Zelda: Spirit Tracks Review - Link Rides the Rails

🚂 Introduction — All Aboard, and Zelda’s in the Cab

🗡️ This review is part of our The Legend of Zelda Hub — every mainline game reviewed and rated, plus the movies and the LEGO Zelda sets, all in one place.

There is a running joke about the Zelda series: the princess it is named after spends most of her games asleep, kidnapped, or otherwise sidelined. Spirit Tracks is the game that finally, properly does something about it — and that alone would make it notable. That it also takes the excellent Phantom Hourglass engine and improves on it across the board makes it one of the most underrated handheld entries in the series. For the Dadnology community, this is a 9/10, a clever and quietly progressive little adventure that deserved far more love than it got.

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The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (Nintendo DS) (opens in a new tab)

The DS original — the only way to experience the stylus controls, train driving and Phantom co-op puzzles as designed. Playable on DS, DSi and 3DS.

The premise is gloriously odd. The land of New Hyrule is bound together by ancient spirit tracks, and Link — in perhaps the most unexpected job a series hero has ever held — is a train engineer. You drive a steam train between regions along those tracks, and when the tracks begin vanishing, the adventure begins. It is a sequel to Phantom Hourglass in style and structure, swapping the open Great Sea for a network of rails, and pairing Link with the best companion idea the handheld games ever produced.

Princess Zelda, Finally a Hero

Let us lead with the best thing, because it is genuinely special. Early in the game, Zelda is separated from her body, and her spirit joins Link for the rest of the adventure. Far from being a passenger, she becomes an active, central mechanic: she can possess suits of Phantom armour — the same hulking guardians that were obstacles in Phantom Hourglass — and once she does, you control both characters.

This unlocks a whole category of co-operative puzzles: Link rides on the Phantom’s shoulders to cross lava, the Phantom shields him from hazards, the two split up to hit switches in sequence, or Zelda-as-Phantom carries Link across a gap. It feels, delightfully, like a single-player co-op game, and it gives Zelda real agency, personality and a proper arc for the first time in a mainline title. Her banter with Link is charming, her growing confidence is a genuine character journey, and the whole mechanic is the clear highlight of the game. After decades on the sidelines, this is Zelda finally getting to be a hero, and it is wonderful.

The Train: A More Divisive Kind of Travel

The traversal is where opinion splits, and honesty requires acknowledging it. Where Phantom Hourglass let you draw any route across open water, Spirit Tracks puts you on rails — quite literally. You plot a course along the existing tracks, switch junctions on the fly, manage your speed, blow the whistle (into the microphone) to scare animals off the line, and occasionally fend off attackers. It is more structured than open sailing by design.

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The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo DS) (opens in a new tab)

The direct predecessor — the same touchscreen engine, set on the Great Sea. Play it first to get the most from Spirit Tracks.

For some players, that rigidity is a downgrade from the freedom of the sea; for others, the train is more characterful and the route-planning more engaging than aimless sailing ever was. I land closer to the second camp — there is a cosy, deliberate pleasure to running your train across New Hyrule, and the developers find clever ways to keep the journeys varied with new track types, cargo runs and combat. But it is the one area where your mileage may genuinely vary, and it is the main reason some fans rank it below its predecessor. Go in knowing the travel is a fixed network rather than an open map.

Dungeons, Puzzles and the Tower of Spirits

Mechanically, Spirit Tracks is a clear refinement of the Phantom Hourglass formula. The stylus controls return and feel even more polished, and the dungeon design is more varied than its predecessor’s. The central, recurring dungeon this time is the Tower of Spirits, and crucially the developers learned from the criticism of the Temple of the Ocean King: each return to the Tower opens substantial new floors and leans heavily on the excellent Zelda-Phantom co-op puzzles, so it feels like genuine progression rather than repetition.

The standalone dungeons are strong too, each built around a new item or idea — the Whirlwind, the Sand Wand, the Whip — and several of the best puzzles in the game come from combining Link’s tools with Phantom Zelda’s abilities. The bosses are inventive and touchscreen-driven in the now-familiar DS style. It all adds up to a tighter, more confident package than Phantom Hourglass, with the co-op layer giving its puzzle design a distinctive flavour nothing else in the series quite matches.

