Agreed! And i'd like to add, if you have a concept for a new game, but cant put together enough characters to make it work, stop slamming together old characters and making them 3d. some of us do notice. I'm betting this thing with the trains wasnt inteded to be zelda at all. I think they put a zelda moniker on it just to sell it to zelda fans who otherwise wouldnt have bought it.

Well, the next thing is cars then Airplanes if they continue to do games based on upping the old technology transportation from the previous one.

It's not so much the technology transportations... I mean Majora's Mask had Link going to the freakin' moon! Leaping forward greatly in technology, but the point still stands that they just aren't putting any effort into their games. Majora's Mask is a great example. Yes it's a sequel to Ocarina of time, much like Spirit Tracks is a sequel to Phantom Hourglass, but the difference is that they put effort into Majora's Mask and gave everyone their own stories and histories and personalities and put in puzzles that were actually challenging, not just "Hey, there is a square hole here... oh look here is a square peg... do do do de do... oh look the door opened yay!" Don't belittle the game to us. Give us something challenging something stimulating. Give us a battle system that isn't hit A five times to win. Just... give us more than the minimal effort.

I LIKE TRAINS. Made for a comfortable beginning to Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box... but... Zelda games I've recently fallen out of. After seeing my friend play through Phantom Hourglass--again very needy with its touch-screen controls--I decided not to try it. I'll just play OoT. OOT, I SAY (despite its HUGE FOLLOWING SORTA LIKE FF7). Majora's Mask broke me for Zelda. ;-;

Honestly, I enjoyed the game. I bought a copy for a friend for Christmas, who is a die hard Zelda fan, and she loves it. I genuinely enjoyed playing the game, and I didn't really see anything wrong with the train at all, I liked it a bit, in fact.
The graphics, the gameplay... though I haven't played many zelda games past a few of the handheld console games, I have played a great deal many games in my life - to the point where "same ol same ol" gets boring very fast, when old systems are reused over and over again with nothing special added in...

Yet, with the rarity of a new game being enjoyable to play, when I got to play what I could of it while borrowing it so said friend wouldn't be distracted during schoolwork, I genuinely enjoyed playing the game - and wanted to go back to playing it whenever things pulled me away.

Game design, Art design, Sound and Music design, story... these affect different people in very different ways, and apply themselves differently in different situations... while a lot of it just... depends on people's variety of tastes, how open they are to new things... if they reject anything below the standard line of what they consider the best, or a style they do not prefer... things like gameplay can suffer if either the player has played a style of game so much they've become more experienced at playing such a game, at spotting the answer to a puzzle, to break certain game designs into formulas to use to win the game (one of the easiest formulas I can think of - an RPG game, "if you can't win a battle, get stronger and try again.", and it'll work a great deal of the time, the more experienced you get playing a style of game, the more common these formulas become, the easier they are to use and master, and the more complicated formulas you can develop...)...

or, if the game developer cannot branch away from old concepts far enough that new formulas must be learned, or old formulas applied in different ways. For the uber "Hey guys, lol, look at this, I'm coming out with ANOTHER sequel. I think I'm up to the XX-s now." game series like megaman, final fantasy, legend of zelda, etc., this can be a huge problem...

Now that I think about it, it can be a very hard situation for a game developer like that - on one hand, since you're making a sequel to a popular game series, you're going to have a lot of people who played the old games play and judge your game, so they need something new and different, something that makes it interesting to play - having to avoid the pitfalls of re-used gameplay and not enough challenge.
On the other hand, unless your game series "grows up" and has a target audience just of the people who have been playing the old games, and will only offer more challenges to them, then most likely you'll be designing for the next generation as well, people who haven't played as many games in their life, maybe you're making a game for someone who's never played a zelda game before, or who's never even picked up a game console before.
It needs to be accessible to their target audience, so that the joys that they experienced when playing can be passed down to newer generations.

Not saying you're wrong in not liking it for whatever reasons you have, I was just inspired by the difference in reactions the game produces between someone who loves it and someone who doesn't like it much at all, and I know you're interested in game design, so I thought it would be okay.

I would try it, but my DS screen is half broken and the DSi is well, a lot sooo, it's going to be quite some time before I do.

whats the game called?

At least it's not CD-i. The cut-scenes still make me cringe.

Trains are great....... in transport tycoon.

was alright.
sold it back the instant I was through, though.

So I take it you didn't like Phantom Hourglass then? Your justified, the games are very similar...

I'll have to disagree with you there buddy for 3 reasons:

- I think the 3d graphics still look just as good as they did in Phantom Hourglass

- The new transportation idea (i.e train) is a great concept but has its flaws

- And finally the soundtrack is awesome but some repeat songs are a letdown.

That said the game isn't perfect by any means but still very enjoyable to play so far (I haven't beaten it yet!.