Now, before you dig into this entry, I want to make this very abundantly clear: I highly enjoyed Zelda: Sprit Tracks, and thought it was an excellent game. In fact, for any DS owner, I highly recommend picking it up.

Whew! Now that that’s out of the way, I can get to the actual point of this article. As I played through Zelda: Spirit Tracks, I started to think of, and have fond memories of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. And I thought about this, and if this is simply because I was young when I played Link’s Awakening, or if Link’s Awakening was genuinely that good, that this Zelda game couldn’t even hold a candle to my memories of Link’s Awakening.

I may be one of the first people you will hear say this, but I openly think Zelda: Twilight Princess is a better game than Ocarina of Time. For it’s time, Ocarina of Time was incredible, original, and something amazing. But, let’s face it, the formula has had time to be perfected, and I feel Twilight Princess did a better job at the Zelda formula than Ocarina of Time. It certainly wasn’t monumental, as was OoT, but having recently replayed OoT, I can tell you I believe TP is, in fact, a better game.

The reason I’m telling you my opinion on Ocarina of Time compared to Twilight Princess is simply this: I’m willing to give new games a chance to stand above and beyond the classics. In my opinion, a good game is a good game, no matter what you say about it.

So then why, while playing through Zelda: Spirit Tracks, is my mind on how incredible Link’s Awakening was? Zelda: Spirit Tracks is a great game, minus a little bit too much train driving for me, and a great experience in its own right. And hell, it’s even better than Phantom Hourglass was! That should be a big plus, and it is. Yet, looming in the back of my head is, “Why haven’t we seen anything as good as Link’s Awakening?”

I think this is where Nintendo is losing its edge, and I’m sorry to say it Nintendo, but I think you are. New Super Mario Bros. was a great game. It was fun, took classic gameplay and remade it, and was a fun game to play. But there’s something wrong with this, and I think it needs to be pointed out. Simply by looking at this… you may see what I mean (And I won’t harp on Mario too long, as it’s already gotten its fair share of criticism):




I don’t know about you, but I’ll tell you what I notice right away, and that’s two things:
1. The love is gone.
2. The 3D look simply is not as good as the Sprite look.

I don’t think this is always the case; that sidescrolling games need to use Sprites. Hell, look at the news article posted below about Rocket Knight! The 3D shots look great!

The main point I’m trying to make is this: When you play through Mario 3, it feels like work went into it. Like the developers truely cared about the game, and tried to make it to the best of their ability. They wanted it to be a masterpiece. They wanted it to be what it became. Now look at Super Mario World. It feels like the natural progression from Super Mario 3. They had better graphics, so they used it to accentuate the world of Mario, and make it come to life. Mario looks interesting, just in that one screenshot, and you can tell the developers really cared about the smallest details.

Now we take a look back at New Super Mario Bros. It looks like Mario, it feels like Mario, but something is missing. It honestly looks like a cookie-cutter version of Mario, built by people who really don’t care, as long as it feels like a Mario game. And something happens… the magic is gone. Where-as Mario 3 felt like the logical progressions from Mario, and Super Mario World felt like the next progression from Super Mario 3, New Super Mario Bros. honestly feels like a step back.

I’m not going to drop the same type of insinuations onto Zelda: Spirit Tracks, because it’s not meant to be an old Zelda. It’s supposed to be something new. But, I still feel like with Zelda: Link’s Awakening, it seems like the developers actually cared, where-as Zelda: Spirit Tracks uses perfected formulas derived from Phantom Hourglass.


The thing I can say about Zelda: Link’s Awakening was, it didn’t feel like a derivative of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It had its own style. It was its own game, and it stood out. You could even jump, for crying out loud! How many Zelda games let you do that? I’ll always miss the Roc Feather.
In fact, take a look at This map to take a look at the world of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. If you look around, you get sucked in. Places look unique, different odd and interesting things every-which-way.

And here’s the key: Zelda: Link’s Awakening had what felt like a perfected formula. It was a carefully crafted game, where exploration didn’t feel like a hassle, but interesting and fun. A game that should have been a pocket-sized adventure, but was probably the only reason people bought the Gameboy-Super Nintendo player back in the day. It honestly felt like every section you walk through in the game was carefully thought out. How could this section be interesting? Why should the player want to go to this block of the map?

And it’s shown! Take a look at any other Zelda game on gameboy…
Zelda: The Oracle of Ages
Zelda: The Oracle of Seasons
Zelda: The Minish Cap
Zelda: Four Swords Adventures
Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Zelda: Spirit Tracks

All of these are fun games, but none of them hold up to Zelda: Link’s Awakening!

So, like the New Super Mario Bros., handheld Zeldas have lost their magic. Spirit Tracks is still a fun game, but will it really be remembered in years to come? I think not.

- Dave