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aka: Spirit Tracks

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All aboard the Soul Train, baby!

"You have a very important mission ahead of you. The kingdom is in danger. We're all counting on you. You understand the gravity of the situation, don't you? [...] I will wait for you here. That's what we princesses have always done. From what I understand, it's kind of a family tradition."

The fifteenth game in The Legend of Zelda series, Spirit Tracks was released in December of 2009. It is an indirect sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and by proxy The Wind Waker, taking place over a hundred years after the events in that game and starring a new Link and Zelda. For the most part, controls are similar to its predecessor. However, there are several new features introduced for this game. Firstly, the player can take control of Phantoms (like those in Phantom Hourglass) to aid in combat and solving puzzles. The second major change is that this game takes place on land, not the ocean. Link controls not a ship, but a train.

A long time ago, in the land of the Lokomo people, a great evil called the Demon King was fought and sealed in the ground. The chains binding him stretched the entire length of the land, and ended up the basis for a railway system. Since then, a new Kingdom of Hyrule was founded in the land (by the The Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass Zelda), apparently coexisting peacefully with the native Lokomos. In the present day, Princess Zelda is once again a reigning monarch in charge of a functional kingdom, rather than the Tsundere Little Miss Badass of the prior games. The story opens with Link, an apprentice engineer, needing to attend his presentation ceremony in which Princess Zelda will appoint him as a Royal Engineer. She does so despite the annoyance of her Obviously Evil Chancellor, Cole; secretly, however, she requests Link's aid in investigating why the Spirit Tracks are disappearing. Almost as soon as Link sneaks the princess out of the castle, the Evil Chancellor shows up and casts some sort of spell that separates Zelda's soul from her body. While the villain takes Zelda's body for himself, her soul stays with Link, and they team up to put her soul back where it belongs. Besides playing Exposition Fairy, it is Zelda herself who can possess the Phantoms and help Link in dungeons.

It is the third Zelda game so far to have a rating that is not the default E (it's rated E10+). The first two were the T-rated The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Link's Crossbow Training, although the latter is a spinoff game.note 


This game provides examples of:

  • 11th-Hour Superpower:
    • The first portion of the Dark Realm has you eliminating every Armored Train on the map by hunting each of them down with the Tears of Light. Grab one of them and pull down the whistle to have an extreme boost in speed and invincibility to boot. Better yet, switching directions and the speed are conserved while under the Tears of Light, so you can go backwards and still have the same speed.
    • The great spin attack. You get it after collecting all 20 stamps, and since the portal to the dark realm is near Aboda, chances are you'll end up turning in the stamps right before you go in for the final battle. The boulder phase of the Malladus fight is extremely difficult without this technique.
  • 100% Completion: The train parts, much like the ship parts in Phantom Hourglass. It's made easier by the sets coming into only four categories instead of eight, but getting them all is still time-consuming (since they're now earned by trading treasures, some of which are of high rarity).
  • Absurdly Short Level: Out of all the train stations in the game, Bridge Worker's Home is by far the smallest, consisting of one house with a quest-relevant NPC and one treasure chest. Link will have everything explored in less than five minutes.
  • Action Girl: One of the few canon Zelda games to have Zelda actually DO something other than stand around for most of the game that's actually playable. The game actually makes fun of this. When Zelda is told that her body is being kept at the top of the tower (and why), she frantically heads right towards Link and borderline-psychotically orders him to go and save it. She adds that she'll remain behind to wait for him ("From what I understand, it's kind of a family tradition!") before being informed that she'd have to help him out also.
  • Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Linebeck III demands you retrieve a Regal Ring for him to pay off his debts to the bridge builder, claiming it's worth 8,000 rupees (his debts only amounted to 5,000 rupees). If you find another and sell it to him, he gives you 2,500 rupees for it.
  • Advancing Wall of Doom: Rocktites pursue your train in tight tunnels and need several shots to the eye before being shortly pushed back. Then they come up with their shells closed, so you now need to shoot an exploding barrel to expose their eye.
  • Aerith and Bob: Delve into the mystic and fantastical world of such interestingly named characters as Anjean, Malladus and... Cole? Granted, it does match the Theme Naming of the Lokomos, but still.
  • Afterlife Express: A very weird exception. There's the Spirit Train and a ghost who rides it (along with a living passenger), but the ghost in question gleefully giggles, smiles and plays around on the train while it drives around, removing all the creepiness from the situation and moving it into heartwarming territory instead. The game's commercial plays it straight.
  • After the End: New Hyrule is built upon the ruins of an ancient civilization. The titular "Spirit Tracks" are the main indication that the continent had inhabitants long before the characters from The Wind Waker encountered it.
  • The All-Seeing A.I.: If Link blows down a beehive from a distance with the Whirlwind item, the bees will inexplicably head straight towards Link to attack him, even though they should logically have no idea that he caused the mayhem. Of course, any other NPC in close vicinity will be ignored as well.
  • Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: There are golden dolphins and rabbits with fur blending in with any environment (including the green of the Forest Realm, red of the Fire Realm, and blue of the Ocean Realm).
  • American Kirby Is Hardcore: Compare the American boxart to its European and Japanese counterpart.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: 15 (of 20) stamps in Niko's stamp book unlocks the train conductor's outfit you wore at the beginning of the game. That's right, his reward is clothes that you already owned.
  • An Economy Is You: A justified example: New Hyrule's economy heavily relies on train traffic, and Link is the only train engineer whose train had not been corrupted. Also subverted, as various shop owners do in fact sell stuff Link doesn't need, but can buy anyway (to transport it somewhere else).
  • An Ice Person: Ice Chuchus make their debut in this game, freezing Link on contact unless he uses the Boomerang and/or Whirlwind.
  • Animated Armor: The Phantom really is an enemy and will attack Link until he allows Zelda's spirit to possess it.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • The train will flip to the direction you want to go when exiting a station, portal and some caves in order to avoid having to go backwards and manually turning around. Interestingly, this is also done in the Dark Realm if you decide to back into a portal.
    • All characters with side quests available will yell at you from a distance (displayed with a text box moving to the top screen) to save you from the ordeal of having to talk to every NPC all the time.
    • In all boss fights, the knockback the bosses inflict on Link after they were stunned does not cause damage.
    • If a passenger leaves the train early due to bad driving skills on Link's behalf, Zelda offers you to retry, which will warp you back to the original train station, saving you the hassle to back-track all the way there.
    • When Link is riding Phantom Zelda's shield, you can double-tap the ground to make Link jump down. If this action would cause Link to jump in lava, he will automatically cancel the jump.
    • If you failed too often in the Anouki village puzzle, Zelda will conclude every Anouki's preferences, stating who they want to pair up with, in addition to the statements of the Anoukis, who only told Link their dislikes.
  • Arbitrary Mission Restriction: Near the end of the Tower of Spirits, you need to take a detour to swap Zelda's Wrecker Phantom armor out for another Phantom type, because she can't ferry Link across lava when she's curled up and rolling around. It's not explained why, as a Wrecker, she has to ball herself up to follow the paths you draw out for her, since she's able to move about on foot when she's just following Link around.
  • Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Byrne/Staven, who is quite stoic, but still has a superiority complex to rival Neji Hyuuga's.
  • Artistic License – Biology: The Rabbits from the Ocean Realm can inexplicably walk on water, and will even continue to do so in the Rabbitland Rescue after you captured them, even though they should have access to grass now.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Anjean, Byrne's spirit, and the rest of the Lokomos, at the very end of the game.
  • Award-Bait Song: The Final Duet with Zelda which contains reprises from all the Lokomos you've met leads into the Final Boss Climax Music. And it's gorgeous.
  • Badass Adorable:
    • Phantom Zelda. Even the other Phantoms observe that she's adorable, although they don't quite know why. The little round pink eyes that appear in the usually empty space beneath Phantom's helmets are more than enough to qualify her.
    • Link. And both he and Zelda take it up to eleven in the final fight against Malladus.
  • Barrier Change Boss: Fraaz, the boss of the Snow Temple, performs attacks based on fire and ice to confront Link, but its weakness is also related to those same elements. When it's preparing an attack from either element, Link has to inflict damage on it by imbuing his Boomerang with the opposite one. The boss is smart enough to subvert Boss-Arena Idiocy when it destroys the torches Link has been making his Boomerang pass by to imbue the corresponding element to it, but since the boss still attacks back and forth with both elements instead of sticking with one (and, therefore, also switches its own elemental weaknesses) it ends up being a Tactical Suicide Boss, prompting its defeat anyway.
  • Battle Couple: Link and Zelda, of course. Even moreso than their predecessors since they spend nearly the whole game together, with Zelda joining in the combat as a giant Phantom, and the game really likes to play the romantic angle between the two.
  • Battle Theme Music: The game is unique among the 2D and 2.5D Zelda games in that it features a larger-than-usual repertoire of music tracks for bosses, putting it closer to the style of the 3D games except Majora's Mask. There is one for the odd-numbered temples (Forest, Ocean, Sand), one for the even-numbered ones (Snow, Fire; the latter adds Variable Mix for when Link isn't riding the minecart necessary to damage the boss), one for the overworld miniboss Rocktite (Variable Mix is used depending on how close the monster is to the Spirit Train), one for all remaining minibosses, one for Climax Boss Byrne (a Boss Remix of his Leitmotif), one for Superboss Dark Link (borrowed from the Ghost Ship from The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass), one for the Demon Train, and three for Cole and Malladus (with the second being a Boss Remix of Cole's Leitmotif and the third being a upbeat reprise of the game's title screen theme).
  • Bandit Mook: Crows once again steal Link's Rupees on contact.
  • Be the Ball: Princess Zelda herself can curl when she possesses a Wrecker Phantom in the Tower of Spirits.
  • Better than a Bare Bulb: This has got to be the most tongue-in-cheek Zelda so far with Zelda being the most stereotypical Damsel in Distress princess before discovering her ability to posses Phantoms.
  • BFS: Like in Phantom Hourglass, the Phantoms carry huge claymores they can swing around one-handed. But this time, Zelda can take over Phantoms to use their swords for herself.
  • Big Bad: Initially Chancellor Cole, as he desires to release Demon King Malladus, his master, who is sealed within the Tower of Spirits, and is destroying the titular Spirit Tracks for that purpose. Once Malladus is freed, he takes over as main villain and attempts to conquer Hyrule.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: Stagnox is a gigantic stag beetle that charges at Link during battle, though its abdomen can be hurt. In the first phase, it's necessary to remove the surrounding poison from the abdomen; in the second phase, stunning it requires hitting the head with an explosive instead.
  • Big "NO!": Zelda lets out an ear-piercing "IYAAAAAAAAAAA!" (Japanese for "no") when she finds out what Chancellor Cole is planning to do with her body.
  • Big, Thin, Short Trio: The guards at Hyrule Castle come in three different body types: the broad-shouldered ones, the tall and thin ones, and the small recruits.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Link and Zelda kill Malladus and save the day once again, but all the Lokomos, including Byrne, disappear. One of the three Multiple Endings also gives off this vibe, due to hinting that Link left Hyrule.
  • Blackout Basement: Certain portions of the Tower of Spirits are almost completely dark, save for one or two torches near the entrance; you can use the Boomerang to transfer fire from them to the conspicuously unlit torches further ahead, but this only lights up small, circular areas. Ghost-like Nocturns also patrol the dark, and are completely invulnerable unless caught in the light, making it dangerous to stay in the darkened areas too long. One of the types of Phantoms encountered in these darkened areas carries a flaming sword which is its own light source.
  • Bling-Bling-BANG!: One of the unlockable train parts is golden cannon, which adds to your ride's health like that of the Golden Boat in Phantom Hourglass, but it's still pretty pricey.
  • Block Puzzle: A staple of the series. This game features block puzzles on Frictionless Ice as well as rolling block puzzles; the blocks of the latter can only be moved by means of the Sand Wand. Notably, one floor of the Tower of Spirits has a block puzzle maze reminiscent of Sokoban.
