The E3 Spirit Tracks demo was divided into three separate pieces: A train sequence, a dungeon, and a boss. Being that the train is the only completely new concept to the series and the DS handheld gameplay, I decided to try it out first.

Link started down a track (sans conductor outfit) and the game explained the various mechanisms of the train. I was able to shoot bombs at enemies, blow the whistle to get animals off the tracks, adjust the speed of the train, and move the camera around the train at any angle. As I moved along the tracks I had to employ my bomb functionality first to defeat a number of wild boar-like creatures that were attempting to ram the train. This sequence continued with moblins riding said boars who were also trying to attack myself and my train. This combat was interesting and fun, and largely reminiscent of riding the boat in Phantom Hourglass.

Following the moblin attack I needed to use my whistle to clear some animals from the tracks, which seemed to work well. I then came to a track crossroad where I need to choose my direction. Both directions seemed to send you through a cave, so for the sake of trying out the mechanism, I moved the track to the left, taking the cave further away. Through this cave I fought some keese and skulltullas, and needed to reduce my train's speed in order to kill them before they hurt me. It's worth noting at this point, that the train, even in its fastest setting, still moved painfully slow. I would say that by the time I finished just the train portion of the demo I had spent about 10 minutes playing.

Following the cave section I moved on to the final piece of the train demo, a puzzle. In this puzzle I needed to navigate the tracks at the proper speeds and move along the proper tracks to avoid the enemy trains which aimed to kill you on impact. Given that you had the ability to stop, before I entered the puzzle, I did just that and observed the pattern of the enemies. It took a while to see exactly what I needed to do, but once I did, I put my plan into action ... only to die on my first try. On my second try, I realized that I was actually slower than the other trains, so I needed to readjust my plan and wait for a particular train to pass before I could successfully reach the demo exit.

The next part of the demo involved some dungeon play. In this dungeon, I was also in charge of a phantom, who was seen in the last title as an enemy. Basically, this dungeon area showcased the phantom control. As I progressed through the dungeon I needed to ride on the phantom through certain lava pits, use the phantom as a shield so that I could get where I needed to go, and perform switch puzzles where he and I hit two separate switches simultaneously. I found controlling the phantom to be smooth and enjoyable. It was an interesting departure from the more standard dungeon play.

The final piece of the demo was a boss battle with a rhinoceros beetle. In order to defeat him, I needed to attack him from the rear; a typical boss battle. The only stipulation was that I needed to blow off some sort of poisonous gas that was emanating before I was able to attack. After that, I hacked away until I couldn't any longer, and then repeated the process. The sword control felt as finicky as it was in Phantom Hourglass. A button press is typically definitive, but a gesture must be interpreted. In certain cases my sword swipes were not being read properly and the spin attack was tough to consistently pull off.

Out of the entire demo, I most enjoyed the dungeon and controlling the phantom. It was fun and well implemented. The boss battle wasn't bad, but it really didn't showcase anything new. The train was far and away the worst part of the demo. It was slow and mostly boring because little was going on. Being that I wasn't the world's biggest Phantom Hourglass fan, I went into the Spirit Tracks demo very skeptical. Thanks to the dungeon sequence, I left much more hopeful and interested in the title.