Spirit Tracks: Malladus

In the passenger car, Link, Zelda, Anjean, and Byrne prepare for the final battle. Anjean wants to come to help, but she’s still injured, so Byrne, barely holding together himself, volunteers. Link and Zelda look at each other and wordlessly agree that the two of them will be fine on their own. Anjean agrees to this, and creates a Phantom for Zelda to use. As Link and Zelda prepare to leave, Zelda asks Link what he plans to do after everything’s finished. Link can say he’ll go back to being an engineer, stay a warrior, or that he doesn’t know. The two of them climb atop the demon train, and Malladus awakens to begin the final battle.

The first phase of the battle has Zelda marching toward Malladus. Complicating matters is Cole, who summons rats, which brings Zelda to a stop. If one of them touches the Phantom, Cole takes control of it until Link can break his strings. (It’s easiest to use the boomerang for this. On my first run I did it with sword, which put Link in the Phantom’s range. That hurt, a lot.) Halfway up, Malladus begins shooting a laser attack that Link has to hide behind the Phantom to avoid. Finally, Zelda gets close enough to Malladus to grab a hold and restrain him until Link can shoot him with a light arrow and drive him out of Zelda’s body.

As Malladus loses his grip on Zelda’s body, Cole flees, and Zelda tells Link to do the same. Link instead runs toward Zelda, but then the Demon Train explodes. Link comes to in time to see Malladus’ spirit driven out of Zelda’s body, and Zelda immediately flies toward it… and through. Repeatedly. Cole yells for Malladus to hurry up, and just as he’s about to reclaim Zelda’s body, he’s stopped by Byrne. Byrne tells Zelda to focus, and Zelda prays to Tetra for a blessing, and finally returns to her body. Link runs to catch her, and the hero’s theme plays… only to stop abruptly when Zelda lands on his head. Zelda doesn’t seem to mind the rough landing too much, because it means she’s back, and she gives Link a hug.

The nice moment is interrupted as Malladus destroys Byrne for his interference. Cole starts encouraging Malladus to drive Zelda from her body again and retake it, but Malladus decides to claim Cole’s instead. The form he assumes calls pig demon Ganon to mind, but he says Cole’s rejecting his spirit. He doesn’t have much time… but he can do some damage before he fades.

The second phase of the Malladus battle has Zelda charging up her power while Malladus spits fireballs at her. Link needs to deflect them… and now, after two games of generally getting along with the touchscreen controls, is when that skill abandoned me. Deflecting the fireballs often drops hearts, and I had two potions (plus the Song of Healing, which I assume would work here, if I actually remembered it), so I was never in any real danger of dying, but it took me an hour to get through this without the game interpreting what was meant as a slash as wanting to run into the fireball (bad) or roll out of the way so it can hit Zelda (also bad). Oddly, the times when Malladus spits out a bunch of fireballs that need to be deflected with a spin attack were never so hard.

Once Zelda’s charged up, she and Link play a Lokomo duet of the game’s title theme – her singing, Link playing the Spirit Flute. The tune is five notes and has two jumps, so it was a little tricky, but I got it faster than blocking the fireballs. Once it clicks, they’re joined by the five sages from the sanctuaries. This causes a weak spot to appear on Malladus’ back, starting the final phase: Link gives the bow to Zelda and distracts Malladus so she can shoot him in the weak spot. Every now and then, Malladus collapses, and Link can whack him until he breaks off a horn. The third time, Link instead starts pushing the Lokomo Sword into a gem on Malladus’ head, and Zelda comes over to help. Eventually, the gem breaks, and the demon king is no more.

With Malladus gone, light breaks. Anjean comes out of the Spirit Train, and knows that Byrne’s sacrifice is what he wanted… and pulls together his spirit so he can eventually reincarnate. However, after seeing what Link and Zelda are capable of, she knows the Lokomos can leave the world in their care, and the two start fading off into the heavens, joined by the other five sages. As Link and Zelda watch them go, they join hands.

The credits show, in illustrations, life returning to normal in New Hyrule. Highlights are Zelda returning to the castle and reuniting with Teacher, Niko telling the Spirit Tracks story to Aboda’s children, and a final illustration from the game’s title sequence of Link driving the Spirit Train while Zelda flies alongside it, revealed to be a picture on Zelda’s desk. As she works, if Link knew what he wanted to do when peace returned, she hears a sound from the window – a train whistle for engineer, or swords ringing against each other for warrior. She runs over to the window to wave (if Link’s training, the sounds indicate he gets distracted and knocked down). If Link said he didn’t know what he was going to do next, Zelda simply looks out the window and smiles [1].

Spirit Tracks took Phantom Hourglass and refined it, fixing my two big problems – mostly bland dungeons and a disappointing soundtrack. I liked the Temple of the Ocean King, but the Tower of Spirits worked well, too. On the other hand, I think this game made me mad at it more than any other – dodging the demon trains got old, and the new treasure system (with some things made annoyingly rare to encourage trade) is a mess. But what I think stands out the most for me about this game is Zelda finally taking a central role in the series named for her, easily becoming my favorite version of the character yet.

[1] Seeing all three endings requires doing the whole Malladus fight three times. Thankfully, I had a much easier time with the fireballs the next two tries. I think I let my frustration get inside my head the first time.

Spirit Tracks: Compass of Light

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?

Spirit Tracks: Ends of the Earth

Malladus’ spirit is in Zelda’s body, leaving Link a limited amount of time to drive him out before he figures out what he’s doing and becomes unstoppable. So, in the grand tradition of heroes that, to be fair, extend far and wide beyond the Zelda series, Link decides to blow off the final stages of the quest to wrap up sidequests. The first stop is back at the Sand Sanctuary, where Rael wants to study the cuccos’ defensive abilities, so he asks Link to bring him some from the castle. After the quest is completed, the cuccos wander around the sanctuary, and Link can grab one to glide over to the stamp station.

Bringing cuccos to Rael also gives another Force Gem, this one unlocking rails in the northeast corner of the Fire Realm. The last mountain rabbit is here, as well as the Ends of the Earth Station. This station has three caves, each with a series of rolling block puzzles. The first set (“Brainteaser”) is about as hard as the ones in the Sand Temple and rewards a rare treasure and 100 rupees for completion. The second set (“Braintwister”) is a bit tougher – there are multiple blocks with limited room to maneuver, so careful planning is required, and sometimes moving a completed block off its square. The reward is the final heart container and another 100 rupees. The final set is called “Brainmasher,” and… yeah. Each puzzle has three blocks and very little room; the last one just has the three starting spaces and three ending spaces. The reward for this one is a Regal Ring that he gets to keep, plus another 100 rupees.

Ferrus has sent Link another letter, asking to be picked up again. This time he’s in the Fire Realm and wants to sea the underwater rails. Fortunately, the evil trains are gone from underwater, leaving Link just the occasional Octorok to deal with. (I wonder if Ferrus would really leave the train underwater if things went badly enough? On the one hand, it doesn’t seem like the smartest idea, but on the other, it doesn’t look like it’s that far to the surface, so if he can swim, he’d probably make it. Also, he’s sharing the passenger car with Anjean and Byrne, which should blow his mind, but he sadly never comments.) Ferrus is delighted to see the Ocean Temple, which earns Link another Force Gem, unlocking rails connecting the eastern Fire Realm with the area around the Sand Temple.

The new tracks lead through a tunnel to a Dark Ore Mine. Linebeck had mentioned wanting Dark Ore, so Link buys some to haul down there. It disappears in the sun, and there’s exactly one path using tunnels and warp gates that’s fast enough to get it there before too much melts. That path leads back through the tunnel Link came through to reach the mine in the first place, and when entering from the direction of the Dark Ore Mine, it’s guarded by a Rocktite. This one has the same eye-closed approach that the big eye in the shadows did, and the Tektites in the tunnel don’t stop coming just cause the big one’s awake now. Link can only take one hit without losing too much ore. The mercy is that, once the Rocktite is killed, it doesn’t come back, so Link can try again and only have to fend off Tektites. The Force Gem reward opens a loop in the southeast corner of the Ocean Realm.

The final Ocean rabbit, and the 50th and final rabbit overall, is found near the new tracks, and there’s another station in the area, the Lost at Sea Station. Here, in a cave indicated by a laser beacon and blown open with a bomb, Link finds a gossip stone saying there’s a special temple. The temple is protected by Phantoms, and inside, Link can’t use his sword or bow (so Zelda can’t take over a Phantom to help out). Each floor of the temple has a special challenge. First, Link needs to evade normal Phantoms and light torches. The second floor has Torch Phantoms, and Link needs to blow out all the torches. This is probably the hardest floor, because there’s no map. (Thankfully, the Phantoms don’t relight torches already blown out.) The third floor has Warp Phantoms, Phantom Eyes, and paired fish heads that Link needs to pull the right cord of or more Phantom Eyes show up. The fourth floor has a bunch of walls to blow up and Wrecker Phantoms to help if Link can’t do it himself. On the last floor, there’s one Phantom of each type, and all Link needs to do is slip by them and grab their treasures. The final reward is a second Regal Ring.

