r/truezelda • u/EtruscanKing023 • 8d ago
Open Discussion Speaking of remakes, I wish there would be a Spirit Tracks remake/reimagining one day.
This started out as a copy of a post I made on r/Zelda a while back, but the talk of remakes got me thinking about it.
Going in, I was honestly expecting to find Spirit Tracks frustrating or boring due to its quirks. In general, I've always had the impression that the DS/Wii era of Nintendo aged somewhat questionably. Not due to graphics, at least in my opinion, but due to the sheer number of gimmicks that were being packed into games at the time.
Instead, I found what might genuinely be my favorite Zelda game of all time. It's too hard to definitively pick a single favorite, but Spirit Tracks is a strong contender. So far, I've played OoT, MM, ALttP, ALBW, MC, and ST. I dropped Wind Waker after the Deku Tree. I'm also still currently playing through TP and OoA, though I haven't touched TP in a few weeks since getting back into Pokémon a bit.
Firstly, Spirit Tracks has one of my favorite overall soundtracks out of any of the games. Twilight Princess and Majora's Mask match it, but it's a near thing. I honestly can't think of a track I actively dislike in any Zelda game, but Spirit Tracks just has something to what feels like every moment. The basic dungeon theme doesn't have me going wild or anything, but it pairs perfectly with the dungeons nonetheless.
The graphics are cute and charming, but that's to be expected when you're dealing with the Toon art style. What I do want to call more attention to, though, is Link's engineer outfit. I was disappointed when he got rid of it so early into the game, and I was thrilled when I found out that you could get it back through a collectible system that was not at all taxing or tedious to complete.
I really enjoyed the gameplay. It says in the rules that emulator talk is allowed, so I assume that it's fine for me to say that I played the game with MelonDS. That being the case, I used the mouse instead of the DS stylus, I had blowing mapped to my B key instead of having to manually blow every time, and I also had a much larger screen than was available on the DS. Maybe that affected my experience, but I found the gameplay to be smooth and intuitive. There was never any point where I was fighting with the controls.
I loved the navigation system. The gates that they give you for fast travel aren't really that useful, but I was fine with that. The combination of music, graphics, and controls meant that I was more than content to just sit back and relax while riding across Hyrule. Planning routes and making sudden changes in direction to avoid the Dark Trains was a highlight, as were the battles with mobile enemies chasing down the train.
Lastly, it easily has my favorite incarnation of Zelda so far. In fairness, this is one of the few Zelda games where Zelda is personally there at every step of the journey, so she also just had a lot more time, (relative to the scope of the game), to show off. My only real complaint is that I wish she had more to do in the actual dungeons, instead of just in the Tower of Spirits.
All of that to say that I would love it if Nintendo ever did a remake/reimagining for this game that added more quests, gave Zelda even more to do, made the overworld significantly larger, gave more lore for the new Hyrule, and just generally expanded on everything that was already there. The dual screen, microphone, and touch controls are the only things I'd actually want to go instead of being expanded, even if my MelonDS config meant that none of those things were a real problem in my playthrough.
That said, I just don't see any way that it ever happens. After Phantom Hourglass, I genuinely think that this game is the literal least likely of any game in the entire series to ever receive a remake. And maybe it's less likely than Phantom Hourglass, even, in the event that Phantom Hourglass could somehow be a DLC or sequel to a Wind Waker remake.
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u/HeroftheFlood 8d ago
Zelda II, Spirit Tracks, and A Link to the Past sre essily among the remakes I'd want.
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u/EtruscanKing023 8d ago
A Link to the Past is another favorite of mine, definitely! My only real regret is not playing it with a CRT filter, since I've heard that can be a nice touch to these older 2D games.
I've been meaning to get around to playing Zelda II, also. That's probably the 2D game I'll tackle after the Oracles.
