Beating every Zelda in timeline order 10/20:
Spirit Tracks is a direct improvement to Phantom Hourglass in almost every way, but not by too much. The dungeons are more substantial, the music is stronger and the story is more compelling (and Linebeck III is here). I love the concept and feel of this world. Chugging around in the train, at a base level, feels great. I love to choo choo and go fast! It doesn’t take advantage of the DS nearly as much as its predecessor barring excessive use of the microphone to blow. Overall, it still ends up feeling a little bit meager as a Zelda game. The Tower of Spirits, while having some of the best puzzles in the game, require you to use Zelda. She ends up being a really interesting puzzle mechanic in some places while most of the time she made the dungeon drag with how slow she controls. The train is probably technically better than Phantom Hourglass’s boat, but it takes far too long to traverse the world, especially when you’re retreading the same tracks over and over. Any shortcuts must be unlocked through delivering people or materials in a sidequest. The sidequests? Not fun.
While I do overall enjoy Spirit Tracks more than its DS counterpart, it’s more about that it has a clearly defined identity than anything spectacular it does gameplay-wise.
Spirit Tracks is a direct improvement to Phantom Hourglass in almost every way, but not by too much. The dungeons are more substantial, the music is stronger and the story is more compelling (and Linebeck III is here). I love the concept and feel of this world. Chugging around in the train, at a base level, feels great. I love to choo choo and go fast! It doesn’t take advantage of the DS nearly as much as its predecessor barring excessive use of the microphone to blow. Overall, it still ends up feeling a little bit meager as a Zelda game. The Tower of Spirits, while having some of the best puzzles in the game, require you to use Zelda. She ends up being a really interesting puzzle mechanic in some places while most of the time she made the dungeon drag with how slow she controls. The train is probably technically better than Phantom Hourglass’s boat, but it takes far too long to traverse the world, especially when you’re retreading the same tracks over and over. Any shortcuts must be unlocked through delivering people or materials in a sidequest. The sidequests? Not fun.
While I do overall enjoy Spirit Tracks more than its DS counterpart, it’s more about that it has a clearly defined identity than anything spectacular it does gameplay-wise.