At the top of the Tower of Spirits, near the altar where Malladus was revived, is the twentieth and final stamp station. After stamping Niko’s book, Link can shoot a pair of eye switches with the Bow of Light to cause the altar to raise up, revealing a staircase down to the final set of floors of the Tower to explore. The Lokomo Sword is already powered up, so there’s no need to go chasing Tears of Light this time. The first two floors (and left half of the third floor) are a series of long, complicated puzzles involving passing Zelda through all four types of Phantom (the basic Phantom comes first; they also know a secret they can tell Phantom Zelda). The only things new here are using the Sand Wand to create a walkway across the sand pits and, as was required to enter the area, using the Bow of Light to fire light arrows at eye switches that can’t be activated by normal arrows.
The ultimate goal of the first set of puzzles is to collect three keys, so the second set of puzzles begins with three locked doors. Behind these locked doors (and down another floor) are three light arrow eye switches, and again, hitting all three requires the three special Phantoms’ powers. This leads to a short gauntlet challenge: Link and Zelda have to fight off metal ChuChus, Stalfos, and Geozard Chiefs. Zelda’s most useful for the ChuChus, although Link can contribute with arrows, bombs, or sword beams. The others Link can smash fairly quickly.
The final test is a room patrolled by all four types of Phantom. Zelda needs to cycle through the three with powers, using the Torch Phantom to light torches, the Warp Phantom to cross a sand pit (Link needs to drag a Phantom Eye across the pit – good thing Zelda’s in the Warp Phantom), and the Wrecker Phantom to stun the normal Phantom and smash a bunch of Armos Statues so Link can get through to the final double door. Through the double door, Link and Zelda find the Compass of Light, which causes the Forest Rail map to glow with new rails: a path leading to a portal to the Dark Realm branches off just before Aboda Village.
Before making the final trip, Link stops in Aboda Village to give Niko the full stamp book. Niko’s extremely grateful and gives Link the second Swordsman’s Scroll, this one teaching the Great Spin Attack. Ferrus also asks Link to seek him out one last time, and gives a treasure as thanks for all Link’s done for him.
That leaves just one last loose end to wrap up before going to the Dark Realm and putting an end to Cole’s plot: the third round of Take ‘Em All On! The first ten challenges in this round include huge groups of easy enemies and still good-sized groups of harder enemies (three Big Blins at once – slightly mitigated, of course, in that Link can make them whack one another with their giant clubs). For the Heatoise battle, Link’s bow is unavailable, so he’s got to go the harder route of luring them into the Winders. Then comes the boss rush: Link fights all five dungeon bosses back-to-back. I had a lot less trouble hitting Cragma’s eye this time and had a better grip of where Skeldritch’s weak points were, so those two bosses were easier than before. Then comes the final battle: Dark Link. Dark Link has a number of sword attacks, and can use bombs and arrows. The two easiest attacks of his to counter are a jumping attack, which leaves him vulnerable for a second after missing, and the bomb, which can be detonated while he’s still holding it over his head. The reward for beating Dark Link is… well, you know, to be honest, the reward is having it done. But Link also gets a rare treasure for his hard work.
The entrance to the Dark Realm is a giant mountain with a swirling black portal hanging overhead. There are six Armored Trains on the rails in the Dark Realm. Also on the rails are Tears of Light, and picking them up with the Spirit Train empowers it to run over the others, and Link can blow the whistle to go superfast. The evil trains run away from the Spirit Train during this sequence as well. The effect is approximately like playing Pac-Man with trains. Four of the six trains are fairly easy to get, but the two patrolling the northeast section are tough. Not helping matters: there’s no obvious Tear of Light to get on the way to that area, and there’s only one in the area itself, and if the Spirit Train loses the Tear of Light powerup, it needs to be right next to the Tear to have a chance to get it before the Armored Trains catch up.
After the Armored Trains are gone, the Demon Train comes to fight the Spirit Train. This battle takes place on four parallel rails, and the Spirit Train can’t completely stop or reverse, just slow down a lot. This phase has three stages, in which Link destroys each car of the Demon Train. Each car has a limited section of rails for Link to work on before the Spirit Train falls off into the abyss, and Link needs to shoot out each car’s weapons. For the final section, after the weapons are destroyed, the Spirit Train rides in front and starts shooting the Demon Train in its face. After a while the Demon Train just stays behind the Spirit Train and tries to ram it to death while Link continues shooting it in the face until it’s forced to stop.
Next: It wouldn’t be a game about trains without a traintop battle, now would it?
