Friday, November 6, 2009

Spirit Tracks: Ghost Zelda Trailer

Nintendo released some awesome new Spirit Tracks trailer today. If you don't want to be spoiled about the story of the game, don't watch it. The trailer shows a huge twist to everything we knew about the game so far.

-- video removed --

Woah, didn't see THAT coming. Zelda dies and turns into a ghost/spirit following Link. And then she takes over the Phantom to save Link from it. So, that's the deal. Link doesn't actually get a Phantom as a sidekick, but Zelda herself, who can take control over the Phantoms and maybe other enemies. I wouldn't wonder, if we would get to use stronger Phantoms in the later game like the Swift Phantoms or the ones that could teleport. And maybe even completely different enemies. Funny detail, she is scared of rats and so is the Phantom, lol. But Ghost-Zelda as a sidekick is definitely awesome, it also complains why she looked so pale on the European Cover. I love the scene, where she floats next to the train.



Some bad guys are shown, too. One looks like a floating Dr. Wily and shoots at Zelda, which seperates her spirit from her body. And obviously she isn't the only spirit in the game, that can take over things. There's a train, that looks like the reincarnation of Ganondorf, which I will call the "Gannon-Train" from now on. Well, I'm not sure right now if this is pure genious or absolutely ridiculous or even true, we will see. One boss is shown as well and it looks like, you're collecting Force Gems from the dungeons. It probably has something to do with the Life Force and it might be the only way to get Zelda's spirit back into her body. There are some other infos as well, posted in GoNintendo:
  • Spirit Tracks is a Phantom Hourglass sequel (oh really?)
  • The game begins with Link going to his graduation ceremony for completion of train engineering school. He will no longer be an apprentice engineer after this ceremony.
  • Link and the Phantom work together in the Tower of the Spirits
  • Tablets are collected in this tower
  • The Spirit Tracks trailer shows Link walking around with Zelda in spirit form after she has been attacked by a mystery enemy, which seems to come down from a ghost train. It seems like Zelda's spirit is with you for a large portion of the game, and she actually flies inside the Phantom to control it. Zelda rides/flies along with you while you're on the train.

Well, according to the info it really seems like the Tower of Spirits will be a new master dungeon similar to the Temple of the Ocean King in Phantom Hourglass. Before you freak out, it doesn't come with a time limit and instead of running away from Phantoms you will be able to control them with the help of Zelda. Collecting tablets instantly reminds me on Ancient Stone Tablets, which I have played recently. But it might be something similar to the Ancient Tomb dungeon in Oracle of Ages, where you had to collect several tablets in order to proceed to the next floor. Overall I really like the concept of a master dungeon, but the Ocean King Temple just wasn't very enjoyable. The repetition, the time limit, the stealth action, duh. At the moment we don't know, if it will have the same repetition level or if you will be able to skip already beaten floors, but at least the other factors seem to be gone.

Some Zelda fans also seem to complain about the time limit while riding the train in the trailer. I wouldn't worry about that, this might be exclusive to the situation (see how the tracks disappear?) or some sort of minigame (like Link's graduating test). I doubt, that you will always will have a time limit while going on train, in fact this was the first time we ever saw a train sequence with a time limit in it.

Nice detail, the whip is actually a snake or at least looks like a snake. I wonder, if there are any extra functions to it.

Overall Spirit Tracks has the chance to become what Phantom Hourglass should have been in the first place. And right now I'm really looking forward to go on adventures together with Ghost Zelda.

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