Zelda: Spirit Tracks Ghost Train Choo Choo

[Valiant]

This is my Christmas game to myself.

[Massive Invisible Dog]

I'll tell you whats bringing my piss to a boil, its that fucking rabbit catching mini game. You get what, 8 seconds? And apparently you have to be right on the pixel to catch the rabbit, which is nigh on impossible because it's always running about, and if it does stop, you just get in a blind panic and jab the screen randomly. Then you fail and it buggers off until you die or go away and come back later. GYUUUUUOFVUOVCL!

It's easy. Just tap it as soon as it stops, I haven't missed one yet.

[Fletch]

I'll tell you whats bringing my piss to a boil, its that fucking rabbit catching mini game. You get what, 8 seconds? And apparently you have to be right on the pixel to catch the rabbit, which is nigh on impossible because it's always running about, and if it does stop, you just get in a blind panic and jab the screen randomly. Then you fail and it buggers off until you die or go away and come back later. GYUUUUUOFVUOVCL!

It is quite difficult, I've caught 1 in 4 attempts. Doesn't help my DS calibration is way off and I can't seem to get it right no matter how many times I recalibrate.

The thing I'm currently stuck on,

is the bit where you have the 3rd spirit guide aboard the train and you get attacked by pirates, there seems to be too many of them for my frantic stylus stabs to cope with. Do I need to use any equipment or just mash my screen like crazy to pass this bit?

[Massive Invisible Dog]

Just stick by him when it gets too hectic and use the spin slash.

I fucking love this. It's not a massive leap beyond what Phantom Hourglass did but it's doing it right. It is to PH what NSMB Wii was to NSMB DS.

[SteveH]

It would appear so.

It just didn't seem that intuituve to me at all - not a problem I can remember having in any other Zelda game, and I've finished most of them. I could even pilot the boat in Windwaker pretty well!

I don't care how dumb it makes me look. No you are not alone. I saw the yellow one and assumed that somehow if you were meant to play all 3 colours, they would light up in time, or scroll past as you were meant to play them. This is Nintendo after all, who hand hold almost everything. Took me a few attempts before I realised.

[Massive Invisible Dog]

Rest assured it's because you are both massively retarded.

[glb]

Played a few more hours and there is plenty to love, but also a few frustrations (mainly with Zelda in the Phantom suits).

Still, the moments when it does make me grin from ear to ear are worth a few minor niggles. Solid 8/10 so far.

[Jarik]

Having been shown how the circular gates on the track work I think it's pretty clear what Nintendo were inspired by. Shame you don't get a DHD for the train you can tap symbols into to choose the one you want to go to.

Or do you? I really must get to a Gamestation & use my store credit to get my own copy of this asap.

[Professor Puzzles]

Just finished the second dungeon! Lots of tricky puzzles and a boss that nearly killed me, yes that's right, I nearly DIED!

[son_of_helvetica]

The TV advert for this is sweet - I still need to finish Hourglass though.

[momomo]

I like it. My favourite Zelda up to now was Majora's Mask. I like this because its exactly the opposite to MM. The Ying to its Yang. The music also just makes you want to whistle along.

Its also a great introduction to the zeldaverse my 6 yr old is playing this as well. he loves he leaf blowing machine.

[northy]

Is it just me or are the controls for the Sand Wand thing not exactly accurate?

[Stolly]

Early days for me but loving it so far; I've just got my sword and shield and have wandered off into the wild. I haven't been told how to use the flute yet but I've already worked it out. That blowing into the mic is going to be embarrassing on a real train, packed to the gunnels with fat sweaty commuters .

[Jarik]

Quick question, should I trade in Phantom Hourglass against this if it's a superior game, or should I have both?

[Matteo]

Keep both.

[locke_211]

The music is incredible in this and the difficulty is better than other recent Zeldas. The second dungeon boss did actually kill me! I found some of the puzzles in the Spirit Temple after the second dungeon pretty tricky too.

[Stolly]

The difference between a 'dungeon' and a 'temple' is what exactly? I've just completed the first dungeon/temple by the way, picking up my air blowing thingy (in the dungeon?) and killing the boss and getting an extra heart piece in the (very dungeon like) temple

[northy]

They've never been called dungeons, that's a generic term applied to the genre as a whole.

[Couk]

They've never been called dungeons, that's a generic term applied to the genre as a whole.

There are some pedants on here who would definitely tell you that there have been dungeons...

[northy]

So finished this tonight and it's definitely a game of two halves for me...

The "dungeons" were excellently designed as were the accompanying bosses. The mini-games and the "mini-dungeons" were also impressive on the whole. Graphically and aurally it was pretty much the best you're going to get on the DS.

