Spirit Tracks - much better than expected

And off you go:
Spirit Tracks is technically similar to its direct predecessor Phantom Hourglass, which I then yes only 2 stars conceded. The controls are almost identical, but was a little here and there bolstered. For example, one roll is held by drawing small circles on the screen by a double tap on what leads to rare accidental rolling. In addition, now is the object that you briefly tapping marked with a luminous ring. There're also a pause function if you change the equipped item, so you unlike Phantom Hourglass not during menu navigation is defenseless monster fodder. A central dungeon, which you always have to visit there again and replaced the Temple of the Ocean King of Phantom Hourglass. This new dungeon, the Tower of Spirits, however, is a lot less annoying when his Phantom Hourglass counterpart, because you can start every time you visit directly in the new floor and the timer has been removed. The principle within the dungeons, however, was hardly changed. There are comparatively short passages with Stealth known from Phantom Hourglass phantoms, from where you can take time even owned by letting slip the spirit of Princess Zelda in their armor (more on that later).

The new means of transport is a train that such traits do this now times, on rails, the eponymous Spirit Tracks, travels. These rails disappear at the beginning of the game, but allowed them little by little during the story resurface. Later in the game can be paired enable portals that allow faster travel. This would be more practical to some, the portals would be located closer to villages and one would be able to travel the entire portal network instead of being able to travel only within a couple back and forth. On the rails, it will be attacked by various enemies that you can eliminate as in Phantom Hourglass with the cannon. An exception to other trains. It go "bad" traits, grim-faced on the tracks, who deliberately set out to touch you, which ends in an instant Game Over. These coatings can be slow for a while, but this is not very useful by several hits with the cannon. I guess at this point anyone who prefers to change the route, rather than trying to vorbeizuquetschen too close to these trains.

Game play to propel the story repeated itself again and again. So to solve a new floor in the Tower of Spirits and there appear track to a so-called Sanctuary (a kind of shrine), which is called upon to play with strange half-man half-locomotive being a duet on flute, and then the actual access to acquire Temple, which one then plays and thereby unlock more tracks, which can drive you back to the Tower of Spirits and so on. Unfortunately, while exploring the world falls on your own completely flat.
The duets on the flute are kept very simple in fact, however, it may take a bit of practice until you can play it flawlessly, as this is done by blowing into the microphone and move the flute on the touch screen, which the whole process seem very unnatural leaves and makes it difficult to remain in tact. I see a problem, especially in children. So I can well imagine that these do not have the patience, the same sequence dozens of times to try to the rhythm finally agrees, and you may continue playing. The regular songs that you learn during the game are as simple in the sense that you do not have pay attention to the rhythm of these.
A very nice new feature is that you can as mentioned above, can control a phantom inside the Tower of Spirits, which for example will not be damaged by fire, and can run on prickly soil and thus can reach switches, the link does not approach. This is done by drawing paths that the Phantom after then expires. Because there are several ghosts again, you can master the different forces these benefits and as new situations. Personally, I would, however, have liked here that the developers were confident the players a little more cerebral and not every new puzzles instantly on screen of Zelda's spirit could be explained. That takes a kind of the nice feeling of being draufgekommen itself.

