Spirit Tracks Rail Diary: Day 6

This night I gave that Dark Ore sidequest another chance. Luckily the nasty train tunnel boss was gone after beating it once and I could deliver enough Ore to Linebeck safely in time. This unlocked yet another secret station with a minidungeon on it. Spirit Tracks is a minidungeon paradise! The Lost Sea Station is inhabited by countless birds and you can test the reaction of all bird types here to the Song of Birds. Chickens will follow you in a row (like in Majora's Mask, when you used the Bremen Mask) and the seagulls will sit on your head. Overall the place looks rather harmless, but what's inside the small hidden cave is quite the shocker. A replica of the Ocean King Temple! Woah... Well, it's not an exact replica and it got "only" five floors, but it's still the largest and probably most challenging of the additional minidungeons. You're not allowed to use sword and bow, so you can't stun the Phantoms with your Lokomo Sword or Light Bow and Zelda can't control them. Each floor of the dungeon represents one of the different Phantom types in the game. The first floor got normal Phantoms and you're supposed to light some torches. The second floor is a dark area, where Torch Phantoms patrol, and you have to blow out torches. The third floor features Warp Phantoms and four pairs of switches. Every pair got a right switch and a fake switch. If you draw the wrong one, more Phantom Eyes are released on the floor. Floor Nr. 4 then has lots of Wrecker Phantoms and crumbled blocks. You need to destroy all those blocks in order to proceed. The bombs really are useful on this floor (but don't forget that Bombs are an optional item in the game and you're not supposed to have them). The last floor offers four treasure chests and is a combination of all the above floors. All four types of Phantoms patrol here and you have to solve similar puzzles in order to get all treasure chests and beat the dungeon. Cool, huh? The dungeon isn't too much of a problem, after playing the Temple of the Ocean King dozens of times and the Tower of the Spirits recently, you should be an expert veteran for this specific type of dungeon by now. Still the feeling of having to play such a dungeon yet again alone gave me the creeps. I was like "oh no".

However, you only get one of the two golden treasures at the end (a Regal Ring). Again. Seriously, they should have added a Heart Container in this spot. While all those minidungeons are really awesome, they aren't really worth all the effort. I mean, just think about what you all had to do for that sidequest. You had to discover the Dark Ore Mine, beat yet another of those terrible train tunnel monster crab spider bosses, transport the Ore in time, discover the hidden minidungeon, beat five floors full of classic Ocean King Temple action and all you get is some treasures? And on the other hand the supposed to be rare Heart Containers are funny giveaways in minigames. But for example the archery minigame and the whip minigame both give you an upgrade for your bombbag/quiver AND a Heart Container. Why not just the upgrades, while the Heart Containers are put in some of the minidungeons? Would be way better. Or why not give the player some more fun items? For example the Slippery Temple minigame could have given you "Snowshoes" at the end, that let you walk normally on ice. Remember the Snowshoe Ring from the Oracle games? Like that one.

Well, for me the tour through Lost Sea Station Temple was worth it, because I finally got enough treasures to complete my golden train. Shiny. Gives you eight hearts like the golden ship set in Phantom Hourglass and looks really shiny. And the horn has the sound of a large bell. But interestingly enough it's actually the first set, that I've completed. It looks like one or two of the cheaper treasures are coming in more rarely than the others. For example I couldn't find a single Dark Pearl Loop in the entire game. Not even one. There are similar reports on GameFAQs, that people have problems finding certain cheaper treasures. Like Demon Fossils or Ruto Crowns. Could be, that Nintendo made certain pieces extra rare to encourage the stupid trading mode. And on the other hand they removed online. Really nice, Nintendo, break my legs and send me on a marathon. Overall I thought the new treasure and train car system is much better and solid than the treasures and ship parts in Phantom Hourglass. If all the treasures of the same price class would have the same chance of appearing (like it's supposed to be and like it was in Phantom Hourglass), you should have nearly enough treasures to buy all trains cars at the end of the game. There might be some pieces of one kind missing, but not dozens. In Phantom Hourglass the probabilities worked out right, if a treasure or a ship part had the same value, they had the same chance of appearing. And there were spots, that will give you rarer items more often. It worked perfectly. The problem with the system in Phantom Hourglass was simply, that were way too many random items. 64 ship parts to collect, so it would take forever to get a specific part. When you were down to one or two, it could be quite the annoying process of doing the same thing (like playing a minigame) over and over and over and over again without any luck. I was hoping, this wouldn't be the case in Spirit Tracks thanks to the better system. But of course Nintendo had to screw it up and just because they think it's fun to force you to use a multiplayer mode, that you can't play, if you don't know any Zelda fans personally (Four Swords anyone?). So, I will probably end up trying to find Dark Pearl Loops and other missing treasures over the next few weeks. Annoying, boring and unnecessary process. I'm still missing 11 train cars and it could take some time to get all of them. For someone like me, who always wants to get 100% of all the items, it totally kills the replay value of the game.

