The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is not without its charms. It's a Zelda game for Pete's sake, an entry in a series that has enough charm to jeopardize Professor Flitwick's job security (or, erm... something... yeah, I'll just see myself out). The game has plenty of side quests and collectibles; the Tower of Spirits sections are inventive and fun; the controls are tight and intuitive, even more so than the DS's previous (and otherwise superior) Zelda contribution, The Phantom Hourglass; the art style is characteristically vibrant, though nothing too divergent from what's in Phantom Hourglass. And you get to ride a train, which is pretty cool if only for the fact that it's a freaking train and trains are awesome.
So yes, I liked some things about Spirit Tracks. But nothing in the game was quite captivating enough to fight the overall feeling of developmental complacency I got from this title. It's a lazy take on a Nintendo property that can do much, much better. I've been a Zelda fan since my squeaky pre-teen years, played every canonical Zelda game*, and beaten all but one (damn you, Adventures of Link), and out of all of them, Spirit Tracks is the only one I would say is lazily designed.
Why Spirit Tracks? Plenty of reasons: repetitive design, unnecessary similarity to Phantom Hourglass, and way-too-low difficulty level, to name three. In this post, however, I'm going to focus on a fourth problem, one that has a little more bearing on the series as a whole and the direction in which it's been going for a while. The problem is how Spirit Tracks treats in-game exploration. In short, Spirit Tracks uses exploration as a reward rather than rewarding exploration.
Let me explain. In the game, Link has to collect items called Force Gems in order to gain access to certain areas. Here's how it works: as in The Windwaker and The Phantom Hourglass, the only method of travel between Spirit Tracks's various towns and temples is by vehicle, this time by train. Ignoring the fact that mandated train travel over solid ground lacks the internal consistency of TWW and TPH's forced boat voyages (I get that Link can't walk on water**, but what besides the DS's technical specs is keeping him from ditching the train and walking across solid ground?), this mechanic is problematic because it never gives the player true freedom to explore Hyrule. See, in addition to unleashing an ancient demon on the kingdom, the villainous forces at work in Spirit Tracks have also destroyed the majority of Hyrule's train rails. You maniacs.
Not to fear, though; Link finds rail maps that allow him to ride his train into game's four main areas, which is fine. Phantom Hourglass did basically the same thing with its sea charts. However, once you choo-choo your way into these areas, you find that Link's ability to explore is still heavily limited, since the rail maps only restore the very basic sections of the track. That's where the Force Gems come into play. If you want to explore off the beaten path at all (and I mean at all—the rail maps only give you access to the bare minimum of locations you need to beat the game) you have to complete side quests for the game's assorted NPCs, who then reward you with Force Gems that restore small portions of the tracks that give you access to more of the game map.
Don't get me wrong; I love me some Zelda side quests. Side quests are one aspect of the Zelda franchise that I think has consistently improved over the course of the series, and the games have used them as engaging ways to flesh out the in-game universe and ancillary NPCs, to often great effect. Plus, they're just fun. My problem with the side quests in Spirit Tracks isn't the side quests themselves (though they do get a little repetitive) but with what you earn by completing them. With the exception of the two major collectibles quests (stamps and rabbits) and maybe one or two other mini-games I'm forgetting about, the only reward you directly receive for doing side quests in this game is Force Gems—i.e. access to a new bit of map to ride your train through.
Okay, fine, someone might say. It's a little frustrating, but how does this make the game lazy? The short answer is that it makes the player earn something that every other Zelda game integrates into its core play experience. But when has this blog been about short answers? Onward!
Exploration has long been a central component of the Zelda experience. Think back to the series's roots—matter of fact, let's go all the way back to ground zero, The Legend of Zelda on the NES. This game requires the player to explore. From the opening minutes, nearly the entire world is available for exploration if you dare, and with next-to-no in-game guidance, you have to spend a good deal of time just wandering around the labyrinthine forests and mountains of Hyrule to find your way to the next dungeon or item. There isn't even an overworld map. Just look at it.