Link now has enough ultra-rare treasure to buy the four Golden Train cars; this is when I farmed all the treasure I needed to unlock all the trains. This was done through a mixture of minigames (useful for the ones that drop fairly often), manipulating the DS’ clock date and checking stores, and mailing in Prize Postcards (a vast improvement from Phantom Hourglass – they can be bought in the Castle Town store, Link can mail up to 20 a day, and winning actually gives a prize, usually the first prize which is a rare or ultra-rare treasure). Also, with all fifty rabbits caught, in addition to the treasure awarded for each complete subset, Link is awarded a Swordsman’s Scroll which teaches him to shoot sword beams at full health.

Next: Waka waka waka waka.

Spirit Tracks: Rael

Zelda is understandably upset now that Malladus is inhabiting her body and yells after the Demon Train, but Anjean arrives, saying it’s too late. She’s clearly injured from her fight with Byrne, but not dead. Link, Zelda, Anjean and the unconscious Byrne relocate to the Spirit Train, where they discuss their next moves. Anjean says if Malladus is able to fully adapt to being in Zelda’s body, the Spirits would be powerless against him. Fortunately, there’s a weapon that might be able to drive Malladus out of Zelda’s body: the Bow of Light. Anjean’s not sure Zelda’s spirit would be able to reenter her body, which worries Zelda further, but Link’s optimism calms her down. The Bow of Light is located in the Sand Temple, guarded by the last Lokomo, Rael. Zelda asks Anjean to make sure Byrne stays unharmed, because she wants to deal with him herself. (Byrne’s eyes open, showing he’s not as unconscious as he seems, while Zelda continues shadowboxing in the background.) Anjean gives Link and Zelda a Force Gem restoring the tracks to the Sand Sanctuary.

In the Sand Realm (the northern part of the ocean map and southern part of the fire map), the enemies are Sand Gyorgs – sharks that jump out of the sand to attack the Spirit Train. They can be startled out of the sand with the train whistle, then blasted with the cannon. They’re incredibly persistent, which makes hunting the four rabbits in the area complicated. At the Sand Sanctuary, a tablet tells visitors to find the entrance to the sanctuary by “blasting where the gazes of the big statues meet.” There are no statues at the sanctuary, but there were four railside in the Sand Realm. The stone roads at the sanctuary mirror the tracks in the surrounding area, and the rays starting from the corresponding locations of the four heads and heading in the direction they were facing intersect at a common point. This is where Link needs to blast.

After the duet restores the path to the Sand Temple, Rael explains what challenges await along the way. First, “the big eye that looms in the shadows,” then “twisted tunnels,” and finally the “impenetrable temple.” As the train approaches a tunnel linking the two maps the Sand Realm spans, Zelda wonders what the big eye could possibly be, and of course it’s another Rocktite. Sometimes this one comes at the train with its eye closed, and Link’s got to blast a barrel to get it open again. Otherwise, this is the same as the first Rocktite fight. The twisted tunnels are, as that name implies, a series of short rails connected by tunnels that don’t seem to make sense in how they connect. Finally, the temple itself is surrounded by cannons that Link needs to shoot out before he can enter. Along the way, there are the final five desert rabbits, plus a warp gate between the rails near the Sand Temple and the rails near the Sand Sanctuary.

The first goal of the dungeon is dodging boulders, rolling spike traps, and Gerunes (enemies made of living sand), plus fighting off a bunch of Stalfos, on the way to the dungeon’s treasure item, the one I knew was in the game somewhere, the Sand Rod. The Sand Rod can raise blocks over sandy areas, and this one simple ability gets a lot of diverse uses: giving Link a lift to reach higher surfaces or a walkway across quicksand, blocking the rolling spike traps (sometimes so Link can walk on them), popping up under object to push them where Link wants them, pulling Ergtoroks (sand Octives) out of the sand so Link can attack them, and digging up objects (which includes the Boss Key). As for the Gerunes, the Sand Rod causes them to harden so Link can smash them with his sword or use them as blocks to hold floor switches down. Rolling block puzzles reappear here, with the blocks having spikes on the faces and corresponding holes that the spiked faces need to go face-down on. As is customary, there’s a stamp station.

The boss is Skeldritch, Ancient Demon, a giant skull atop a totem pole of vertebrae. In the first phase, it has two attacks: shooting rocks from its base, and a laser beam from its eyes. Nothing can be done against the laser beam, but the rocks can be trapped with the Sand Rod, then loaded into cannons and fired back at it, destroying one of the vertebrae. After the first two, the vertebrae are armored against attacks from certain directions, so after Link loads a cannon, he needs to move so that when Skeldritch turns to face him, the armor’s gap faces the cannon, the shoot the crystal switch activating the cannon with an arrow. Further complicating things, as Skeldritch loses vertebrae, it shoots out more rocks, and they’ll pulverize each other, so it becomes trickier to catch and load them. Once the last vertebra is gone, Skeldritch falls over, losing its helmet, revealing the crystal top. Link needs to use the Sand Rod to surround the skull, raise himself up, and pound the crystal until Skeldritch is destroyed.

Once Skeldritch is gone, a staircase opens up to the basement where the Bow of Light is kept. Link and Zelda return to the Spirit Train, where Zelda’s excited, ready to face Malladus… only Anjean can’t locate him. (The bad news sends Zelda tumbling to the floor. Seriously, this game.) Byrne pipes up, saying there’s more levels of the Tower of Spirits, and in those levels is the Compass of Light, which he created to locate the Demon Train for Cole, and now can be used against him. Anjean has a final gift for Link: The Lokomo Sword (which, like the Phantom Sword, resembles the Master Sword, only the guard is the Lokomo symbol), already powered up to deal with the Phantoms. Well, that would have been useful. Why wait till now to give it to him? [1]

Next: Time is short, so let’s do a bunch of hard sidequests.

[1] Maybe it was depowered until Link restored the four temples. Or she kept it for her fight with Byrne. I can think of a few reasons, but I wish one was actually cited in-game.

Spirit Tracks: Wrecking Ball

The recently opened Spirit Tracks have two stations. The first, Disorientation Station is way up in the northwest corner of the Fire Realm. From the station, Zelda sees a castle guard and wonder what brought him all the way out here. When Link gets close to the guard, the guard asks him the same question. Link turns the question back around, and the guard explains he came out treasure hunting with a friend. They got separated when the guard ran from a plant monster, and Zelda’s not impressed with him. To be fair, the guard isn’t holding himself in high regard right now, either, and asks Link to poke around in the caves to find out what happened. The caves are a maze of similar-looking rooms, so it’s easy to get lost, which seems to have been the guard’s fate. He left a stone saying he was going to die in the maze and apologizing for his plot to claim the treasure himself. There’s no body, but the treasure is still there, so he didn’t abscond with it. The treasure, an Alchemy Stone, is guarded by a Fire Baba, presumably the plant monster that split the guard and his friend. The guard’s grateful to know about his friend’s fate and final message, and not only lets Link keep the Stone but gives him 100 rupees on top of it.

The second new station is on the east side of the Ocean Realm. This station is a pirate hideout, and there’s a stamp station here, of all places. Inside the actual hideout, Link discovers a man who’s been kidnapped by the pirates. Rescuing him involves an archery minigame in three phases. In the first, Miniblins run in front of the cage and try to capture Link while he shoots them with arrows. Once that’s done, Link and the man jump in a minecart for a ride to safety while Miniblins ride up in their own carts. As they near the exit, the final phase begins, with the goal of taking down the Big Blin guarding the exit before Link gets in range of its club.

The man talks a girlfriend in Papuchia Village and asks Link to take him back to her. The pirates make a last-ditch attempt at retrieving the man, including a tougher-than-usual ship, and delivers the man safely to his waiting gi… eesh, this is awkward. Yeah, she’s the woman who Link set up with the Whittleton chief. (She says “there never was any ‘us,’” so… yeah.) Thankfully, Link got the Force Gem before the train detoured to Awkward Station, so he can now explore a new set of tracks that includes another ocean rabbit and a warp gate between the Ocean and Forest Realms. He can also go back to the Pirate Hideout to play the archery minigame again, for a pair of Goron children who keep getting themselves captured to liberate treasure from the pirates, which they share with Link, in addition to the other quiver upgrade and another heart container.

