As with most of Nintendo's long standing properties, a new Legend of Zelda game is always treated as a rather large engagement within the gaming community. With the release of Link's last handheld adventure now over two years previous, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is preparing to take control of this holiday season's vacuum of big releases. Fortunately, I got to spend some time with various portions of the game, and I can safely say that it's shaping up to be another solid, if not entirely neoteric, entry in Nintendo's classic series.
The demo I played was split into three different portions, each sampling an alternate feature of the game - the dungeon crawling, boss fights, and the train traversing. To start things off, let's get this out of the way: the steam train that is featured as the main mode of transportation in Spirit Tracks, at least from what I experienced, is nearly identical to the boat from Phantom Hourglass, Link's last DS adventure. Though you are on rails, the overworld element is essentially the same; you travel from place to place on the train, using an accelerator that is touch based, as well as an admittedly cool steam whistle. The train will be equipped with a cannon of some kind, keeping you safe from the various baddies that are mucking about in the map. The sections of the demo were disconnected from one another, so it was unclear as to how the game will be tied together using the train tracks, but the mechanics of the feature were clear and very familiar.
The meat and potatoes of a Zelda game is always the puzzle intensive dungeon crawling, and the new game looks to freshen that up a bit with the ability to control a Phantom, the large invincible enemies introduced in Phantom Hourglass. By doing so, the game presents new puzzle challenges, as the Phantoms are immune to things like lava and spikes, and can shield or carry Link across such obstacles. Controlling two characters to solve puzzles is not a new element for Zelda either, but the implementation on the DS touch screen is what makes the Spirit Tracks experience unique. The HUD is essentially identical to that of Phantom Hourglass, but offers two new buttons on the left side of the screen, one to automatically jump the camera view to the Phantom's location, should you get separated, and one to call him to your current location. The Phantom himself has an icon by his feet that you can tap with the DS stylus in order to draw a path for him to follow, leading him through lava, onto a switch, or across a flaming platform, clearing a path for Link. You can also tap an object or enemy along the Phantom's path so that he will attack it.
