The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is a Nintendo DS video game by Nintendo. In the game, Link will travel Hyrule via a Spirit Train and will team up with Princess Zelda throughout most of the game. Spirit Tracks was revealed at GDC 2009 and is a successor to The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.

Plot
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks takes place 100 years after Phantom Hourglass. The characters that appear in this game are unique, not having appeared in Phantom Hourglass before it. In between the two games, a long-lasting war cast the citizens of Hyrule into turmoil as they waged battle against an evil entity known as the Demon King. A group of spirits managed to overcome this evil and chained him underground. Overtime the citizens of Hyrule used these chains as train tracks as a form of transportation (thus explaining their presence in the game).

Link, a young boy, is a train conductor who goes to Hyrule Castle in order to be deemed the Royal Engineer by Princess Zelda. While this is being done, she warns Link of Chancellor Cole, whom she has grown suspicious of. She subsequently requests that Link assists her in escaping the castle without being caught by one of the guards, which Link does (in order to do this easier, Link dons a tunic that resemble the guards' clothes). Once outside Alfonzo, the master engineer, meets up with the two. Once on their way via a train, the tracks suddenly disappear and the train topples over. Chancellor Cole appears and attacks the three, which results in the unfortunate separation of Princess Zelda's spirit and body. The game skips ahead and Link, who was knocked out, wakes up to find Zelda's spirit. It appears that LInk is the only one who can see Zelda in this form. Together, they plot to take down Cole, who plans to use Zelda's body to revive the Demon King.

Characters
Link: Link is the protagonist of the game. He is an engineer who goes off on his adventure to stop Chancellor Cole from reviving the Demon King.

Princess Zelda: Early on in the game, Princess Zelda's spirit is removed from her body. Cole plans on using her body to revive the Demon King, which she, in her spirit form, hopes to stop from happening.

Gameplay
The gameplay will be similar to that of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. While not confirmed, it seems as if the game is played via the touch screen as it was in PH. A map is seen on the top screen, along with where the train tracks are. While on the train, Link can shoot cannons from his locomotive. The game includes typical dungeons as well, along with the addition of bosses that span two screens. A Phantom seems to accompany Link along his journey. His role is unknown, though it seems to be the same kind as in Phantom Hourglass, as well as being invincible.. The Phantom can do things that Link can't such as walk through lava. He can also attack enemies and distract them as well as Link goes behind them and attacks their back.

Development
During E3 2008, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata confirmed that the Mario and Zelda teams were hard at work, but didn't reveal anything else. Fans would have to wait until over half a year until the next entry in the series would be revealed during Iwata's keynote address at GDC. Before the keynote started, many speculated as to whether the game would be revealed or not, and many thought it would be for Wii. Though at the end of the conference, after announcing Virtual Console Arcade, a trailer showed off the game, which was welcomed to a great amount of applause. He then confirmed that the game would be released later in 2009.

Development on the game started after The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Director Daiki Iwamoto, who also directed Phantom Hourglass, stated that they felt they had accomplished a great deal in the previous game though also felt that he could do another title on the Nintendo DS. Eiji Aonuma, the general manager of Nintendo EAD3 and the producer of the game, stated that the reaction of the team was similar to the one when Shigeru Miyamoto asked the team to work on The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask after The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was completed.

Aonuma stated that early on in development he asked the team to not implement the boat that was prominently featured in The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, wanting a different mode of transportation. "Right. No boats allowed (laughs). I think it's fun to have a new land becoming clearer and clearer right before your eyes, and have all sorts of different developments open up. It piques your sense of adventure, too." With the decision to get rid of boats, Aonuma recalled a picture book that his son liked when he was around five years old called The Tracks Go On, which was released in 2003 by Kin-no-hoshi sha Co., Ltd. In the book, the children would continue to create railroad tracks so that the train could progress. Eiji Aonuma explained that this was one of the major inspirations behind making a train the primary mode of transportation. According to the developers, none of the employees who worked on the game were train fans at first, though after doing research on them began to appreciate them a bit more.

The ability to control Zelda traces back to Phantom Hourglass when the player was required to control both Link and a young Goron in a dungeon. Because the segment was well received, the developers decided to implement a similar feature in the new game. Controlling the Phantom (possessed by Zelda) is done within the large, 20+ level dungeon in the game. When asked why Tetra didn't make an appearance in this game, Aonuma, who was fond of the character, stated that the director explained to him that "[he didn't] like Tetra all that much".

Trivia
The Demon king (a giant train like enemy) bares similiar facial features to that of Ganondorf.

Reception
Spirit Tracks has received very favorable reviews. Official Nintendo Magazine gave the game 91%, saying that while it improves on Phantom Hourglass and overall is a much better game, there are just hints of familiarity (to compare, ONM gave Phantom Hourglass a 95%). Computer & Video Games UK also gave the game a similar 91%, while GameTrailers claimed it deserved a 9.0. European gaming magazine Edge was a bit more critical, and gave the game an 8/10.