Anjean’s nowhere to be seen as the Spirit Train pulls into the Tower of Spirits, but Link and Zelda don’t need to her to tell them how to get started. The new area’s Phantoms are Wrecker Phantoms, which turn into a wrecking ball and roll after Link, smashing anything less sturdy than the dungeon walls along the way, and of course Zelda gets that ability after she takes over one of them. The drawback is that she can’t carry hold items or carry Link across lava, so once they’re done with needing the Wrecker’s abilities, they find a group of normal Phantoms after a miniboss fight against Stalfos, Geozards, and rats (to keep Phantom Zelda from just rolling over everything). The normal Phantom’s abilities are needed for the final puzzles, including another Boss Key electrified so only Phantom Zelda can handle it while Link protects her from Key Masters.

Finally, the two come face-to-face with Byrne, who says Malladus’ resurrection is nearly complete, and he “can’t let [Link and Zelda] cause any more harm.” (Zelda: “Hey, that’s what we were going to say! Well… maybe WE won’t let YOU cause any more harm!”) Byrne fights Link and Zelda in an octagonal arena, hopping from the posts around the arena and sending attacks down. The beams bounce harmlessly off the Phantom, but he as a more powerful attack that can stun Zelda. His other attack, with his clawed gauntlet, can pin Link or Zelda down and the other has to free them. If the gauntlet misses, Zelda can grab it to pull Byrne down so Link can get a few hits in. After a few rounds of this, Byrne stays in the arena for Link to fight, except when he charges up an attack that Link lets the Phantom absorb, then Zelda holds Byrne for some more free shots. Eventually, Byrne admits defeat, and Zelda lectures him on the power of teamwork, then turns to Link for a fist bump. While they’re caught up doing this, Byrne slips out the door as the music comes crashing to a halt. Link and Zelda chase after him. (“Wait! We’re not done with you!”) This is seriously what happens. I love this game’s writing so much.

At the top of the spiral staircase on the outside of the tower, Byrne arrives to a disappointed Cole. Still, the time he bought allows Malladus to revive and possess Zelda’s body. Byrne asks for the power he wants, and Malladus zaps him. Cole comes over and taunts him for ever believing that would happen. However, Malladus is still too weak to do more than that, so Cole summons the Demon Train to make an escape.

Next: Upgrading weapons.

Spirit Tracks: Fire Temple

As Link passes through the tunnel to the tracks surrounding the Fire Temple, the camera shows the three keys being carried by the Snurglar birds that stole them. They’re marked on the map, complete with arrows showing which way they’re going at junctions. Taking the Gorons’ advice, Link needs to drive the Spirit Train to meet them head-on, then blow the whistle twice – once short, once long. This stuns them, and then… nothing. They recover and fly off with the key and I’m left wondering what I did wrong. About the third time this happened I shot the Snurglar in frustration and ohhhhhh. Yeah, that makes sense. When shot, they drop their key, and the temple door opens a third of the way. They don’t give up just because Link has the keys; they chase as he rides around collecting the others, and all the way into the temple.

The Fire Temple has lots of lava beds for Link to cross, often by tossing a platform onto a fire jet to give him a safe place to stand as he does. Enemies include Stalfos, returning as they were in Phantom Hourglass (without the hammer to one-shot kill them), and Heatoises, new turtle enemies that either have to be shot with arrows or lured into spinning into the Winders to electrocute them so Link can attack their heads. The dungeon item is the bow, with eye switch puzzles to go along with them, now with the added complication of Link having to pick up and place the arrow cannons so they fire correctly. Finally, for a game whose overworld is all about rails, it makes sense for minecarts to show up again. The stamp station can only be reached by minecart, and the Boss Key puzzle involves Link riding in one minecart while the key rides in another; both have to be guided safely to the end.

The boss is Cragma, Lava Lord, a giant volcanic rock monster. The fight brings together all the puzzle types from the dungeon: After the weak point on Cragma’s stomach is shot, rocks fall from the ceiling. One of them sticks around, so Link has to goad Cragma into smashing it into a platform he can use to reach the minecart. He rides the minecart around Cragma, shooting its various weak points, until he’s cleared them all and has a shot at the eye. This causes Cragma to fall over as Link returns to the main platform to attack the last weak point on top of its head. All easy to describe, and quite fun to do, but I found hitting the eye to be near-impossible. I ran out of arrows on the minecart about five times, and eventually Cragma will grab Link if he can’t shoot it to stop it. Fortunately, the falling rocks drop arrows, so it didn’t become hopeless. Eventually, Cragma is defeated, and the Tower of Spirits is completely restored.

Now that the dungeon’s cleared, the Goron Target Range is open for business. This is the train version of Salvatore’s game from Phantom Hourglass, with Link riding through the targets – blue targets are 10 points, red targets are 30 points and can be hit three times, and Goron targets are –30 points. Some of the targets spin around and have Gorons on one side, so Link has to pay attention to what he’s shooting. The rewards are a choice between treasure chests – one has rupees, the other a treasure of improving rarity as Link does better at the game. This is what I eventually used to farm treasures, and where my patience snapped as I got dozens of Ancient Gold Pieces and Goron Ambers and one fscking Palace Dish.

Back in the Goron Village, now that Link has a bow, he can buy that quiver, upgrading his arrow capacity from 20 to 30. There’s a Goron here who wants to see snow, so Link takes him to the Anouki Village. There, the Goron meets with Kofu (posing as Honcho, for some reason), who wants to move somewhere warmer, so Link brings him to the Goron Village. Finally, a Goron wants to move to Castle Town and meet the princess, so Link takes him, and he runs off to find her. (Zelda wonders if he’ll actually get to meet her, before realizing no, of course he won’t.) And… well, he meets a woman, and thinks she’s the princess, only he’s disappointed she’s not like he imagined, and actually says that so she can hear, and she storms off. Even still, the Goron’s happy to be in the city. Link gets a Force Gem from all three passengers, plus one more for delivering Mega Ice to the fish seller in Papuchia Village. One of these opens a warp gate between the Snow and Fire Realms. With the newly opened tracks, and the tracks around the Fire Temple cleared, Link can round up eight rabbits now, including the last snow rabbit.

Next: Treasure hunters, pirates, monologuing, and big balls.

Spirit Tracks: Byrne

There’s nothing to revisit on the previous levels of the Tower of Spirits; Link got everything in the previous three areas last time. The new area features the return of Phantom Eyes and teleporting Phantoms, now called Warp Phantoms and no longer golden. The Phantom Eyes are also slightly different – they don’t stay defeated. This is actually a good thing, because Warp Phantom Zelda can only use the teleportation ability to warp directly to the Phantom Eyes (then smash them with her sword, heh). This lets her slip behind closed doors or get across gaps, then usually find some way for Link to follow her. This ranges from simply stepping on a switch to using the new paired floor tiles that, if Link and Zelda stand on both halves of the pair, will swap their locations.

The final puzzle of this area of the Tower involves having Phantom Zelda mirror the path patrolled by the other phantom on the floor across a series of tiles that light up. This opens the way to the chamber with the Fire Rail map, restoring Spirit Tracks into the final quadrant of the map. They celebrate with a high-five, then are startled when Byrne confronts them. Before Byrne can attack, Anjean shows up to stop him. Her dialogue reveals that Byrne was once her apprentice, but abandoned his post. Byrne wanted power from the Spirits of Good, but they wouldn’t give it to him, so now he’s working with Cole to resurrect Malladus. Anjean is deeply disappointed in what Byrne’s become and prepares to confront him, sending Link and Zelda back to the tower lobby so they can continue their work.

Anjean’s beyond their help now, so Link and Zelda take the Spirit Train to the Fire Realm. There, a volcano causes rocks to rain down on the tracks, and Link needs to clear them with the cannon or they’ll damage the train. There are two stations visible. The first is the Goron Target Range, but the minigame isn’t open, so Link needs to go to Goron Village. The volcano eruption has blocked the path from the train station to the main village, although Link can visit the trading post and see they have a quiver for sale – so he’ll be getting a bow soonish. The only way forward Link has is to talk to Kagoron, the messenger of the mountain goddess.

The path the the Altar of the Mountain Goddess is troubled by rolling boulders and falling lava rocks. There’s a stamp station a little off the main path that requires getting past a couple Fire Babas that are perfectly positioned to eat Link and spit him out into lava if he doesn’t run past them the second he hits the ground. When Link explains his quest to Kagoron, Kagoron is willing to help – but knowledge of the Fire Sanctuary rests with the Goron elder, who’s in the village, which is blocked. Fortunately, Kagoron has an idea, including how Link can help, and comes to the village entrance. The Gorons set Link up with the fourth and final train car, a freight car. Link can now haul cargo in addition to passengers. In return, Kagoron asks Link to find something cold enough to cool the lava.

