Spirit Tracks, pt. 3 - General Bitchery

I knew I would get sick of this stupid train eventually.

I've had this Zelda game for 11 days! There is absolutely no reason I why I should not have plowed through it at least a few days ago. Yet, there that train sits, the single reason why I can't bring myself to play the game for more than an hour or so at a time.

I ran into the same problem with Wind Waker and (especially!) Phantom Hourglass. The boats and trains and whatever Nintendo comes up with next to replace a traditional Zelda overworld simply do not work. They don't fit! Every time I think to myself "Oh man that dungeon was awesome, I can't wait to get to the next one" I have to ride the stupid train for twenty minutes. And it is boring as hell! I do not understand why Nintendo puts this crap in the games - just sick of creating a typical overworld? You do not have to pack the overworld with a bunch of crap you guys! Just let me run my ass across Hyrule field or whatever. Or let me run most of the time, and occasionally ride a train or occasionally ride a boat! That would be awesome.

But no, everyone. God forbid Nintendo give a full budget to their handheld teams. And I must say - the graphics of this Zelda are underwhelming, now that I've stared at them long enough. The textures are repetitive and boring - the grass pattern is basically just green with a few sprites of individual grass blades tossed here and there. I already bitched about the dungeon design, and when you view any of the 3-D models up close they look horrible. Final Fantasy III and IV for DS looked much better - the 3-D models were still a little janky, but at least the world design was much more interesting!

And other than a very few standouts (like two tracks), the music is underwhelming as well. I don't need a full orchestra by any means, but for god sakes just compose something interesting!

I want to like these games so much and I'm trying but dammit it is so hard to when they are so lazy with their design.

Click here for my second post about Spirit Tracks. Click here for the first one.