Like Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks is one of those games where you could easily hate if you arent used to unorthodox control scheme. Moving Link, using items and controlling Zelda all on a touchscreen could easily mess anyone up, and it took some getting used to again, but once I adjusted again, I was in for another high quality, finely crafted Zelda game.
The Puzzle design is very similar to Phantom Hourglasses, where a lot of puzzles utilise you making notes and drawing on your map to solve puzzles. Like marking 4 statues on a map and drawing a line of their vision trying to find the intersecting point, stuff like that. Those type of puzzles always gave me a lot of joy to figure out. What makes this different from it's predesassor is Ghost Zelda, which means this is sort of an escort game, but without the annoyance mainly. She's utilised in puzzles extremely well with her different phantom abilities, it was fun. And it gets rid of the Ocean King Tower gimmick of Phantom Hourglass that makes you repeat the same puzzles, instead opting for a similar tower without making you tread through repeated floors on a time limit. The dungeons are decently strong in this game, if not a little short, but they felt perfect difficulty wise. Overworld exploration is a bit weak since it's on rails, but the amazing overworld theme and just enough locations to explore makes it at least passable. I do think in general this game is a bit weak at exploration, it's very linear and there aren't many interesting side activities, while this would've irked me a lot years ago, nowadays when BOTW exists I dont mind linearity in Zelda, especially a handheld title.
I've spoken in length about the gameplay, because thats the most important aspect. But I want to mention how genuinely amazing Zelda is in this game, she is easily the best incarnation of Zelda, it's not even close. She's full of personality, she doesn't feel flat at all. She's always with you, she's extremely important and necessary to the gameplay, her interactions with Link are genuinely sweet and hilarious. And the final duet between her and Link leading her into being a major player in the final boss just elevated her to one of Nintendos finest characters. Easily the number one companion in any Zelda game, it's a damn shame we'll never get a Zelda like her again, instead opting for her to be sealed away, kidnapped or absent most of the time. I really hope when I play TOTK this trend is set aside but I have my doubts. Nintendo, just make her playable at this point I'm begging lol
The Puzzle design is very similar to Phantom Hourglasses, where a lot of puzzles utilise you making notes and drawing on your map to solve puzzles. Like marking 4 statues on a map and drawing a line of their vision trying to find the intersecting point, stuff like that. Those type of puzzles always gave me a lot of joy to figure out. What makes this different from it's predesassor is Ghost Zelda, which means this is sort of an escort game, but without the annoyance mainly. She's utilised in puzzles extremely well with her different phantom abilities, it was fun. And it gets rid of the Ocean King Tower gimmick of Phantom Hourglass that makes you repeat the same puzzles, instead opting for a similar tower without making you tread through repeated floors on a time limit. The dungeons are decently strong in this game, if not a little short, but they felt perfect difficulty wise. Overworld exploration is a bit weak since it's on rails, but the amazing overworld theme and just enough locations to explore makes it at least passable. I do think in general this game is a bit weak at exploration, it's very linear and there aren't many interesting side activities, while this would've irked me a lot years ago, nowadays when BOTW exists I dont mind linearity in Zelda, especially a handheld title.
I've spoken in length about the gameplay, because thats the most important aspect. But I want to mention how genuinely amazing Zelda is in this game, she is easily the best incarnation of Zelda, it's not even close. She's full of personality, she doesn't feel flat at all. She's always with you, she's extremely important and necessary to the gameplay, her interactions with Link are genuinely sweet and hilarious. And the final duet between her and Link leading her into being a major player in the final boss just elevated her to one of Nintendos finest characters. Easily the number one companion in any Zelda game, it's a damn shame we'll never get a Zelda like her again, instead opting for her to be sealed away, kidnapped or absent most of the time. I really hope when I play TOTK this trend is set aside but I have my doubts. Nintendo, just make her playable at this point I'm begging lol