Since I consider Tetris DS utterly broken by the infinite spin feature/glitch, I knew I had to go elsewhere for my DS puzzler fix. I strongly considered Meteos, but when Disney Magic was announced I decided to wait and see which would be better.

On the message boards I saw an immediate backlash to the association with Disney (long before it was even released). Those who have actually played the game all seem to agree that it improves on the original. Now I feel I can't trust any of the negative reviews, as the whole process has been tainted by a bunch of 13 year olds who think they're too grown-up for Disney.

I still don't know which one to buy. I prefer the sci-fi backdrop of the original, but the mechanics of Disney Magic (book-style orientation, horizontal movement). I feel bad because a month ago I told my girlfriend not to preorder Disney Magic, just in case it sucked. Now it's $7 more expensive and she's giving me the evil eye.

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I am loving it, although I need to find a good strategy for some of the challenges for launching specific block types. 2 min to launch 100 specific blocks in impossible for me on a couple levels :(

The one thing I miss is the unlocking aspect based on how many Meteos you've launched. Where you have to "buy" songs/weapons/special blocks.

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Xian: Just buy the first one. I bought it not too long ago for 15$ used. It's a flawless game.

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I've now put in eight play hours in Disney Magic (the game tells you how much time you've spent in-game and not in menus and such). I've unlocked and beaten everything the game has to offer, and I'm ready to say that the original installment is superior in all respects. Most review attention seems to be going to the license and the horizontal movement, but while those both detract from the experience, I'm afraid the drawbacks to DM go deeper than that. I'll go into specifics on five places I think Q? screwed this up (and that's not to mention the fact that it only took me eight hours to 100% the card).

The typed meteos collection and fusion system is gone without replacement. You now unlock new planets (called stories) simply by encountering them once in the story mode paths. There's no need to unlock weapons any more because only two survived (small rockets and block replacement), and those two just drop randomly in every situation whether it's appropriate or not (yeah, there are rockets on the Hevendor clone). They did add a new special gauge that when filled can execute either a slowdown or a "nitro boost" that makes every ignition terminal, but your hand is slapped for touching it when it comes time to score the round. Just for using the feature you lose out on a whopping 50,000 point bonus toward total targets of around 100,000 to 180,000 points. So it's essentially only worth even having in the multiplayer, which I'll get to in a minute.

The varied physics on each planet/story have lost one critical element. Namely, flicking blocks up at a launched platform from underneath no longer has any propulsion effect of any kind (though it does let you add the stragglers to the grouping). Further ruining the "each planet has unique physics" aspect of the original title, DM no longer leaves the discovery of these rules to the player. They are laid bare at the onset of each stage in plain and pithy statements.

Perhaps the biggest crime, to my mind, is the utter elimination of the brilliant sound design that won the hearts and votes of many gamers in various players' choice sound awards. Not only did each planet have awesome and theme-appropriate BGM, but the sound effects were intricately tied to events and environmental factors within the game. Some of these (like, say, the combo launch sounds) were really rewarding. In DM this wonderful sound design is replaced with bland sound-alike MIDI music that kinda sorta mimics the musical theme of the property to which the stage is tied. The ingenious sound effects system is gone. You get one or two unexciting sounds per stage, and they're associated only with major events like clearing the screen.

Speaking of which... that's the real way in which the new horizontal movement rule has destroyed the formula. Since you can now literally move any piece anywhere, the designers had to add a new challenge to compensate. They chose to make DM focus intensely on clearing the entire screen. That was a real accomplishment in the original Meteos (and a major strategy on planets like Brabbit), but here it is commonplace and downplays all other launches as not being full screen clears. Some may be OK with this shift in focus, but I think it really makes the whole experience a lot blander. There is an expert mode where horizontal movement is disabled returning you to the original ruleset. Hilariously, your special gauge in this mode allows you to return to horizontal movement. The only thing expert about this mode, however, is that you're expected to reach the same goals that you just accomplished with free movement.

And finally, yes, the license itself does suck. At 26, I'm not too old for Disney. In fact, I /love/ Pixar's work. But tying this particular game format to a license like this feels forced at best. Each "story" (again, think planet) contrives a situation out of which you must help the characters. Most nominally involve something falling. These all add together into an arch contrivance where you must put some books back in order that have fallen off a shelf. It's all really silly even when compared to launching little aliens into space to save planets from an evil planet launching matter streams at its neighbors.

OK, to be fair, they did a couple things better this time around. But even in these successes the developers found failure. For one thing, you can have a four player wireless battle with a single copy of the game. Most of the time on my original Meteos card came from multiplayer battles with other game owners, and I am definitely excited to let others in on the fun. Additionally, the annoying slowdown and lag issues that hindered adhoc wireless play in Meteos seems to have been completely eliminated in Disney Magic. The major oversight here, unfortunately, is that you cannot enable the "expert mode" (or oldschool if you like) in multiplayer matches even after unlocking it in single-player. For that you'll need to keep your old Meteos card handy.

The choice to use the portrait orientation also seems like a good one. This orientation definitely fits the game layout better, but as some reviewers have pointed out, the designers then totally squandered the auxilliary screen. The terrible utilization of the second screen is on par with hasty GBA->DS conversions like Megaman ZX and Kirby: Squeak Squad. Adding insult to injury, they moved the "spinner" (the button that speeds up time) from the shoulder to the D-pad or action button located nearest you. This forces an awkward grip on the DS. The player must pinch the system at the bottom supporting it enough to tap with the stylus. Leaving the shoulder buttons active for this function would have enabled the PDA style grip (with the thumb on the topmost shoulder button) for which most DS games using this orientation are designed.

Overall, if you're trying to decide between the two, my no contest recommendation is to pick up the original title. If you're already a fan of the original trying to decide whether to add this to your library, I would say that I'm not going to sell mine back. But mostly that's just because this is a popular multiplayer franchise at gaming parties, and I like being able to include non-owners. And I suppose it was nice to have some fresh scenery to chew through despite most stories being direct clones of original planets. In fact, maybe matching these up should be billed as a fun new feature for existing fans!

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