The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

 I've seen a fair amount of people call Spirit Tracks better than its DS predecessor from a couple years ago, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. I finished that game a couple months ago, and while that may have caused the tiniest bit of fatigue, I don't think it was significantly inferior. Spirit Tracks does have more devious puzzles and more unique items in its assortment of equipment, though it has its share of faults as well, and I see them more as nice complements for each other in between the more significant console entries in the series instead of competitors.

The basic structure is pretty much the same. Instead of hiring a ship to bring you around the ocean, you're the newest official engineer in Hyrule, using a train to transport yourself around the world. At first I enjoyed the simple fun of conducting, choosing a path, blowing the whistle and keeping various monsters at bay. In time they managed to make it more of a slog than the boat, forcing you to return to places you just were, avoid increasingly irritating enemy trains, bring cargo from place to place, and escort various people who seem more concerned about obeying the rules of the rails than letting you get on with the game. It becomes stifling, making you wonder why you can't just hop off the train and walk somewhere that you can see instead of having to magically restore the tracks to that location with busywork. And continuing with the lack of rewarding side quests, the only solace is the dungeons. Like Hourglass, there is one central location you have to visit several times, and a bunch of more traditional dungeons you visit in between.

The central dungeon is better than the other game's, mostly because it isn't timed, plus it introduces a new kind of gameplay where Zelda can take control of a set of armor and help you get past certain obstacles. On occasion this will seem like more trouble than it's worth, though I liked the change of pace, and the way they introduce the basics of telling her where to go is one of the series' most elegant introductions in a while. I mentioned the appeal of more difficult puzzles in the dungeons, although the first three felt to me about as challenging as the ones in the first game, that is, not very much. The last couple get much more interesting, though I wouldn't say more esoteric puzzles are necessarily more ultimately satisfying, and there's only so much you can accomplish with the simplified interface of playing on a tiny screen from one angle with a touch interface. The boss fights are definitely harder and more entertaining, and while I'd probably take certain parts of this game's final area than the other's, there were bits that were frustrating too. I've seen complaints about the games explaining basic information way too much, but on the other hand it never bothers to mention certain mechanics that could end up being essential to finishing certain activities.

I felt like the story had similar appeal to Hourglass, jumping a hundred years into the future and continuing the series' current trend of actually maintaining continuity between games. The continued absence of Ganon was appreciated, and I liked that Zelda had a significant part to play for once instead of just being an erstwhile damsel in distress. For some reason these games have reminded me more of anime than others in the series, it's partly the art style but also just some elements of the plots. There's an enjoyable, simple arc to it, and it's occasionally funny as well. The game looks relatively nice, although I noticed more situations where the game would intentionally focus on something that looks wrong like a closeup of a bad texture, which was frankly odd. I liked the music quite a bit too, I had a few problems sometimes getting the sequences where you accompany someone with the flute to work, but for the most part the tunes were refreshingly unique. There were too many fixable issues with the game to say I really loved it, but I did like my time with it more often than not.