I wish Phantom Hourglass didn't exist and this was the only Zelda DS game.
Firstoff, I actually love the characters in this game, or at least I loved this version of Link and Zelda. Probably the main talking point of this game is that Zelda is actually with you on the entire journey and boy do you feel it. She doesn't have an arc really, but the bond of friendship between her and Link was really cool to see through the story. Her and Link are total goofballs, and her actually having some use in dungeons and the story could at times be pretty creative. Bosses were actually fairly epic, considering the handheld that Spirit Tracks was released on. And I loved the look of the overworld and the mechanic of driving the train, even though I hated fighting things with it. That got annoying quick.
But even though this is an improvement over Phantom Hourglass, it still has a lot of problems. Unfortunately, this game inherited Phantom Hourglass's horrible stylus control mechanic, which means if you really want to enjoy this game you have got to get that DPad patch. Still, it's an imperfect solution because of the fact that controlling Zelda must be done with the stylus, so now you have the added headache of switching off between dpad and stylus movement and as a result some puzzles and dungeons feel like a mess.
By the end of the game, I was getting a little bored too. Not as early as with Phantom Hourglass, but it happened all the same. The late game dungeons have one of the worst gimmicks and items ever (sand rod) and it gets used way too much. Speaking of dungeons, one of the biggest problems aside from the controls that Spirit Tracks inherited from Phantom Hourglass is that damn main dungeon that you have to keep coming back to after every story dungeon is cleared to keep going up more floors. THANKFULLY they removed that annoying ass timer, but having to go back there every time drags the pace of the game down to a crawl and it did not have to be that way.
I think a remake of this game could fix a lot of things: the controls, some of the dungeons could be worked on to be better/faster, and the endgame needs a lot of work, but I think there are positives to see still. This is a game that a Zelda fan should NOT skip over. Skip Phantom Hourglass instead.
Firstoff, I actually love the characters in this game, or at least I loved this version of Link and Zelda. Probably the main talking point of this game is that Zelda is actually with you on the entire journey and boy do you feel it. She doesn't have an arc really, but the bond of friendship between her and Link was really cool to see through the story. Her and Link are total goofballs, and her actually having some use in dungeons and the story could at times be pretty creative. Bosses were actually fairly epic, considering the handheld that Spirit Tracks was released on. And I loved the look of the overworld and the mechanic of driving the train, even though I hated fighting things with it. That got annoying quick.
But even though this is an improvement over Phantom Hourglass, it still has a lot of problems. Unfortunately, this game inherited Phantom Hourglass's horrible stylus control mechanic, which means if you really want to enjoy this game you have got to get that DPad patch. Still, it's an imperfect solution because of the fact that controlling Zelda must be done with the stylus, so now you have the added headache of switching off between dpad and stylus movement and as a result some puzzles and dungeons feel like a mess.
By the end of the game, I was getting a little bored too. Not as early as with Phantom Hourglass, but it happened all the same. The late game dungeons have one of the worst gimmicks and items ever (sand rod) and it gets used way too much. Speaking of dungeons, one of the biggest problems aside from the controls that Spirit Tracks inherited from Phantom Hourglass is that damn main dungeon that you have to keep coming back to after every story dungeon is cleared to keep going up more floors. THANKFULLY they removed that annoying ass timer, but having to go back there every time drags the pace of the game down to a crawl and it did not have to be that way.
I think a remake of this game could fix a lot of things: the controls, some of the dungeons could be worked on to be better/faster, and the endgame needs a lot of work, but I think there are positives to see still. This is a game that a Zelda fan should NOT skip over. Skip Phantom Hourglass instead.