Toronto Thumbs

Review
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

Nintendo’s long-standing franchise, The Legend of Zelda, finds its way onto the DS for a second time, featuring touch-screen and microphone controls, a plethora of puzzles and challenging obstacles, and a good amount of humour, twists, and fun. As expected The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks sees Link on yet another quest to save both the kingdom and Princess Zelda.

However this time around, Link is a budding railroad engineer set to receive his final certification. In a short introduction narrated by Niko (who appeared in both The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass and is now quite old) we learn of an ancient evil Demon King who brought destruction to the land for many years before being defeated by the Spirits of Good. Buried beneath a tower and shackled into place, the Demon King would remain trapped while the good spirits, drained from the battle, left the world to its inhabitants.

Niko’s role of storyteller helps tie the Spirit Tracks storyline to those of the other cel-shaded Legend of Zelda titles, The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass. Link, however, doesn’t stick around too long after this story is told, as he’s off to the Castle on his trusty locomotive to attain his engineer’s certificate. It’s at his graduation ceremony that he and Zelda first cross paths and their adventure together begins.

The princess suspects that the dual hat-wearing Chancellor Cole is up to no good, and convinces Link to put on a recruit uniform (i.e., the iconic green garb) to help her escape the castle by sneaking by its guards. It’s this early activity that allows the player to get accustomed to controlling the two characters in tandem, which is a skill that comes in handy several times and in much trickier situations. Here, though, Link just has to run around distracting guards while Zelda, following a path the player draws, tries to sneak by.

Before long we find Zelda’s suspicions to be warranted. The railway tracks across the land disappear and the tower imprisoning the Demon King is split into smaller parts that then float ominously above its foundation. Chancellor Cole, it turns out, is bent on releasing the Demon King. In a fight the player has no input over, Link is defeated and Zelda’s body is carried off to be used as a corporeal vessel for the Demon King once he’s resurrected. Zelda’s spirit, however, remains. Once Link comes to he embarks on a quest to both rescue the princess’s body and to stop the Demon King though Zelda, understandably, seems more preoccupied with getting her body back than anything else.

To accomplish their quest, Link and Zelda must restore the Spirit Tracks and re-assemble the Tower of Spirits. In good series fashion, this task, though seemingly the main goal of the game is only attainable through smaller missions that contain even smaller quests. Link’s vessel for traversing the realms of the kingdom is his locomotive. To travel to a specific area, a path to it must first be drawn overtop the rail map using the touch screen. The map happens to be in several pieces as well and scattered across the kingdom. So you can’t just commute willy-nilly to any place at any time. At first, only a few towns and other destinations are available, but over the course of the game new areas are opened up almost as fast as characters will assign you odd jobs and side quests.

When plotting a course, one must also be careful to avoid possessed trains that malevolently try to run Link off the rails. Since these engines follow their own paths and can end up in the way, there’s also the option of choosing which track split to take while the train is in motion. By pulling the track switch, one can avoid enemies and make late-minute course adjustments. In some instances environmental conditions will make it so that the map is useless and the player has to plot the course with just the switch as the train’s chugging along.

A separate switch controls the motion of the train and can be set to fast, slow, stop, and reverse. For the most part traveling fast is the best way to get around, but trickier enemies encountered on the rails will sometimes require slowing or even stopping the train to overcome them. The locomotive is also equipped with a steam whistle that, in addition to being a hell of a lot of fun to pull, is helpful to ward off enemies and clear the track of wild animals. It’s also used to help catch rabbits in one of the more absurd yet cute side quests of the game.

Actual destinations along the way include villages, sanctuaries, and temples. Once Link arrives at a destination, he goes in on-foot, and it’s here that The Spirit Tracks truly feels like a Legend of Zelda game. With its ¾ overhead view, it even feels somewhat similar to A Link to the Past at times. Everything in the game is controlled via the stylus, including Link’s actions. Taps elicit short sword strikes, quick slides result in longer swipes, and encircling Link makes him perform his trademark spinning attack. Humorously, performing one too many of these attacks will cause him to get dizzy.

Zelda’s spirit is similarly controlled, albeit by drawn paths instead, in situations where she possesses a Phantom suit of armour. Many of the temples (in this game, they’re synonymous with dungeons in its predecessors) involve this kind of dual character control. As the phantom, Zelda is a powerful force, able to walk through obstacles and fight foes Link cannot. The two can even pair up by having Link jump on the Phantom’s shield, perched atop its head. In this gestalt configuration, Link can reach higher ground and also attack enemies neither he nor the Phantom can take on solo. Having Zelda possess the armour is itself somewhat of a puzzle since its evil spirit must first be knocked out of it, which can only be done once Link finds the appropriate items to power up his sword for a special spirit-purging strike.

