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Classroom Facts
Spirit Tracks is mostly devoid of classroom facts, though a few small exceptions make it through. Math is an important concept when it comes to buying and selling treasures and other goods, and musical timing is involved when players have to play alongside the guardians of each of the game's temples.
One other important feature is the game's in-depth map system. A world map shows each of the four quadrants of the world and all of the spirit tracks that have been restored through each. When in towns, dungeons or other areas, the top screen of the game shows a detailed map of the area.
Most importantly, every one of these maps can be written on. Players can jot down notes or mark notable areas at any time, and they will be saved for the entire game.
Creativity & Imagination
By the Player:
While the meat of the game is fairly linear, there are plenty of sidequests and hidden treasures for intrepid players to seek. Many of these quests involve helping people with various problems by using the spirit train, and often completing these tasks will add more tracks to the world, giving players new areas to explore. There are plenty of these and other optional goals for players to pursue throughout the game, including the collection of heart pieces or the hunt for the 40 rabbits hiding throughout the land.
By the Developer:
Spirit Tracks borrows many of the same mechanics and the same graphic style of Phantom Hourglass, though it invents plenty of new items and ideas as well. Instead of sailing around the overworld as in the previous title, Spirit Tracks has players acting as the conductor of the spirit train, which is bound to magical tracks arranged throughout the world. The game has an interesting structure that has players slowly accessing each of the world’s four quadrants as they complete each dungeon. When Link defeats the boss of a temple, he returns to a central tower which he needs to climb in order to restore more tracks to the world.
The game’s puzzles and battles all use the touch screen imaginatively, and the interface rarely seems as clumsy as one might think. An original and fairly memorable soundtrack helps keep driving around the world from being too tedious, and an original storyline introduces a handful of really interesting characters.
Business Skills
Players can buy and sell goods using in-game currency rupees at a number of shops located in towns throughout the game. Players also collect various treasures with different values; these can be sold at a specific location for large amounts of money, and they can also be traded in certain combinations for new train parts.
Players can buy ammunition and potions, but a handful of truly valuable items cost quite a bit more than these. Players can save up the money collected from enemies and from treasures to purchase these.
There is also a fairly interesting lottery system; every real-world day there are three prizes available, and players can purchase up to twenty entries each day. In the morning, players will find the results in any of the game’s mailboxes.
People Skills
Spirit Tracks is a single-player adventure, and it doesn’t give the player any chances to interact meaningfully with characters or affect the game’s progression. Many of the game’s quests do involve helping characters with various problems, but again players don’t have control over the results.
Problem Solving
Problem solving in Spirit Tracks varies pretty wildly depending on what the player is doing. In dungeons Link is faced with any number of traps, enemies and puzzles, and players must figure out how to use Link’s various tools to overcome them. These dungeons also end in fairly fantastic battles against giant boss enemies, and these always require players to use each dungeon’s special item creatively.
Challenges in the central tower that Link returns to are more complicated, as these have Zelda inhabiting the menacing knights that roam its halls. When she is possessing one of them, players control both characters, and this often leads to some fairly complicated puzzles.
Outside of these players spend a lot of time riding along the spirit tracks. Players have access to a gear shift and a cannon that can be fired against attacking enemies and other obstacles, of which many may appear on any one ride. Players also need to avoid large evil trains that spell instant defeat if they catch Link. When transporting passengers or goods with the train, players must also follow special rules indicated by various signs dotted along the landscape.
The variation of challenges available in the game helps give it an enjoyable flow, with dungeon-crawling being broken up by train exploration and vice-versa. The game introduces new ideas and challenges right up to its finale, giving players new things to play with rather than tying them to the same mechanics from start to finish.
Simulation
Spirit Tracks is not a simulation game.
Popularity
Spirit Tracks was well-received at its release. Many reviewers praised the game’s touch-screen controls, inventive design and plethora of sidequests. Critics of the game said that it didn’t offer significant innovation compared to the previous game in the series.
Controls & Options
Spirit Tracks doesn’t include anything significant here, offering only standard audio options.
Tips
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks received an E10+ from the ESRB with a descriptor for Mild Fantasy Violence. |