  • Blow You Away: The Whirlwind, one of Link's new items, is a pinwheel-like device that creates small cyclones, and is operated by blowing into the DS microphone. He can use it to push pinwheels, push important items across chasms, and throw bombs into the resident dungeon boss.
  • Blue Means Cold: The blue flames that featured in Ocarina of Time return with the ability to freeze things.
  • Blush Sticker: Link gains some, although they are only visible on his map sprite-symbol and in certain cutscenes. This is the second notable trait that sets him apart from the otherwise identical Link from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the first being the lower pitch of his voice.
  • Body Snatcher: The plot is kicked off by Chancellor Cole stealing Zelda's newly-soulless body.
  • Body Surf: How Zelda takes control of the Phantoms. She can quickly surf from one Phantom to another one whenever Link hits one in the back. This turns into a true Body Surf-Orgy in the last segment of the Tower of Spirits.
  • Bonus Dungeon: The game has a few with his various secret train stations, but the best example is the Lost at Sea station, consisting of a dungeon with four floors and Phantoms, harkening back to the Temple of the Ocean King from Phahtom Hourglass.
  • Boss-Arena Idiocy: Compared to most bosses in the game and the Zelda series, Fraaz takes a rather different approach; upon noticing that Link has been using the two torches in his chamber to damage him, he simply reaches over and smashes them apart. And then he starts using attacks that can be used as replacements for the torches to damage him, making it only a little harder than before.
  • Boss Remix:
    • Byrne's battle theme is a remix of his Leitmotif.
    • Cole's theme is remixed for the first phase of Malladus' beast form, followed by an epic remix of the song used to weaken him in the second phase, which itself is a remix of the game's main theme.
  • Boss Rush: While the Take 'Em On All minigame is by default a Multi-Mook Melee challenge where you go through a bunch of monsters (adding the first boss at the end of the easiest setting and the first three over the course of the intermediate one), in its hardest setting it fully transitions into this, as you first deal with several mooks as usual (including minibosses in-between) in the first floors and then fight all all bosses (excluding Byrne, who isn't a monster and eventually redeems anyway, and the endgame bosses) back-to-back, followed by Dark Link at the very end.
  • Boss Subtitles: A prerequisite for 3D Zelda titles. The "boss name, then title" format from Phantom Hourglass is reused (eg., "Stagnox, Armored Colossus", "Fraaz, Master of Icy Fire", etc.). It's later subverted to great effect in the fight against Byrne. He is just "Byrne".
  • Bottomless Fuel Tanks: Link never needs to refuel his train, no matter how long he uses it. A justified example, as it's implied that the trains get their energy directly from the magical Spirit Tracks.
  • Bottomless Magazines:
    • The Pirate's Hideout mini-game gives you endless arrows to pelt the pirates with.
    • Also occurs during the final battle, when Zelda has an endless supply of arrows to fire with the Bow of Light.
    • The Spirit Train's cannon, much like the Ship Cannon in the prequel, never runs out of ammo.
  • Brain Bleach: In-universe, Zelda is understandably freaked out by the idea of the Demon King possessing her body.
  • Breath Weapon:
    • To activate the Whirlwind, you have to blow into the microphone. The animation shows Link blowing into the device, which magically amplifies it.
    • The boss Fraaz is an entire boss fight centered around its Breath Weapon. The boss inflates with a specific element, either (normal fire or frigid blue fire, and the player has to use the opposite element against Fraaz as it's inflating with another attack.
  • Broken Bridge: A literal example with the bridge leading to the Ocean Realm, which needs to be repaired by Kenzo. On a broader, more figurative scale, a big chunk of the game revolves around repairing the Spirit Tracks, therefore missing tracks block your progress constantly.
  • Build Like an Egyptian: The game's Sand Realm features a temple built like a pyramid, which is also reflected in the inner layout of its dungeon map (this was also the case with Mutoh's Temple in Phantom Hourglass). Find it requires completing a series of dangerous trials, and once inside ven more hazards (like boulders and spiky traps) await.
  • The Bus Came Back: The note  Bubbles, Mothulas, White Wolfos, Freezards, Bulblins, and Bulbos make their reappearance after being absent since Twilight Princess in the case of the first and the latter four, and The Wind Waker in the case of the second.
  • But Not Too Challenging: Byrne has spent an untold number of years training to be the best warrior he can be. When he actually faces defeat at the hands of Link and Zelda, he is completely aghast that he could ever lose, least of all to mere Hylian children.
  • But Now I Must Go: At the end of the game, Anjean and the other Lokomos leave the kingdom of Hyrule under the protection of Link and Zelda, since the defeat of Malladus fulfilled their duties.
  • But Thou Must!: Renzo demands a full 5,000 rupees from Linebeck III in order to repair the Broken Bridge to the Ocean Realm. Linebeck himself decides that Link is paying for that, giving that he wants the bridge to be repaired. The player can answer with a Big "NO!", which Linebeck doesn't even acknowledge, simply stating the same as he would if the player had agreed instead.
  • By the Eyes of the Blind: Zelda becomes a Spirit Advisor and Exposition Fairy only Link and the Lokomo can see.
  • By the Lights of Their Eyes: Tektites and Rocktite's eyes glow in the dark, which is the only way to spot them when they ambush the Spirit Train in one of Hyrule's caves.
  • Camp Gay: The shopkeep at Castle Town. He has one hand on his hip, he uses the word "fabulous", and he doesn't wear pants.
  • Cel Shading: The game uses a similar art style to the one first seen in Wind Waker, referencing how it's set in the same continuity as that game.
  • Character Development: Zelda goes from a Damsel in Distress who only accompanies Link on the quest to restore the Spirit Tracks because he can't do it alone to an Action Girl who shows no hesitation charging into battle and facing the final boss alongside Link.
  • Character Shilling: Not in the game itself, but the launch trailer features Stagnox and Fraaz quite a noticeable amount. Cragma is also the only boss to have any official artwork of it, which was included in a lot of promo materials.
  • Chekhov's Skill: You're taught during your final exam how to use the train whistle to clear away friendly animals. After the first dungeon or so, its two uses are to summon Beedle down so you can visit his shop and wow passengers. Then in the Dark Realm, it allows your train to go extremely fast, making the Armored Trains a lot easier to handle.
  • Chest Monster: The game takes the familiar Like-Like enemy and makes it more frustrating by including ones that hide inside pots and burst out to attack you when you get too close. Pots containing them will occasionally shake, tipping you off to the shield-eating menace's presence, but chances are that you'll be either too busy or too eager to get whatever's inside the pot to notice. And then there's the one hidden inside an actual treasure chest. Fortunately, this only happens once.
  • A Child Shall Lead Them: Princess Zelda, though due to her age she's being tutored by a counselor, while the political duties are being administered by Chancellor Cole, who happens to be a Corrupt Politician.
  • Chromatic Arrangement: The Lokomos collectively form a rainbow when performing alongside Zelda and Link to expose Malladus' weakspot.
  • Circling Birdies: Like in Phantom Hourglass, Link become dizzy if he uses the Spin Attack too many times because the touch screen controls allows you to execute the attack much faster than in most other games. You'll also get dizzy if you roll too many times.
  • Climax Boss: The game has the fight with Byrne at the top of the Tower of Spirits, unique boss theme and all. He's fought at the top of the Tower of Spirits, just before Malladus finally possesses Zelda's body.
  • Clothes Make the Legend: Link's tunic and cap yet again, this time justified by being the uniform for the royal guards, and Link has to dress up as one to sneak Zelda out. Interestingly, US-version dialogue indicates that no one seems to find the outfit very flattering; one guard calls it "goofy-looking," and when Link puts it on Zelda comments that "It works...I suppose."
  • Collection Sidequest: Train Parts, Rabbits, Force Gems and Train Stamps for the stamp book. The Train Parts work like the Ship Parts in Phantom Hourglass, as they help Link customize the Spirit Train and increase its Life Meter when a full set is in use; however, for the sake of convenience, the parts come in only four categories instead of eight. The Rabbits are spread all over Hyrule, and in each region there's a specific breed; bringing them to a rabbit corral northwest of the Forest Realm will yield rewards for Link. The Force Gems, earned by completing character-driven sidequests, unlock new rails for the Spirit Train to traverse, which in turns unlocks new shortcuts, new stations and lurking parts for Rabbits. The Train Stamps are located in major stations, and Link has to add their marks onto a book Niko entrusted to him; collecting 10 will allow Link to switch between his Hero Clothes and the train uniform, while collecting all 20 unlocks a sword skill.
  • Color-Coded Multiplayer: Battle Mode lets you control one of four Links with differently colored tunics, Four Swords style.
  • The Computer Is a Lying Bastard:
    • The Song of Healing restores all your hearts when played inside a dungeon or during a boss battle. The spirit who teaches you the song tells you it can only be used “one time”, which makes it sound Too Awesome to Use, but what she actually means is that it can be used once each time you visit a dungeon.
    • In the Disorientation Station cave, you're supposed to go "north and north" to discover the treasure. The European version will tell you to go "north, north, north". You can only go north twice, and the room in question looks perfectly normal otherwise, so instead of searching it for the hidden treasure, you're likely to instead assume you're in the wrong place, or supposed to find a way through the wall.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Tetra appears in a stained-glass window; Niko mentions how Link reminds him of someone he used to know when he was younger; you can obtain the shield from Phantom Hourglass at one point, and so on...
    • Zelda desperately notes, during her freak-out, that it's the required job for the Link in each generation to rescue his corresponding Zelda.
    • You visit Linebeck's grave at one point in the adventure.
    • One of the rarer treasures Link can find is the "Crown of Ruto". Ruto was the Water Sage in the era of the Hero of Time.
    • The Ends of the Earth station has puzzles for Master, Tempered and Golden puzzlers. Those are the names of the sword's upgrades in A Link to the Past.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Chancellor Cole is a smug, manipulative Corrupt Politician that aims to free Malladus from his imprisonment. This separates him from the Tragic Villain portrayal of Ganondorf in The Wind Waker and the pure-evil nature of Bellum from Phantom Hourglass.
  • Contrasting Sequel Setting: While the first two games on the Adult Timeline took place on the open sea where Link must sail between islands, Spirit Tracks takes place on a single landmass where the main method of transportation is steam trains.
  • Control Room Puzzle: Like in Phantom Hourglass, there are areas with multiple switches within. They usually include stone tablets with the proper switch sequence written on them in cryptic form.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: There are plenty of the molten stuff to go around, and Link isn't affected unless he lands in it, where he loses half a heart from terminal fall respawning. With the exception of the Wrecker Phantoms, Link can ride on top of Zelda over these molten masses and neither of them will be hurt. The extra-heavy armor that Wrecker Phantoms use must be made of Goron iron...
  • Convenient Color Change: When Zelda possesses a Phantom, its armor turns to a shade of pink.
  • Cool Train: The Spirit Train goes under the water on sunken tracks, and replaces bombs with torpedoes underwater. And if you think that's cool, you haven't seen the super speed and invincibility given by Tears of Light in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon—which even works in reverse. And even without that, it rivals the Final Boss' train in terms of speed. It's basically this side of the Den-Liner and Doc Brown's flying time traveling train in terms of coolness.
  • Copy Protection: Copied/pirated versions of the game don't display the train controls, making riding the train very difficult indeed.
  • Corridor Cubbyhole Run: Subverted in the Sand Temple. Sets of two boulders close together are rolling down at regular intervals and there's a safe area halfway through, but it turns out to be a Trap Door into a Bottomless Pit. You're instead supposed to squeeze between the boulders.
  • Cosmetic Award: Beat Alfonzo's training record of 900 hits and you get a rare treasure, and the guards call you "Captain". Not much, considering you can get the treasure other ways so all you really have is the honor of their respect and that's it.
  • Coup de Grâce Cutscene: The game features Link jamming his sword into Malladus' forehead with Zelda's help, after the former has taken over Chancellor Cole's body after a little Press X to Not Die.
