Spirit Tracks: The Good and The Bad (possible spoilers)

[Fishalicious]

So, for those of you who have Spirit Tracks, what are your opinions on it? Anything you love? Anything you hate?

Personally, I am a huge fan of the reappearance of some of my favourite Zelda enemies. Namely the wolfos and old-style floormasters, though the latter made me cry like a little girl in the forest temple. I also really like the train, regardless of what other people say about it.

Also, the bunny hunting is ridiculously fun, I never realised I could have so much fun blowing up rocks and chasing rabbits in a Zelda game. Currently have 3/10 Grass Bunnies, 3/10 Snow Bunnies and 6/10 Ocean Bunnies.

Actually, all of the side quest-esque things are really fun- Niko's stampbook, bunny catching,

When it comes to things I hate, see above. Though I also seem to be having a problem playing the spirit pipes and using the cyclone weapon- I've had a cough and so it makes it pretty hard to beat core moments of the game. I think this may have been because I was playing it while riding in a car with the windows down, though!

[Hi no Seijin]

zomg, those damn demon trains!

Love how stopping the train isn't automatic.  It slows down first; nice touch of realism there.

[DW]

The fact that you can't drive like a maniac with passengers is nice, too. They've made a really, really thorough game here, it's fantastic.

Bunny-wise, I've got 4/10 grass, 7/10 snow, and 6/10 ocean. I careen around the tracks ALL DAY looking for them.

[Darth Wyndisis]

I've only played the game for about an hour so far, but I have to say I am impressed with it.  The only thing I don't like is it's hard to draw a path for Zelda using the stylus.  They should have made it so you can't draw a path through walls.

[DW]

Mh, drawing a path through walls becomes necessary later on though, though I suppose they could have found another way to do it.

[Hi no Seijin]

Unless, you know, she's a Warp Phantom.

I hate transporting passengers and cargo (with the cargo, I'm just not too thrilled with traveling long distances and having to remember where warp gates are and where they lead to; I lost cargo because I tried to survive a lengthy trip through the Forest Realm and couldn't drive off a spider in time).  With passengers, they could at least have the decency to hold off enemy attacks near sign posts so I can see what instructions I have to follow; I lost a passenger today because I missed a sign or two while trying to hold off a group of enemies.

[MagmarFire]

If you have trouble remembering where the warp gates are, just write their locations on your railmap. It helps me out. Also, it helps if you come to a stop or simply slow down your train when you're fighting enemies while carrying passengers; you won't have to worry about signs there.

Anyway, I just beat the game. I can honestly say that I liked this more than I did Phantom Hourglass, but I think that's to be expected when Nintendo ironed out many of the wrinkles from the original game (W00t for no repetition in the Tower of Spirits!) and figured out cleverer puzzles. I am impressed with this game.

The story is good, and I'm glad that its connection to Phantom Hourglass and The Wind Waker is more concrete this time around. MIKO (or however the heck you spell it) AND LINEBECK('s descendant) MAKE AN APPEARANCE! ^______^ In other games, the plots and characters are just referenced offhandedly like they're mere stories without great influence, but in this game, this isn't the case. kamakaziplumber, I really agree with you now how this game is a close sequel to Phantom Hourglass.

The train mechanic, though strangely alien, is a unique and fun concept! There were times I just wanted to beat the dungeon I was on and explore the overworld, giving me an excuse to drive it. XD Really fun. I also liked how as you go through the game, more tracks get unlocked, giving you access to new exploration areas and stations. I think rabbit catching is fun, too, as Fisk said previously--even if I sometimes want to strangle them for getting away from me after the ten-second time limit.

The final boss battle against Malladus is sweet. They obviously had to put a battle in against the Demon Train while on train, right? I wouldn't have had it any other way. That's what Link was trained for (pun not intended)!

I'm glad they made Malladus harder than Bellum. Bellum was rather disappointing in that regard (for that matter, almost the entirety of Phantom Hourglass was disappointing in that regard...). I actually went to get potions! To use! In battle! And I died a few times before I got the hang of his forms! Now that's how Nintendo should develop final bosses.