Besides completing the golden train I finally caught all 50 rabbits and collected all 20 stamps. Both got you an ancient sword scroll, one for the Sword Beam and one for the Great Spin Attack. The one for the Great Spin Attack is the same one you got in Phantom Hourglass, just much, much older. Both are nice rewards, the flaming sword technique would have been nice too, but I guess this is what the Torch Phantoms are good for. The only thing I'm missing next to some train cars is the Heart Container at Beedle's. And first I thought, the small island in the southeast of the Forest Land holds another hidden station with a minidungeon on it. Which is why I was looking in all villages for potential passengers or people, who want goods, without any luck. For a good reason, like I soon would notice. I've also tried the third level of the Savage Labyrinth / Cave of Ordeals clone in Hyrule Castle Town, that one is insane. You can't even use the stupid Song of Recovery. First time I've played the song and I wasn't allowed to use it, awesome. But I didn't have the new sword techniques yet, so I will sure try again fully armed and more ready. I guess, at least the room with the three big pirates will be much easier with the Great Spin Attack. Another big challenge in Hyrule Castle Town is the treasure chest on top of the house next to the Cucco hut. I can't fly to it with a Cucco (or can I?) and I don't have any idea how to get there. Maybe a bridge is built from the wall to the house, but how do I trigger it? There was a similar puzzle in Twilight Princess at the south exit of Hyrule Castle Town. No, not the treasure chest in the middle of the pond, where you had to use the Spinner. That one was easy. There was another one on top of the pillars and I couldn't figure out how to get there. Turned out there was a ledge along the castle town wall and you could move over to the chest by hand. It's quite similar here, I have no idea how to get the chest in Spirit Tracks, but it's probably very easy. I won't look it up somewhere and please don't tell me, I want to find out for myself. Also, I've heard about a secret boss somewhere. I have no clue, where it could be, but I also want to find that out for myself. My best guess is, that he waits at the end of the third boss rush level.

So, most of the sidequests are done by now, so I decided to return to the Tower of Spirits. Earlier I thought I was done with that dungeon after beating Byrne/Staven, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.



I like it, how they placed the stamp stand on top of the tower, I was afraid, that I missed it earlier. You could rush through the last section again and I started to feel like, that this simply can't be it. Of course not, seven more floors and yet the hardest part of the dungeon awaited you. With 30 floors alltogether the Tower of the Spirits is the longest and largest dungeon in the entire Zelda series. It's amazing. Like the last floor of the Lost Sea Station Temple the last section now dealt with all four types of Phantoms and using them for the right puzzles. The beginning of the section was very confusing, but as soon as you cleared the entire dark floor and got access to all the Phantom types it got easier. I liked the idea of the three doors and choosing the right one, but that would have been nasty, if one door leads to the end and the other two make you to go through more torments. But of course you had to clear what's behind all three doors. After that came some more co-op fights at the end and a final floor having all four Phantom types. Nintendo sure is proud of the different Phantoms they created. But overall the last section was a good challenge, a worthy final dungeon. My vision of hunting the Gannon-Train like the Ghost Ship in The Wind Waker didn't become a reality, but the Golden Compass opened the path to the island, where I wanted to go earlier and thought it was sidequest related.

Of course I haven't gone there yet, I'm saving it for tomorrow. :D Tonight I'll try to get the last Heart Container and the tricky chest in Hyrule Castle Town. And tomorrow then will probably be the last entry in my Rail Diary.