  • Covert Pervert: Zelda gives off this vibe when handing Link his "disguise" in her room early on in the game.
    Zelda: Please get changed so we can leave. ...Oh! I-I'm sorry. I'll look the other way.
  • Crosshair Aware: During the boss battle with Byrne, purple crosshairs appear on Link right before Byrne launches his claw at him.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Princess Zelda. She is cursed into being a ghost. This gives her, among others, the ability to hover (which she openly enjoys in the trailer), turn into a fairy-like orb of light and, most importantly, possess the deadly Phantom-soldiers.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
    • Are you used to the roll input from Phantom Hourglass? Now you have to double tap the screen instead of drawing circles on it.
    • The game lacks the Real-Time Weapon Change nature of the item inventory seen in Phantom Hourglass.
  • Damsel in Distress: Subverted—Zelda's body is kidnapped, but her spirit escapes and travels with Link for his entire adventure, sometimes even helping him fight and navigate through dungeons. The battles with Byrne and the Big Bad make them a full-fledged Battle Couple. Quite a contrast with Phantom Hourglass, in which Tetra/Zelda is held captive by the Big Bad for the first half and Taken for Granite for the second half, never getting a chance to do anything. One sidequest involves rescuing a Distressed Dude from pirates.
  • Darker and Edgier: Although it still has an overall lighthearted tone, Spirit Tracks is a lot eerier than its predecessor Phantom Hourglass, which is reflected in that it's one of the only two Zelda games in the Toon Link style to not receive a regular E rating, but rather E10+ (the other game being the HD remake of The Wind Waker), as well as the only handheld game in the series with that rating. The antagonist is a twisted, corrupt politician who is actually a demon in disguise, and the story features one of the shortest, but creepiest plot points of Twilight Princess (itself one of the darkest games in the series already) as framework for a huge chunk of the story: Princess Zelda's empty body being possessed by a male Sealed Evil in a Can.
  • Dastardly Whiplash: Chancellor Cole definitely has the look, complete with top hat (or rather, two of them, to hide his horns; hatless, he looks like the original Pointy-Haired Boss). But he's a lot more competent than most Dastardly Whiplash characters and, early in the game, kills Zelda because he didn't actually need her alive, since her body is necessary for reviving his boss, Demon King Malladus. This backfires, funnily enough; Zelda is surprisingly useful while dead.
  • The Day the Music Lied: Link and Zelda celebrate the Power of Friendship after defeating a boss. The camera slowly pans around them, the background fades to white, happy music flares up...then the band stalls when the background returns to normal and you see the Not Quite Dead boss simply limp out of the room back to his master.
  • Deadly Gas: Stagnox's main defense for its abdomen is its toxic gas, especially during the first stage of the fight against it.
  • Dead to Begin With: The bad guys remove Zelda's soul from her body; most people can't see her soul and her body is lifeless. The plan is to then house a monster's spirit in her body and thus control Hyrule.
  • Deceptive Disciple: Byrne, who betrayed his master, Anjean, out of his thirst for power.
  • Degraded Boss:
    • Snapper, the miniboss you get the whip from, later appears as just another enemy. It is very satisfying to whip him to death with the weapon you took from him. The Geozard, a heavily-guarded enemy, is also made short work of after you can use the whip to remove its shield.
    • The Heatoise in the Fire Temple. After you get the Bow and Arrow from the first one, two more show up, and your new weapon can be used to eliminate them in short order.
  • Demonic Possession: Remember what happened the last time Zelda's soul was removed by the Big Bad? It's repeated here, but this time it happens in the very beginning of the game. Also, during the climax of the story, Malladus forcefully possesses Cole's body after Zelda manages to retrieve hers.
  • Designated Victim: Lampshaded. Once a ghost, Zelda insists you go retrieve her body while she waits for you, claiming it's tradition. Anjean, who's listening to all this, tells her that it's not happening that way this time, and Zelda joins you as your Exposition Fairy instead.
  • Devour the Dragon: Near the end of the game, Zelda gains her body back, leaving Malladus without a host. Malladus then resorts to Plan B and steals Cole's body for a power boost.
  • Did You Actually Believe...?: Byrne agrees to betray the Lokomos to revive the Demon King Malladus in exchange for power. Malladus cripples Byrne not a minute after coming back to life, and Cole mocks him for believing that the Demon King would ever trust someone who already abandoned his own tribe.
    Cole: Nyee hee hee! Thank you for your help. But you are too gullible, my friend. Don't you know that he will never give you new power?
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Byrne, who is faced in the Tower of Spirits. What appears to be a Pre-Final Boss fight preceding the battle against Cole and Malladus turns out to be in fact the only boss battle in that dungeon, since the two antagonists leave the tower for good after Malladus regains his power, and aren't fought until much later in the Dark Realm (and that endgame has its own Pre-Final Boss with the Demon Train).
  • Disc-One Final Dungeon: Floors 18-24 of the Tower of Spirits. Link and Zelda make it to the top of the tower, only to have the villains escape on the Demon Train. It wasn't helped by the fact that they averted Interface Spoiler (in the menu screen and, to a lesser extent, the maps), so the existence of a fifth dungeon was a major surprise.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: The Sand Wand has this power. With it, Link is able to raise sand so he can rise to higher spots, move or stop heavy objects, walk over quicksand, attack sand-based enemies, etc. It's very versatile.
  • Distant Finale: The game serves as a finale to the saga of the Hero of Winds, showing that after his and Tetra's quest to find a new land (and dealing with Bellum along the way), they ultimately succeeded and founded a new Hyrule, only for it to suffer its own troubles with a Demon King.
  • Ditto Fighter: Dark Link appears as a superboss at the end of the third (and final) round of the Take 'Em All On minigame. He can attack with the sword as well as the bow and the bombs.
  • Door to Before: Just like its predecessor Phantom Hourglass and unlike most games in the series, this game has teleporters to the start of a dungeon before the final boss, that go both ways (i.e. you can warp out of a dungeon and return straight to the boss).
  • Double-Meaning Title: The Japanese subtitle is Daichi no Kiteki, which means "train whistle of the land". When you remove one of the kanji from "kiteki", it becomes Daichi no Fue (flute of the land), the Japanese name of the Spirit Flute.
  • Do Well, But Not Perfect: You have to score less than 4000 points to win the quiver from the Pirate's Hideout minigame. You have to deliberately miss a couple of times, as if you hit everything flawlessly to keep the counter up you will exceed 4000 and win a Heart Container instead (both prizes are great, but the former is still given only with a score lower than that for the latter).
  • The Dragon: Byrne is this to Big Bad Chancellor Cole, with Malladus as the Greater-Scope Villain.
  • Dramatic Irony: One recurring sidequest involves Zelda's teacher asking to be taken to various towns while looking for her, unaware of the fact that she's been with Link all along (though not for lack of trying on Link's part).
  • Dressing as the Enemy: Link dresses as a castle guard, while Zelda possesses Phantoms.
  • Dub Name Change: Several Non Player Characters and locations have different names between the American and British English versions of the game.
    • Byrne = Staven
    • Phytops = Cactops
    • Cragma = Vulcano
    • Aboda Village = Outset Village
    • Whittleton = Mayscore
    • Rabbitland Rescue = Rabbit Haven
    • Forest Temple = Wooded Temple
    • Forest Sanctuary = Woodland Sanctuary
    • Wellspring Station = Icy Spring
    • Papuchia Village = Papuzia Villge
  • Dungeon Bypass: The mechanic of "main dungeon you keep returning to" makes a return from Phantom Hourglass, but this one has bypasses built into it and isn't timed.
  • Early-Bird Boss: Fraaz, the Snow Temple boss, is unusually tough in spite of only being the second boss in the game. Fraaz's attacks increase in frequency as the battle goes on, he can split himself in two, and once he's destroyed the torches in his chamber, you have to run suicidally close to his attacks in order to reflect them and stun him. The player only gets one free heart container before him; it's possible to get more, but they involve scraping up a lot of Rupees and a Boss Rush challenge.
  • Edge Gravity: You are actually attracted to lethally empty voids, and approaching any edges in the game is a mortally bad idea. Unless you want to jump to a different platform, which is only accomplished by running at the edge at high speed.
  • Eek, a Mouse!!: Zelda is frightened by a mouse shooting out from its hole, even though she's a spirit possessing an invincible Golem, not to mention the granddaughter of the pirate Tetra. Cole actually summons magical rats to incapacitate her during his boss fight.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The fittingly named Skeldritch, a giant, humanoid, ancient demon skeleton thing with an unusually large spinal column, and wearing spiked viking attire. What exactly was this thing? Was it ever even alive at one point?
  • Enemy Chatter: A Zelda-possessed Phantom can converse with the other Phantoms WHO SPEAK IN ALL CAPS. Apparently, the lower-ranking Phantoms do not get on well with the elite ones.
    SOMETIMES IT'S LONELY BEING SO ELITE
  • Escort Mission:
    • The Force Gem sidequests which don't involve transporting items from one place to another instead require you to transport people from one place to another without taking too much damage during the ride.
    • Big Keys in the Tower of Spirits are electrified and Link can't carry them, so Zelda (in Phantom armor) carries them instead — but then you have to protect her from Keymasters who try to take the key back.
    • Phantom Zelda in the first part of the fight with Cole and Malladus has to guide Link to the front of the train, while Malladus shoots a laser beam.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": "Just call me Postman! All my friends do."
  • Everything's Better With Bunnies: You can catch bunnies with a net that looks like a bunny as well. You can even visit them at the Rabbit Sanctuary and get rewards for saving them!
  • Evil Is Not a Toy:
    • Malladus and Cole seem like they are allies at first, but after Zelda manages to get her body back, Malladus does not even hesitate to possess Cole instead and transforms into his final phase.
    • Also, Byrne is quickly betrayed by Cole when Malladus starts possessing Zelda's body.
  • Evil Tower of Ominousness: The Tower of Spirits. The only times you can't see it from your train are when there's physical objects (mountains, trees and the like) blocking your view.
  • Exposition Fairy: Zelda — the second time in the series that an Exposition Fairy is also the titular Princess.
  • Expy:
    • Alfonzo, Link's teacher and master, bears a striking resemblance to Gonzo, Tetra's first mate in The Wind Waker. He's descended from him, which would make this an example of Generation Xerox as well, along with Zelda ("Legacy-Expy" of Tetra) and Link ("Legacy-Expy" of the Hero of Winds from Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass).
    • Malladus is a giant blue pig-thing who possesses Zelda, looking a lot like Ganon in the older Zelda games.
  • Faceship: While Ganon himself doesn't appear in it, the Demon Train (a Cool Train with a human face on the front) looks so much like him it has been nicknamed the Ganontrain.
  • Fairy Battle: The Jellyfish from Phantom Hourglass return in the Ocean sector map, and once again they can be shot for Rupees.
  • Fairy Companion: Princess Zelda's spirit travels in the form of a little glowy ball, resembling a wingless fairy. When she wants to talk, she's your usual, glowing and floating in mid-air, ghost-girl.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death: Byrne screams in pain as he is electrocuted to death by Malladus. This likely contributed to the E10+ rating.
  • Feed It a Bomb: Fire Babas are fireball-spitting, Link-eating plants that can swallow bombs if you throw them with the proper timing. This kills them in one hit, which is good, since the usual method of fighting them (with your sword), can be quite tedious, and runs the risk of you getting swallowed and taking a fair amount of damage.
  • Fetch Quest: By the trainload, literally. Your train eventually gets a freight car, and you'll be using it frequently to keep NPCs happy (and earn items).
  • Fighting from the Inside: Averted. Cole, being as savvy as he is, removed the Princesses' spirit from her body before performing the soul-transfer ritual on it, specifically so it couldn't end like this. She still manages to fight the possession though — from outside.
  • Final Boss, New Dimension: In order to track down Malladus and Cole, you need to use the Compass of Light to follow them into the Dark Realm, a dimension of evil that they fled to immediately after Malladus' resurrection. However, the final part of the battle is back in Hyrule.