As it turns out, the Anouki’s chief export is Mega Ice. Unfortunately, there’s a complication with that, too. A ChuChu fell into the water they use to make the ice and polluted it, so until they can find another water source, there’s no more Mega Ice. The Anouki who makes the ice asks Link to take him somewhere cold with clean water – in this case, Wellspring Station. Delivering the Anouki there earns Link another Force Gem that provides a second link between the Snow and Forest Realms and opens a warp gate to the Ocean Realm. Link’s got a chance to check this out, because the Anouki wants to protect the trade secrets involved in making Mega Ice.

When Link comes back, he’s able to get 20 blocks of Mega Ice loaded onto the train. The cited price is 25 rupees, but he’s able to negotiate and get it for free this once. After the price is settled, the rules of the trip are laid out: keep the train steady, don’t get hit, and outside the Snow Realm, some units are inevitably going to melt. When Link returns to the Fire Realm, the Dark Trains have taken up residence, so he’s got to go around to get to the Goron Village. It takes ten units to make things cool enough for Link to walk across and enter the village proper.

Next: Link’s got a freight car, he may as well use it.

Spirit Tracks: Love and Rabbits

Leaving the temple immediately brings the Spirit Train to the surface, so no need to dodge the Armored Train on the way back. There’s a rabbit Link can grab on the tracks leading to the Tower of Spirits, but so much to do before getting the next rail map. To start with, with the whip, Link can summon birds and latch on to their harnesses and reach the stamp stations in the Ocean Sanctuary and Papuchia Village.

In Papuchia Village, a woman tells Link she’s looking for a husband on the Wise One’s recommendation. She asks him to bring her potential match to her, and lists several physical features she likes: facial hair, large nose, and “the burly, manly type.” Until Link completes this sidequest, Zelda brings up the idea with every man he talks to, so it’s probably best to find the right guy as quickly as possible so I don’t have to explain to all the men in Hyrule why I don’t think they’re the right fit. Mr. Right is the chief of Whittleton, and although he expresses doubt about the prospect of marriage, he agrees to come, and the meeting is love at first sight. This gives Link another Force Gem, opening a section of Spirit Tracks with two more rabbits.

Back in Whittleton, Link can use the whip to fully explore the area to the northeast. Here, a man runs a game to climb a pillar using the whip, and here’s where I had my first real frustration with the touchscreen controls. Constantly having to tap the upper-right corner of the screen to activate the whip gets old fast, and I found it entirely too possible to turn the whip off rather than whipping what I wanted, and then when I tried to use the whip, I instead sent Link running over the edge. I managed to get the first real reward here, a bomb bag upgrade (from 10 to 20 bombs), but it wasn’t until I learned I could activate items by pressing/holding the L button that I was able to get my time down enough to get the heart container. Of course, being able to use the L button means holding the DS in my hands rather than playing from a stand, so it wasn’t my favorite solution, so I wasn’t going to be coming back here to farm treasure for train cars.

In Castle Town, Joynas has opened the second round of Take ‘Em All On. The enemies this time are largely pulled from the Snow Realm and Temple, plus Snappers, both varieties of Geozard (Link can take away their shield with the whip, leaving them open to frontal attacks), and huge groups of Spinuts, Keese, Rats, and Octoroks. All three dungeon bosses also appear, and the Phytops fight at the end includes the introductory climbing phase. The reward for getting through this time is the second bomb bag upgrade (to 30).

There are a couple people in Castle Town in need of train rides. First, Mona has lost her husband, a gentle man who’s apparently fond of rabbits. That description immediately calls Bunnio to mind, and sure enough. Mona is not thrilled to discover what he’s been up to, and despite how she talked about his love for rabbits back at her home, she apparently finds it one of his less endearing qualities. She asks to be taken back to Castle Town, but in the time it takes her to walk to the station, she changes her mind and decides to stay at Rabbitland Rescue with him. For his part, Bunnio was annoyed at Link for bringing Mona to see him, but at least felt good to have the secret out – and he’s not so thrilled she’s planning to stay. But what’s done is done, and Link gets a Force Gem from Mona that lets him catch a couple more bunnies for them to frolic with.

The second is a man wearing a bandana and dark glasses hanging out by the station, and I believe, by the convention I set with the masked shop owner, I have to call him I Can’t Believe It’s Not Teacher. He’s searching all over for Zelda (he only uses pronouns, but… it’s Zelda), and has Link take him to the next destination. This is a minigame with a reward in rupees based on how safely Link drives; it can be replayed, although both the starting and ending points of the trip are random each time.

Finally, back in Aboda Village, the boy who taught Link to roll into trees and run from bees wants to see the world from on high, so Link takes him to Beedle. The boy finds Beedle funny-looking and weird, to Beedle’s annoyance, but getting to travel on a hot air balloon makes him happy enough to give Link another Force Gem. This one just seems to be a shortcut connecting Castle Town and Rabbitland Rescue.

With everyone settled (for now), now’s the time to return to the Tower of Spirits.

Next: The circle is now complete.

Spirit Tracks: Carben

The first stop in the Ocean Realm is Papuchia Village, but there’s nothing of interest here (yet). The Spirit Train continues onward, and as it passes over water, instead of railside rocks, there are floating barrels. On the last island before the tracks currently run out, Link and Zelda find the Ocean Sanctuary. Link has to fight his way through Lobarriers, crab enemies with a giant stone claw they use as a shield, and solve a puzzle of identifying the way the statues on the island are facing and drawing that symbol (a double diamond, or squared infinity symbol) on a red door to Carben’s home. Only, Carben’s not home, but he’s left a note saying he’s visiting his “sky friends” at Papuchia Village.

Zelda spent a summer at Papuchia Village and invites Link to go swimming, but being a ghost is apparently not great for it, and… this version of Link, as in Phantom Hourglass, can’t swim, if his behavior when he jumps in water is indicative. Zelda spots Carben riding in a harness carried by the local birds, but can’t get his attention, so she suggests going to the village leader, a fortune teller known as the Wise One. The Wise One starts with some questions of her own, and it’s the player who has to answer, but it doesn’t have voice recognition, just detection, so you can say whatever you want, or just blow on the microphone. She points Link to a tree near the birds, and the Song of Discovery unearths a Song Stone that teaches Link the Song of Birds.

Playing the Song of Birds brings the bird carrying Carben down. He’s annoyed at having his flight disrupted, but agrees to help if Link takes him to the Ocean Sanctuary. On the trip, the train is attacked by Miniblin pirates. They board the train, and Link has to fight them off to protect Carben. After enough are defeated, the pirates’ leader, a Big Blin [1], boards the train. This guy takes a lot of hits to put down, and a few Miniblins board during the fight. The Big Blin’s indiscriminate who it hits with its club, so it’ll knock out the little guys, but if he hits Link, Link gets up dizzy. Once the pirates are dealt with and the train pulls safely into the station, Carben’s gratitude to Link for protecting him produces a Force Gem, which opens up another section of Spirit Tracks.

At the sanctuary, Link and Carben play the next Lokomo song, which requires passing over a note. This was tricky for me to pick up, but I got it, and that restored a large section of tracks in the Ocean Realm. The temple itself is underwater, so Link needs to open the way, and Carben gives Link the directions. There are three spots marked on the map, and Link finds Ferrus, who tells him to blow the train whistle to activate orbs. Once all three orbs are activated, the tunnel to the ocean floor opens. There are six rabbits Link can catch along the way. The Force Gem Carben gave Link gives him access to a warp gate between the Forest Realm near the Trading Post and the Snow Realm near the Bridge Worker’s Home.

Underwater, Link is occasionally pestered by Octoroks, but they’re hardly the worst danger. As Link approaches the temple, an Armored Train appears. Unlike the Dark Trains, which make random decisions at junctions, Armored Trains will actively chase Link, even changing a preset course to do so. Fortunately, Link starts out ahead and is able to outrun the train to the Ocean Temple.

The Ocean Temple is designed to constantly frustrate Link’s progress until he fights the miniboss, Snapper, who uses a whip to restrain Link, but opens himself up to being hit in retaliation. After Snapper is defeated, Link gets a whip of his own, which he can use to bypass obstacles. The whip can be used as a grappling hook (both to retrieve items and swing from branches) and can remove thorns from vine gates so he can get by. And, of course, a whip is a weapon, which can be used against enemies like Snapper or yellow ChuChus. And there a lot of wall-mounted fish heads. Some have tongues Link can grab; sometimes pulling the tongue is the solution to the puzzle, sometimes he pulls a sword that has to go in another nearby fish head.

