on Pac-man, wasn't it?  With one player being Link and the other 3 being villains in a map from the Temple of the Ocean King?

[Stratos]

I never really intended to get the game but it was a Christmas gift and for some reason the multiplayer just clicked with me. I became one of those crazy players who really knew how to play the game well. Except other 'expert' pansies disconnected so I couldn't get any points.  I even manned up and let a noob swipe my points when he beat me once when I got really cocky and took too many risks.

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

Prediction: Despite the doubts fans will be all over the game once its released.

Quote me on this.

Seconded.

[NWR_Neal]

Prediction: Despite the doubts fans will be all over the game once its released.

Quote me on this.

Seconded.

Thirded.

I'm probably going to get this in the launch window despite my reservations. I'm Zelda-starved and I did kind of enjoy Phantom Hourglass when I finally sat down, borrowed it from a friend, and played it last year.

[Jonnyboy117]

This whole attacking enemies with swords and riding some weird transportation are so repetitive even from game to game.

I'M LOOKING AT YOU, 8-BIT NES ZELDA.

Your reductive logic ignores the argument I have already made, which is that Zelda games' musical instruments tend to be mini-games or special-use items that are not integrated into the gameplay very well. In both Zelda and Metroid, the best items/abilities are always those that let you play the game in different ways and can generally be used at any time, often for some side-effect beyond the primary use in puzzle-solving.

[mac<censored>]

I'm looking forward to this game -- the train sounds awesome, I thought the PH touch controls were absolutely brilliant, and, well, general Zelda goodness!

Yes it's all a bit formulaic, but so are 99% of other games, and it has absolutely nothing to do with whether a game's fun or not.

The blowing does seem stupid, but it sounds like it will rare.

[KDR_11k]

I'm actually feeling negative not only on the blowing part but also on the inclusion of yet another instrument. I know this trend goes back all the way to the original game, but why does Link need to have something musical in every game? It usually feels like an excuse not to design a new item that is actually useful in combat/exploration. Brutal Legend is getting called out for having needless guitar solo mini-games, and I think it's time we became more critical of Zelda doing the same, especially since the music bits are so repetitive even from game to game.

Wait, people complain about the solos in BrĂ¼tal Legend, a game about music?