Skyward_Hearts

Just finished the game today. While it's not as ground breaking as some of the critics say it is, it surely is a pretty solid game. I have some negatives: poor pacing through the first half, the obvious disconnect between killing loads of people in gameplay but then your character finding killing people hard in cutscenes etc. but overall very fun, gameplay has so much depth and varies from encounter to encounter. It is unbelievable the amount you can do in terms of how you tackle enemies. The story is also really interesting and engaging, while it seems like a generic revenge plot, it takes a few risks that pay off huge. Don't listen to the extremely negative reviews, most of these people haven't actualy played the game, they just hate it because it has lesbians and muscley women and are pretending it's for other reasons.

Let me start by saying, no, this isn't a fake review by a Sony fanboy like a lot are claiming all negative reviews are. I am more likely to be a Nintendo fanboy, my favourite games of all time are Nintendo exclusive, the Switch is my favourite console ever, I pretty much only play Switch and PC these days. Not only that, but I am a huge fan of Platinum Games, who I believe are responsible for some of the best action games ever. With that out of the way, let me express how I think this game is utter garbage. First I will list off the positives, as it will be quite quick to get through them all: Pros: -Interesting world building full of interesting ideas. This is one of the first Platinum Games original IPs that has an intricate and well thought out world design, that doesn't exist solely as an excuse for bombastic action set pieces. -Lots of unique and great ideas with combat and exploration using the game's centric gimmick. -A distinct visual style with popping colour design. Ok, now that's out of the way, let's talk about the negatives, which, in my opinion, is basically everything else: -The combat system. Right, so the opening of the game shows you what the combat system is like without the legion gimmick, and I think anyone who would argue this is in any way good is lying. You have one button for attacks and you can dodge out the way. That's essentially as deep as the core combat of your character is, instead of having a super powerful, quick and stylish playable character that feels constantly fun and rewarding, you have a slow, weak and simple human that can't really do a whole lot. Luckily, you are given a legion near the end of the opening, where combat opens up slightly more. Now you have the ability to summon in an assistant who is chained to you, and control where they move. But that is it for now. You get to tell what looks like a fun character where to attack, while you're still stuck being boring. As the game goes on, you get given more and more abilities for your legion and the chain between you is used as a combat mechanic in various ways that are actually quite clever in concept, One of the most fun examples is the way you can make a chain line that acts as an elastic band to fling charging enemies back and stun them. The first time you use it, it feels pretty fun, but eventually, it just becomes a chore to keep doing. Imagine a significantly slower paced version of The Wonderful 101's mechanics. The other thing is you get legion attacks, which you can activate in certain situations or after your one button combos finish. This never seems to go beyond 'press the button' when you see a flash and only seems to add to the flashy visuals than it does to the gameplay. You can also learn parrying, which works similarly to Metal Gear Rising. The game continues like this, where instead of fleshing out your base combat, you're simply given more and more 'extras' to make it more complicated. There are a lot of clever ideas, but they felt more to me like tacked on gimmicks that got in the way of the fun, rather than enhancing **** entire time I was playing, I was wishing that I would just play as the legion on its own, that actually looks fun. Why is the game getting to have all the fun while I have to deal with the busy work? The other huge negative is the camera and lock on controls, which in tight spaces, are **** atrocious. Your view is constantly getting obscured by various objects, walls or other enemies. You can't move the camera manually without locking on to another enemy and changing your camera completely, so you're left relying on the auto lock on to focus on the right thing without getting blocked - which is rare. The developers seemed to know this, so they decided to make the vast majority of the games combat take place is barren, flat and open grey and red areas, sacrificing interesting and varied level design to make the camera more bearable. This ties in to the next criticism: The mission and area design. The structure of a mission starts with extremely slow paced, ancient-feeling investigative sections in small and samey urban areas. There is nothing interesting about these sections at all other than a few cool little secrets to find. Other than that, they just serve as a blockade preventing you from just getting to action gameplay at a reasonable pace. Which makes the term 'action-packed' for this game feel quite insulting. Once you finally reach the actual gameplay - the levels are all indistinguishable red and grey cubey areas with very basic and slow paced platforming that feels straight out of a bad PS2 era game, mixed with lite and uninteresting puzzle solving, with a few combat encounters here and there. I honestly feel anyone who describes this game as 'action-packed' is spitefully lying to you. It's slow, awkward, clumsy and altogether all these ideas come together in a poorly executed mess. Hugely disappointed.