  • Fire/Ice Duo: Fraaz can control both ice and fire, shown by one eye being red and the other being blue. When he's hit enough he splits into two Fraaz Jr.'s, which each control one element.
  • Fisticuffs Boss: During the fight against superboss Dark Link, all weapons except the sword are disabled.
  • Flaming Sword: The game gives these kinds of swords to Torch Phantoms so as to act as a light source; beyond that, there's nothing else different about them.
  • Flaw Exploitation: Chancellor Cole uses Zelda's fear of mice to interrupt a battle.
  • For Doom the Bell Tolls: The background music in the Tower of Spirits gets more and more defined as you climb higher and higher up the staircase. Somewhere toward the middle of the climb, snares accompanied by bell rings dynamically enter.
  • Freak Out: Princess Zelda understandably loses it when Anjean reveals that a demon will take over her body. She freaks out so badly that, at one point, the player has no control over the text boxes. It's played for laughs, and she snaps out of it rather quickly when Anjean tells her that she needs to accompany Link, as several traps in the Tower of Spirits require teamwork.
  • Freudian Trio: Both the heroic trio and the three main villains form one.
    • Zelda is plucky, emotional, and hot-blooded (id); Link is equal parts determined, tough, and ditzy (ego); Anjean is a wise, experienced mage (superego).
    • Malladus is a cruel, fickle deity who turns out to be dangerous to friend and foe alike (id); Cole is a calculating schemer with suppressed sadistic and maniacal tendencies (ego); and Bryne is a stoic, cool-headed warrior (superego).
  • Friendly, Playful Dolphin: This game has yellow dolphins that swim alongside the train while it's going over water. They squeak and jump out of the water when you blow the whistle, and they are adorable. If you keep blowing your whistle, they give you hearts to heal your train.
  • Futile Hand Reach: Done by Link during the endgame, as Zelda's body is carried off by Cole and Byrne.
  • Gameplay Ally Immortality: Zelda gains the ability to control phantoms, which are giant armored knights. She can't be killed, but some attacks will stun her, she'll panic from the sight of rats, and the final boss can take control of her and make her attack you.
  • Generation Xerox: Princess Zelda; Linebeck III; Alfonzo -> Tetra; Linebeck I; Gonzo. Subverted with Link, who is confirmed to be an Identical Stranger instead.
  • "Get Back Here!" Boss: Byrne, who constantly jumps back and forth between a series of posts around the arena for much of his first phase, all the while peppering you with weak but quick energy blasts. The only way to get him down to your level is to wait until he launches his grappling claw, dodge it, and direct Phantom Zelda to grab it and pull him off his post.
  • Ghost Fiction: Princess Zelda is a Cute Ghost Girl for most of the game, the Greater-Scope Villain Malladus is a demon whose spirit is sealed via the titular Spirit Tracks, and the Tower of Spirits is quite literally the central location of this entire plot and Hyrule itself.
  • Giant Enemy Crab: Rocktite is a large crustacean monster with a rocky exoskeleton, and it's fought three times. And it can put a shell on its weak point whenever it wants the second and third time. And gets little ones to help the third time. And the third time, you need to transport Dark Ore.
  • The Glomp: Zelda gives Link one, after she gets her body back. Complete with a Luminescent Blush from the latter.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: On Zelda-possessed Phantoms. Despite being pink, they still look quite badass, especially when in one of the dark rooms.
  • Go for the Eye:
    • Rocktites are one-eyed, armored enemies that can only be defeated by being shot in the eye.
    • The Ocean Temple boss, Phytops, can only be harmed by shooting its eye, which begins the battle covered in rolls of flesh that Link must cut off by throwing its own thorns back at it.
  • Good Feels Good: The Force Gems sustain the eponymous Spirit Tracks and restore the railways that were originally installed to seal Malladus. Every time Link helps a character in a sidequest, the gratitude he receives from them crystallizes into a Force Gem and a few previously-vanished tracks are restored.
  • The Goomba: Spinuts, which can only attack by running into Link, go down in two hits at most, and can be easily blocked with a shield.
  • Gotta Catch 'Em All: In addition to the standard heart containers, this game lets you collect rabbits, stamps and train parts (including those of the downright expensive Golden Train). Having complete sets of a particular motif gives your train more health than mixing and matching, for added incentive.
  • Grand Theft Me: Cole intends to have Malladus possess Zelda's body. Zelda gets a Freak Out to high heaven.
  • Grappling-Hook Pistol: Byrne wears what amounts to a really big Hookshot as an Artificial Limb over his left arm.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Malladus. The plot is actually driven by Chancellor Cole trying to resurrect and unseal him.
  • Great Escape: One minigame in the Pirate Hideout revolves around escaping the prison with one prisoner.
  • Green Hill Zone: The Forest Realm is the first area of the game, and it features lush grasslands and a few forest areas.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: "What that? The princess('s body) has been kidnapped and the Chancellor was a demon in disguise bent on destroying us all? Stop playing around, kid!!"
  • Guest-Star Party Member: Any Phantom possessed by Princess Zelda's spirit. During gameplay, you switch between Link and the Phantom.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • A few, but the worst offender is finding the person who provides the Force Gem for the Pirate's Hideout. It's the woman in Papuchia Village who needs ice from Wellspring Station for her fish.
    • The Whip Race in Whittleton can become this if you've mastered the Whip early or replayed the game. Aside from treasure, there are two major rewards: A bomb bag upgrade and a heart container. You get the latter for a time between 1:05 and 1:15 minutes, and if you get again a time below 1:15, you will get a rare treasure instead. In order to get the former main price, you'll actually need a time above 1:15. If you played the game only once for the heart container or to get rare treasure, you will never even realize there is something else.
    • The song of healing is this, mainly due to a bad description. The game makes it sound like you can heal yourself only once, giving the song a Too Awesome to Use vibe. You can actually use the song once per dungeon. And it resets when you leave the dungeon.
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: During the final battle, Link attacks Malladus with his sword from the front while Zelda attacks him with Light Arrows from the back.
  • Head Pet: Playing the Song of Birds near one of the small pigeons will cause one to roost on your head, staying there until you change screens or pick up an object, but staying even if you start pulling spin attacks.
  • Healing Potion: Like its predecessor, the game has the classic red potion which restores 8 hearts, the unique purple potion which automatically revives Link when he dies, and the yellow potion which completely refills Link's health.
  • Heart Container: Like its predecessor and the two NES Zelda games, Spirit Tracks has only full Containers to extend Link's Life Meter. In addition to those earned after defeating bosses in dungeons, there are Containers in the overworld obtained after completing sidequests or expensive purchases in shops.
  • Heel–Face Turn: After Cole betrays him, Byrne ends up helping Link, Zelda, and Anjean. Of course, the Face–Heel Turn he did out of greed was what got him working for the Big Bad in the first place.
  • Heroic BSoD: Played for laughs. Zelda goes totally batshit insane for a minute or two immediately after learning what Cole intends to do with her body.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • Byrne holds Malladus off just long enough to give Zelda a chance to reunite her body and soul.
    • Subverted earlier when Anjean, an old lady, holds Byrne, a young, powerful man, off so Zelda and Link can escape the Tower of Spirits. As explained in a cutscene later, she is actually much, much stronger than him.
  • High-Speed Train Reroute:
    • The Minecart Madness version is seen in the Fire Temple. One of which involves moving two minecarts simultaneously (one for Link, one for the boss key) and therefore activating the switches for two separate tracks while in motion. Thankfully, the game shows you which switches to hit, it's up to the player to remember which ones.
    • Averted with the Spirit Train itself (the main form of transportation): While the player can switch tracks while the train is moving, the train doesn't really move fast enough for it to be a problem, the map shows you where the train will go (including when the tracks branch off) and progress can be made automatically by charting a course on the map.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: At the end of the game, Cole, whose ultimate goal was to have Malladus possess Zelda's body, gets possessed himself.
  • Holding Hands: Link and Zelda hold hands at the end of the game, with the camera focusing on them.
  • Holy Hand Grenade: The Light Arrows, shot with the sacred Bow of Light. They're the only thing that can weaken the defenses of Malladus during battle, including his link with Zelda's body, allowing the princess to regain it after Malladus' soul is repulsed from it.
  • Homing Projectile: Pirate cannonballs. Gets very annoying on the Ocean Realm, since they only go away when you're on land.
  • Hostage Spirit-Link: In the final battle, Zelda is Friendly Fireproof but must be defended from enemy fire. If she's hit, you lose some life.
  • Hypnotize the Captive: Not only is Zelda's body possessed like in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, but there's also the second-to-last boss battle, where Ghost Mice repeatedly possess Zelda, while she is possessing a Phantom.
  • Ice Palace: The Snow Temple, which not only has slippery ice but also dense snowy terrain, where the White Wolfos are better at moving through than Link. Large bells are hit with the Boomerang to open doors.
  • Identical Grandson:
    • Linebeck III shares the same appearance as his grandfather Linebeck from Phantom Hourglass, only with a hat
    • Applies to Zelda as well; her appearance is that of a tan-less Tetra. She even wears Tetra's royal garb (which Tetra herself, however, didn't wear that often).
    • Subverted with Link, who is a copy-paste of the Phantom Hourglass Link, but is actually unrelated. Likely so his relationship with Zelda doesn't have any incestuous implications. Niko (a character from The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass) also appears in this game as an elderly man, and even comments that Link in his recruit uniform is the spitting image of an "old friend" (obviously referring to the Hero of Winds).
    • Also Alfonzo to Gonzo, in looks if not personality.
  • I Fight for the Strongest Side!: It turns out that Byrne is a rogue Lokomo who is trying to revive the tribe's enemy, the demon king Malladus, because he could only get the power he wants that way. After his defeat against Link and Zelda, he goes back to Malladus' whereabouts to witness his awakening; yet the villain one-shots his servant with a magic blast; as a result, the now-betrayed character joins the good guys' side.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Link and Zelda execute Malladus by planting the Lokomo Sword into his forehead.
  • Implied Love Interest: Of course, Link and Zelda. Actually, in the entire series, only The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild can compete with this game in how clear it is.
  • Inexplicable Treasure Chests: A variation with the "stamp stations" located in several ancient dungeons of doom, a remote part of an active volcano, and a pirate lair, among other unlikely spots. The ones in more plausible locations are often inconveniently located behind a lake or on a miniature island reachable only by grappling onto passing birds.
  • Inflating Body Gag: Fraaz. His only (damaging) attack is performed by blowing himself up with either ice or fire, and the beginning of the battle showcases his inflation ability.
  • Instructive Level Design: In the Snow Temple, Link needs to use the Whirlwind to push floating wooden crates across water pools. In the first instance where this is happening, you will see a whirlwind switch that you already know from the temple before: Link can only activate it while standing on top of the crate, automatically blowing it away and therefore automatically showing the player what to do next.
  • Interface Spoiler: Beedle's balloon doesn't float freely through the world, but always follows the rail lines... no matter if Link has already restored them or not. Therefore, if Beedle (Terry) is shown on the map as floating across a seemingly empty space, the player knows for certain that there will be a railway later on.
  • Internal Homage:
    • Remember the episode of the Zelda cartoon where Link's spirit was separated from his body and his soul guided Zelda so that his body and soul could be reunited? Hmm, interesting little role reversal we have here...especially interesting, since we find out that only Link can see spirit-Zelda (apart from the Lokomos, anyhow). Just like only Zelda could see spirit-Link in the cartoon.
    • The final boss's final form is very reminiscent of Ganon, what with being a demonic blue warpig with a red mane. The Demon Train also resembles Ganon.
    • The final boss battle is very similar to that in The Wind Waker in that Zelda is running around and shooting Light Arrows at the villain, while Link serves merely as a distraction and how Link ends the battle with forehead-impalement on Malladus's part, just as his predecessor finished off Ganondorf. The key difference is that this time, you actually control which way Zelda goes and when she shoots the arrows. Also, she can't accidentally hurt Link with them, like she could in The Wind Waker.
