Review - Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

After the krazy repairs I did on my DS Lite, I decided to pick up Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks in place of Skyward Sword which I missed out on, despite it releasing on my birthday. >_>; After having completed the game, here is my review for Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.
As the successor to Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks has a very similar feel to Phantom Hourglass with some improvements.

The story of this Zelda game is slightly more involving than some of the other Zelda games, which is pretty nice. Link is headed to Hyrule Castle for his award ceremony after his apprenticeship as a train conductor under Alfonzo, his mentor. For those who wish to be surprised by the turn of events, even if it's only in the beginning of the game, don't click the Spoiler button below. If you want a little more information on the driving force of the game's story, check out the spoiler button below.

Spoiler:

At the ceremony, Princess Zelda gives Link his engineer certificate, along with a note to meet her in her chambers. She tells Link that she is worried about the Spirit Tracks that are disappearing and wants his help as an engineer to take her to the Tower of Spirits secretly, as Chancellor Cole refuses to let her leave the castle. However, on the way to the Tower of Spirits, the Spirit Tracks they were on disappears, throwing the train on its side after losing control. Chancellor Cole reveals himself as the one trying to bring the Demon King back to the realm, along with his henchmen Byrne. Despite Alfonzo and Link's attempt to protect Zelda, Byrne and Chancellor Cole out-powers them and casts a spell that splits Zelda's spirit and body apart from each other. Zelda's body gets kidnapped, to be used as the vessel to bring back the Demon King, and Zelda's spirit follows Link, asking him to help her get her body back, while restoring the Tower of Spirits, and stopping the return of the Demon King.

Even aside from the events that occur in the story, the way each characters emote and the overall presentation of the cut scenes feels more alive than some of the other Zelda games in the past.

The gameplay of Spirit Tracks is very similar to Phantom Hourglass. Similar controls, perhaps tweaked to be more responsive than it was in Phantom Hourglass from what I've heard. If you haven't played Phantom Hourglass yet, movement, attacking, and many other actions are done completely by the DS's touch screen. The touch screen controls may not be the most comfortable way for some people to play, but I feel that Nintendo did a pretty good job with the touch screen controls.

Aside from the controls, Spirit Tracks, like any other Zelda game, follows a very standard Zelda formula gameplay. Go to a dungeon, find the treasure, use treasure to solve puzzles and obstacles, and eventually take down the boss with what you've learned. Then move on to the next dungeon. However, the likeliness of this game to Phantom Hourglass is close in that the Tower of Spirits is similar to Phantom Hourglass's Temple of the Ocean King. Just like how you had to delve into the Temple of the Ocean King to get the Sea Chart to enter a new area of the ocean to explore, you have to climb the Tower of Spirits to obtain the Rail Map to enter each new area of the realms to explore.

The Tower of Spirits has a similar level design to that of the Temple of the Ocean King, where there are phantoms roaming about, watching guard, who you have to sneak past to advance. This time, however, you are not timed like in Phantom Hourglass, but instead require the help of a phantom to advance. The use of phantoms and their unique properties are needed to solve the more puzzle-based level designs in the Tower of Spirits.

Exploring the world map is done by train on what rails you have available. In that sense, you don't get all the freedom until you unlock more rails through progressing in the game and also doing side quests to collect Force Gems. On the train, you once again, get a cannon to shoot down enemies, like the boat in Phantom Hourglass. Traveling between each town and other stations can become a bit tedious and repetitive, but shooting boulders and monsters for rupees will keep traveling from being as boring as staring out a window.

The difficulty is on the easy side as the monsters don't pose too much of a threat. However, the puzzles that the game throws at you may take a bit of thinking to solve. Each temple in the game mostly consists of numerous puzzles, with one or two fighting rooms, aside from the mini-boss that gives you the treasure, and the boss itself. They aren't necessarily all that difficult, but if you seek a challenge, there are several train stations that lead to places with puzzles that may require a little more thinking to solve for optional treasures.

Boss fights aren't all full of action, as you often have to wait until the boss gives you the opportunity to strike back, as they are only vulnerable to certain things. It is more about creating an opening for attack than it is about being on the offense, but at the same time, it isn't necessarily something that requires strategic fighting too much either. Simply out-running the boss's attacks for a bit will grant you the opportunity to stun them, and once stunned, they are completely defenseless to some simple hack'n'slash attacks. Given that the game is played on a touch screen, perhaps it makes the most sense to have a boss fight that is less focused on action and more focus on timing your actions against them. Their patterns are easy to figure out, so there aren't many challenges to be had from the bosses, most likely. They don't even do very much damage either; not even the last boss.

The graphics in Spirit Tracks is the same as in Phantom Hourglass; DS quality 3D polygons and texture. With that said, however, it doesn't necessarily look bad either. I've been playing a good deal of PSP games before playing Spirit Tracks, so I notice the huge difference in the graphics, but that isn't entirely a fair comparison either given the differences in the handhelds' specs. As specified above, the game does a great job at presenting itself in an effective way.


The same can be said about the sound quality as well. Pretty much the same sounds you'd hear from Phantom Hourglass, with the usual, minimalist voice acting. There aren't too many unique and memorable background music in this game, but the musical portion of the game definitely sounds good. Of course, that is, if you play them right on the Spirit Flute. I didn't have any problems with some of the musical portions, but I have heard complaints from other players that it wasn't working. I do have to say that without a good music sense, it may be hard to grasp the proper timing to complete the musical portions. My only tip for that is to listen carefully to the metronome instead of what your duet partner is playing.

Replay value isn't something that you would expect from this game, however, as the game is fairly linear aside from side quests, filled with tedious collecting of treasures to trade in for train parts, bunnies to catch for rewards, a fighting challenge mini-game where you can fight all temple bosses over again as many times as you'd like, and is fairly story driven. All these factors take away from the appeal of replaying the game over again IMO, with little reason to start fresh. 

All in all, Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is a well polished game. The game is oddly longer than I had expected with plenty of side quests and other activities to keep you occupied; mostly treasure hunting to trade for train parts. The enjoyable story had kept my interest, and the puzzle-based dungeons had kept the game more fun than a mindless hack'n'slash game. I look forward to seeing Toon Link's next adventure.

In the meantime, I really should grab a copy of Skyward Sword for Link's most recent adventures...