"Hey! Listen!" If your going to buy one game this fall, make sure it's this one.
But is this the zelda title that ds and zelda fans have been waiting for?
The story of the game is that when Link, Tetra and her band of pirates are sailing some waters, they come across a ghost ship. Tetra's keen eye for something which may contain treasure urges her to jump aboard.
After hearing her scream, Link also attempts to jump onto the ghost ship, only to fall off and into the ocean.
Link awakes on an island in an area of sea that he has never been to before. There he meets up with ciela the fairy and her "grandpa", who both decide to help link find the ghost ship and save his friend from certain doom.
Link soon meets up with Linebeck, an arrogant yet cowardly ship owner, with an eye and nose for treasure and a ship of his own. Linebeck agrees to help Link save his friend, and thus the adventure begins.
The presentation of the game is very nice. Both screens are used on the ds, with the bottom screen being the screen you use to control link. Great use of the mic and touchscreen.
The game's graphics look fantastic for a ds game. It's visuals are full 3D and follow on from windwakers cartoony look, cutscenes look fantastic and the the graphics certainly suit the game and show that a great side of the ds' power.
The sound in the game may not have the epic heroic feel of the previous zelda games, but it certainly stands out as one of the best sounding ds games around. Your going to want to use some headphones with this game, or even plug in some portable speakers, as this game's soundtrack is certainly exciting and brilliant, and sounds great in surround with the headphones.
The gameplay is the most important feature of the game, as all Nintendo fans would of probably said at some point by now. The game uses the ds touch screen fantastically. Forget buttons, all you have to use is your stylus and your ds. The controls work perfectly and Nintendo have really hit the nail with the hammer. Straight from the start it's easy to get into the game and you will learn the controls instantly, and probably wonder how you ever controlled a ds game without the touch screen.
Fighting multiple enemys at once is simple, as being able to do a spin attack returns and just tapping an enemy will cause you to jump towards them and swing your sword.
The touch screen is also used to a unique way with all of the items. Most noticeable is with the boomerang, as you draw a path for it and it will follow that path and then return to you afterwards.
The game will take experienced players between 15 and 20 hours to complete, but then after that you can go back and discover all the treasure you missed, try the different mini-games which are held on some islands, and even discover some side-quests. The only really annoying part of the game is the temple of the ocean king, which you have to keep coming back to in order to get maps, it get's very difficult later on in the game, and you will sometimes get quite annoyed at it, but it's only a minor annoyance in a very fun game. Eventually, after finding everything there isn't really much to do, but it will still be fun to try playing through the game again, or keep trying to beat your best time in the temple of the ocean king. But even then that only goes so far.
All in all, if your a zelda fan then you need this game. Even if your not then i would certainly recommend this game to anyone with a ds and a like for small puzzle solving. Although it's certainly not as difficult as some of the other zelda's, this game certainly stands out on it's own for it's unique use for the touch screen and great gameplay and visuals.
Presentation - 9.0/10
Graphics - 9.5/10
Gameplay - 10/10
Sound - 9/10
Lasting value - 8.5/10
Final score - 9.5/10