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Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks – Game Review

Many folks have reviewed Spirit Tracks for many different sites and all of them have been generally very favourable to the game, however many of them seem to have a niggling sense of it not quite hitting the mark. I think I know why….

Legend of Zelda games are remarkably formulaic and that is definitely a part of their appeal, you know that you’re going to go to temples, you know you’re going to get weapons that then allow you to access different areas and fight tougher bad guys. You can be pretty sure there will be a forest temple, a fire temple, a water temple and something else (usually sand). The Princess will be captured and it will always fall to a stripling of a boy to save everyone and fix all the problems.

These are series essentials and Spirit Tracks doesn’t skimp out on any of them! It follows on from the previous DS Zelda game (Phantom Hourglass), which in turn felt like a follow on from the Gamecube Zelda : The Wind Waker.  All featuring a distinctive cel shaded art style and simplified design which really suits the series. The timeframe is unclear, but certain characters from Phantom Hourglass return and others descendants are scattered throughout.

The story is simple stuff: “Big Monster” under the ground, railway tracks across the land are the bonds that keep it subdued, evil chancellor wants to release it, Link must stop them. The only real surprise here is that Zelda actually joins you in this quest, albeit in spirit form. She can Jump in armoured Phantoms and you then control her as well as Link. The player must unlock the different railway maps to explore the world and re-energise the titular “Spirit Tracks” keeping the big bad at bay.

It is a serviceable follow up to Phantom Hourglass and makes some good changes in removing the more frustrating time-waster elements of the last game. However the Spirit Tracks don’t feel quite right.  As has been mentioned by many other reviewers, there is something not quite right about the game. I personally think it comes down to the lack of freedom the train theme brings.  You are locked in to only traveling in certain directions and a lot of the travel feels like work, not fun.

Fricking spiders on the tracks! Damn there goes my freight!

It takes a long time through the game to even get to a point where you are delivering goods and people around the map and you quickly find that the monsters that attack you make you lose freight pretty quickly! Not to mention that the passengers are a bunch of whining pricks!  If you don’t toot your whistle or slow down on the corners properly your passengers will complain or want to go home!

The world of Zelda is always engaging and has some great puzzles, but the locked down nature of the travel system really slows the game down badly, and even though there are warp gates around the map, they don’t have the same immediacy of the Wind-waker’s tornadoes. You need to travel to the gates and then hopefully remember where they actually go. And getting the wrong one is a massive frustration!

Spirit Tracks is another fun Zelda romp, with a bunch of new features which are really fun, but there are enough niggling problems in there to keep it from really being awesome. Cool minus.

Trailer

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What do you think about the Zelda Series? Have you played Spirit Tracks? Could you be arsed playing after the Ocean Temple in Phantom Hourglass? Feedback and let us know!

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About The Author

Q-Dog

David Quinn is a writer, artist, film-maker, performer and general all-round-nice-guy who lives and works out of Launceston, Tasmania. He's lived in Tasmania all of his life but is lucky enough to have been to the UK, France, and South Africa in his younger days. He has written short films, co-authored video games, advised on feature scripts and television shows as well as advertising campaigns. He is also a regular performer on both stage and screen. One day he will make his fortune out of all this malarkey. ONE DAY......

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Article Information

  • Posted: Friday, January 22nd, 2010
  • Author: Q-Dog
  • Filed Under: DS, Games, Review

Comments

One Response to “Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks – Game Review”
  1. David Quinn Q-Dog says:

    i really need to find the soundtrack to this game, but not just the n game music, the music used in this trailer is awesome. pan pipes, south american guitars etc. lovely!

    Reply
    January 22, 2010 at 2:27 pm

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