Difficulty:

Very Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

A lot of people are raving over Spirit Tracks and I have no idea why unless they are just desperate for some Zelda action that their vision is clouded because in all actuality, Spirit Tracks will go down as my least favorite Zelda game I played...and this coming from someone who played Zelda II: Adventure of Link.

This one follows the series that began with Wind Waker. Tetra and Link eventually found a new land and settled it and many years have passed now. The new Hyrule is a bustling land that flourishes. The game is even nice enough to include the familar face of Niko the cabin boy from Wind Waker, now a very old man. Link this time is an apprentice train engineer heading off to Hyrule Castle town to receive his certification. Princess Zelda asks for Link's assistance because some mysterious things are occuring and the chancelor is acting suspicous. She gives Link a solider's uniform and that is how Link gets his green suit this time. As a disguise he never changes out of instead all the soldiers wear green outfits. Long story short the chancellor turns out to be a demon, he kills Zelda, separtates the magical tower and makes all the train tracks disappear because the train tracks have some mystical power...I don't know because I stopped paying attention at that point.

As open minded as I tried to be about the train. It flat out doesn't work. Zelda games are about open world exploration and on a train, you're stuck following the tracks only being able to get off when you make a stop. Even the boat allowed you to turn on a whim and go visit another island. You spend a good deal of the game chugging along using the horn to scare away animals and the canon to blast enemies accept for the demon trains which you can stop. I mean the only time I died in this game was from the demon trains crashing into me because I didn't stop properly in front of my destination.

Now the dungeons are well designed and interesting but terribly easy to beat. I mean anyone who's played Zelda games as long as me knows how the dungons go. You explore, find the new item, use it to explore further and use said item to defeat the boss. Zelda dies but Link can see her Spirit and she now becomes the equivalent of Navi but it's nice to have Zelda doing something besdies getting captured for a change. Still I felt myself just going through the motions with the dungeons. That's bad when you feel so complacent playing a Zelda game.

One thing the game does better though is you no longer have to do the same temple over and over again. When you have to return to the temple the next floor opens up and you just head there so one major headache of Phantom Hourglass is gone. Zelda also can control the Phantoms once you weaken them elminating another headache and couple that with the removal of the timed aspect of PH and the temple is a lot less annoying this time around.

However for all the improvementst that were made the game still feels so bland to me. Sure I can collect tons of items like nuts and bunnies but it all feels like filler and it's very hard for me to keep playing the game until the end.

Controlwise the game uses the stylus controls fine. Stop whining about new control schemes, people. Get over it already. At the least there's no more having to shout into the mic of "I NEED A SALVAGE ARM!" You just blow occasionally into the mic to make one item work and then there's the pan flute which flat out sucks unless you like playing Zelda games with a collapsed lung.

In the end Spirit Tracks is a perfectly good and solid game but has it's flaws The dungeons are predictable and the train flat out defeats the purpose of the game. If the series isn't careful, it runs the risk of degrading into the downward spiral of gimmicky gameplay the Sonic series has. What's next, Link turning into a werewolf?...Oh wait.