Key Masters return in this dungeon, and this time Link can’t avoid them, so he has to fight them off. The boss fight takes place outside the temple (and apparently the temple extends to the surface); Link has to first use the whip climb the tower, knocking a few vines out of the way by throwing barbs into their eyes, while the boss rains goo on him. The boss is Phytops, Barbed Menace, and it looks like Medusa wearing a pink hairnet taking a bath. Two bubbles of goo cover its eye, so Link needs to first hit them with the barbs, then the eye to make Phytops land on one side of the pool where he can hit the eye with his sword. Doing that a few times and dodging the vines when they slap at Link is all there really is to the fight, and another section of the Tower comes down while the tracks connect it to the Ocean Realm.

Next: Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match…

[1] Sadly, not Maxiblin.

Spirit Tracks: Trading Post

The tracks may be restored, but getting to the next realm requires crossing a bridge, and the bridge is out. There’s a trading post before the bridge, so Link stops there to see what he can find out. When Link walks into the trading post, the proprietor comes out of the back to greet him. The camera angles hide his face at first, but the notes that play as he walks in are the opening notes of Linebeck’s theme, so it’s little surprise when the camera decides it’s not fooling anyone (who played Phantom Hourglass, anyway) and shows us the man is identical to Linebeck – the original Linebeck’s grandson. He’s not impressed with Link at first, but warms up to him a bit after the introduction.

Linebeck knows a bridge worker in the Snow Realm, so he sends Link to bring him to repair the bridge. Near the tracks that lead to the trading post, Link finds another rabbit. The bridge worker’s home is a new stop on the tracks near the Tower of Spirits. The bridge worker (same model as Gazpacho, the shipyard worker from Phantom Hourglass) admires Link’s dedication to his job and agrees to come help fix the bridge. He’s apparently got something he wants to say to Linebeck, too, which is certainly not ominous. On the way back to the train, Link meets up with Ferrus, who warns Link that the bridge worker is really picky about having a smooth train ride, so Link needs to blow the train whistle when the signs say, obey posted speed limits, avoid getting hit by enemies, and avoid sudden stops. This gives sort of a second health bar while Link’s carrying him (or any other passenger): mess up too much and the ride fails.

Once he arrives at the trading post, the bridge worker heads over to start fixing the bridge. Linebeck shows up, and the matter of payment comes up. Linebeck still owes the bridge worker for work done to his house, and with the bridge, he puts his fee at 5000 rupees. Linebeck is stunned for a second before passing the buck to Link. He heads off, and the bridge worker says he’ll let Linebeck and Link sort things out, but he wants to be paid. When Link goes to Linebeck, Linebeck says he knows where an item is that will make them enough money to pay the bridge worker: a Regal Ring left behind by Linebeck I. Linebeck I also left instructions on how to find the ring, but Linebeck III hasn’t been able to figure them out, so it passes to Link.

The cave leading to the north part of the area, where Linebeck I is buried, is infested with Like Likes. There’s even one hiding in a pot, waiting for Link to get close so it can pounce, but it’s impatient and the pot jiggles, so Link can whack it with a bomb or boomerang rather than get close. The trading post stamp station is also in this cave. On the north side, there’s a song stone that teaches Link the Song of Light, which will cause nearby crystals to emit lasers. The laser emitted by the crystal hidden by the song stone points to a crystal switch that raises a bridge to small island with the cave. Inside the cave, two more crystal lasers point to the arbitrary point Linebeck I chose to start his final directions from, and walking a short ways leads Link to the place where he can play the Song of Discovery to unearth the Regal Ring. Link takes the ring back to Linebeck just in time for the bridge worker to show up, announce he’s done, and claim the ring as his payment.

Linebeck’s disappointed because the ring’s worth more than he owed, but sees an opportunity to get more treasure from Link. The treasure system’s been overhauled from Phantom Hourglass – there are now 16 treasures, divided into four tiers: common (Linebeck will pay 50 rupees), uncommon (150 rupees), rare (500 rupees), and ultra-rare (2500 rupees). Instead of random train cars, Link can instead trade the treasures to buy the cars he wants directly. In addition to the starting train, there are seven sets: a wooden train, a steel train, a rather evil-looking train with a skull engine, a stagecoach train, a dragon train, a dessert train, and a golden train. Equipping custom parts increases the train’s health, and each engine’s whistle has a unique sound. Each set has four cars: engine, cannon, passenger car, and one Link hasn’t unlocked yet.

The overhaul seems to be an improvement over the random ship parts from Phantom Hourglass, but it’s traded one frustration for another. Within each rarity tier, some treasures are a lot more likely to drop than others. It’s not a big deal for common treasures, because there’s a whole bunch of them and they can be easily farmed in Whittleton, and the ultra-rare ones have enough guaranteed drops to get Link all he needs for a complete train car collection. But for uncommon and rare treasures, it’s basically guaranteed there’s going to be one that is going to take a lot of treasures to get enough while the others in the tier pile up. I would guess the idea was to promote trading, but it penalizes people who can't trade too much.

For now, I sold some treasures to get enough to buy the heart piece from the Snow Sanctuary and called it a day. Link’s gotten Niko’s book half full, so if he returns to Niko, Niko gives him Wind Waker Link’s old shield with the crawfish logo.

Next: They can’t play baseball. They don’t wear sweaters. They’re not good dancers. They don’t play drums.

Spirit Tracks: A Light in the Dark

With the Snow Temple clear, the blizzards have lifted from the track maze leading to it. Unfortunately, the tradeoff is that a couple of Dark Trains now patrol the area, which is particularly tedious since there are five (!) rabbits to catch before heading out. Beedle has taken to the skies in a hot air balloon. Stopping at Wellspring Station, Link is able to freeze the water to get to the stamp station, and he receives a letter from Beedle, announcing his hot-air balloon store. The letter explains that if Link wants to flag him down to browse his wares, all he has to do is blow the train whistle.

Beedle sells a bomb bag for 500 rupees, and then sells Link a membership card for 100 more. With the card, Link accumulates 1 point for every rupee spent (but no retroactive credit for the bombs, so he should have 50 more points). As in previous games, earning points unlocks rewards: 200 points is silver and earns with a free item coupon (no points for that transaction, either); 500 points is gold and earns a heart container; 1000 points is platinum and earns a quintuple points card, and 2000 points is diamond and earns an ultra-rare treasure. Each tier also has a discount: 10% silver, 20% gold, 30% platinum, and 50% diamond.

Stopping at Castle Town before heading to the Tower of Spirits again, Link gets another letter from Russell, the captain of the guard, inviting Link for advanced sword training. This is the minigame of “hit the target so many times before he hits Link three times,” only now it’s Link versus three guards at once. I had more trouble with this than with Orca or the Prince of Red Lions guy, but got the 60 hits required for a heart container eventually. Also in town, having bombs gives Link access to the ramparts where he can find the stamp station, and before leaving he gets the letter from Beedle welcoming him to the club along with his membership card.

At the Tower of Spirits, Link can go back to the levels he’s already visited to use the items he’s collected to get some previously-inaccessible treasure. He has to get the three Tears of Light again for each set of levels he revisits, but the Geozard stays defeated from before. There are switches he can hit now with the boomerang, walls he can blast through with bombs, and in my favorite example, the Whirlwind is strong enough to blow Phantom Zelda across a gap. This lets Link fully explore the areas I noted he couldn’t reach on the second set of floors – and the missing Geozard fight gets made up for by having Link and Phantom Zelda fight two of them at once in the new areas. (And I couldn’t get the boomerang trick to work, so get Phantom Zelda to hold aggro and sneak around and backstab it is.)

The new section of the Tower of Spirits is dark except for a few torches, and the map doesn’t show the way either. Most of the torches are out, forcing Link to use the boomerang to light a path from one torch to the next. To get one of the Tears of Light, Link needs to blow out a torch to see where the light shines through a cracked wall, then bomb the wall. The Phantoms in the area are a new type, Torch Phantoms, who have flaming swords, so once Link’s sword is powered up and Zelda installed in one of them, Phantom Zelda can light the torches herself. In addition to the Phantoms, the area is patrolled by the ghostly Nocturns, who cower if exposed to light (either caught when a torch is lit or Phantom Zelda walks into the area), letting Link or Zelda kill them.

On the tenth floor, there are tiles on the floor in the shape of a Z, which Link needs to draw on a door to find a Boss Key. This key is electrified, so only Phantom Zelda can carry it. While she does, Key Masters show up, and Link needs to keep them at bay. This has the side effect of illuminating the entire floor, so it’s not all bad. A Boss Key means a boss fight, so up the stairs Link and Zelda find a Geozard Chief waiting for them. It breathes fire at Link, but due to the plus sign-shaped arena, it’s easier to keep it somewhere where Link and Phantom Zelda can flank it, so it’s actually easier than the weaker Geozards. The next rail map opens up the Ocean Realm, and while Zelda’s eager to keep going, further levels haven’t been restored, so this is where they stop. Anjean says the sage of the area is named Carben.

