The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks: I choo choo choose you

I Like Trains I've got fond memories of being a kid and Counting the number of cars as a train went rushing by got to show some love to the OG Thomas the Tank Engine and of course everyone's favorite children's book The Little Engine That Could The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks is a game about trains and that's essentially all I personally know about it the game has link Zelda and a train and as far as I know Spirit Tracks could just be retitled train simulator 2009 hey everyone and welcome back to a brand new episode of the completionist where we don't just beat the games we complete them Spirit Tracks is one of the last Zelda games that I have not completed for the channel ever since I completed the Phantom Hourglass I have been interested in tackling the other Zelda DS game especially because everyone tells me Spirit Tracks is much much better than Phantom Hourglass let's see if I can fulfill my conductor dreams when I complete the Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks yes all glory goes to the [Music] winner The Legend of Zelda is one of those series that I love to death I've played every game completed completed almost all of them at this point and I've even completed spin-off series like Triforce Heroes and Hyrule Warriors I rarely have many negative thoughts about the Zelda series outside of the CDI games cuz technically speaking they aren't really Zelda games throughout my life I have put hundreds to thousands of hours into Zelda games and the most recent Zelda tears of the Kingdom accounts for a few hundred of them video coming soon about 5 years ago I completed the Legend of Zelda Phantom Hour Glass for the show and I had a pretty chill time with it because of the way it played I was able to experience a game with a single hand while also finding a whole bunch of other activities to do with my freehand the game wasn't difficult to complete by any means but it did require a bit more grinding that I would have liked I gave it the rating of finish it and I knew that one day I would have to move on to the next game in the series The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks and today is that day Spirit Tracks began development soon after Phantom Hourglass was released AG anuma the producer of spirit tracks and basically every other Zelda game was inspired by a children's book that he was reading to his kids the original was to pump out a sequel in the same way that Majora's Mask did when it came out so quickly after Ocarina of Time however due to a number of changes within the game it took multiple years to be developed Spirit track takes place following Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass but roughly a century in the future long before the start of our game an evil demon king named madus is causing chaos and destruction throughout the land some Spirits known as loamos gather up all their power and seal away madus in the spirit Tower Flash Forward to the current day and Link is graduating and becoming a full-fledged train engineer he goes to hyu Castle to meet with Princess Zelda who will be performing the graduation ceremony after the ceremony it is revealed that Zelda's Chancellor Cole is actually a demon in Disguise who is working to bring madus back Zelda's body is stolen leaving behind just her spirit which can only be seen by a select few people Link and Zelda will need to work together to restore the broken Spirit Tower rebuild the spirit tracks around the country and stop malades from returning to full power the plot is very on brand for a Zelda title big bad wants to rule the world and Link needs to stop them it's been working since the'80s and I see no reason why it would stop working today the big difference between this Zelda and every other Zelda is the train we've had a number of different mounts before we've got aona starting in Ocarina of Time we started sailing ships in Wind Waker and we even became about ourselves in Twilight Princess but Spirit TRX takes the core idea of train and decides to make an entire world revolve around it in Zelda 1 we got the hero of Hyrule in ocarine of time we had the hero of time now in Spirit Tracks we have the hero of trains I know this might sound small or silly but it's actually pretty in line with other Zelda titles for every hero of Hyrule we will also get a hero of Minish each Zelda game crafts the world in such a way that you understand and buy into the stakes that have been created I have no problem believing that this world is fully connected by train tracks and that evil trains have the ability ability to one-hot me I believe it and I fear it Spirit Tracks is full of characters that are charming and weird every time you interact with the mailbox the mailman comes training in to deliver your message I don't know how else to Define this movement other than training maybe something like the cho cho Slide the first time I saw it it was very cute felt like a call back to the postman we've had in other Zelda games as the game progressed though I was pleading for this man man to get a move on just move give me my letter and go we've got morons and these cozy looking snow people every new town felt distinct and full of people that made my journey more interesting my favorite town is this town you visit early on called whittleton I don't know why but all the people in this town remind me of the photo guy from Wind Waker it became head Cannon for me that they are all descendants of him and I understand but guy can get it the best character in the entire game though is actually Zelda so many Zelda games have us hardly interacting with the titular princess but not in Spirit Tracks early on Zelda's Spirit is removed from her body and she joins up as your na'vi role in this game after you meet Zelda you spend the rest of the game with her she'll give you tips and hints on where to go next and will offer commentary on events that are happening within the game I really like having Zelda be such an ingal part of this story the connection between Link and Zelda has always been something I enjoyed and spirit tracks has one of the best portrayals of their bond all the environments feel fine at first there's nothing really new here we've got a forest realm a snow realm an ocean realm a fire realm Etc just as I was getting bored with with my current location I'd unlock a new one that provided me with a completely different visual experience it was great that in the snow realm there were areas that were completely covered in snow but as you got closer to the fire realm the snow started to melt and you saw more grassy areas when you open up the path in the ocean realm that leads you underwater it was unexpected but it was still a really