The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - Development

Development

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks was directed by Daiki Iwamoto and produced by Eiji Aonuma. Half of the staff responsible for its predecessor, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, was involved in this game's development. While Aonuma was a regular director of The Legend of Zelda series, he works in the role of a producer for the Nintendo DS Zelda titles. Due to the quick development time of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time which took noticeably more time to complete, Aonuma commented to the development team that they could complete Spirit Tracks quickly. Where Majora's Mask took a year, Spirit Tracks was completed in two. Its Japanese subtitle is Daichi no Kiteki (translated to Train Whistle of the Wide World in English). One of the earlier subtitle ideas was "Pan Flute of the (something)"; however, they found that it would both be too long and would be inappropriate, since the pan flute isn't a main item of this game. They settled for Train Whistle in place of Pan Flute, which allowed them to use a subtitle that embodied both the train theme and the pan flute, the latter being a whistle. They had difficulty in determining what the "something" in the title should be. The English title Spirit Tracks was decided before they had finalized the Japanese name. Upon examining it, they determined that since spirit means soul, they could call it Train Whistle of the Soul. However, the team felt that it sounded too creepy, with Aonuma suggesting it sounded "haunted", not in keeping with its premise, which Aonuma describes as being about "running a train across wide-open spaces". They asked for suggestions from the staff, and as a result, they came up with the current Japanese title. They decided to call the pan flute "Whistle of the Wide World" afterward, which was renamed to the "Spirit Flute" in English. They also named various areas in the games similarly, using "Wide World of the Ocean" as an example.

The graphics were chosen, similarly to Phantom Hourglass, as a result of the decision that toon shading would be best to deliver the games. Aonuma commented that with realistic graphics, it would make the characters poorly scaled to their surroundings, adding that though possible, it was not ideal.

Iwamoto felt that Spirit Tracks should not be too "The Legend of Zelda-like", citing an argument that occurred that the train was not a good fit for the series. This argument had several people wondering if the train should not be changed to something else. However, Iwamoto and others convinced the staff to stick with this idea. Aonuma felt that the team had created new ways of playing, while retaining several elements from the series. Aonuma commented that because the puzzles were designed by a designer who was formerly a programmer, they felt different to him. The multi-player mode was included due to long-time series director Shigeru Miyamoto's enjoyment of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords.

The ability to control a Phantom, an enemy in both Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hourglass, was decided to be included at an early stage in the game's development. The development team also focused on Princess Zelda especially. Related to her alter ego Tetra, Iwamoto chose to exclude her in this game due to her prevalence in previous games as a partner to Link. In deciding the partner, he came to the conclusion that the partner should be female since they would be adventuring together. While they began to design a new character, they figured that not including Zelda would not be as fun; as a result, Iwamoto asked permission to use Zelda, which Aonuma allowed him to do. The Spirit Flute was brought up early in the game's development. Because the microphone capabilities were featured so prominently in the game, the team decided to incorporate it into the flute. Aonuma felt that the inclusion of Zelda as Link's partner in both storyline and gameplay was his favourite part of the game, commenting that Spirit Tracks highlights her personality and characteristics better than other titles in the series.

Aonuma suggested that they not use a boat in this title. Because he wanted to retain the sense of seeing land become clearer as Link approaches it, he had to find an appropriate replacement for the boat. He cites a book called "The Tracks Go On", a book loved by his son, for inspiring the inclusion of a train. He discusses how in the book, children construct railroad tracks, also doing things such as creating tunnels or bridges when they find mountains or rivers. Aonuma felt that this book felt like it would fit with the series, though he did not tell the other developers about it. He later suggested that they use a train, and allow players to lay the tracks themselves. However, the latter idea was described as a "nightmare" by Aonuma, due to how players would not know where to lay tracks and how the story had to restrict players from going to certain places. Developing the train travel system took roughly one year to complete. The mechanic was fixed by making it so that the train tracks were always there, but had disappeared, requiring players to repair them. The development team's reaction was mixed; while some found it fun to expand them, others thought that doing such a thing may result in a loss of freedom in the world exploration. In order to allow players to avoid obstacles or enemies on the tracks, the team included a feature to allow players to go in reverse and switch tracks.