I found the actual train driving became monotonous very very quickly and the take item A to location B mechanism for unlocking shortcuts were completely uninspired. Also, I felt the accuracy of the control system was questionable at times. Not so bad when losing the occasional heart doesn't matter, but massively frustrating when you're asked to perform some highly complex moves with split second timing. The "tower-dungeons" had some excellent puzzles but despite this found them to be a slog. Probably a combination of the generic look and the clunkiness of having to drag the phantom around with you constantly with its often dodgy path-finding and slower movement speed.

Overall then, definitely worth playing with some truly excellent puzzles but there's a fairly substantial minority of the game which just isn't really that fun to play.

[zektbach]

I think my only gripe with the entire game was one part.

On the 4th section of the Spirit Temple, there was a part where you had to use Zelda in one of the armoured suits to hold an arrow-direction thing so you could get onto the next room in that part of the temple.

So cue me going over with her, making her pick up the arrow-direction thing, before realising that oh, there's no way for her to put down the arrow thing that she's picked up. There's lava all the way back to the entrance to the floor which would reset it and of course when I try to jump on top of her, she's holding something so I can't do that.

So I had to force myself to die, which meant I had to do the entire past 4 floors all over a-fucking-gain. Complete pain in the arse.

[Stolly]

I'm enjoying playing this (usually on the train or on the bog) and have reached snow land now. Its very cute and cuddly, in the usual zelda like way, but playing it at the same time as playing Dragon Age, an rpg from the other end of the spectrum, does make it feel ultra simplistic and a zelda more aimed at kids than necessarily zelda zealots. I can't wait to start catching bunnies though

Granted I haven't hit any mind bending puzzles yet and hopefully there will be a few and the first gizmo, the wind blowing thing, is okay and clever. The flute is finigally to play (I too struggled to grasp how it works for a while) but to be fair I've only had to play it the once and maybe I'll get better. I'm sure I'll enjoy the whole game and will definitely last the distance and play it to completion but I'm really hoping it gets a bit more involved.

[northy]

I think my only gripe with the entire game was one part.

On the 4th section of the Spirit Temple, there was a part where you had to use Zelda in one of the armoured suits to hold an arrow-direction thing so you could get onto the next room in that part of the temple.

So cue me going over with her, making her pick up the arrow-direction thing, before realising that oh, there's no way for her to put down the arrow thing that she's picked up. There's lava all the way back to the entrance to the floor which would reset it and of course when I try to jump on top of her, she's holding something so I can't do that.

So I had to force myself to die, which meant I had to do the entire past 4 floors all over a-fucking-gain. Complete pain in the arse.

You can hit her with your sword to make her drop it.

[NecroMorrius]

Lol.

[chris on the moon]

or whip!

man there's a lot of sidequests to do on this. I thought Before I tried the final boss battle i'd go around and pick up a couple of things. that was 4 days ago. There's a lot of this game you wouldnt see if you didnt go out of your way to find it.

shame the carrying stuff and ferrying people is so boring.

[northy]

Bloody hell, my collector's tin just sold for £90 on eBay. 300% profit after fees and postage!

[Jarik]

Up to the Snow Sanctuary now & unlocked my first Warp Gate, & finding the whole thing very enjoyable, more so than Phantom Hourglass.

I can understand how people don't like the train sections but I don't mind them at all. Maybe it has something to do with just enjoying the feeling of puffing around in my Locomotive, but i'm more than happy to go around at less than full speed while looking around at the scenery & keeping an eye out for rabbits. I never had model train so maybe the kid in me is catching up on lost time.

[Goemon]

Zelda has been going downhill for me since OoT, could this game reignite the love affair?

FYI I couldn't even be arsed to finish PH.

[vcassano]

It is very, very nice. I am not a Zelda expert by any stretch; only liking the 2D ones and Majora's Mask, but this is certainly fun where PH was not. It fixes the flaws of that game with some tough puzzles and the central dungeon meaning genuinely good (and no timer/forced repetition). It also has some nice extras such as playing the pan pipes and Zelda being a surprisingly fun companion (the facial expressions in this game are wonderful). The only real negative compared to PH is the train feels restrictive compared to the openness of the naval navigation.

[Rudderless]

Not mad keen on the train travel (the rabbit-catching and enemy-blasting is okay, but it's too slow, and the demon trains are just irritating, forcing you to take increasingly circuitous routes to your destination) but practically everything else is great. Settings are lovely, dungeons are terrific, central dungeon is miles better than the one in Phantom Hourglass, and I'm loving the interplay between Link and Zelda - and the latter's dialogue, for that matter.

Probably not quite as wonderful as Bowser's Inside Story, but the last quarter of 2009 has brought us two handheld Nintendo mini-classics. Great stuff.