Many people felt a little halfheartedly excited when they learned of the Zelda title that Nintendo would be showing at E3 this year. Let’s face it, the Wii is in need of some hardcore titles and the lack of Zelda being shown was a little disappointing to many (though Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M partially made up for this) but instead, the only Zelda game we are given any significant information about is Spirit Tracks, a game that can easily be taken as a less hardcore title (and rightfully so as Phantom Hourglass’s touch screen controls made the game a little too easy compared to previous handheld Zelda titles such as Minish Cap or Oracle of Ages & Oracle of Seasons).
Nevertheless, I made my way to the lengthy line to play The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks on Thursday morning at E3 and it only confirmed a few of my suspicions but at the same time gave me a wide array of feelings about the game. First of all, the dungeon showed off in the game included the mechanic of controlling one of the Shadow Knights, which ended up leading to some pretty interesting and enjoyable puzzles. I feel like the one good thing about the touch screen controls is that this is round two with the control scheme and they should be able to make some pretty sick puzzles using the DS’s touch screen. Still though, combat was far too easy in the dungeon and the only real threat of death involved the pits of lava underneath whilst I rode the fated shadow knight across these pits of fiery inferno.
The item used in the dungeon was a similar item to the gale boomerang from Twilight Princess where it is capable of shooting blasts of wind to affect the environment around you as well as enemies. However, though the item does make use of another DS feature in the microphone (where players must blow into the microphone to propogate a gust of wind forward) but this feature only felt a little bit gimmicky for my own tastes. Still, the item itself was used for some pretty interesting puzzles, including pushing a key off of a ledge while riding the knight across lava.
The second demo included in the E3 build had Link riding the train across a random field. My fears of gimmicky gameplay derived by Link’s iron horse were only confirmed a bit by this form of gameplay. When riding the horse or boat in any of Link’s previous games, you’re given full explorative freedom, but this locamotive mode of transportation felt very limited. This game gives the phrase “on rails” as literal of a translation as you can imagine. For instance, if you accidentally choose the wrong path before hitting an intersection, you may have to traverse a familiar route multiple times on a not-so-speedy train. This can become rather annoying, as you can imagine, whereas even in the E3 demo I made a mistake and got annoyed.
Now, while I understand that this mode of transportation could lead to some interesting game mechanics or puzzles later in the game, I still feel like the train limits the outer world experience from dungeon to dungeon that most Zelda games thrive from. For instance, think about sailing in Wind Waker, I mean this was one of the most enjoyable things to do in the game due to the incredibly epic music and the illusion of the actual wind at your back while sailing an endless sea of blue. Purely art in its finest form. And while I can’t say there was a more enjoyable travelling experience in a Zelda game, I can say that riding the horse in Twilight Princess and navigating the boat in Phantom Hourglass are both fun purely for exploration factors. The train on the other hand just doesn’t seem to carry over this level of enjoyment and I fear that this could be a major issue with the game when it’s all said and done.
Finally, the third demo in the E3 build was a boss battle with a giant beetle-like creature. The battle wasn’t too creative but did make good use of the gusting item that was used in the dungeon. But, as with many of the recent Zelda games, I still felt like this boss battle was a little easy for my own tastes…Hopefully Nintendo will increase the challenge in this game but somehow I doubt this is the case…
Overall, I enjoyed the Zelda experience at E3 purely because it was Zelda and I’m a huge fan of the series in general. However, I must say that I’m a little unhappy overall with the path that Zelda has taken on the DS with its touchscreen controls and simplified gameplay. I long for the days of the hardcore top-down Zelda games that pack both creative dungeons and difficult enemies/bosses. My only hope is that Nintendo finally deviates from the format after Spirit Tracks. Still, I’m sure that Spirit Tracks will be an enjoyable Zelda experience, just maybe not my favorite…