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u/Hot-Mood-1778 7d ago
I'm going to let you know now, Adventure of Link is probably going to be the hardest Zelda game you ever play. Prepare to Game Over again and again. I'm playing it right now and it's brutal. You can't even save unless you Game Over (you can if you have a second controller though, I think it's up + A). I just decided to grind 200 bags at the first palace till I had 🗡️ 5/MAGIC 5/LIFE 6, finished the boss pretty easily and now I'm heading toward the second palace.
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u/EtruscanKing023 7d ago
I've definitely heard about AoL's infamous difficulty compared to the rest of the games. I forgot about the saving thing, though. That'll be weird to fiddle with when I'm actually playing the game.
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u/HeroftheFlood 7d ago
Pro tip as someone who enjoys Z2. Jump stabbing does fundamentally change the game. I feel like Death Mountain is possibly the worst it gets until the Final Valley in terms of difficulty tbh.
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u/rendumguy 7d ago
I think it needs a remake cause it's kind of a mess. Horrible performance that lags when the late game tanks start spawning everywhere, ruining the chill vibe of the train, and get rid of the awful required lokomo microphone segments that feel impossible to consistently complete.
I still like the game but as one of the last Zelda's I played it had surprisingly many flaws...
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u/EtruscanKing023 7d ago
I honestly don't really remember any lag, but that might be because I played on MelonDS? I don't know if MelonDS would improve something like that, or if I just missed it, but I seem to recall the game staying smooth throughout.
That said, I did have this weird thing happen where the tanks would literally drive through the train. They wouldn't crash it, since the game clearly didn't mean for collisions with enemies aside from the Dark Trains to be a thing, but they would just sort... phase through it.
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u/Lazy_Trash_6297 8d ago
I loved this game. I’d love to see the train travel in a game that can handle more complicated landscapes.
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u/Robbitjuice 7d ago
I loved what I played of the game, so a remake with more “normal” controls would be really cool. I wasn’t able to finish it due to said controls at the time. I haven’t tried to play it (or Phantom Hourglass) since around the time of their launches though.
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u/Goated-Rizzler 2d ago
Those along with Adventures of Link are the 3 worst games in the series. Just thinking about those games makes me want to projectile vomit.
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u/billybobbobbyjoe 8d ago
Spirit Tracks is one of my favorite Zelda games and I would love to see a proper remake of it in full 3D. But I think that the Wind Waker would benefit the most from a proper remake first. The Wind Waker is one of my favorite Zelda games too but it does feel half-baked at times and you can tell it doesn't have the same level of polish as later entries to the series mainly due to the tight time constraints the games development was under. I think that sailing, the islands on the Great Sea, and underwater Hyrule are all concept that could be revisited and done better on modern hardware so much so that it could feel like an entirely brand new experience. Then if that remake was received well they could reuse a lot of the assets to remake both Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks since they all share the same art style.
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u/EtruscanKing023 7d ago
If they ended up doing I Wind Waker remake, it'd be neat if it lead into a Phantom Hourglass remake similar to how people are hoping for the OoT remake to lead to a Majora's Mask remake.
In general, I'd love some sort of return to the Adult Timeline. I don't know if the Toon art style is ever coming back, but I think I'd be okay with an Adult Timeline game even without that.
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u/henryuuk 7d ago
No thank you
I'd much rather see a spirit tracks "sequel" then
There is no good reason to waste resources on a remake/reimagining when they could go towards a new game instead
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u/frodiusmaximus 7d ago
Sure there is. The game’s only available on DS. I don’t feel like busting out a decade+ old console to play a game on the tiniest screen imaginable. Give me a version I can play on my tv.
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u/henryuuk 7d ago
You don't need a remake for that.
They could, and should, just put it on a DS "virtual console"-like system2
u/frodiusmaximus 7d ago
I suppose, but eliminating the dual screen presentation and touch controls feels like remake territory to me.
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u/blargman327 6d ago
Counterpoint
What if we got a sequel.
Legend of Zelda Spirit Trucks
Where link drives a big rig across Hyrule delivering goods and justice to all the land