cool moment I don't want to knock the actual visuals of this game you can only do so much with the original Nintendo DS and this game looks as good as most of the other high-profile games I did get some unfortunate slowdown when the game had too much going on at any given moment getting attacked by a bunch of Tanks would cause the frame rate to plummet the draw distance was pretty awful sometimes i' approach a town and assume it had been completely destroyed only for it to finally pop back into existence the music is appropriately Zelda it has fun Overworld themes and anxiety inducing battle themes the sound effects are equally on point the noises your weapons make are all instantly recognizable the star of the show Once Again is the Train the sounds your spirit train makes are of my favorite parts of this entire game the little struggle sounds of it starting up the screeching of the brakes when you have to make it stop and the whistle you can blow at any time almost makes up for the little issues I have with the train itself now I really been avoiding saying too many negative things about Spirit Tracks but I'm not trying to hide its Flaws by any means but instead I want you all to understand that this game has some solid presentational elements to it the visuals are cute and the art style Choice makes it still look decent today where it starts to actually kind of break down in my opinion is the actual game play Department let's start this off by talking about something that I have not talked about for a while in this video the train I hope you like it because you're going to be spending so much of your time conducting in it the train is how you get from point A to B the world is far too large for our tiny tune legs to cross it at the same time I feel like I maybe would have moved faster walking from location to location the train controls are pretty easy to lock down this apparatus on the right side of the screen gives us our four movement options stop reverse go forward and go forward but faster I can't accurately describe how slow the first speed is moving at that speed feels like watching paint dry and not even one of the good paints something like an like an orange paint the faster speed isn't that much better but we'll make through with what we've got the train moves through the world on Spirit Tracks these tracks have been destroyed so the places we can travel to at the start of the game are very limited and throughout the game you will restore these tracks opening up a new realms and areas to travel to each individual realm wasn't that bad to navigate through but as the map started to balloon I was realizing how long it would take for me to get from place to place some side machines had me moving from one end of the map to the complete opposite side this would often take a handful of minutes and I know that it doesn't sound like that much time but that was just for one trip each main quest and side quest added up to a significant amount of time traveling on this train now they do try and help out by introducing fast travel via the gates but these Gates were rarely useful each gate had a partner gate that it could access so instead of entering a gate and choosing where to exit from I needed to know where each gate would dump me out at so many times I needed to go to the snow realm only for it to be faster for me to travel normally rather than going out of my way to get to the correct warp gate I wasn't kidding when I said this world was big but it is also a world kind of devoid of life this may traveling via train even worse occasionally you would get attacked by Pirates or wildlife and have to fend them off with your Cannon but this just felt like a nuisance instead of a way to make movement feel better you could also blow up rocks in hopes of getting a few rupes but that stopped being pretty fun early on I suppose you could blow your whistle didn't really do anything but if you hold it down long enough the train feels like it's moving faster it isn't but it feels like it does now all the sounds really harsh but it is the worst part of the game by far to me you spend so much time on the train that I couldn't help but get annoyed by it leaving the train is like removing shackles from my feet outside of the train you will spend a significant amount of time inside of the spirit Temple the spirit Temple is this game's version of the Temple of the ocean King from Phantom Hourglass a lot of folks had issues with this temple in Phantom Hourglass and I didn't particularly enjoy it that much however the spirit Temple is a huge upgrade first things first instead of having to go through every room every time you need to revisit this Temple you get to skip to the next set of rooms this made each return trip faster and more unique each section of the tower was generally used as a way to show off the newest item you had just picked up the first section you unlock has you taking advantage of the Whirlwind while the floors after that focus on utilizing the boomerang they also removed the time restriction which never felt like much of a difficult problem but I was grateful that I didn't have to worry about completing the tower under a certain time limit the other big mechanic introduced in the spirit Tower was the Guardians these appeared in Phantom Hourglass they were just obstacles you needed to avoid now they're an intrical part of the progressing in the tower after studying the guardian Zelda will take over and guardian Zelda will follow behind you you can also independently move her around to assist with completing puzzles depending on the guardian type you take over Zelda will also have a special skill that can be used to help link progress up the tower some Guardians have Shields and Link can be hoisted up and given a ride through Lava while other Guardians can teleport long distances all of these changes make for a much more enjoyable reoccurring dungeon the spirit Temple is also centrally located and can be used as a hub to travel a bit faster between the different rounds Realms it's great that they took an interesting but flawed concept from the previous game and made it a genuinely good part of this game beside the spirit Temple the other major dungeons are pretty solid as well I will always enjoy going back and playing through a classic Zelda dungeon I appreciate the direction that new zeldas have taken the series but going back to these dungeons will always have a special place in my heart each dungeon does the classic Zelda thing of introducing an item that is needed to progress throughout the dungeon you'll find keys to open doors and have baddies to kill I will say that I think the bosses in this game are all pretty good and I think it is due to the DS all of these fights take advantage of both screens which makes the bosses