    • The symbol for the Ocean Realm bears a striking resemblance to an hourglass. Also, whereas in Phantom Hourglass you needed to collect the Sand of Hours, the Ocean Realm is the location of the Sand Sanctuary and Temple.
    • You travel to forest, snow, ocean and mountain, with a large tower standing in the middle. There's some differences, but the resemblance to Termina is hard not to notice. Also, one of the songs you learn is called the Song of Healing.
    • The whip is known as the "rope snake." In several games in the series, the snake enemies are called 'Ropes'.
  • Invincibility Power-Up: There are Tears of Light in the Dark Realm. Pick these up in your train, and enjoy the invincibility, super speed, and Touch of Death on the bomb trains that oh-so have been asking for being knocked right off of the tracks! These are essentially Power Pellets.
  • Invincible Boogeymen: As you progress through the game, the tracks on the overworld feature Dark Trains and Armored Trains which can't be destroyed (the Dark Trains can be temporarily stunned by shooting them enough times, Armored Trains No-Sell your shots). They don't actively chase you (fortunately), but it's all too common to be trapped between two of them on a portion of track where you can't move out of the way, which is an instant Game Over. There's a grand total of one time in the game where they can be hunted down and killed, and that's just before the final boss.
  • Invisible to Normals: Zelda becomes a Spirit Advisor and Exposition Fairy only Link and the Lokomo can see.
  • It's All Upstairs From Here: The 30-story Tower of Spirits has to be reassembled piece by piece by completing the game's other dungeons, and then each relocated part has to be navigated upon upward.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The guy who runs the Rabbitland Rescue really, really loves bunnies (although he also says that the bunnies want you to shoot bombs at the rocks they hide behind) ...so much so that he left his wife behind in Castle Town with no indication of where he went. When Link brings her to see him, she's angry at first, but relents and decides to stay and help him take care of the bunnies, since it makes him happy.
  • Jolly Roger: Returning from Phantom Hourglass, warships are little boats with only a canon on them that fly a small white flag with a black skull and crossbones, a color-inverted Jolly Roger.
  • Justified Tutorial: Link's final exam, Zelda's escape, Link's sword training, and the Tunnel to the Tower all teach the player about operating the train, avoiding and controlling Phantoms, using the sword, and solving puzzles, respectively.
  • Just Train Wrong: Even to a person with little knowledge of steam locomotives, the artistic license taken by the game is quite glaring. First of all, the trains in the game are tiny compared to those in real life, with Alfonzo being bigger than the passenger carriage; secondly, the Spirit Train has no tender or supply car (instead sporting a cannon of all things, which would likely be top heavy enough to tip the entire train over). The Spirit Train is also very clean, with no sign of ash or smoke anywhere save for the pretty white puff-balls discharged from the chimney (which appears to double as a whistle despite a separate whistle being clearly visible on the engine). The train has no visible infrastructure, never runs out of water or coal, and the tracks have green ties and yellow rails and are insanely narrow. Also, the ties are arranged in a zig-zag pattern. The train can even decide which way to turn at intersections, when real trains just have to go whatever way the railroad switch is set to. That's several problems found without even having an in-depth knowledge of how locomotives are constructed. However, this is all Justified given the game itself mentions the train itself is magical, as well as the tracks themselves being actually magic shackles binding a demon lord that just happen to look like train tracks.
  • Karmic Death: During the prologue of the game, Chancellor Cole robs Zelda's body to give it to Malladus as a vessel. During the climax of the story, Zelda regains her body and Malladus ends up possessing Cole's body; this leads to Cole's eventual death when Malladus loses the Final Boss battle against Link.
  • Kill the Host Body: Near the climax, Zelda needs to come to terms with the fact that it might not be possible to kill Malladus without killing her body as well. However, this is less clear in the American English translation. Fortunately, she gets better.
  • Knighting: While not actually a knighting ceremony, Link receiving his licence to become a Royal Engineer is treated the same way, complete with Princess Zelda personally handing him his certificate. Trains are Serious Business in New Hyrule.
  • Lampshade Hanging:
    • At the beginning of the game:
      Zelda: I will wait for you here. That's what princesses have always done. From what I understand, it's kind of a family tradition.
    • Also the kid who tells you about the trade system, remarking at the end that she has no idea what it means.
    • When fighting (or rather, fleeing for your very life from) the Rocktite, Zelda will cry out "Why hasn't this tunnel ended yet?!", noting how implausibly long the tunnel is.
  • Land Shark: Malgyorgs are sand-colored sharks with armored heads that can swim through sand. They are encountered in the Sand Realm, where they attack the Spirit Train in groups of three.
  • Large Ham: Malladus, who, despite getting barely three lines in the whole game, manages to still be almost hammier than Ganondorf himself. Malladus's very first spoken line in the game is a rage-filled "RELEAAAAASE MEEEEEEE!!!"
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: The Reveal of The Wind Waker gets spoiled before your first dungeon crawl (somewhat indirectly, but still). So if you plan on playing that game for the first time and want to be relatively unspoiled, then wait to play Spirit Tracks until afterward.
  • Legacy Character:
    • Link and Zelda as usual, but also Linebeck III, who is a carbon copy of his grandfather both in appearance and personality.
    • In a sense, Hyrule itself is a Legacy Country. This game takes place on a new continent discovered by Link and Tetra and named after the country that was destroyed in The Wind Waker. It seems different enough, however, what with the trains and all.
    • Averted with Niko. While some characters like Alfonzo seem to be Expies or descendants of Wind Waker-era characters, Niko appears as an old man in Link's village, with a pictograph of himself circa Phantom Hourglass on the wall.
    • The Postman. This is the third game where a postman comes to deliver mail directly to you.
  • Last-Second Ending Choice: Zelda asks Link just before going into the final battle against Chancellor Cole what he's going to do with the rest of his life if they manage to reseal the Demon King Malladus. "Soldier", "Engineer", or "I dunno" all lead to three barely different endings.
  • Legacy of Service: Alfonzo was once a member of New Hyrule's castle guard, his family having served the royal family for generations. Given that he's a descendant of Gonzo, who was Tetra's first mate, this legacy of service has lasted through two different iterations of the Kingdom of Hyrule, plus the lengthy interregnum in between.
  • Legendary in the Sequel: Tetra from The Wind Waker is remembered fondly as the founder of New Hyrule, with a stained glass portrait of her overlooking Hyrule Castle's throne room.
  • Lethal Lava Land: The Fire Realm as a whole. The volcano has been dangerously active since the rails started disappearing, so Link has to go to the Fire Temple and defeat the resident monster (Cragma) to eradicate the problem.
  • Letting the Air out of the Band: After defeating Byrne in battle, Link and Zelda take a moment to sentimentally smile at each other in an affirmation of their friendship, while a heartwarming version of "Zelda's Lullaby" swells. And then it deflates as we see that Byrne is getting away, while Link and Zelda continue to stand there and smile like morons.
  • Ley Line: The eponymous railways are not only rails for the royal trains, they also act as the Ley Lines that channel the energy of the Spirits and keep Malladus imprissoned within the Tower of Spirits.
  • Locomotive Level: How the overworld is traversed. Initially, only a small handful of tracks are available, but as Link and Zelda rebuild the Tower of Spirits by conquering the temples, retrieve the Ancient Tablets, and collect Force Gems by completing sidequests and such, more and more tracks will reappear.
  • The Lost Woods: There's a brief area in the Forest Realm you have to navigate through, with intersections where you must look at the direction the nearby tree's branch is pointing to choose where to turn. Top it off with the last intersection in the puzzle being accompanied by a tree designed to point opposite of where you're supposed to go (a man from Whittleton does warn you about this, though). Reaching the end of this maze takes you to the Forest Temple, which contains various rooms with toxic smoke that can only be cleaned with the Whirlwind, and is guarded by a massive insectile monster posing at the top (Stagnox).
  • MacGuffin Escort Mission: Most of the Force Gem sidequests involve transporting fish/ice/lumber/iron/cuccos/a highly breakable vase from one location to another.
  • Magic Music: It was obvious that this game would go with this trope ever since it was revealed that the game's Japanese name was "Earth's Whistle". The "whistle" was revealed to be the Pan-flute like "Spirit Flute", which is played by using the touchscreen and microphone in tandem. It works almost identically to magic instruments from earlier games. You also play duets with the Lokomo and Zelda with instruments such as bass, shamisen, flute, drums, and oboe, and to some extent... a pair of vocal cords. Which are held by Gage, Steem, Carben, Embrose, Rael, and Zelda, respectively.
  • Magic Wand: The game features the Sand Wand, which solidifies sand into pillars and stops Quicksand from sucking.
  • Maou the Demon King: Malladus is often referred as the Demon King. He once terrorized the land that would become known as New Hyrule before the Spirits of Good imprisoned him with the spirit tracks. He has a subservient demon known as Chancellor Cole who seeks to resurrect his master with Zelda's body, as well as a fleet of demonic trains to do his bidding. A fun trivia, he's actually the first villain to bear the title "Demon King" in the English version, long before Ganondorf was revealed to be Demise's reincarnation.
  • Marathon Level:
    • The last section of the Tower of Spirits is the longest and most labyrinthic, and houses a vast array of puzzles and enemies that guard the last Plot Coupon of the game, the Compass of Light.
    • The "Take 'em All On" minigame, where players must power through rooms and rooms of enemies before reaching the exit. The final version culminates in a Boss Rush against the dungeon bosses, ending with the Superboss Dark Link.
  • Match Maker Quest: There is one that has become quite infamous due to what happens after said quest. Namely, a pretty depressed village that has been left without a chief since he eloped. The girl also already had a boyfriend, who was kidnapped by pirates at the time. You can rescue him in a later sidequest... and he's not happy when he gets home.
  • Maybe Ever After: The constant strong Ship Tease of the game would suffice by itself, but it goes further. The last shot of the game is Link and Zelda holding hands in a very romantic tone. Also, in two of the three epilogues of the game we see that they still are together in some way.
  • Mega Dungeon: The Tower of Spirits is a very tall dungeon (and the tallest one in the Zelda franchise with 30 floors, surpassing the 13 of its predecessor's equivalent) whose magic is connected to that of the rails the trains travel across (the rails also have the function of sealing the Demon King Malladus). As Link and Zelda venture through the temples of Hyrule to restore the rails, they also manage to rebuild the Tower and explore the higher floors, as doing so allows them to explore new parts of the land to access new temples and repeat the cycle. Unfortunately for them, by the time they fully restore the magical seal, Malladus is already freed by Chancellor Cole, so the purpose of the last round of the cycle (which consists of the last remaining temple and the Tower's highest floors) revolves around finding the weapon that can kill Malladus and then gain access to his new location (the Dark Realm).
  • Metapuzzle: Snowdrift Station is a secret, unlockable location whose cave features a crystal switch puzzle. At their sides are branching paths that take Link to specific puzzles and obstacles, and when each one is solved Link will find an inscription stone providing a hint related to the order in which the switches have to be hit. Once all four paths are solved and the hints of their respective inscription stones are jotted down, Link has to work out the correct order to hit the switches in (and he needs to hit them with the Boomerang due to the very short timespan allowed to input the sequential hits). Hitting them in the wrong order, or a certain switch that is warned against by one of the inscription stones, will trigger a trap beneath Link.
  • Minecart Madness: There are a few minecart puzzles in the game, and make up for the majority of puzzles present in the Fire Temple (culminating with a boss battle centered around the mechanic); there's also a full minigame where Link has to shoot targets while traveling around a wide canyon with the Spirit Train. The Boss Fight against the Demon Train also occurs during one.
  • Mirror Boss: Dark Link shows up as a Superboss at the very end of the most difficult Boss Rush challenge of the game, and not only replicates Link's sword skills but also his usage of bombs and arrows.
