{"id":2447,"date":"2021-04-30T15:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T21:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=2447"},"modified":"2021-02-10T21:06:03","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T04:06:03","slug":"video-game-spirit-tracks-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/30\/video-game-spirit-tracks-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO GAME: Spirit Tracks (2009)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/9\/91\/The_Legend_of_Zelda_Spirit_Tracks_box_art.jpg\/220px-The_Legend_of_Zelda_Spirit_Tracks_box_art.jpg\" alt=\"Spirit Tracks\" width=\"220\" height=\"231\" \/>The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks<br \/><\/u><\/strong>Year: 2009<br \/>Rating: E<br \/>Time Played: 21.13 hours<\/p>\n<p>For many years, I was never a fan of the dual-screen (DS) line of Nintendo&#8217;s handheld systems. I grew up on the standard D-pad and action buttons, so having to transition to a touchscreen was quite the adjustment. I had already played through <em>Phantom Hourglass<\/em>, so I was prepared to face the less-accurate combat system implemented for the DS Zelda titles. Still, this didn&#8217;t prepare me for how frustrating everything else about <em>Spirit Tracks<\/em> would be.<\/p>\n<p>I get that the <em>Zelda<\/em> games can be a little repetitive. At least the different &#8220;biomes&#8221; of Hyrule help create differences between the dungeons that make the gameplay interesting. However, <em>Spirit Tracks<\/em> does little to distinguish between these dungeons, with each one feeling so similar to the last that I can&#8217;t honestly remember what made any of them unique. The fact that the story was so repetitive as to be the same sequence of events for the five different regions didn&#8217;t help. But that&#8217;s not even the worst part about this game.<\/p>\n<p>What struck me with this game was how tedious it was. While the music in the overworld was the best thing about this game, I spent most of my time on the train tracks schlepping back and forth across the entire map for fetch quests, which weren&#8217;t nearly as bad as when I actually had a passenger who required me to conduct the train as if I was a grandmother driving to church. There&#8217;s a reason why I&#8217;m sure there were tons of sidequests (too many, really) that I never even knew about and don&#8217;t ever want to complete. Then, there&#8217;s Zelda. For a game where you finally get to play as her (kind of), the fact that <em>Spirit Tracks<\/em> leans heavily into the &#8220;escort mission&#8221; mechanic really ruined the whole experience.<\/p>\n<p>The worst Zelda game in the franchise, I give <em>The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks<\/em> 2.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><strong> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/> <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/BMW-the-Critic.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1821\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/BMW-the-Critic.jpg 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/BMW-the-Critic-300x114.jpg 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/BMW-the-Critic-768x292.jpg 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/BMW-the-Critic-640x244.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Legend of Zelda: Spirit TracksYear: 2009Rating: ETime Played: 21.13 hours For many years, I was never a fan of the dual-screen (DS) line of Nintendo&#8217;s handheld systems. I grew up on the standard D-pad and action buttons, so having to transition to a touchscreen was quite the adjustment. I had already played through Phantom [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,1900],"tags":[372,2468,2186,2469,8,2687,2614,2676,906],"class_list":["post-2447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-0-stars","category-video-game","tag-372","tag-ds","tag-nintendo","tag-nintendo-ds","tag-review","tag-spirit-tracks","tag-the-legend-of-zelda","tag-touchscreen","tag-video-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2459,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions\/2459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}