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Zelda 1: Had a massive setback in this game. I was plunging into the final dungeon, and had finally acquired both the Red Ring and Silver arrows, which turned out to be pretty easy because the means to even reach Ganon kind of requires you to pick them up on the way in 2nd Quest. Anyway, it was super late and so I quit right there, but instead of quitting the game and suspending it, I accidentally shut my 3DS completely down. When I booted up, I discovered I had not actually saved in this file since getting the Key Item in Dungeon 5, so now I basically have to redo Dungeon 5-9 all over again. This is what happens when you game too late and do stuff half asleep...

Spirit Tracks: As I suspected, there was another Temple to explore. I finished the Spirit Tower and actually had a fun boss battle where Zelda was able to participate. Not terribly difficult but still really fun and unique. Basically the boss stays out of your reach in a caged arena and tries to smack you with his grappling claw hand. You need Link to lure and dodge the attack so it gets stuck on the ground, and then have Zelda in her Phantom body grab it and drag him down into the arena so you can hit him. Anyway, in typical Zelda fashion, we finally reach the big bads, only to learn we're too late. Malladus has been resurrected in Zelda's body, but is still having adjustment issues, so he escaped with his servant on a Demon Train. Fearing how godlike the demon may become if it learns to tap into Zelda's reservoir of spiritual power, we get sent to the Sand Realm to retrieve the Bow of Light, which should be powerful enough to force Malladus out o Zelda's body, though there is a slight possibility this could destroy Zelda's body as well. Getting to the Sand Temple sucked, to even find the entrance to the Sanctuary where the guardian resides, I had to travel around the desert and take not of where these giant heads were staring to determine where to bomb and find the entrance. This game loves these kind of puzzles, but it's also here that the touch screen has some issues with finesse, not helped by my DS having seen better days.

Once that was done, I had to learn the Lokomo song of this region, which is always a bitch, because unlike other rhythm games, this one doesn't tell you how you're doing until you're finished and gives you a pass/fail judgement. This sucks, cause the game never tells you where in the song you're screwing up so you can fix it. After that, it was dealign with three new challenges: I got to fight Gohma in a cave using the train, which was a bit of a bitch because it took awhile to realize the bomb barrels in the cave are meant to force it to open its eye, not to actually hurt it. The next part involved a bit of a Lost Woods puzzle, but I ended up solving this rather easily. The final challenge was the fact the dungeon actually had cannons protecting it all around the temple and I needed to destroy all of them to get the entrance opened. Normally this wouldn't be much of an issue, even being on the train, but I took some beatings from Gohma and had to be careful with my low health.

The temple itself, like all of the themed temples, was ridiculously easy compared to the trouble of getting here. I also learned that this was the game that introduced the Sand Wand, which allows you to raise sand from the ground like a pillar. It's much more user friendly in this game than ALBW, the puzzles for it are also much more interesting. So I had fun despite how easy it was. The boss was also interesting because it was a strange redo of the boss from the Arbitar's Grounds in TP. The boss is in the center of the room launching boulders at you. You use the sand wand to halt the boulders and then redirect them into various catapults strung around the arena, which you launch back at him and shatter parts of his spine. The challenge is that parts of his spine have armor plating that protects it, so you may have to arm the catapult and then run away from it so the boss will track you and expose the weak part of its spine, at which point you have to use your bow to strike the catapult switch to damage him.The boss fights in this game are fairly easy, but like TP, I appreciate how much more involving they can be. With the Bow of Light obtained, I now have to go back to the Spirit Tower again to retrieve an item the villains left behind which will allow me to find them. I was also awarded the Lokomo sword, which may go down as the worst sword upgrade Link has ever received in the series. I don't believe it raises his damage, and it can only stun Phantoms in the tower without the need of the Light artifacts to power up your basic sword. The Bow of Light is a much more interesting item. You can charge it to create powerful piercing arrows of light that can actually kill multiple enemies in a row if you time it right. I'm amused that the weapon quest of this game is for an item normally associated with Zelda, whereas Link's sword upgrade feels like an afterthought. In fact, it seems silly the Lokomo never bothered to give it to you in the first place considering how unimportant it was. So yeah, I need to head back to the Tower, but I'm going to try and finish up the last few quests and complete getting all the stamps and heart containers.