The atmosphere of his final form was pretty epic and moving, too. Zelda and Link, teaming up one final time against the Demon King, a battle remix of the game's main theme playing in the background. Truly marvelous. Many props to the music team this time around! Toru Minegishi, you've done it again! But I must say that I'm glad Koji Kondo helped this time around, even if he may have just been a supervisor like he was in Twilight Princess. Just his name being mentioned in the credits was great.

Unfortunately, this game wasn't perfect, and a couple of things in the game bugged me.

Firstly, the story, while quite good, could've been approached in a different way, in my opinion. I think it's getting to a point where the stories are getting too predictable; too much information is given early in the game. Malladus's backstory? It was revealed to us at the very beginning! Part of my personal appeal of game stories like that in Kingdom Hearts is that there's "cheese hanging from a stick" when it comes to the plot; we have more drive to go forward because there's more unrevealed plot ahead of us. Here, as it is with many Zelda games as of late, the stick is too long: We need to play through most of the game to have more of the plot unfold. This approach is detrimental to the story because then Nintendo's giving itself too little time to put in any interesting twists or developments in general for it overall. I mean, wow, who could've guessed that Chancellor Cole and Malladus would be the primary antagonists of the game? Epic plot twist! You knew their motives and identities almost from the get-go. In short, I think that's making the stories in the series too predictable.

I also wished that Byrne got more screentime in general. He is seriously one of my favorite characters in the game--rather mysterious, level-headed, and so completely BA. Good character, indeed. I was pretty sad that he had to pass on at the end in a heroic sacrifice, but seriously, it's about time we had a character death in the franchise. That was just the emotional torque that the series needed, and it's also what I still crave for in a Zelda game. Here's hoping that Zelda Wii gives us more of that torque!

My sadness over Byrne's death, though, was severely limited, as I am pretty disappointed to admit. I feel I didn't know him well enough and connect with him on a deeper level well enough to feel the sadness I really should've felt over his death. Had we seen him more often, like maybe in a few flashbacks, because we know from the game that he was an apprentice of Anjean's, I think it would've been different.

I love how they handled it, on the other hand. Even though my sadness was greatly limited, I still cried (quietly, due to my sleeping mother), "NOOOO!!!" when he disappeared from existence. And after Malladus's defeat, they touched base on it: Zelda felt guilty over it, but Anjean assured her: "He wouldn't have had it any other way." And before she parted ways with the princess and our hero, she also gave us a glimmer of hope by saying that while he won't remember the events that ensued, he'll still live in a future life.

And then she parted from them, the tiny sensation of a tear teasing me to be formed.

The second thing that bugged me. Enemy difficulty. Yeah, I know, Spirit Tracks is a little harder than Phantom Hourglass, and I got a fair greater number of HP-related game overs in the former than the latter, but still, some of the damage the enemies give you is simply ridiculous. As per Phantom Hourglass, most of the damage given to you, including bosses, would be around a quarter of a heart to half. Uh, hello? Bosses are HUGE? Aren't they supposed to give you, like, I don't know, whole hearts' worth of damage sometimes? Farther on into the game, aren't the enemies supposed to be stronger? I know there's this one enemy that deals a heart worth of damage per hit, but that's probably the strongest there is. Moreover, Nintendo's, once again, too generous with the hearts. You can get them anywhere, even though they should probably be rarer. If we don't have tough enemies, we should at least have it so there aren't a lot of hearts to get us back on track. Eventually, Link's life energy would have to reach dangerous lows. However, that's not the case: Enemies are too weak (and they do hold back a lot on their attacks; "Hey, man, are you gonna attack me? Because I don't want to attack you if you're not gonna--OHCRAPONEHITI'MDEAD!"), and hearts are too readily available.

