Spirit tracks is a great zelda game, but it plays it safe.
Link must, as usual, take on some terrible evil, rescue someone, and save the land of Hyrule. To do this, he must traverse dungeons, fight enemies, solve puzzles, and explore Hyrule. This is the ordinary zelda we have known for years.
I won't talk about the structure of a zelda game, or any of that, because you know it already. Instead, the differences.
The graphics are good but not great- scenery is especially flat, but dungeons look good. The music is often great, woth a lovely overworld theme, though I wasn't keen on the dungeon music.
Spirit Tracks has an unusual control scheme ehich using the stylus for everything, like Phantom Hourglass. While this sounds cumbersome, in reality it opens up new possibilities. It's used in a variety of clever ways, from drawing a path for you to throw the boomerang to control where Link (or Zelda) goes. And Spirit Tracks deserves an award for being the first ever game to make blowing into a microphone fun. One item, the whirlwind, which you obtain early in the storyline, lets you create a gust of wind. You do this by blowing.
Another innovation is one I didn't enjoy: the train driving. Link has explored before by horse, by boat, on foot, by bird... but now he commands a train. The touch screen is used well for this, but when on the rails, there is little to do, and in the end you're just sitting there waiting for the train to reach its destination. There are other features brought in to try to make it more interesting, like enemies, but all you do to kill them is to shoot with cannons, an incredibly boring experience. Worse, if they hit you enough, you'll die, forcing you to make the entire journey again.
Thankfully for Spirit Tracks, there are very many stations and places, so when advancing through the storyline, you'll rarely be driving for a very long time in one go. There are many fiendish overworld puzzles, which are exceellently presented. Sometimes I however found myself hating those tedious fetch quests.
Spirit Tracks also has a 'tower of spirits', which plays a vital part in the storyline. You'll progress through it in between dungeons, but it's like a giant dungeon, with multiple sections, in itself. I found it a little uninspired despite introducing an interesting new mechanic.
Spirit tracks' dungeon gameplay is thankfully as good as ever- puzzles are inventive and challenging, and you'll find a surprisingly high amount of mini-bosses, something which I love. The dungeon bosses are very cleverly constructed too. And don't be put off by the fact there are only five dungeons, as Spirit Tracks has a lot more content in between each dungeon than other zeldas, resulting in 30-40 hour experience. There are also plenty of side quests to complete, which could add on over twenty extra hours, too.
Spirit Tracks is a Zelda game, through and through. While this means it plays it a little too safe, it also means you're guaranteed a great time. There's even a multiplayer battle mode that sees you fighting to collect more gems than your opponents. It's crazy, and, surprisingly, hilarious fun with plenty of traps you can activate to bring down your opponent. Expect a lot of fun from that feature.