This is just one example of the layering of tasks required to complete the story’s milestones. In a way these key moments are like recipes that require a lot of preparation. Some of the sub tasks are fairly simple while others will have Link and Zelda traveling across the land from place to place looking for a particular person or thing to unlock the next area. Upon completion of a temple, a part of the Tower of Spirits reconnects, allowing the adventure to continue to unfold. So it’s in typical fashion for the series that each checkpoint offers a little something new that allows for the completion of the next step of the journey.

Repetition, then, is a necessary evil for getting through the plot. This is nothing new for the franchise. Thankfully the game’s designers have recognized this. Spirit Tracks, like actual train tracks, is linear by nature but offers divergence. In this case, in the form of many different side quests and activities. It’s possible to spend hours simply enjoying the scenery, so to speak. It also helps that traveling by train is enjoyable thanks to enemy encounters, the aforementioned rabbit capturing, and having to keep an eye on the world in case an unmapped destination appears. The train, like Link, gets better and stronger with upgrades as the game progresses, and this in turn helps to make traveling via it a lot more fun.

Failure also plays a huge role Spirit Tracks, though not necessarily thematically. A surprising number of the puzzles, obstacles, and bosses in the game are very challenging and require timing so precise that they’re hard to overcome on first attempt. This results in repetition of another kind: the retry. On more than one occasion I had to fight the urge to close the DS and walk away. But like all good challenges and all skills, practice makes perfect. A chase sequence, navigation problem, or timed trap manoeuvre that initially seems impossible is soon overcome, if only by the skin of Link’s teeth.

Sometimes when puzzles were presented I was reminded of certain puzzles in the Professor Layton series due to the riddle-like delivery from whomever or whatever was assigning them. That note taking is enabled via the touch screen adds to this reminder, and like with the Professor Layton series, puzzles are an integral part to the Spirit Tracks experience.

To help with the problem solving, Link has a few new tools and tricks he can make use of. The Whirlwind item allows Link to summon and send mini twisters in whatever direction he’s facing. Pulling off one of these attacks requires the player to blow into the microphone, which in turn makes the game very uncomfortable to play on public transit, especially for those with self-consciousness issues. If blowing to summon a twister is embarrassing, just imagine trying to inconspicuously play Link’s pan flute (the Spirit Flute) to instigate various mystical forces within the game. The Whirlwind, however, remains an indispensable item as it can move items, redirect attacks, and clear the way of obstacles.

For times when Link is just walking about, the control is very smooth and I found I held the stylus comfortably in a relaxed fashion. When it came time for battle, though, I tended to tense up and as a result not only do poorly against swarms of enemies and bosses, but also strain my hand a number of times. Videogame instructions have always suggested taking breaks at regular intervals but this advice is largely ignored. But for Spirit Tracks, it’s essential. On top of the occasional hand cramp, I would also end up getting my hand in my line of sight when getting too into the game, resulting in most of the screen being obscured. This, though, is easily remedied and more so a drawback of touch-controlled games rather than a fault of this game specifically.

There’s something unquestionably adorable about the cartoon art style of “Toon Link” and, despite being decidedly low-fi in many respects, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks still captures this grand, adventurous, and innocent incarnation of Link quite nicely. He manages to be cute even in the midst of battle, and his battle cries are just as lovable as his smirk. One can’t help but feel a connection to Link and to root for him, and not just because he’s our link to that world.

Music has always played a heavy role in the Zelda franchise, and in Spirit Tracks the magical Spirit Flute is represented not only as the instrument itself, but also within the game’s compositions. The rhythm section drives the up-tempo exploration theme with a heavy helping from the wood instrument. Interestingly, the chugging theme that plays while aboard the train stands well on its own but is given a sense of urgency when the train is traveling at its fastest. The sound of the locomotive also happens to be in such perfect time with this part of the score that it can’t have been a coincidence. The music isn’t all upbeat and happy, however, as there’s plenty of sinister moments in the game with corresponding and fitting moodier pieces.

For a title with such a cutesy façade, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks has a lot of depth to it and is definitely a game that mature players can appreciate. The juxtaposition of the cheery visuals with the more sinister themes (including that of possession) makes for an interesting mash-up. It’s nostalgic both because of its classic game design philosophy and because experiencing the adventure through Link’s eyes evokes a certain feeling of childlike innocence and wonder despite the narrative’s darker undertones. Spirit Tracks is also an adventure that one can spend hours on, especially with the included battle mode wherein up to four players can compete as four different Links (à la Four Swords Adventures) to gather the most Force Gems. While fans of the series will probably take a ride on the Spirit Tracks soon, the game is also an accessible title for new fans to be introduced to the ever-growing Legend of Zelda.

Posted in Awesome, DS, DSi, Features, Reviews |