Next: It turns out those signs are there for more than target practice.

Spirit Tracks: Steem

A short way into the Snow Realm, the Spirit Train passes a gate with a Force Gem keystone. Shooting the Force Gem causes Zelda to read the instructions, telling Link to blow the train’s whistle as he approaches the gate. This teleports him back to the Forest Realm between Whittleton and Castle Town. There are more of these gates, but they only operate in linked pairs, so as quick travel goes, it’s probably the least useful the series has seen since Ocarina of Time. It’s useful enough to be better than nothing, but there are a lot of train trips where there aren’t a pair of gates where neither gate is so far out of the way it’s better to just go direct.

As the Spirit Train nears the available stop in the Snow Realm, Link has a chance to catch the fifth rabbit. The available stop is the Anouki Village, so either the Anouki weren’t confined to the Ocean King’s world or they found a way into Link’s. Outside the village, there are Icy ChuChus that freeze Link he doesn’t stun them before attacking and Wolfos, as well as the fifth stamp station. In the village, there’s a Song Stone that teaches Link the Song of Discovery, which will unearth secrets. As the Song Stone blasts off, it leaves behind a treasure chest with a potion.

The leader of the Anouki Village, Honcho, offers to help Link if he helps them with their problem. He wants to put together a village watch, but a lot of the Anouki are particular about who they’re paired with. Link has to talk to each of them, find their preferences, and then return to Honcho to draw up the pairs. Once it’s settled, Honcho lays out the deal: The only way to the Snow Sanctuary is a tunnel, and that tunnel got overrun by a giant monster. Before braving the tunnel and monster, Link heads back to Rabbitland Rescue, where Bunnio rewards him with a heart container for catching five rabbits.

The monster in the tunnel turns out to be a Rocktite, a giant Tektite that takes about a gajillion cannon hits to kill. Even after it’s dead, Zelda doesn’t want to go back there ever again. The path to Steem through the Snow Sanctuary is filled with monsters. There’s a store here with a heart container for sale – a little out of Link’s price range for now, unfortunately – and a stamp station. After entering Steem’s cave, Link has to find a path that doesn’t put him in the statues’ line of sight. Finally, he meets Steem, and has to play another duet to restore the tracks to the temple.

Steem warns Link that the areas near the Forest Temple have been hit by blizzards lately; if Link tries to go that way, he’ll be blown back to the entrance to the rail maze leading to the temple. The Anouki know of a guy who might know the solution – Ferrus, who lives in the other new section of tracks, off to the east. There’s a new enemy on these rails: Sir Frosty, an evil snowman that throws his heads at the train. There’s a train station over this way, Wellspring Station, and though Ferrus isn’t around at the moment, he’s left a map with the locations where he’s trying to get pictures of the Dark Trains. There’s also a note with a hint about the warp gates.

At one of the spots marked on Ferrus’ map, Link finds the man railside taking pictures. Ferrus is a rail enthusiast – he recognizes the Spirit Train on sight, and knows who Link is. Everyone else is too spooked by the recent disappearance of the rails and/or appearance of the Dark Trains to run their trains, but Link… well, there’s a reason other Links have been associated with the Triforce of Courage. Ferrus says the blizzard makes the approach to the Temple difficult, but there’s a path that’s protected by the spirits that should let him get there. He shows Link a map, and once Link blows the dust off, he knows the way. He can catch a rabbit near the entrance to the maze.

The Snow Temple is filled with icy floors, which of course means sliding block puzzles. A central sliding block puzzle has three bells on the blocks, and once they’re in place Link needs to play tunes on the bells to open the next door (first one bell, then two bells, then all three to open the way forward). Link gets a boomerang en route to the second bell which helps play the longer tunes. As in Phantom Hourglass, the boomerang can drag fire around, including the new icy fire which can freeze a path over water. New and returning enemies in the dungeon are Mini-Freezards (terrestrial Octoroks covered in ice) and the aquatic Octorok-like Octives, whose rocks can be blown back at them or can be stunned with the boomerang. As with the Forest Temple, there’s a stamp station here.

There are no Key Masters here; getting the Boss Key requires lighting torches with the right kind of fire in a single long boomerang toss. Those skills will be useful for the boss, Fraaz, Master of Icy Fire. Fraaz is a giant bat-like creature who puffs up with either fire or ice and then spits the appropriate attack at Link. He has an alternating phase where he splits into two bats, one fiery, one icy. The boomerang is of course the key – at first there are torches Link can use to throw the type of fire at Fraaz isn’t using to stun him (or, for the twin phase, the opposite type at each to make him recombine). After the first couple phases, those torches get destroyed and Link then needs to rely on the remnants of Fraaz’ attacks. After five total phases, Fraaz is defeated and the Spirit Tracks connecting the Snow Temple to the Tower of Spirits reappear, restoring another block of levels.

Next: A torch to light the way.

Spirit Tracks: Rabbitland Rescue

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.

Spirit Tracks: Black Trains

For a short while between restoring the Spirit Tracks and completing the first dungeon, Link had the tracks all to himself, but they wouldn’t have put learning to navigate around other trains in the tutorial if it weren’t going to be a needed skill. Now, the trains are back, and as Link approaches Castle Town, they become possessed by demonic spirits, turning into Dark Trains that patrol the tracks. Zelda suggests staying away from them, and that would seem to be the best option. When they get close to Link, the music switches from the high adventure rail-riding theme to a harsh train in danger theme, and if they hit the Spirit Train, it’s game over.

In Castle Town, a woman who resembles Jolene is running a game called Take ‘Em All On! This game resembles the Savage Labyrinth and Cave of Ordeals, with a few differences. First, when you play the game, you win or you die [1]. There is no middle ground. (I.e., there are no checkpoints where the game lets you chicken out and go back to the surface.) There are also absolutely no healing items in the game, only what potions Link brings with him. The good news is the game’s shorter than the challenge dungeons; to make up for this, there are three levels of difficulty, each intended to challenge Link at the point in his adventure where they open. This first version has ten floors of easy enemies from the overworld and the Forest Temple, concluding with a rematch against Stagnox. The two worst floors are probably the one with lots of rats and bubbles and the one with two Mothulas. It costs 50 rupees to play, and the reward is a heart container the first time, and a treasure piece on later tries [2].

The Tower of Spirits shows more refinements from the Temple of the Ocean King this visit. Link doesn’t have to go through every level of the Tower again; the central staircase leads to the new set of levels that will lead to the next rail map. That’s not to say there’s no reason to revisit old levels – there’s a conspicuous chunk of the new levels that Link can’t get to on this visit, so there’s some incentive to come back and explore and probably get more treasure.

The central mechanic of this visit to the Tower is that the Phantoms are fireproof. Learning this is a key part of getting the Tears of Light, as there’s a flame jet that Link can only pass when a Phantom’s blocking it. After he gets the three Tears and stuns one of the Phantoms, Zelda takes over and can block the flame jets herself so Link can pass or walk through lava. While in the lava, Phantom Zelda can hunch over so that Link can ride on her shield and then carry him across. (Link riding Zelda isn’t limited to lava – he just needs to get to higher ground than her to jump on.) He’s not necessarily safe riding on Phantom Zelda’s back: there are some flame jets set at a higher height to blast Link off if he’s not careful.

Phantom Zelda’s combat abilities get explored here, too. A puzzle on the fifth floor involves a Spinut that runs from Link or Zelda and has to be trapped between the two of them and run down. On the sixth floor, a Geozard appears, and with Link without a boomerang to stun it from behind, Phantom Zelda’s got to distract it while Link sneaks up to attack. And the two tricks come together with Miniblins mounted on Armos; Link can either try to fight them from Zelda’s back, or blow them off their mount with the whirlwind and defeat them on foot.

Finally, Link and Zelda retrieve the second rail map, revealing tracks in the Snow Realm. Anjean says the next Lokomo is named Steem, and Link and Zelda set out to find him.

Next: Two new collection sidequests!

[1] Link may be spared actually dying and brought back to the entrance and forfeit his entry fee. I don’t know. It hasn’t happened to me and doesn’t seem to be the thing that gets posted to YouTube.
[2] Playing the game again made me realize something that I had managed to overlook in Phantom Hourglass because it was so easy: there are no healing fairies in either game. Purple potions take the place of bottled fairies, but as far as I know there’s no place to go to get instantly healed back up to full.