An example? When you're fighting the pirates from your train when you're trying to make your way to the Ocean Realm. You have a bunch of the pirates attack you, and you have to defend your passenger, right? After you defeat enough of them, their leader will take you on himself. HE'S HUGE! He moves slowly, and his attacks are really slow, so clearly he deals a bunch of damage.

"Oh, no! He's moving closer! I gotta stop him before he reaches my passenger!

"Okay, closer, closer... No, he's too close! Die! Die! Die! DIE! Oh, no, he's raising his arm to attack! ...It's too late! This is gonna hurt...! *braces for impact and gets hit*

"...A half of a heart? WHAT THE HECK!?"

So yeah. Nintendo, you still need to improve on the enemy difficulty. You give us two slots for potions, but why should we use them if enemies are too big of pansies to attack me frequently and are too weak to deal massive damage and if hearts pop out of pots, grass, and enemies like dandelions? Bring the difficulty back! DX

tl;dr: Great game. Train mechanic, though strange, is cool. Final boss is great. Story's a bit too predictable. GIVE US THE DAMAGE, NINTENDO!

That is all.

[DW]

I just got all 10 grass rabbits, with 8 Snow and 7 Ocean. I haven't even FOUND any of the other two yet. I've been too busy collecting Force Gems...The sidequests are so crazily engaging.

Also, what I do with the gates is label corresponding pairs. Right now I have pair f, f', x, and x'.

[Hi no Seijin]

Once you hit the crystal above the warp gates, can you blow the whistle to open it even if there isn't a crystal above the gate?  I haven't found myself in a position to find that out yet.

OMG.  I don't know what it is with me and rabbits in Nintendo games lately.  Those bunny enemies in FFTA2 are a pain to KO, and these bunnies in Spirit Tracks are a pain to catch, especially the rabbit on the way to Snowdrift Station.  (Just in case you don't want to know where to find the rabbits.)

[MagmarFire]

I don't think so. If there's a yellow crystal above it, that means that the gate's unlocked. If there isn't a crystal at all, that means that the gate's sibling still needs to be blasted.

[Hi no Seijin]

Oh, hey, guys, the Good.  Play the Song of Birds around a dove or two; one of them will fly up and sit on Link's head.

[MagmarFire]

^ Oh, I love that! Excellent attention to detail on Nintendo's part!

[ZeldaFreak]

Ok I just beat the game today. I have to admit, throughout the whole game I was getting more and more bored with it, and I had to painfully force myself through the last dungeon. The only thing that made it fun for me was that it was, in fact, a Zelda game. Finding connections to PH made it a little more intresting for me, but to be honest, I'm getting tired of toon Link. However, I have to agree with magmarfire about the final boss battle. It made the game worth it. It was sooooo much better than PH. If you havent played it yet, you are missing out. The game overall was eh, with the exception of the ending of course. One of the best boss battles yet for sure!

[violinist]

I liked it for the most part, but I refuse to do my tradition of replaying the games as soon as I beat them, mainly because of the freakin Spirit Tower. I actually prefer the Temple of the Ocean King. It was more predictable. I didn't like being trapped in the Tower for an hour and a half, frantically trying to find the Compass of Light. I also wasn't a fan of the Spirit Flute, but I can get over that. It's just... No Spirit Tower ever again. Please. The dungeons were kind of lame, so were the enemies. I second MagmarFire completely on that one.

I did love some of it though. The train was cool. Zelda finally got a distinct personality. The Link-Phantom Zelda puzzles were pretty fun, but annoying sometimes. I liked the trains, and the realistic rules for when carrying passengers. Also Byrne. He was awesome.

All in all, it gets 7/10 for me, and I will not do it again. If I do, it will be for Zelda and Byrne.

[The Glamour Nazi]

Guys, I have a really big question pertaining to me getting the game. If it's the answer I want I'll go out and buy the game as soon as I have the money, Here is the question.

Does it use the L and R buttons to any extent necessary to play the game. If it does then I'm not gonna get it. My Zelda DS has it's L and R buttons broken and I'm not trading it in mainly cause it's a collectors Item.