  • Mission-Pack Sequel: The game recycles some graphics and the controls of its predecessor Phantom Hourglass, and the overall structure, progression style and interface are all kept almost the same: Both games divide the overworld into four large quadrants, there's a central dungeon that has to be revisited several times, the various destinations and playable areas have to be accessed through a vehicle, and in both games the penultimate dungeon is a pyramidal temple filled with dangerous traps and a very tall boss whose body first has to be dismantled before Link can attack the weak point at the top of the head.
  • Money for Nothing:
    • Once you find Linebeck, you can sell the many pieces of treasure you've picked up to him. Earlier in the game, this doesn't quite result in a Money for Nothing situation, since good treasure is rare, and there's still plenty of nice items to spend cash on; plus, you may want to save treasure for train upgrades, which can't be bought with regular money. Later on, however, once you've bought the major necessities and have accessed the multiple minigames that hand out rare treasure like candy, the game clearly reaches this point.
    • The "Lost at Sea Station" game is practically a license to print Rupees—a few short and relatively easy puzzles gain you a Regal Ring (2500 Rupees) and several other treasures, and you can repeat it as many times as you like—though getting there requires you to beat most of the game, and complete an extremely difficult delivery sidequest.
  • Mook Bouncer: The Phantoms evict you to the last entry point for the floor you're on, but unlike in Phantom Hourglass there's no time penalty since there's no time limit. They also infinitely respawn and cannot be destroyed by direct means; the only way to remove one from a floor is to insert Zelda into it. There's also a new enemy called a Key Master, but instead of targeting you they target the Big Key for the level.
  • Mook-Themed Level: Like its Phantom Hourglass equivalent, the Tower of Spirits is themed around the Phantoms. However, you only have to dodge them until all Tears of Light are gathered and Link is able to stun them so Zelda can possess them.
  • Moth Menace: A Mothula (moth enemies that first appeared in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past) acts as the Mini-Boss in the Forest Temple.
  • Multi-Mook Melee: The Take 'Em All On minigame is a gauntlet divided into three tiers of varying duration. The highest tier adds bosses thrown in for good measure as well as the usual enemies.
  • Multiple Endings: Three, although they differ only very slightly from each other, depending on the answer given to Zelda's question shortly before the final battle. The game lets you save directly before this, so you can play again to see each of them without having to redo the entire game.
  • Mundane Utility:
    • The Hylians take the Seal on an Evil In A Can and ride their trains on it.
    • The Song of Discovery is a magic tune for the Spirit Flute that functions as a detector.
  • My Rules Are Not Your Rules: In the final level of Take 'Em All On, during the fight against Dark Link, the player is unable to use any subweapons, but the boss gets to throw bombs and fire arrows.
  • Mystical City Planning: The entire rail network is a giant confining seal for a demon.
  • Mythology Gag: The final battle begins with Link protecting Zelda from the attacks of the boss while she charges up her magic power like in Four Swords Adventures. The second half of the battle involves Zelda stunning the boss with Light Arrows so Link can attack, similar to the final battle of The Wind Waker.
  • Myth Prologue: The game opens with Nico, a character from The Wind Waker, explaining how New Hyrule was founded after the events of said game, told in an "ancient tale" format because he has a penchant for dramatics.
  • Neutral Female: Zelda tries to invoke this for herself in the beginning, claiming that watching on the sidelines is a family tradition. It doesn't stick.
  • Never Mess with Granny: Lokomo sage Anjean. The lavender-haired, steam-powered Segway-riding old maiden releases the Spirit Train from its sleep at the least. She also conjures the Lokomo Sword and a custom Phantom for Zelda, despite injuries sustained from fighting Byrne to a stalemate while you were out at the Fire Temple. Mock her now. She spends most of the game holding the Tower os Spirits together to keep Malladus from entering the world completely. And she did it by herself.
  • New Work, Recycled Graphics: The game was built upon the assets, engine and mechanics of its predecessor, Phantom Hourglass. This helped the developers accelerate its making, similar to the case of Majora's Mask (in relation to Ocarina of Time) and the two Oracle games (in relation to Link's Awakening). Its overworld map is also structured akin to that of Phantom Hourglass (four big quadrants, each corresponding to a themed region of the mainland).
  • New World Tease: Happens three times upon exploring the Ocean Realm. First, upon completing the puzzle that opens the entry to the Ocean Temple, you can see a big desert with a great pyramid in the distance. Then, after you completed the Temple, you can see a giant statue facing away from you, and shortly after you can spot a train station on an island you cannot reach yet. The pyramid is the Sand Temple, which you will only visit much, much later after completing the Disc-One Final Dungeon, the statue is part of the puzzle to open it, and the train station is the Pirate Hideout that is only needed for a sidequest.
  • No Indoor Voice:
    • The Phantoms talk entirely in CAPS LOCK and end every sentence WITH A PERIOD.
      "YOU SEEM CUTER THAN USUAL. WHY."
      "SOMETIMES IT'S LONELY BEING SO ELITE."
      "MY TORCH IS THE LATEST IN TORCH TECHNOLOGY."
    • There's a sign written like this in the Tower of Spirits (written by the Phantoms):
      "PHANTOMS LIKE US LIKE THE DARK."
  • No Item Use for You: Item usage as a whole is disabled during the very last fight of the Take 'Em All On! minigame.
  • Non-Dubbed Grunts: Most obvious with Zelda's Big "NO!", where she's clearly saying "IYA" instead.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: When you're travelling with a character, a Pirate tank (or ship) may invade your train. When this happens, lots of Miniblins (and later a Big Blin) will try to kidnap your passenger. If they succeed, you can still rescue the character when going to the Pirate Hideout island, so this wouldn't be a big deal. But if that place hasn't been unlocked yet (and it isn't yet by the time you're taking Carben, a plot-critical character, with you), you have no way to rescue the character, and you get an automatic Game Over.
  • Noob Cave: The cave preceding the Tower of Spirits, and to an extent the first visit to the tower itself. In these areas, Link learns the ropes of basic gameplay, and in the latter part Zelda also learns about spirit possession and how the Tears of Light can enable it.
  • No-Sell: Like Likes can't eat the Shield of Antiquity.
  • Obviously Evil: Cole. At least Zelda has her suspicions, but they're not nearly as strong as they should be.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: The theme heard in the staircase of the Tower of Spirits. It isn't added to the song right until you almost reach the top.
  • One-Hit Kill: Unusually for the Legend of Zelda series, the Dark Trains and Armored Trains will cause an instant Game Over if they hit your train, regardless of how fast they hit you or what condition your train is in. The situation is reversed when you get the Tears of Light in the endgame, only to reverse itself again if you run out of Light before killing them. The dynamic is extremely like Pac-Man.
  • One of These Doors Is Not Like the Other: One villager tells Link that he has to turn in the directions tree branches point in order to make it through the Lost Woods... but another villager tells him that the fourth tree "has no sense of direction", and you must go opposite of where it's branch is pointing instead.
  • One-Winged Angel: Malladus attains his last, monstrous form by taking over Chancellor Cole's body, mutating it in the process. In a strange coincidence, the result ends up looking somewhat like Ganon's Dark Beast form from Twilight Princess, only more goat-like than pig-like.
  • Optional Boss: The third Rocktite doesn't have to be fought unless the player is tackling the Dark Ore delivery sidequest.
  • Our Founder: A stained glass portrait of Tetra in her pirate outfit overlooks the throne room in Hyrule Castle. And on a more subtle note, the castle also cotains a recurring symbol of a dragon's head and twin scimitars, representing the figurehead and jolly roger respectively of her crew's ship.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: Princess Zelda herself becomes a ghost after the villain steals her body, and can aid Link by possessing Phantoms, enemies resembling living suits of armor.
  • Palette Swap: There are two forms of Geozard, green and red. The red one is stronger, to the point that it's a Mini-Boss.
  • Parrying Bullets: Like in the previous game, you can stop arrows by hitting them with your sword. Also like in the previous game, this requires decent timing and it's just easier to use your shield or dodge altogether.
  • Player Death Is Dramatic: Like Phantom Hourglass, the game makes the camera pull out after Link collapses and then it fades to black.
  • Plot Coupon: Four colored Force Gems (which are needed to assemble the chunks of the Tower of Spirits together, followed by the Bow of Light to defeat Malladus, and then the Compass of Light to access his whereabouts (the Dark Realm).
  • "Pop!" Goes the Human: The second boss Fraaz has this happen to it upon its defeat having lost control of its self-inflation superpower.
  • Power Fist: Byrne's single oversized gauntlet. Downplayed in that it's also his weakspot. Having Zelda grab it allows her to pull him down to a height where he can be damaged.
  • Pre-Final Boss: Link and Zelda has to defeat the Demon Train before proceeding to challenge Malladus (and, indirectly, Chancellor Cole) in the climax. This is justified, because the evildoers are awaiting them within the Train, and their battle's first phase takes place above the frontmost wagon.
  • Princesses Prefer Pink: When Zelda possesses a Phantom, it turns pink. The cutscene of the first time this happens even shows Phantom Zelda with glowing pink eyes.
  • Princess Protagonist: Zelda is turned into a ghost at the beginning of the game, allowing her to possess suits of Animated Armor and accompany Link on his journey (and voice her reaction to events, since Link... well...). At the beginning she even says it's a family tradition to wait and be rescued, but here she gets told it's not happening.
  • Product Delivery Ordeal: Once Link manages to add a freight car to the Spirit Train, he'll be able to undertake sidequests where he's asked to deliver a specific product located in one part of Hyrule to someone who is waiting for it in another. Unlike the usual Escort Missions where Link is taking a passenger (who gets impatient every time the train is hit by an enemy attack or Link fails to follow the road signs), here Link has to protect the train because any attack will directly affect the integrity of the product. In cases where he's transporting a specific amount of something, that amount will decrease by one with each hit taken (in the case of the vessel Link buys from Papuchia Village to deliver it to Steem in Snow Sanctuary, any hit will break it). The most extreme case is the delivery of Dark Ore from a Goron mining station to Linebeck, because the ore will also deteriorate with sunlight over time, and it's actually impossible to succeed unless Link has previously activated a certain pair of teleporters for the Spirit Train to head ASAP to Linebeck's Trading Company in the Forest Realm; to make matters worse, along the way lies a Rocktite in the caves, and if it's fought the Spirit Train can only be hit once during battle (it's possible to defeat it before undertaking the delivery, though).
  • Progressive Instrumentation: As more sections of the tower become accessible, the music that plays in higher sections contains more instruments.
  • Promoted to Playable: The first (and so far, only) time in the core series where the player gets to control Zelda herself directly by making her possess phantoms. Played straighter in the Final Battle, where the player gets to control her in her own body.
  • "Psycho" Strings:
    • The music that plays when you meet the Dark/Armored Trains, to great effect.
    • Chancellor Cole's Leitmotif, which fits his deranged personality and malice.
    • The Battle Theme Music for Rocktite incorporates this via Variable Mix, as it transitions into Psycho Strings as the monster gradually approaches the Spirit Train.
  • Punch-Clock Villain: The Phantoms in the Tower of Spirits, who actually aren't supposed to be villains at all and normally wouldn't be attacking Link. The dark power of Cole and Malladus causes them to incorrectly perceive him as a threat.
  • Punny Name: Most new characters' names are puns on terms related to trains.
    • Chancellor Cole (Coal).
    • Anjean (Engine) of the Lokomo (Locomotive) tribe. Apparently, this is a characteristic shared by all the Lokomos; the other names are "Gage", "Steem", "Carben", "Embrose", and "Rael".
    • Even Malladus falls under this. You have "mal" (evil), "malleus" (hammer, like for railroad spikes), and even "Mallard" (which is a type of train). It's also pretty close to "malady" (illness).
    • Ferrus, who is named after the Latin word for iron (ferrum).
    • The boss Skeldritch is, fittingly, a skeletal Eldritch Abomination.
    • Link's hometown is Aboda Village, "abode" being another word for "home."
    • This is also very true of the Japanese version. Some are rather obscure, though: Byrne is "Diigo", which comes from the popular-with-Japanese-railfans D51 locomotive, while Cole is "Kimaroki", referring to a specific arrangement of locomotives and specialized railcars used in the past to clear snow off the tracks. A third is Shirokuni (Alfonzo), who is a reference to the C62 locomotive, the fastest and most powerful passenger locomotive of Japan's steam era.