Spirit Tracks: Gage

With the new rail map, the player can pre-draw the course for the train to take, removing the need for navigation at junctions. With the Spirit Tracks only freshly restored, other trains haven’t had a chance to start roaming yet, so Link can head straight for his destination. The first destination is Whittleton, a village about halfway between Aboda and the castle. Zelda decides there are likely bugs in the village, and she doesn’t like bugs, so she decides to stay with the train, only to realize she’s better off with Link to protect her from the bugs.

The village chief thanks Link for bringing back the Spirit Tracks, and points him toward Gage – down the one path branch that leads away from both Aboda and the castle. That might not have been hard to guess, but the path is through the Lost Woods, so Link needs to learn the secret to navigating it. The two hints the locals can give are to listen to the trees except for one that has no sense of direction and watch the tree branches. The resulting puzzle is fairly intuitive: Before each junction in the Lost Woods, there’s a tree with a prominent branch pointing in one direction. So, Link needs to follow the branches, except for the one he was warned about, where he needs to go the other way.

After passing through the Lost Woods, Link arrives at the Forest Sanctuary. There are a couple puzzles Link has to solve to enter the sanctuary – first running bomb flowers to get through barriers, then identifying which statues in a ring are facing one another. Then Link finds Gage, who explains more about the Lokomo songs to restore the tracks to the Forest Temple. He and Link each have a part to play on their instruments, and so it’s time for Link to learn to play the Spirit Flute. The player needs to use the stylus to slide the flute so the right pipe is centered, then blow into the microphone. Link’s part in the duet is fairly simple, and needs to follow each of Gage’s parts. The tricky part here is learning to coordinate moving the flute and blowing into the microphone. Once the duet is completed, there’s a cutscene of Link and Gage playing together, then the rails to the temple are restored.

As Link leaves the Forest Sanctuary, Zelda notes that a stone is emitting notes, like the howling stones of Twilight Princess. It teaches Link a song he can play on the flute, and once it’s successfully played, the stone blasts off like a rocket, leaving behind a gossip stone. The gossip stone says the song is the Song of Awakening (but it sounds nothing like the Ballad of the Wind Fish), and it can be used to wake up gossip stones and possibly other things. The way to the Forest Temple passes through a long section of forest, and in this section Skulltulas drop down to block the path, but they’ll still flee from the train’s whistle.

Before entering the dungeon proper, there’s another song stone, this one to teach Link the Song of Healing (no relation to the one from Majora’s Mask). It summons a fairy, who agrees to come if called, once, in the proper areas like a dungeon or the Tower of Spirits. So it’s like an extra potion. Inside the temple, there’s a bunch of purple poisonous gas. There are insect enemies called Vengas that leave behind more gas. After the first Vengas encounter, Link gets a way to dispel the gas, the treasure item, the Whirlwind. The Whirlwind is a small fan that works more or less like the Gust Jar from Minish Cap, only it’s operated by the player blowing into the microphone.

As with most of the dungeons of Phantom Hourglass, the rest of the dungeon after getting the Whirlwind is a tutorial on various uses – in addition to blowing away the gas, it can operate windmills and blow items across gaps. Miniboss fights return to the series with this dungeon, with a Mothula that shoots Bubbles at Link. Link needs to use the Whirlwind to blow the Bubble back and stun the Mothula, then finish it off with his sword. And there’s another new enemy, Blastworms, which curl up into a ball and explode after being hit, and Link can direct their explosion where he needs it with the Whirlwind.

There’s a new wrinkle with the Boss Key: As soon as Link grabs it, Key Masters appear and try to separate Link from the key, then return the key to its resting place. (The obvious comparison here is the Zant’s Hands from Twilight Princess.) To avoid them, Link has to walk on a specific path from the key’s resting place to the lock. After a room with a portal to the dungeon entrance and heart refills, Link ascends to the top of the temple to fight the boss.

The boss is Stagnox, Armored Colossus, a giant flying stag beetle. Its weak point is its giant pulsing tail end, which is surrounded by poisonous gas, and that is not a sentence I’m mature enough to write without giggling. There are two phases to this fight. In the first, Link has to circle around Stagnox, made easier by the long windup on its big attack, and blow the gas off its tail, then attack. After enough of this, Stagnox takes to the air and drops a few Blastworms on the arena, and Link needs to blow the Blastworms at Stagnox when it charges. This causes Stagnox to crash with its tail facing Link, allowing him to pummel it.

Once Stagnox is gone, it leaves behind a heart container and a Force Gem. A pedestal rises to house the Force Gem, bringing back more Spirit Tracks, and one of the blocks of levels of the Spirit Temple rejoins the base.

Next: There’s a long black train coming down the line…

Spirit Tracks: Anjean

Link wakes up in a bed in the castle, with Zelda’s mentor, Teacher, watching over him and Alfonzo. Alfonzo’s hurt and says taking care of Zelda is now up to Link. Teacher’s been wondering what the hubbub is all about. Link tries to explain it to him, but when he realizes that Link’s saying Zelda’s been kidnapped, his first instinct is to run and tell Zelda. So he’s useless. As Link leaves the room where he was recovering, he sees the ball of light that flew out of Zelda – it’s Zelda’s spirit, who’s trying to get the guards to help her but they can’t see her. Link follows her to her bedroom.

Having someone who can see her lifts Zelda’s mood a little, and she goes from apologizing to Link for getting him hurt, to wondering how she never realized Cole was evil, to talking to herself wondering what’s going on. She decides she still needs to get back to the Tower of Spirits, and asks Link to take the Spirit Flute, the pan pipes she was playing earlier. There’s one more thing – with the Spirit Tracks gone and Alfonzo’s train wrecked, they have to go to the Tower of Spirits on foot. And, of course, the way is filled with monsters, and the guard won’t let Link out without a sword. Link asks the guard captain for a sword, which comes with a tutorial on how to use it for people who didn’t play Phantom Hourglass. (Fortunately, the actual directions are skippable.) Link can also return to the shop in town to buy a shield.

Immediately outside the back exit of the castle, Link finds a field overrun with new enemies, evil nuts called Spinuts. There’s a guard out here who’s having trouble keeping them at bay, and he points to where the tunnel used to be before it got caved in. But, of course, when God closes a door, he gives Link a bomb to blow it back open. The tunnel is a basic dungeoneering tutorial: returning enemies (Keese and ChuChus), switches, blocks, keys and locked doors, and a simple puzzle. There’s one last bit of fun, revealing that Zelda is terrified of rats.

Inside the Tower of Spirits, Link and Zelda find a train, and finally meet the sage of the tower, Anjean. Anjean pokes fun at Zelda’s ghostly state, before revealing that she was friends with one of her ancestors – probably Tetra, from the way she’s talking. She moves on to talking about more pressing matters: Cole’s actions have weakened the seals on the Demon King, Malladus. She’s doing what she can to hold him back, but it’s a losing fight. The other big revelation is that Cole will need a suitable host for Malladus’ spirit: Zelda’s body. Hearing this, Zelda flips the pancake out.

Anjean lays out the quest: Zelda’s body and Malladus’ spirit are at the top of the tower. To get there, stop the release, and recover Zelda’s body, the spirit tracks need to be restored by recovering maps to the four temples and clearing them out. So, Zelda goes to Link, telling him to get on with it. “I will wait for you here. That’s what princesses have always done. From what I understand, it’s kind of a family tradition.” It’s a funny scene, even without Zelda’s mocking her predecessors, because of how frantic Zelda is throughout it all (and Link’s expression, once we see his face after Zelda’s tirade). But, as it turns out, she won’t be sitting on the sidelines this time: Link can’t make it through the tower alone, Anjean’s using all her power to hold back Malladus, Alfonzo is injured, and bringing someone else in is going to take too long. So… Zelda’s going to be Link’s companion for this adventure. That’s awesome, and it’s about damned time.

The Tower of Spirits is clearly the successor to the Temple of the Ocean King. It’s a central location with the maps to the dungeons, it has Phantoms and safe zones. There are some key differences: It’s not timed (so the Phantoms will presumably try to kill Link directly, rather than draining his time), and Anjean explains that Link can power up his sword with Tears of Light to fight back against the Phantoms a little. However, when he tries it, it only stuns the Phantom for a little bit; the Phantom recovers and attacks, but the attack is stopped short when Zelda gets close to the Phantom and displaces the spirit inside, possessing it herself.

Phantom Zelda has purple highlights on her armor, the Triforce crest on the back, and glowing pink eyes. She’s not thrilled about being in the Phantom, but realizes it can be useful, and strikes a heroic pose before the two of them continue up the tower. The rest of the tower is learning to control Link and Phantom Zelda in tandem – it works like when Link was sneaking Zelda out of the castle. Only now, it’s Link who has to remain out of sight while Zelda can distract the Phantoms. She can kill enemies with her sword, hit switches, and walk over spikes… but she’s still terrified of rats, so Link has to kill them.