Charm, Music and the DS at Its Best

Like its predecessor, Spirit Tracks runs on inherited Wind Waker charm — the expressive cel-shaded art, the warm humour, the bright and friendly world. New Hyrule is a likeable place, the supporting cast has personality, and Zelda’s presence gives the whole adventure more heart than the handheld games usually carry. There is even a recurring musical mechanic built around a pan flute you play by blowing into the microphone and sliding the stylus — a lovely, tactile nod to the ocarina tradition.

It is, again, scaled beautifully for handheld play: a complete, satisfying adventure that respects your time and never sprawls. For a dad grabbing twenty minutes here and there, that bite-size completeness is ideal, and the constant presence of a chatty companion makes those short sessions feel less lonely than a solo trek. It is the DS being used with confidence and warmth, by a team clearly enjoying themselves.

Availability: Another True DS Original

The practical reality mirrors Phantom Hourglass. Spirit Tracks is built around the touchscreen, dual displays and microphone, so it is firmly a Nintendo DS title, playable on DS, DSi and 3DS hardware, with no Switch port — and, like its sibling, a faithful re-release would be genuinely tricky given how much the design leans on the clamshell hardware.

That makes it a slightly more deliberate game to seek out, but the DS family is cheap and abundant second-hand, and if you already own one of these systems, Spirit Tracks is one of the best reasons to keep it charged. It is a game inseparable from its hardware, and all the more special for it. For anyone willing to play it the way it was made, the reward is one of the most creative and good-hearted adventures on the system.

The Heart of New Hyrule

What ultimately lifts Spirit Tracks above a simple “Phantom Hourglass with a train” is its heart, and most of that comes from the central relationship. The slow-building partnership between Link and the displaced Princess Zelda gives the adventure an emotional throughline the handheld games usually lack. Zelda begins timid and unsure, occasionally terrified of possessing the hulking Phantom armour, and grows over the journey into a capable, confident hero — a genuine character arc told largely through gameplay and gentle, well-written banter.

That warmth radiates outward into the world. New Hyrule is populated with likeable characters and small, human stories, and the recurring pan-flute duets — Link and Zelda, or Link and a Lokomo guardian, playing a melody together by blowing into the microphone — are lovely, tactile moments of connection. It is a game that, beneath its unusual train premise, is quietly about companionship and growing up, themes it handles with more grace than you might expect from a DS sequel.

It is that emotional core, paired with the inventive co-op puzzles, that makes Spirit Tracks linger. Plenty of games have clever mechanics; fewer make you genuinely fond of their characters. By the end, the partnership at the centre of Spirit Tracks has become its real reward, and it is the main reason the game has aged into a quiet fan-favourite rather than a forgotten experiment.

Family Fit: The Best Co-Op-Feeling Zelda for Kids

Of all the handheld Zeldas, Spirit Tracks might be the best to share with a child, precisely because of the Zelda-Phantom mechanic. Controlling two characters to solve a puzzle together naturally invites a second pair of eyes — you can genuinely tackle the co-op sections with a kid, one of you thinking about Link, the other about where the Phantom needs to go. It turns a single-player game into a shared problem-solving session.

It is rated E10+ with only mild fantasy combat, the touch controls are second nature to touchscreen-raised kids, and Zelda’s prominent, heroic role makes it a lovely option for children who want to see the princess do more than wait to be rescued. The bright art and bite-size structure seal the deal. As a warm, clever, genuinely co-operative-feeling introduction to the series, it is hard to beat — and a quietly brilliant choice for a parent and child to play side by side.

Why does Link travel by train in Spirit Tracks?

It is the game’s central conceit: the land is criss-crossed by ancient spirit tracks, and Link works as an engineer, driving a train between regions. You set routes on the touchscreen and manage your journey, with the train acting as the equivalent of the boat in Phantom Hourglass.

Is Princess Zelda really a companion in this game?

Yes, and it is the highlight. Separated from her body, Zelda’s spirit travels with Link and can possess suits of Phantom armour, letting you control both characters to solve co-operative puzzles and fight together. It is the most active, well-developed role Zelda has ever had in a mainline game.

Is Spirit Tracks better than Phantom Hourglass?

In most respects, yes. It refines the stylus controls, offers more varied dungeon design, and adds the excellent Zelda companion mechanic. The train traversal is more rigid than open sailing, which some prefer and some do not, but mechanically Spirit Tracks is the more polished of the two DS adventures.

Is Spirit Tracks suitable for kids?

Yes. It is rated E10+ with only mild fantasy combat, the cel-shaded art is bright and friendly, and the intuitive touch controls suit children well. The co-operative Phantom puzzles are especially fun to work through together with a young player.