feel really big I think the one that sticks out to me the most is kma the lava Lord this fight involves using your newly acquired bow to shoot glowing weak points on the boss now the interesting mechanic is that in order to do that you need to ride around on a mine cart while he's trying to grab you it was a really fun fight and I enjoyed every other boss fight this game had to offer but this game is so much more than just Dungeons and long train rides every Zelda game has something you need to collect in Spirit Tracks is no exception some of these things are things we've seen before throughout your journey you're going to find hearts that will increase your overall health this is one of those few zeldas where you don't find heart pieces or pieces of heart but full-blown big hearts you can also find quiver and Bong bag upgrades in the world and we've seen these in most Zelda games before but I will never say no to a capacity upgrade you also have two big Side Quests for other people that you're going to want to keep track of throughout your journey the first is for bunny bunny runs the rabbit Land Rescue and wants you to save all the bunnies in the land while you are driving your train you will see bunnies peeking their heads out over rocks blow up the rocks and you will start a quick miname where you need to capture the rabbits before the time runs out sometimes this was super easy and other times it felt downright impossible to catch these rabbits the worst part was that when you fail to catch them you would need to leave the screen you were on to get the rabbit to respawn this meant that every failure meant I had even more time wasted driving on the train now the second big side quest is filling up the stamp book for Nico Nico wants to collect stamps from all the places link visits on his journey sometimes these stamp stations are out in the open but other times you need to really search for their location finding all the bunnies and stamps wasn't that difficult I just needed to keep it in mind throughout the entire game making sure that no stone was left unturned now the big final collectible are the force gems at certain points in your journey you can help out different NPCs that you'll meet in the game this usually will require you either transporting a certain object to them such as Lumber or ice or loading them up as a passenger on your train and bringing them to a brand new location performing this kind of gesture overwhelms them with gratitude and produces a force gem these Force gems give the best initial benefit possible each gem restores a part of the Spirit Tracks sometimes this will lead to a new hidden dungeon for you to explore and sometimes it will open up a shortcut making your journey easier to progress through the force gems were my absolute favorite collectible to find it sort of reminded me of Majora's Mask and fulfilling Side Quests for all the characters in your bomb Journal my time spent in Spirit Tracks was up and down I enjoyed most of my time when I was walking around and exploring even if it still was a bit weird to control everything with the stylus I really enjoyed all the Dungeons and all the games Collectibles it was really just everything having to do with the train that ironically kind of bummed me out so I've completed every dungeon got every collectible and defeated the final boss new Hyrule is saved what do I get for all my efforts and what else is there for me to do so for finding every Bunny and getting every stamp you will unlock a couple of swordmaster Scrolls these will upgrade your combat abilities giving you a better Spin Attack and making it so that your sword can shoot out a beam while at full health you know the classic upgrades you also get an alternative outfit from Nico when you have half of the stamps this is your little train engineer outfit it's cute but to me it doesn't beat the classic green now one of the things I did not really touch on but took me quite a long time to finish was getting all of the train parts much like in Phantom Hourglass you can upgrade your train with different Cosmetics these will provide you with a few extra hits in combat during the game I didn't really buy any of these Cosmetics not because I thought they looked bad but because I never wanted to go out of my way to go back and forth to buy them the location that they're at each train part requires a certain amount of treasures to purchase these Treasures can be found in pots and chests as well as rewards for completing mini games the unfortunate truth is the amount of treasure you need is obscene to unlock every train piece other than getting the Decked Out gold train I feel like you can just skip going for a lot of this and not miss anything with regards to the experience getting the correct Treasures needed to buy certain train parts was entirely a crapshoot I might need a palace dish but instead I just got another Goron Amber the final thing I wanted to do in this game was achieve the rank of Captain from the Guard Captain miname this required me to hit recruits over 900 times before I got hit three times now this is absolutely not worth it it's difficult it's tedious and the reward is minimal if you ever choose to decide to complete the Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks for the DS skip over this entirely save your time save your life most of the completion elements are just not worth it even the rewards from finding the stamps and rabbits won't make or break your run if you want to do everything this game has to offer you got a full plate ahead of you however if you just want to play through a nice compact Zelda Adventure this game will deliver on that Spirit Tracks took me roughly 47 hours to complete and the majority of that was spent either grinding for Treasure or traveling slowly on the train I still had an overall pretty good time though I know this game has a reputation but I think it is worth checking out so with that in mind guys I give this game my completionist rating of finish it thanks for watching and hey if you like the show you want to support us click that like button and tell me what your favorite fictional train is in the comments down below see you guys next week [Music]

Channel: The Completionist

Views: 49,216

Keywords: zelda, the legend of zelda, the legend of zelda spirit tracks, spirit tracks, ign, spirit tracks review, zelda games, game review, game reviews, review, gaming, nintendo, 3ds, gameboy, game boy, completionist, jirard khalil, 3ds games, zelda review, spirit tracks gameplay, gameplay, zelda gameplay, link, the legend of zelda tears of the kingdom, breath of the wild, botw 2, legend of zelda, phantom hourglass, trains, train, wind waker

Id: WCgkT4DcE_E

Length: 17min 52sec (1072 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 28 2024