    • All of these applies to the English version of the game. Even more Punny Names can be found in the other versions.
  • A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Byrne was an apprentice of Anjean in the Tower of Spirits. He desired power from the good spirits, and when he was not granted it, he left and reached out to serve the Demon King Malladus.
  • Puppy Love: It may be implied (albeit VERY strongly this time), but the romance between Link and Zelda in this game comes in this flavour. It gets especially obvious in the finale.
  • Puzzle Boss: At first, Fraaz can be harmed when Link uses the fire and ice torches in his arena to imbue his Boomerang with them and attack the elementally-opposite halves of the boss. Halfway through the battle, however, Fraaz destroys both torches, forcing Link to think outside the box and imbue his Boomerang with the elemental attacks performed by the boss itself.
  • Quicksand Sucks: The Sand Realm has quicksand pits in the Sand Temple and parts of the nearby Tower of Spirits. The Sand Wand can create sand bridges by solidifying part of the quicksand's terrain so Link (as well as Phantom Zelda in the Tower of Spirits) can walk over them safely.
  • Racing Minigame: The Whip Race, located in a hidden area northeast of Whittleton, is where Link has to clear an obstacle course with the help of his whip in a time limit. A standard run rewards him with a Bomb Bag upgrade, while beating a certain record will net him a (full) Heart Container.
  • Rail Enthusiast: Ferrus, the resident Fanboy in the train-covered world. You meet him a few times in the main adventure, in which he gives you helpful hints about the next temple, and he's also a part of a few sidequests in which you can fufill his dreams of going underwater and meeting Alfonzo. Oh, and you can hit him with the cannon.
  • Railroad Employee Roundhouse: Link himself, who starts as an apprentice engineer, and is quite heroic as usual. His mentor Alfonzo also counts.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Byrne sacrifices his life so Zelda can regain her body.
  • Red Right Hand: Chancellor Cole has a pair of horns hidden under his twin top hats. Less conspicuously, he also has reverse-colored eyes, with black scleras and white irises. For some reason, however, his eye color is normal whenever he shows his demonic traits...
  • Rescue Romance: The Link of the time period meets the Zelda of the time period after the plot's started rolling, and the two grow affectionate during Link's quest to restore her to mortality. It's not done completely straight, though, as they spend more time working together as partners than they do as hero and distressed damsel.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Since Byrne was "once the servant of those disgusting spirits", Malladus blasts him instead of granting him the power he signed on for.
  • Rocket Punch: Byrne has a big power glove that he can fire to grab or punch his opponents. It's attached to a chain, making it retrievable.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: This is the most active and helpful a Princess Zelda has ever been in this series, second only perhaps to Tetra, who wasn't raised as a princess. After initially demanding that Link do the usual job of a Link and rescue her (body), she consents to follow Link and help him in every way she can. That includes pulling double duty as an Exposition Fairy and acting as Link's invincible armored partner in the Spirit Tower. During the final battle, she's a formidable fighter on her own, outside of the armor, and the credits show that she's not above doing the important bureaucratic work that comes with being royalty, either. For reference, Spirit Tracks is the first (canonical, Nintendo-published) Zelda game in which Zelda is playable.
  • Same Content, Different Rating: This is the only handheld game in the Zelda series to be rated E10+ by the ESRB, instead of just E. While the game does have a darker story, in terms of explicit content it's not any more violent than the other Zelda games, and the ESRB still uses the same content label they put onto the predecessor Phantom Hourglass (Fantasy Violence).
  • Samus Is a Girl: Stagnox, the first boss, a giant beetle that most players just think of as genderless, is explicitly made to be female in her trophy from Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, and the Blastworm mooks she summons turn out to be her own larvae.
  • Sand Blaster: The Sand Wand allows Link to create pillars of sand, which is useful to traverse quicksand, expose enemies hiding beneath the sandy floor, and move or stop heavy objects.
  • Sand Is Water: How Malgyorgs move through it. Most sand-dwelling enemies in the Zelda series are worms of some sort, but Malgyorgs are sand-swimming sharks (serving as distant cousins of the sea-dwelling Gyorgs from Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass).
  • Sand Worm: The game shows a variant of the shark-like Gyorg seen in Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass called Malgyorg, which swims in the desert of Sand Realm.
  • Save-Game Limits: Like Majora's Mask and Phantom Hourglass, the game only has two save files, giving you little room for saving backups (and none if you either share the game with someone else or choose to preserve a cleared playthrough).
  • Scary Stinging Swarm: Rolling into trees has a chance to knock down beehives, which will send a swarm of angry bees chasing after Link.
  • Schizo Tech: Aside from the obvious train travel in an otherwise medieval world, the fifth dungeon is an Egyptian-inspired pyramid that's guarded by defense turrets, and the overworld features enemy tanks that frequently attack Link's train.
  • Scolded for Not Buying: Beedle complains loudly if you leave his shop without buying. It's justified because he has to pedal extra hard to get the hot-air balloon shop down to the ground.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: The Demon King Malladus. He's such a big evil that his binding chains were big and long enough to form the basis of New Hyrule's railway system.
  • Secret Level: Some of the playable locations can only be unlocked by restoring rails with Force Gems that are rewarded by completing very obscure and/or difficult sidequests. Examples include the Snowdrift and Slippery Stations in the Snow Realm, and the Lost at Sea Station in the Ocean Realm.
  • Segmented Serpent: Skeldrich is an odd example in that it's a human skull on a spine rather than a snake or worm.
  • Self-Parody: Spirit Tracks is essentially what happens when the series makes fun of itself, particularly with its own conventions.
  • Sentient Sands: The Gerune s an enemy who appears in the Sand Temple. It somehow looks like a sand Bedsheet Ghost and in its regular form is invulnerable to almost anything except for the Sand Wand. This item, which is used to create elevated platforms out of sand, will paralyze them and make them solid, and Link will be able to destroy them in that state.
  • Sequel Goes Foreign: Inverted. Whereas its two predecessors in the Adult Timeline took place in the Great Sea and the World of the Ocean King respectively, Spirit Tracks is set in a newly-founded version of Hyrule, much like the more traditional Zelda games.
  • Sequential Boss: There are three phases to the final boss fight (four or five if you include the Demon Train or the six armored cars beforehand, but you can save after those battles).
  • Serious Business:
    • Trains. You can't be an engineer without what essentially amounts to a knighting ceremony. This finds its logical conclusion when Ferrus is outright disappointed to learn that Alfonzo is not a legendary engineer, but "only" a legendary warrior.
    • And as the Esoteric-Goron claims, engineers have a special "aura" allowing them to feel the presence of one. It's like engineer is another word for "really awesome person" in New Hyrule. In the immortal words of Alfonzo: "You sure you don't mean legendary warrior? I've never heard of a legendary engineer."
  • Shifting Sand Land: The Sand Realm, though it doesn't affect gameplay at all, seeing as you can only stop at the sanctuary and the temple (which does have plenty of desert-themed motifs, including an item to manipulate sand, the Sand Wand).
  • Shockingly Expensive Bill: Renzo demands a full 5,000 rupees from Linebeck III in order to repair the Broken Bridge to the Ocean Realm. Linebeck himself decides that Link is paying for that, giving that he wants the bridge to be repaired.
  • Shooting Gallery: Two minigames, namely the rescue sequence in the Pirate Hideout (where Link has to shoot at several Miniblins, including a Big Blin at the end, while riding a minecart to rescue a captive character) and the Goron Test Range (where Link has to shoot bombs from his Spirit Train to several target posts while riding across the rails of a large shooting test area).
  • Shoot the Bullet: The best way to avoid getting hit by a cannonball is to shoot it out of the air with your own cannon.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Eiji Aonuma's main inspiration for this game was The Tracks Go On, a children book he once read to his son.
    • The whip is very similar to that of Lucas in Mother 3.
  • Skyward Scream: Played for Laughs when Zelda finds out Cole's plans. She, now a wandering spirit, learns that The Dragon is going to use her body as a vessel for the Big Bad. Her reaction? She flies up and screams right at the camera while spinning around.
  • Slasher Smile: Cole. Makes one wonder how could he fool everyone in Hyrule Castle when he's so Obviously Evil.
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The entire Snow Realm, which encompasses the Anouki village (no Yooks to deal with this time, unlike in Phantom Hourglass), the Snow Sanctuary, the Snow Temple, and several optional (some needing to be unlocked via sidequests) snowy stations. As a standout, the aptly-named Slippery Station, which revolves around obstacle courses to get treasure, involves traversing corridors of ice-covered floor, which requires rolling to adjust Link's position.
  • Smashing Survival: There's a lot of rubbing to get released: Fire Babas eating you, Like Likes eating you, basically everything trying to eat you. Plus driving your sword into the main villain's skull.
  • Smash Mook: You're ambushed by pirates on your way back to the Ocean Sanctuary. You fight them in the train carriage, and they come in waves. One wave is a single Smash Mook; it pulls its arm back, prepares to swing, and then after a long time finally swings its club. The damage it does is monstrous, so it's best to play it safe.
  • Smug Snake: Subverted: Cole has all the trappings of never becoming anything more than an annoying little twat, but he's a surprisingly effective villain.
  • Snake Whip: The whip that Link acquires ends in a fanged snake head capable of grabbing objects it's whipped at. This allows Link to grab onto distant supports to swing himself across gaps, snatch shields away from enemies, and battle the boss Phytops by throwing objects at him.
  • Snowlems: The game has Sir Frosties on the overworld map where they pop up and attack your Cool Train with thier heads.
  • Snowy Sleigh Bells: The theme playing in the icy Anouki Village feature sleigh bells at some point.
  • Solve the Soup Cans: While possessing a Wrecker Phantom, Zelda can't carry Link across a lava field because she turns into a sphere and rolls instead of walking (not because lava is hot), so you have to track down a regular Phantom for her to control. The problem is, she can walk normally as a Wrecker—she does it whenever you aren't directly controlling her movement, and should be perfectly capable of carrying Link over the lava in that form... but the game goes out of its way to dissuade you from even trying, and if you attempt it anyway she stubbornly starts rolling and tosses poor Link into the lava. It seems someone forgot that the whole situation only makes sense if Wreckers cannot walk.
  • Some Dexterity Required:
    • You will often need to quickly alternate between controlling Link and Zelda to solve puzzles in the Tower of Spirits. Then exaggerated during the final boss fight, where one must simultaneously attack Malladus with Link while positioning Zelda at the proper spot so she can shoot a Light Arrow at the demon's weakspot.
    • The Lokomo duets force the player to slide the stylus on the touch screen to play the correct note on the Spirit Flute, while also blowing on the mic to the rhythm of the designated tune.
  • Something Else Also Rises: The tip of Link's infamous hat randomly rises in one scene where Princess Zelda hugs him. Alternatively, this might be a derivative of Expressive Hair.
  • Songs in the Key of Lock: The Spirit Flute, which utilizes the DS microphone, has magical properties enabled with the songs learned. Playing duets with the Lokomos help restore the Spirit Tracks, which enable you to go to new areas.
  • Songs in the Key of Panic: There's a sequence where your train goes into a dark tunnel, shooting the occasional tektite as this plays. Then you meet the boss, who takes up half the tunnel and is only vulnerable to shooting Exploding Barrels (recall that both you and the boss are moving at different speeds), and this plays as gets inexorably closer (and drops back to the former if you manage to hit him).
  • Sparkling Stream of Tears: Zelda does this before the final battle against Malladus, due to Byrne's Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Spin Attack: With the obligatory upgrade from Niko once you collect all 20 stamps.
  • Spoiled by the Manual: Stagnox, Fraaz, Cragma and Skeldritch are all spoiled on the official website. Fraaz is also in most screencap collections for the game, and Cragma is one of the few bosses to have official artwork for it released.