On the third floor, Zelda is driven out of the Phantom, and Link’s sword loses its power. The two find the first rail map, causing some of the Spirit Tracks to reappear. That’s as far as they’ll get right now, so they return to the tower lobby. Anjean points out the temple on the map, but the Tracks don’t reach it yet. She tells Link and Zelda to look for her people, the Lokomos, starting with the forest sage, Gage. By playing the Lokomos’ sacred instruments – including the Spirit Flute – they’ll be able to restore the tracks and visit the temples. She also lets them take the Spirit Train, so they hop aboard and head off.

Next: Link gets an item to blow gas away from a bug's butt.

Spirit Tracks: Off the Rails

The guards in Hyrule Castle wear uniforms reminiscent of the classic hero’s tunic, probably a relic of the Hero of Winds’ bond with Tetra. The guards outside let Link past, although they comment Link’s a little younger than normal for an engineer. Inside, the guard watching the staircase to the throne room, where the ceremony is supposed to take place, doesn’t listen to Link at all and tells him to go away. The matter is cleared up when Chancellor Cole, an evil leprechaun with two top hats worn on the sides of his head, shows up. He’s also bemused by Link’s youth, and doesn’t think much of the ceremony because the Spirit Tracks are disappearing, but he has the guard move out of the way so that Link can get to his ceremony.

Cole is much less helpful during the actual ceremony, objecting when Link looks up at Zelda as she stands in front of him, and interrupting the ceremony to tell her to get a move on, which actually seems counterproductive. Anyway, Zelda presents Link with the royal engineer certificate; Link promptly abandons decorum to strike the Item Get pose, which Cole surprisingly lets go without comment. Zelda also passes him a note, tells him to read it later, and warns him about Cole. As Cole leaves, he tells Link to “go polish [his] train or something,” ending with an evil grin and saying the train will be useless soon.

Zelda’s note asks Link to come visit her in her room as soon as he can, and gives him a route which will let him avoid being seen by the guards. Following the instructions, Link finds his way to Zelda’s room and finds her playing a pan flute. She greets him, then explains why she needs his help: As Cole said, the Spirit Tracks are disappearing, and she suspects that something has happened at the Tower of Spirits to cause it. So, she wants him to take her there so she can investigate. There’s supposed to be a sage at the Tower who can help her.

Of course, it’s not so simple. Chancellor Cole doesn’t want Zelda investigating so he forbids her to leave the palace under the pretense of protecting her. So Link needs to sneak Zelda out of the castle first. To help with this, she gives him a guard recruit uniform – i.e., the classic green tunic – as a disguise. The stealth escort mission is actually pretty fun, with the player controlling Link’s movements but able to have Zelda wait behind or follow a route they draw. Link can be spotted, and can talk to guards to draw their attention away from where Zelda’s walking. The only frustration is trying to quickly get to a safe spot can leave Zelda behind to be spotted.

Sneaking Zelda out of the castle delayed Link’s return to the train station, but Alfonzo sort of understands when he sees Zelda there. Alfonzo used to be in the castle guard and a renowned swordsman, but he’s retired and now he’s just an engineer. However, Zelda wants his help in case something happens at the Tower of Spirits, and he can’t refuse her. The train is barely out of the station when the track it was on disappears, and Link manages to keep the train from toppling over. Alfonzo points toward the Tower of Spirits, which is surrounded by dark clouds and lightning and eventually just sort of falls apart. The foundation and entrance are left intact, but the higher levels have broken off and end up floating above the base. Above the ruined tower, black smoke billows from a portal, and one stream of it comes out in the form of a demonic black train that buzzes over Link and Zelda’s heads.

Cole shows up to confront Zelda, and reveals that he’s a demon of some sort – the purpose of the hats was to hide his horns. (They don’t look big enough to actually do the job.) Zelda’s trip forced him to accelerate his timetable, but he seems relieved to no longer have to pretend to be human. He’s joined by Byrne, a man in black with a large clawed hand, and says now that the tracks are gone, all he needs is something from Zelda. Alfonzo tries to protect her, but Byrne outmatches him, and swats Link out of the way when he tries to stand in his way. Then Cole zaps Zelda; a ball of light leaves her body and flies off to Hyrule Castle. Link tries to get up, but can only watch helplessly as Byrne carries Zelda’s body off before he passes out.

Next: Let’s try that again, shall we?

Spirit Tracks: Introduction and Story

Technology continues to march on. No, not the DS, that’s the same as in Phantom Hourglass (although I’m playing on a New 2DS XL, but still, the same one I played Phantom Hourglass on). In Wind Waker, Link had a sailboat. In Phantom Hourglass, he had a steamboat. Now, he’s got a train. That’s as good a segue as I’m going to get to the list of things I know about Spirit Tracks going in:

• It’s a sequel to Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass.
• Instead of a boat, Link now has a train.
• Zelda is, or becomes, a ghost at some point (Hyrule Warriors: “Spirit Princess of Hyrule”). In this form, she can possess suits of armor. Actually, looking at the box art, that kind of looks like a Phantom.
• One of the items in the game is the Sand Wand. Based on the Hyrule Warriors weaponized version, I’d guess it’s like the Cane of Somaria only the block is made of sand instead of magic. Or maybe it summons trains.

Story

“This is a tale from long ago. It’s the tale of the first settlers of this land. In the beginning, the people followed the spirits of good, and all was peaceful. But that era of peace soon came to an end.
“The evil Demon King rose to power, destroying everything in his path. The spirits of good had no choice but to face him in battle.
“The war that ensued seemed to last an eternity, and much blood was shed. Finally the spirits subdued the Demon King, though they could not destroy him. Their powers were greatly depleted.
“With their remaining power, they buried the Demon King’s spirit in the ground. They built shackles to imprison him, and a tower that acted as a lock. These shackles cover the land to this day.
“With their power drained, the spirits of good returned to the heavens. Suddenly bereft of both demons and spirits, this land was entrusted to us.”

Unsaid in this is that this is the land the Hyrulean people found to call home. (Also Hyrule, even if it’s not the one buried under the Great Sea.) A discussion with a man at the train station in Castle Town draws a firmer link between the Demon Lord’s shackles and the rails that cover the land, and the rails have apparently been there since before the Hyruleans came to New Hyrule, so those “first settlers” are people who were there beforehand.

Once again, the backstory is narrated and illustrated by Niko, only a lot of time has gone by, because he’s now an old man. He’s telling the story to his roommate, Link. Only, because it’s the start of the game, Link has fallen asleep during the story, and Niko’s irritated. Link’s mentor, Alfonzo – who resembles Gonzo of Tetra’s crew – comes in and shakes Link awake. This version of Link is an apprentice engineer, and he’s supposed to be graduating today, meeting Princess Zelda at the ceremony. Link’s hometown, Aboda Village, has the obvious tutorial stuff. Link gets taught to pick up rocks, roll into trees (rolling is now done by double tapping the screen, much easier) and run away from bees, getting rewarded with rupees and a treasure for his efforts. Finally, he reports to Alfonzo at the train station.

Link gets to drive the train from Aboda Village to Castle Town, setting up the tutorial for driving the train. (It’s got a time limit of five minutes, but that’s really not a concern). The train moves on its own, but Link can adjust the gear (there’s four: fast, slow, stop, and reverse). As he approaches junctions, Link has to choose which direction the train will go. There are two types of hazards on this trip. First and simplest, moinks (pigs whose colors and markings look like Holstein cows – moo + oink?) will wander onto the train track and Link has to blow the whistle to scare them off. More troublesome, there are other trains on the tracks, and they’re incapable of avoiding Link’s train, so Link has to avoid them. Despite the hearts, one train crash sends Link back to his village to be yelled at by Alfonzo. As the train nears Castle Town, Alfonzo points out the Tower of Spirits, the “lock” on the Demon Lord’s shackles. The player has to manually stop the train at the station, which makes sense but was a bit of a shock.

In Castle Town, Link finds the man at the station who clarifies some of the things from the introduction; he also mentions that once Link graduates he’ll be able to carry stuff around and give people rides. The mailbox is bouncing to indicate Link’s got a letter. The postman – similar to the one from Phantom Hourglass, only without wings so he runs to the mailbox imitating a train. The post office has had complaints in the years between games, so the postman no longer violates mail privacy by reading the letters aloud, and instead just gives Link the letter to read from the menu at his convenience. The letter is, once again, from the postmaster, essentially as a test of the mail service and encouraging Link to be nice to the postman. There’s not a whole lot else to do right now, so Link heads into the castle for his graduation ceremony.

Next: Lightning and towers is a bad sign.

Spirit Tracks: Table of Contents

An index of posts about The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, the fifteenth game in the series.