I just finished The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks last night. I know, that game was something like 8 months ago, but I have a point coming that branches off from this, so you can probably just skip to the last paragraph. First, I just want to bitch a lot about the game, because it has successfully made me never want to play a Zelda game again. I've played 1/3 of the original, and now all of the cel shaded games. I think I've seen all I need to see of the Zelda formula.
I was first won over by the train theme of the Spirit Tracks, and was happy to see it running through to the very end. I even made sure that Link completed the final run in his spiffy conductor's outfit. But traveling the overworld on tracks takes a lifetime. A lot of people complained about having to sail great distances in WInd Waker to get anywhere, but at least you can chose your path! The time drain made side quests a non issue for me. If it's taking me 10 minutes to get to my next plot point, no way in hell am I wasting my time with the creepy bunny dude and whatever crappy reward he has for me.
As if I'd ever waste my time driving anyone anywhere too, since they all bitch like an Animal Crossing neighbor if you don't blow your train whistle at the right exact moment. Just shut up and eat your complementary peanuts. They also get mad when you struggle with the imprecise touch screen while battling enemies en route.
When on foot, classic adventuring is fun, until you require controlling a partner as well, who moves at half your speed. Waiting on train rides is boring, waiting for your braindead partner to catch up with you so you can pass through a doorway is just torturous. Especially if she gets hung up on a corner or keeps walking into traps.
Near the end, you have to battle a bunch of trains using scattered power-ups. Basically, it's Pac-Man. They chase you until you grab the power-up, then you chase them. One hit, and you start all over again. Not even the 30 year old arcade game is that brutal. Why even give me a life bar if one hit takes me down? Also, the ghost trains are way more mobile than you. So imagine Pac-Man, if you only had one life, and the ghosts are faster than you, and they can turn around whenever they want, and you can't. The ghost trains are so smart they just hovered around the only entry point there was to the final area, making it literally impassable. This is 2010. Why is a game programmed to do this?
Ok, one final complaint, that leads to what I really wanted to post about… the dopey flute thing. Periodically through the game, you must play a song on this color coded flute by following the color sheet, moving the thing around on the touch screen, and blowing into your DS mic. Beyond the mic hardly being responsive, about 2/3's of this flute looks like the same two colors. On top of that, the colors look a bit different on the sheet than they do on the flute. This is the most incredible middle finger to colorblind people I have ever seen in a game. Ever. When I failed, I couldn't tell if i was was hitting the wrong notes or if the mic was unresponsive. Just pure torture.
I've gone off on colorblindness in videogames before, but only in off the cuff examples. The damn Zelda flute has made me look back and think what exact moments in games were as offensive as that. So thanks to Giant Bomb's handy list making feature, here are the top ten all-time colorblind offenders.
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