  • Superboss: Dark Link in the final level of the "Take 'Em All On" minigame. Not only is he proficient at swordplay, but can also attack with arrows and bombs, making him a Mirror Boss.
  • Stationary Boss: Phytops cannot move from the watery pit where it lives, and attacks by lashing out with its long tentacles and by spitting globs of poison. Since Link cannot swim across its pit, he also cannot attack it directly and must go through a complex routine to stun Phytops and make it slump onto the side of the pit in order to reach it.
  • Stealth-Based Mission: A variation in which Link's iconic green outfit is also that worn by castle guards, so Link can run around in plain sight of patrols; it's Princess Zelda (whom he's escorting) who must remain hidden. The inverse logically occurs (in a downplayed manner) during the Tower of Spirit dungeons — Link generally needs to avoid patrolling Phantom soldiers, but Zelda (possessing Phantom armor) can walk around freely.
  • Suit Up of Destiny: Played with. Link starts out in an engineer's uniform and only changes his clothes to blend in with the guards prowling around the castle. Unlike Wind Waker Link, he doesn't seem to have much of an opinion about his new look. Zelda, on the other hand, isn't so crazy about it.
  • Super Drowning Skills: As in the predecessor, Link cannot swim whatsoever. Zelda acknowledges it and when they reach Papuchia Village, she can offer Link to teach him swim after their adventure.
  • Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: Before fighting the Superboss at the end of Take 'Em All On, you enter a room full of jars with hearts in them, despite the entire rest of the challenge containing no means of recovering health.
  • Sword Beam: Your reward for getting all 50 rabbits.
  • Sword of Plot Advancement: The Bow of Light and the Lokomo Sword, obtained after defeating Skeldritch. Both allow you to stun phantoms without collecting tears of light, and the Bow of Light is necessary to defeat Malladus.
  • Tactical Suicide Boss: In true Zelda tradition, most of the bosses really need to rethink their battle strategy.
    • Stagnox throws explosive slugs at you, which you must use to damage his armor (since you don't have bombs yet).
    • Fraaz would be invincible if he stuck to either fire or ice, but instead he alternates, allowing you to damage him by boomeranging his previous breath attack into him. Oddly, he is smart enough to smash the fire/ice torches in the room after a couple of rounds.
    • Even though Phytops spends the entire pre-fight climbing sequence with its head underwater, it also spends most of the fight itself with its head out of the water, leaving its weak point exposed.
    • Cragma has a recurring tendency to rain down volcanic boulders on you if you attack its weak point, which it exposes every so often by lifting itself out of the lava to store up an attack. The boulders can then be smashed apart into platforms and used to reach the minecarts you use to pelt the boss with arrows.
    • Skeldritch must be disassembled by catapulting his own boulders back at him. He also has a laser-beam attack; if he only used that, Link would be unable to harm him.
    • To hit Byrne, you have to dodge his grapple-arm and have Zelda yank him to the ground with it. His other attacks don't make him vulnerable, but he keeps using the grappler anyway.
  • Tagalong Kid: You can saddle Beedle with one, the same kid from Link's home village who conned him into rolling into a bee-infested tree. It's necessary to get a Force Gem from the kid, but even more so, it's hilarious to see Beedle's reaction when you bring him into the store.
  • Tagline: "Ride into adventure with Link and Princess Zelda."
  • Taking You with Me: This is what Malladus plans to do with the rest of the world as he notices Cole's body rejecting him.
  • Teaser Equipment: Several shopkeepers have items at display you will not be able to buy until much, much later in the game, like the Anouki in the Anouki General Store who sells a heart container for 2,000 rupees (which you won't have even closely by the time), or the Goron in the Goron Country Store who sells a quiver upgrade for another 2,000 rupees (at a time where you don't have the bow yet). Beedle's Air Shop takes the cake though, having a heart container on top of a shelf that you cannot purchase but get as a Membership reward after you have spent 5,000 rupees in his shop.
  • Teleporting Keycard Squad: Every time you get a big key in the central dungeon, giant disembodied hands appear out of the floor. They will move towards the Phantom carrying the key on sight, can force the Phantom to drop the key in one hit (they will then return it to its original location), and are positioned in the most inconvenient places possible for the player. Kill them? They'll just respawn.
  • Tentacled Terror: Phytops, the third boss, is a giant cyclopean octopus with thorned tentacles it uses to slam on Link and to impede his way around the arena. Thankfully, the thorns can be snatched with the whip and hurled on Phytops' single eye.
  • The Three Trials: Though the game's overarching quest averts the trope (its structure is more comparable to those of Majora's Mask and The Minish Cap), there are three trials which must be passed to gain entrance to the Sand Temple, where the sacred Bow of Light lies. The trials are based on, respectively, defeating Rocktite, traversing a convolute maze, and destroying the turrets protecting the Sand Temple itself. All of them must be done while driving the Spirit Train.
  • Throwing the Distraction: Phantoms can be lured away from their post by making noise near them. The page quote is provided by a Hyrule Castle guard, whom this ability must be practiced on.
  • Time-Limit Boss:
    • You need to chase the Demon Train across a set of rails in another dimension. If you take too long, you reach the end of the line and crash.
    • Unlike the first and second Rocktites, which have to be fought as part of the main story and are battled in infinitely long tunnels, the third one has a finite tunnel length and will respawn with full health if the player doesn't defeat it in one go.
  • Time Skip: Takes place one hundred years after Phantom Hourglass, and thus 102 years after The Wind Waker. Despite the large skip, Niko from those games is still around.
  • Took a Level in Badass: As usual in the series, Link. But this time Zelda turns into Little Miss Badass herself. Malladus can vouch for that.
  • Trailers Always Spoil: The official trailer not only reveals the existence of Stagnox and Fraaz but also shows the viewer how to beat them. Stagnox is also shown on the info video for the Whirlwind, and Zelda's spirit being forced out of her body is practically the main marketing point of the game.
  • Traintop Battle: In a game centering around trains, this was inevitable: part of the final boss fight against Malladus is Link and Zelda making their way across the top of the Demon Train.
  • Tranquil Fury: When Zelda is possessing a phantom, you can hit her with several of your subweapons. She will strike back if you keep hitting her, and shortly before she snaps, one of her dialogues will consist of nothing but ellipses.
  • Trick Shot Puzzle: Like in Phantom Hourglass, there are puzzles where Link has to use Arrow Orbs to redirect arrow shots and hit targets he wouldn't be able to otherwise. At one point in the Tower of Spirits, he has to do this while Zelda is carrying the orb and positioning herself in the exact required spot.
  • Tsundere: Zelda, just like her grandmother. But the most notable difference between her and Tetra is that her default mood is Dere-Dere, while Tetra had Tsun-Tsun for a default-mood.
  • Two-Keyed Lock: There's a good number of two-keyed puzzles in the game. Sometimes using a block or the assistance of lovely Princess Zelda (as a Phantom) to push one, or hitting a series of switches with the boomerang.
  • Uncommon Time:
  • Underground Monkey: There are five types of rabbit you can collect, matching the environment in which they're found, including one that lives in the sea.
  • Under the Sea: Being the distant sequel to Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, the game has the Ocean Realm, which does have a large section underwater (the Ocean Floor) where Link's train can navigate without any issues (except for some enemies like the Octomines and two evil trains). However, the dungeon accessed within (the Ocean Temple), while being underwater as well, is somehow devoid of water in its rooms (even as a cosmetic element).
  • Unnaturally Looping Location: Disorientation Station consists of several looping identical rooms that are randomly distributed.
  • Unnecessary Combat Roll: Like in Phantom Hourglass, rolling four times in a row causes Link to get dizzy.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: When Link and Zelda first meet, Link blushes, then at the end of the game immediately after Zelda reclaims her body, she gives Link a hug, causing Link to blush, which seems innocent enough, until after the final boss, Link and Zelda hold hands, which is much less innocent than it sounds. UST is restored at the game's conclusion, though, as Link returns to his engineering, becomes a warrior trainee, or just departs from Zelda's life depending on the choice the player makes near the end.
  • Variable Mix: The overworld theme varies in instrumentation and volume depending on the speed your train is going. Also, the theme inside the Tower of Spirits changes as you progress (e.g. drums are added on the 2nd set of stairs, Ominous Latin Chanting on the next set...)
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Dark Realm, a Final Boss, New Dimension accessible once you retrieve the Compass of Light at the very end of this game's Mega Dungeon (the Tower of Spirits). The Demon Train, as well as Chancellor Cole assisting the first form of Malladus, are confronted during the train portion and Phantom portion respectively, but the game kicks back to New Hyrule for the final parts of the battle.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential:
    • Link can attack Zelda in various ways when she's possessing a phantom, which includes whipping her (though if you keep it up, she will retaliate.).
    • You can shoot Ferrus with the cannon when he's by the tracks, and blowing the train whistle while next to him makes him jump.
    • You can shoot Beedle's hot air balloon, but all it does is make him take off again.
    • You can shoot birds, dolphins, and pigs with the cannon, though the latter will get angry and attack your train.
  • Video Game Cruelty Punishment: You can attack Zelda with various items while she's possessing a Phantom. If you hit her too many times, the red haze and "you've been spotted by a phantom" music will play, and she'll attack back.
  • Villain Override: Malladus pulls this on his minion Chancellor Cole near the end of the game, possessing him and transforming it into a large, demonic warthog-like creature.
  • Warp Whistle: There's a series of fixed warp gates set up in various places along the titular train tracks, each of which must be activated by a shot from the Spirit Train's cannon before it can be used, then turned on by blowing your train whistle.
  • Waterfront Boss Battle: Phytops is an octopus-like monster found lurking inside a large flooded pit. As Link can only stand on the edge of this pit and thus can't reach the creature, while Phytops has free reign to strike with its tentacles and spit globs of poison across the gap, he must wait for Phytops to attack, grab a thorn from its tentacles, and throw it at its eye. Doing this often enough will stun the beast and cause it slump on the edge of the pit, allowing Link to attack it directly before Phytops recovers and retreats.
  • What the Hell, Player?:
    • If you attack Zelda with any of your weapons, she'll protest. Each weapon elicits a different response, some of which are hilarious. Do it too many times and she'll tell you that you're making her angry and ask why you're being so pushy. Keep provoking her and she'll hit you back.
    • At one point the Lokomo of the Snow Sanctuary, Steem, asks you to bring him a vessel. After obtaining it from the fortune-teller in Papuchia Village, you deliver it to him. He's really happy, giving you a Force Gem out of gratitude. But if you succumb to temptation and break the vessel, he'll yell at you and demand that you replace it. (The replacement vessel costs twice as much as the first one. By this point in the game, either amount is small potatoes, but you still deserve it!)
  • Where It All Began: It is noted that the entrance to the Dark World is located not far at all from Link's hometown.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Zelda is afraid of mice. This comes up in a few puzzles and the first phase of the final boss battle.
  • Wicked Cultured: Chancellor Cole doesn't embody this trope in personality, but he sure does in dress. In fact, he actually wears two top hats. Of course, they are to cover up his two demon horns.
  • Workplace-Acquired Abilities: Isn't it convenient that a newly-minted train engineer just so happened to be our Link?
  • You Can See Me?: When Zelda realizes that Link has followed her into her room. It's never really explained why he can see her. All of the Lokomos they meet can also see her. It seems that Malladus, Cole, and Byrne can also see her. Basically, only plot-relevant people can see ghost Zelda.
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: The bad guys are trying to resurrect an ancient demon and you have to climb to the top of the Tower of Spirits in order to stop them. Guess what happens when you reach the top.
  • You Shouldn't Know This Already:
    • Songs can't be played before they are learned.
    • Even if you know the right path to the Snow Temple, you can’t get through the blizzard until Ferrus shows you his map.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Spirit Tracks

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Malladus Devours Cole

After losing Zelda's body and killing Bryne, Chancellor Cole orders the Demon King to take down Link and Zelda. Malladus's spirit decides to eat up Cole and use his body as his new vessel, much to his right hand man's objections.

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