If you glance at the upper-left portion of the screen, you can see what the game manual calls the "radar," which is really just that gray box with the green dot in the center. The radar shows you roughly where you are in the overworld (e.g. if you're near the bottom-left of the map, the green dot will be at the bottom-left of the box, etc.), but crucially, it shows you absolutely nothing about the terrain of the overworld itself. This game was released in 1986—graphically primitive times in the video game industry, to be sure, but not so primitive that the developers couldn't have just filled in that gray box with colored pixels to give us a rough world map. But they didn't. In leaving that box gray, the developers invite the player to fill it in themselves. That blank radar helps to generate mystery, the intrigue of what may lie ahead that provides the impetus for exploration. In some interview that I can now only find cited on Wikipedia, but I'm sure I read first elsewhere, Zelda series mastermind Shigeru Miyamoto said this about his inspiration for the first Zelda game:
"When I was a child, I went hiking and found a lake. It was quite a surprise for me to stumble upon it. When I traveled around the country without a map, trying to find my way, stumbling on amazing things as I went, I realized how it felt to go on an adventure like this."The very act of exploration, of freely wandering in an unknown area, was an integral part of what Miyamoto wanted to capture in the original Zelda. And it's intoxicating. One of the biggest pleasures of that NES classic is the unparalleled level of freedom the game gives you in exploring. It's a masterpiece of nonlinear game design. You can enter the eighth dungeon before completing the first if you want. You can accumulate items and heart containers by wandering the overworld, or you can plunge right into getting that first Triforce fragment. It's up to you. And, importantly, such detours and out-of-the-box thinking always yield rewards—an unexplored alcove of the map might contain the entrance to a dungeon or a store where you can purchase more powerful armor. You can go anywhere you want and be confident that anywhere will be worth your while.
That idea of an open world that allows you the freedom to go anywhere (and rewards you for doing so) has been key to every Zelda game since. That's not to say that every Zelda game allows the same level of freedom as the original. To the contrary, starting with A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening, the series began taking cues from Metroid by building obstacles into the overworld that you could only pass after finding certain items. In doing so, the series lost some of its nonlinearity, but it never completely let go of the central joy of exploration. Even in relatively linear games like Twilight Princess or the Oracle titles, there is always the opportunity to stray from the current story objective to wander, and such wanderings always yield something cool or useful.
It's also important to note that when these games do take away core elements such as player freedom or nonlinearity, they gain other elements to fill out the experience, such as deeper storytelling or a greater emphasis on puzzle solving. Think about that awesome moment in Ocarina of Time when you rush back to the Temple of Time after finding the three Spiritual Stones, only to see Zelda and Impa fleeing Ganondorf on horseback.
The game sacrifices some of that core exploratory urge by setting a linear path for us (Zora realm to Hyrule Castle to Temple of Time), but in return, it gives us some thrilling action and raises the emotional stakes of our quest. So, Zelda games don't have to be about exploration and freedom (even though most of them are, on some level). But if the developers take away those elements, they have to replace it with something else or the game's remaining elements will feel thin.
That's exactly what happens with Spirit Tracks. Instead of letting exploration be a foundational element of the gameplay experience (as it is in other Zeldas), Spirit Tracks takes away exploratory opportunities only to parcel them out as rewards for quests. Whereas all other Zelda games provide pieces of hearts, collectibles, and item upgrades for completing side quests, Spirit Tracks only offers its piecemeal game map. Other Zelda games have exploration and side quests with rewards; Spirit Tracks combines the two into one. Even this might be an interesting take on the Zelda formula if the new sections of tracks held interesting pieces of the world to explore, but aside from a few mostly barren stations and opportunities to bag a few more rabbits, the new stretches of track are just shortcuts to other already uncovered parts of the map, full of the same dull, drive-by scenery that fills the rest of the Spirit Tracks world. The game short-changes side-questing and exploration by taking away the usual incentives of both.
This is what I mean when I say that Spirit Tracks is lazy. It offers less content than a normal Zelda game without making the effort to fill in the gaps with new mechanics.
Please don't mistake this post for what it is not. This isn't some punk-rock call for the Zelda series to get back to basics or "return to its roots." Although I wouldn't be against a self-conscious throwback in the vein of Mega Man 9 & 10 (such a prospect would, in fact, thrill me to no end), that can't be the permanent direction Zelda takes if Nintendo wants it to continue to be as consistently successful as it has been. A series can't thrive solely on nostalgia. It needs to innovate, and I'm all for some innovation in the Zelda franchise, which is in a lot of ways still doing victory laps after the one-two punch of A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time***. The problem with Spirit Tracks isn't that it changes the Zelda formula—the problem is that it takes away key components of that formula without contributing anything new.
Now, let's see something new. Zelda Wii U and A Link Between Worlds, I'm looking at you.
Until next time, tell me whatcha think in the comments. If I'm full of it, please let me know. Thanks a bundle for reading, everyone!
*C'mon, we all know the CD-i ones don't count. I don't think I've ever even laid eyes on a CD-i console myself, such is its apparent vileness.
**Unless, of course, he could somehow find those nifty boots from Zelda II. Isn't it about time to bring those back, Nintendo?
***For a good example of a successful innovation of the Zelda formula, look no further than Skyward Sword, which all but does away with nonlinearity/open-world exploration and instead beefs up on puzzle solving to the point where the "overworld" is as much of a dungeon as the temples themselves.
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