Some problems of its predecessor, however, continue to exist or were even worse. So there is still uninspired puzzles that have "Read a stone tablet in the room and just do what it says" or "Read the sign and actuates the switch / lever in the following order ...". When a mystery brings no own logic, but is designed so that you reread the solution on a plate, the same can hardly be called good design. This scheme has unfortunately spread to the Overworld. So fell on this when you had to go through a forest by train, the very reminiscent of the Lost Woods from previous parts. Short time for people who do not know what is meant: The Lost Woods are always reemerging place in Hyrule that exist on the NES since Zelda1, but probably from Ocarina of Time are best known. There are forests, which are designed so that you get lost; so there are usually 3 or 4 possible outcomes, which all carry out a return to the beginning. In other words, you have to repeatedly get the right exit to get to the desired location. In Ocarina of Time is always running in the output from which you could hear flute music. The game headed a so, though subtle. To the correct location When Lost Woods equivalent in Spirit Tracks be that behaves similarly: There are in the woods several points that need to be put right and if you turn on the wrong track, you end up back at the beginning. When Zelda veteran I realized pretty much instantly that before every switch was a crippled tree whose greatest road shows in the right direction. So I followed these characters, but after a while I was still back at the entrance. What happened? Well, it turned out that this mystery is not solved logically again. You have to go to a village and talk with all the people, one of which at some point mentioned that a certain of these stunted trees and lying on this tree but one should choose the other way.
Back to the temples:
These are very linear kept, so you can not get lost. However, this also is the typical "explore and combine" the Zelda series prevented. Basically, there are in each temple only one way you can go to, which can scour a all rooms in succession by a door after another opens. The bosses make a lot more fun than those from Phantom Hourglass. Here I would like allderings not too much away, because this is my personal favorite thing about this game. However, let me say that we can look forward to the fun strategy or other.

Side quests there again. This time, you can fill in a stamp album, by looking at different places in the world the designated stations. In addition, you can go in his train passengers from A to B and received small rewards. The Passenger Transport Unfortunately the "Mini-Game" out treatment. While you have a passenger here, you have to honk and slow down or faster because the people who appear to be in the world of Spirit Tracks nothing better than to watch on the train all signs and yelling at you at certain signs when you do not at the right moment betätigst the horn and possibly get out in the wilderness between monsters and tanks, if you too often ignore the signs.

A question I am concerned, however, over and over again during the game is whether Nintendo is possibly become lazy.
The Overworld in Spirit Tracks consists largely of only 2D graphics. Stones, trees, St. Andrew's crosses, etc are all objects that look in the Spirit Tracks OverWorld always exactly equal and have only one visible side. So you go around by train, you can see how always turn these objects with its front in the camera. Bends one from, the pixelated 2D Andreas crosses rotate also. This has pretty cheap and something I've recently experienced in the trees in Mario64 (1997).
In addition, forests and other landscapes are only hinted at. The first forest, where one passes for example is simply a square, on the one repeatedly repeating texture is glued by trees. This has the consequence that at the edges of the cuboid the trees in part are only half of it. Also looks cheap.
Further falls in during the game that Spirit Tracks trying to look bigger than it is by letting go the player back and forth often unnecessary to stretch the season.
This phenomenon can be observed frequently in recent Zelda: While older titles still knew how to flaunt, each with 8 unique dungeons, bring newer Title 4 or 5 with him, playfully not really differ from each other. Then comes to the DS games yet this central dungeon to the always used inside the same textures. An excuse, so you have to come up instead of the X visit in this dungeon, no X unique with a different look and a distinctive gameplay? Who knows. If you follow the interviews of the team around the current and future parts, one has to hear out also that an attempt is made to move more playing time from the dungeons out on the world map. So perhaps we need to accept that and solve puzzles to play Dungeons significance for this series loses us.

Conclusion:
+ Zelda
+ The bosses
+ Fixed some vulnerabilities from Phantom Hourglass
+ The Phantom makes the Tower of Spirits relatively interesting
+ The look of the game outside the Overworld
- Uninspired puzzles
- Linear Dungeons
- Permanent Blow into the microphone
- No Free Roaming
- The optics hingerotzte the Overworld

All in all the game is solid and down to the cheap-looking objects the Overworld and the limited exploration freedom, it just shines in direct comparison with Phantom Hourglass. It's not a bad game, only one goes always with greater expectations into play when Nintendo launches a new part in one of its biggest franchises to the market.

Are you a casual gamer who plays cross its handheld home to. Have but someone who is looking for a certain challenge, you will not really find it here. And if you plan your DS on the train, to play on the bus or in public places (ie the classical places for handheld gaming), you should at least have the looks of the bystanders do not care if you ever anpustest your console.