One might consider me biased. I haven’t really fallen in love with a Zelda game since A Link to the Past. Maybe it’s something about the franchise moving to 3-D. Maybe there was something magical about the Super Nintendo iteration that has been lost with time. Either way, while I certainly enjoy the series I find no love for it now.

On the other hand, I consider this perspective to be just what the franchise needs out of a journalist. Every other gaming outlet feels nothing but undying love for the mute elf in a green coat. Someone out there needs to tell the rest of the gaming world whether the latest title in the series is going to be worth all the hype or not.

So I sat down to play The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks at VGXPO and see if it could revive my long lost love for adventure in Hyrule. Offered for play was a dungeon, a boss fight and some time on a train throughout the land. The only device required to play is the stylus, allowing the player to order Link around by pressing different points on the touch screen.

How this control scheme is still being used after Phantom Hourglass is beyond me. I never played the predecessor, but if this game improved in any way then Hourglass must have been a disaster. To move Link you press the direction you wish him to go. The further the stylus points the faster he moves. Sounds simple enough but this becomes frustrating when you only want him to move a few steps. Instinctively you may press the spot you want him to move to but then be forced to watch him tip-toe as slowly as possible. If you merely pressed a spot and he went there it may work better. Or, for argument’s sake, you could just let the player use the directional pad and save everyone the headache.

To strike a foe you have to get close enough and then slash or tap the screen. Merely tap or slash the enemy and Link will try and strike from where he is. If he’s nowhere near he makes no effort to move towards the monster. This is the first stylus-only game I’ve played where the character won’t move towards the enemy before attacking. Perhaps it is my fault for building old habits from superior game design. Shame on all you non-Nintendo developers for making me expect efficiency when I play a game.

The boss fight started out easy enough, but the second phase required you to use a wind effect at precisely the right time to fetch a spiked enemy and deal damage to the giant foe. If your timing was even slightly off it wouldn’t work. Players at the convention would try the correct strategy but fail due to timing, and as a result start trying other ineffective ways to defeat the boss.

The train section was relatively interesting, but in the same sense a mini-game is. It’s fun for a few minutes, but if the rest of the game fails to deliver substance then there’s no point. All I could experience was a game with good ideas but pretty bad execution. Even Overlord Minions had tighter control in certain areas.

“You just have to get used to it!” you fans of the franchise may proclaim. Such a statement completely goes against Nintendo’s attempts to provide an accessible gaming platform. I should be able to sit down and immediately get it. What we have here is an interface that is only partly intuitive. It doesn’t work to my expectations. Hell, being able to use the D-Pad would have been much more effective. Instead we have a failed attempt at innovation for no greater reason than trying to be innovative.

If you are a Zelda fan then there’s nothing to stop you from getting the game. However, for any other gamer out there, this title isn’t going to be worth it. There may be some nifty ideas here and there, and puzzle and level design may continue to be excellent. The control just brings it all down like a flimsy house of cards. The engine expresses troubles that a smaller studio than Nintendo ought to be having, much like the currently flawed engine still used for the console counterparts. Just skip the game and use your thirty or forty bucks elsewhere.