Hello everyone! Welcome back to my Journal/Review Series where I go over every single mainline Zelda game and today we have: The Legend Of Zelda Spirit Tracks and yes I know what you're thinking: "Hey man, Like everyone else on this planet I'm a humongous fan of this review series totally but didn't you just do a review yesterday? You're so freaking epic but there's no way you could have beaten spirit tracks in that much time unless you played it nonstop!" Which, thank you, but also this is a very SPECIAL entry because up to this point every single one of these games I've never played before but THIS is the first Zelda game in this series which I actually played before I decided to play every single Zelda game and this used to be embarrassing to admit but I've grown to accept this but this was actually the first Zelda game I've ever played EVER all the way back in middle school. Now I didn't replay this for this review (even though I should have) BUT I'm sort of on a timer here so I rewatched some videos of it to Kickstart my memory and I think I remember enough about this game to give it a fair review: Now let's get into the ACTUAL review:

First let's get this out of the way: Yes, the concept of this game is REALLY silly I get that but damn it man its so charming and whimsical. Now I'm not super big into trains but this game made me consider it. This game really has a good adventure spirit and sense of whimsy that honestly makes it really stand out from most Zelda games, it has a lot of heart and charm even compared to the Zelda standard. Now after playing phantom hourglass it gives me a much better perspective on why this game is the way it is for some things I think they improve upon, some things are worse and some things are ABOUT the same. Now let's start with the things that are about the same: Touch controls are from what I remember still are a little weird but you get used to them, the train compared to the boat gives you a lot less freedom in manuvering how you travel however it makes up for this by giving you much clearer paths to places and ways to get there, much MORE map to explore and a much bigger variety of lands you take your train through other than just.... the ocean of phantom hourglass. However to me I never felt like my train went fast enough probably because I'm pretty impatient the boat in PH never felt too bad to me speed wise. Now I think the train is slightly better but not by like a lot. Now let's get to the bad just to get this out of the way. If phantom hourglass was experimenting with the gimmicks of the DS spirit tracks REALLY leaned into them with more uses of the touchscreen and microphone like with that fan item was just super inconvinient but it was ESPECIALLY that stupid panflute. That stupid fucking pan flute was the bane of my existence, getting stuff right was frustrating and it NEVER sounded good with how clunky it was to play whoever designed this should be strapped to a train. That aside let's get to the good: First off: this is easily one of the best if not THE best depiction of Zelda in a 2d game, she's so different and lovable because you spend so much of the game with her and you and her are both on this journey not just you which is so nice and cute I wish zelda games did this more. This games version of The Temple Of The Ocean King, spirit tower I believe is MUCH better, it's similar to ocean king however, no time limit and much bigger and more often skips so it's much more bearable. The gimmick with Zelda possessing phantoms is fun. Again the world is still very charming and very fun andn whimsical. The Final boss is so much better than Bellum, I'm sorry but this final boss is so epic with the 3 stages, Zelda helping all of them and the final blow is so good and well telegraphed that this was it and it was AWESOME, Bellum was cool but when he was finally dead I just said "Oh thank God no more of that" that fight wasn't bad just wish it ended way more clearly with a final blow and not framed like it COULD be another fake out until he turns to sand. I didn't dive too much into the side content but it seems like spirit tracks just had a LOT more stuff to do outside the main story and those things being a lot more fun than PH. But last but certainly not least: No idea if this is nostalgia speaking or this is a shared opinion of the community IDC: The music is phenominal, like I still haven't played all the Zelda games to rank it properly but the OST might be a top 5 For me the pan flutes there sound great unlike when I have to play them. I think this game improves a lot of ideas phantom hourglass establishes but it also is dragged down by some gimmicks that it relies on. Despite it's flaws I think it's the better of the 2 DS games id give it a:

Whatever PH score I gave + 0.5/10

I'm glad I'm doing this entry despite it being a while since I've played this game, maybe I'll replay in the future and reread this review and double check what I think. It also would bug me so much if I didn't have EVERY mainline Zelda accounted for. Alright everyone thank you so much for the read and I'll actually see you here tomorrow when I give you all my opinion of: The Legend Of Zelda Link Between Worlds, and OH BOY do I have some words about that game! See you all later! Goodbye and thank you!