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Spirit Tracks does everything Phantom Hourglass did and more. Although the same basic formula of a central dungeon with stealth that must be revisited, many things have changed. The most iconic feature of Spirit Tracks is the Train, you use this to travel the realms in order to reach destinations such as temples and towns. This is quite similar to the boat, you have a cannon, you can customise each part of the train etc. However, there are many improvements from the boat, although the tracks are pre-made, there are many routes you can take, this makes drawing your path less awkward and enables your route to be changed easier once you have already started moving; it also allows for more challenging gameplay as you must dodge the Phantom Trains on the track (which feels slightly similar to Pacman). As well as this, your movement is more advanced, you have the ability to control the speed of the train allowing more strategic movement than Phantom Hourglass's boats allows. Personally, I preferred the train a lot more than the boat and the music complementing how fast your train is going really made the train rides fun and engaging. The train journeys can get repetitive, but the more you progress through the game, the more warp points you'll unlock and the more tracks you'll recover, meaning getting from one place to another gets quicker and quicker with every quest you complete. The next new feature is the Spirit Flute, fans of musical instruments that almost always appear in Zelda titles will be a fan of this. It works the same as the Ocarina, only it combines touch screen and blowing to play it. There are many songs, each with different effects, which will come as familiar to anyone who has played Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask or Wind Waker. The touch and blow combo can make some of the songs a little challenging, especially the sequences where you have to blow with precise timing, which can be very frustrating. Apart from that, the flute is as worthy an instrument as the Ocarina. The central dungeon this time is very similar to the Temple of the Ocean King; there are phantoms patrolling the area which you must sneak by, whilst solving puzzles. However, there are many changes; the time limit is removed, this makes it easier in some sense, but allows the puzzles to become more complex (which nearer the end become very challenging). You no longer have to repeat floors which you have already done multiple times, in Phantom Hourglass the temple became annoying as you could only start on the 1st floor or the 4th, which made the dungeon quite repetitive, Spirit Tracks fixes this. The main unique feature of the Spirit Tower is that Zelda is able to possess a Phantom after they have been struck by Link's tear-infused sword. This allows many unique abilities, such as a Phantom which feels very similar to playing as a Goron in Majora's Mask, and a Phantom which can teleport to seekers. This feature also allows puzzles to become more complex, more unique and makes the tower feel a lot different to the Temple of the Ocean king. In dungeons, there are many new tools and mechanics to go alongside these. Some very unique tools that have never been in Zelda games before, as well as some of the most epic and most fun bosses in the series. There are also tons of extras, loads of mini-games, such as the rabbit rescue which keeps the train journeys more enjoyable as you'll be searching for rabbits whilst you travel to your next destination. Many side-quests which use the trains mechanics, such as transporting resources from one location to another, making sure you aren't attacked or your train doesn't turn too fast and lose some of the cargo. As well as many classic mini-games such as target shooting and agility-based races which take place on foot. The soundtrack is also one of the best in the series, from the wonderful overworld theme which changes slightly based on the speed of the train, to the epicness of the final boss theme. It really does sound beautiful. In conclusion, there are many features which feel similar to Phantom Hourglass, and a few issues such as some frustrating flute playing and train journeys which might become boring (although they didn't for me). But there is a lot of fun to be had with this game and many aspects of the game have improved from Phantom Hourglass, as well as this there are tons of new unique features such as Zelda's ability to possess Phantoms. Spirit Tracks has changed enough and added new unique features to feel fresh and exciting, it isn't perfect, but it's certainly worthy of a place in the Zelda series. 9.5/10 (rounded up to 10 for Metacritic)