A good Zelda game, but Spirit Tracks is clearly the weakest Zelda of the last decade.
Spirit Tracks takes place 100 years after Phantom Hourglass, in a new Hyrule that Link and Tetra established sometime after that game ended, and this Hyrule is a lot more technologically advanced than any Hyrule before it, mainly because people travel with trains. The new Link in this game is a rookie train engineer that is called to save the world after his promotion as the new Zelda's body is stolen by her own chancellor. Link and Zelda's spirit then have to restore the Spirit Tracks of Hyrule and stop the chancellor (or Cole, since that's his name) from reviving an evil demon that's not Ganondorf. Though the Zelda stories are usually pretty good, this one in paticular is the series' worst plot. Oh no, the whole adventure is fine. It's the characters that are boring. Past Zelda characters like Aryll from The Wind Waker, Midna from Twilight Princess, and Linebeck from Phantom Hourglass have always been charming characters, but no one in this game shine. The characters like Anjean, Byrne, Cole, and others are uninteresting and just aren't very memorable.
The Zelda gameplay makes up for the lame story. It's much like the last DS Zelda, Phantom Hourglass. Towns and other places are pretty much like islands, you can mark your map with clues to puzzles (though not nearly as much as PH), and you control the game only with the touch screen. Let me talk about the controls for a second. Though the touch controls work just as well as the last game, it's nothing new anymore, and these controls have worn out their welcome. You may find the controls to be enjoyable again, but ultimately, they aren't too much fun anymore. And the use of the microphone is used much more in this game, it doesn't feel as cool as Phantom Hourglass.
A weird thing is that there are only five dungeons in the whole game. They are all good, fortunately. The puzzles are pretty tricky but fun (but not as much fun as in PH), there are some cool new items (Link awesomely gets a new whip item), and the bosses, while nothing to write home about, are good. The difficulty of this game has been increased a lot, which is good. It's nothing as hard as, say, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, but it does provide a bigger sense of accomplishment than Phantom Hourglass.
The new things in this game are the trains and Zelda. The trains requires you to pay more attention to your surroundings, as their will be enemies trying to kill you or other trains coming your way. It's kind of better than the boats were in past Zelda's but if you want to finish every side quest, you're gonna have to deal with massive backtracking, and in those parts, they're about as annoying as the boat in The Wind Waker. Time a thousand. Honestly, traveling on foot or with Epona in other games is the only way to go to travel in Zelda.
Spirit Tracks is more true to it's title than any other Zelda. Why? Because Zelda will be with you for the whole game. You can only control her in the tower of spirits as a possessed phantom guardian. There are different phantoms in the tower, and they all have some different power, and using both Link and Phantom Zelda to solve puzzles in the tower is great fun, but they can get hard at times.
The graphics are some of the best on the DS. The landscapes are much more lively than the empty-looking ocean in Phantom Hourglass. You will like to sightsee when driving a train. Too bad the framerate problems can sometimes bring it down. At least the music is enjoyable. The tunes in Hyrule castle are great sounding. I really wish Nintendo put voice acting into this game. Honestly Nintendo, you need to put that in the next Zelda. You did it to Metroid, so do it to Zelda now.
If only The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks had more fun gameplay mechanics. It's not anytime going to be in the Zelda hall of fame, but it should provide a lot of enjoyment for many people. At it's best, Phantom Hourglass was clearly the better Zelda DS game, and Spirit Tracks will just keep me waiting for the next Zelda Wii game.