The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (Dsi and DS Lite)

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Release Date: 11/12/2009

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The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks sets hero Link on a daring new adventure. The game provides players with a new story, more puzzles and even a new mode of transportation. In this game, Link voyages by train, which offers up new possibilities for problem-solving. The game has the same look and feel established in the hit Nintendo DS game The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.

The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks on Nintendo DS Features:

Link has a valuable new companion. While navigating dungeons, he’s accompanied by a Phantom, a hulking suit of armor that responds to his commands. Players can tap the Phantom to take command of him, then draw a line on the touch screen to direct him where to go. The stout Phantom can walk through fire or lava, be used as a platform to carry Link above dangers, or even run interference to block Link from harm.
When Link conducts the train, players enjoy a satisfying combination of action and real-time puzzle solving as they determine which track to take and how to best manipulate their speed. When on the train, Link must plot the best route to the end of the line around ever-moving obstacles. While en route, Link might need to fire an onboard cannon at enemies who attack the train or sound the whistle to scare animals off the tracks.
Link uses a variety of new items and weapons, including the Whirlwind, which players activate by blowing into the microphone of the Nintendo DS or Nintendo DSi
As with The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, players can draw notes on the in-game maps using the stylus on the touch screen.

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Zelda: Spirit Tracks Review; Author: James Ashley

Zelda: Spirit Tracks Review ; Author: James Ashley

All aboard!

Link, the hero of Nintendo's Legend of Zelda series of adventure games, used to be content with getting around their crazy pocket universes on foot. Then, on Ocarina of Time on the N64, he got a horse, a few years later in the GameCube's Wind Waker he traded the horse in for a sailboat, which became a paddle steamer in 2007's Phantom Hourglass, the first Zelda for the DS.

This year, in the follow-up to Phantom Hourglass, he's back on dry land again - and he's got his own personal steam train to take him from castle to village to dungeon and back. What next? A sports car? A private jet? A fleet of chauffeured limousines?

Don't worry, though - the brave little boy in green hasn't lost touch with his roots. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is Zelda as it always has been: a charming, complex action-adventure crammed with mysterious secrets, devious puzzles, strange characters, cool toys and epic boss fights. As for the train, it might just be the best thing about it - fulfilling the secret childhood wish to be a train driver that you didn't know you had.

"Crammed with devious puzzles, strange characters and epic bosses"

Branch line

Other than running on rails, Spirit Tracks plays out exactly like Phantom Hourglass did two years ago. It's got bright, cartoony 3D graphics viewed from the top down like the old 2D Zelda games, unless you're travelling the world in the train, when you can move the camera around and watch the scenery fly by, taking pot-shots at monsters with your cannon.

It's controlled completely with the stylus, Link following where you point and interacting with what you tap. It makes full use of the DS' unique features - you can even write on maps and blow into the microphone to play the traditional magical musical instrument, in this case a set of pan pipes, and there's a simple multiplayer battle mode.

Princess Peachy

Like Phantom Hourglass, it's also got a huge central dungeon that connects all the others in the game, called the Spirit Temple, with a little light stealth gameplay as Link sneaks passed the invincible Phantom guards. Don't worry though - the time limit and the need to start from the beginning each time are gone, and you can even possess a Phantom and control it by drawing a route for it on the screen. Or rather, you don't possess it - Princess Zelda does.

Zelda's coming along for the ride this time around, albeit as a ghost. Her body's been kidnapped as a vessel for a terrible demon and naturally you need to get it back, stop the plot to resurrect the demon and restore the Spirit Tracks - the magical railroads - that keep the world in order. This isn't the serious and scary epic drama of Twilight Princess on the Wii, though. It makes a nice change for the Princess to join in the adventure and there's some very cute interplay between her and Link. Is that a note of childhood romance in the air? Aw, bless!

"Although it's a great game for kids, it's not kids' stuff "

High spirits

Demons or no, this isn't the serious and scary high drama of the Wii's Twilight Princess. Spirit Tracks must be the jolliest and cutest Zelda game ever, and puffing around its toytown world by train will make you grin like an idiot and feel like a kid again. Despite the limitations of the DS, the music, sound and colourful, gorgeously animated graphics are top-notch throughout.

Although it's a great game for kids, it's not kids' stuff - there are, as you'd expect from any Zelda, some pretty tricky puzzles - but the difficulty is perfectly balanced. In any case, if you do get stuck on the main adventure, there's always plenty of other things to do: catching rabbits, playing mini-games, taking passengers or cargo around in the train and hunting collectable treasure to swap for custom train cars.

You could criticise Spirit Tracks for being so similar to Phantom Hourglass - or for that matter, to every other Zelda, with its bombs and boomerangs and boss keys - although it's actually a slightly better game. It's nothing original but it's so well-made and bursting with so much charm that it's hard to care, and whilst it might be like any other Zelda game, Zelda games are still unlike anything else.

It's a magical formula, and this year's not-so-secret ingredient - the train - is enough to keep it tasting fresh.