As the Spirit Train pulls out of the Tower, it’s attacked by a couple Bullbos [1]. Unlike the Moinks, they’re not deterred by the train’s whistle, forcing an unplanned stop in Castle Town for repairs [2]. Upon arrival, Link has a letter from Alfonso, who’s recovered enough that he’s ready to go back to Aboda Village. Talking to Link about the quest, he says that the rails are going to get unsafe quickly, and he has an idea for an upgrade.
After the return trip to Aboda, Alfonso leaves to take some time to work on the Spirit Train. Link heads to his home to say hi to Niko. Link’s palace guard disguise reminds Niko of the older Link, which reminds Niko of a favor he wanted to ask. Back when he was younger, Niko enjoyed traveling the world, and places across New Hyrule have stations with stamps to record travels. Niko loved the stamps, but only got a book to collect them in after he settled down. He gives the book to Link and asks him to collect stamps for him. Up until now I didn’t realize how much I liked Niko, but something about this scene, and his bond with both Links he’s known, clicked.
When Link returns to the train station, Alfonso wheels the Spirit Train out from the trainhouse. He’s added a new car to the train – a cannon. With the cannon, Link can blow through boulders and hostile wildlife, and shooting the Dark Trains enough disables them for a few moments. It can also destroy boulders along the tracks, or the road warning signs that Link ignores anyway. (Shooting Moinks is a bad idea – they’ll clear off peacefully to the whistle, but they’re pretty well invincible and will retaliate if fired at. So they’re rail cuccos.)
There are four stamps Link can get right now. The first is in Aboda Village. (In fairness to Niko, I’m going to assume he’d rather have an empty book than one with just the stamp from his home village.) Then in Whittleton, in a separate area to the north. Whittleton has a bunch of leaves scattered around, and Link can blow them away to farm treasures. Number three is at the forest sanctuary, and the last one is in the Forest Temple, buried under a bunch of the poison gas.
To make sure Link gets the cannon before heading to the Snow Realm, there’s a rockslide covering the tracks to the west, and Link has to blast his way through. Not long after, he comes to an unmarked station called Rabbitland Rescue. Zelda sums it up: “Well, this is an odd place.” There’s lots of room for rabbits, but only a couple hanging around the area’s human inhabitant, Bunnio. Bunnio wears a black rabbit hood, a T-shirt about three sizes too small, and a bunny tail. He’s also got a large pair of front teeth that I’m assuming are fake, but I don’t know.
Bunnio gives Link a net to catch rabbits he sees while driving around the Spirit Tracks. To catch them, he’ll first need to make sure they’re there by blowing the whistle, then gently lure them out of hiding by blasting the rock they’re hiding behind with the cannon. Then there’s a short window of the rabbit hopping around and Link trying to catch it in the net before the rabbit hops off and escapes. This game took a long time for me to get the hang of because there’s a fairly significant delay between poking the screen and the net falling, so I had to guess where the rabbit was going, and I was trying to catch it where it was instead. The second complication is for some reason there seemed to be a small offset between where I was poking and where the net actually fell. Anyway, I found four rabbits along the currently available tracks in the Forest Realm, including one up by the Forest Temple that would have been nice to get the same trip up there for the stamp, but oh, well.
Next: Quick travel (allegedly), Anouki logic puzzles, giant monsters, evil snowmen, and another fire/ice boss.
[1] The proper name for the Bulblins’ boar mounts in Twilight Princess. I just never bothered to check if they had smeerp names.
[2] How does this work? In Phantom Hourglass, Linebeck stayed with the ship to patch it up while Link went and quested, but the only permanent guest Link has is a ghost who comes with him. It works for Castle Town, which probably has a repair service, but I’ve got to scratch my head at Rabbitland.
