Last Train Home intensifies. It’s time for the finale.
Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks [33] [FINALE] Malladus
Video Length: 46:27
Spoiled for length and not wanting to spoil the final fight before the video gets watched. Click the arrow to unleash my ramblings~
Summary
With ancient secrets firmly in our pocket, with a glowing compass and a shiny bow in hand, we head off towards the temple of infinite darkness next door to our sleepy home village. As we approach, a demonic portal opens and we get sent to the realm of infinite darkness. And, in what is probably the best example of how this game has affected my psyche, it presents me with a challenge that I am at first horrified at the implications… up until the game fiercely reminds me that if this game has done anything right, it’s making very good boss fights and that this is part of the boss fight. All those Armoured Trains, once unbreakable behemoths that terrify us to the very core… all we need to do is drive our train to one of the Tears of Light and then it’s Pac-man time bastard! Of note, I actually did this part wrong as well; if you honk the train-horn while going at Light speed, you go even faster. Heck yeah.
That dance of death out of the way, it’s time for the boss fight proper; starting up with the fight against the Demon Train itself! This is actually a PRETTY cool boss fight all things considered, I genuinely do not remember why I was so negative about this part in particular when I knew all the other bosses were excellent. As it turns out the best I can think of is that there is times where the Demon Train will just move onto you and there’s no real way to avoid that unless you’re precognitive. Otherwise this actually RULES, our tiny train shooting down the Demon Train’s cars as we work our way up to the front of the track so we can disable it with a couple powerful blasts to the face.
Now for phase 2. We’ve boarded the train, so Cole and Malladus shall face us directly! Cole shoots out little lightning rats that lets him scare Zelda and turn her into his puppet, which is frustrating and annoying, but ultimately not that big a challenge. The rats at times drop hearts too, so it’s not an unavoidable death by attrition, you’re only going to lose if you get MAD messed up. Malladus meanwhile is blasting lasers at us as we approach, but so long as we stay behind Zelda we’ll be safe. Once we get to Zelda’s body… we have a fun time shooting it in the chest. The Demon Train sinks below the shades, and we return to reality… only to face Phase 3.
Phase 3 is the moment we’ve all been waiting for; every Zelda game has a Tennis match with the baddy and this one is no different. Cole!Malladus, this hulking behemoth, blasts out a ton of fireballs and it’s up to Link to batter them away as Zelda charges up for her super special move. This part is REALLY cool, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Cole!Malladus’s boss theme, taking Cole’s stupid silly little goober villain theme… and making it REALLY intense is outstanding. It’s honestly a feast for the ears. But as Zelda’s power grows, the music starts to fade… all very intense. As well, due to just the nature of how this fight works… the final wave of fireballs basically baits you INTO doing a Whirlwind Slash, letting you finish the fight with a very cool special move of your own. It rules.
Regrettably phase 4 of the final boss fight against Malladus is a black stain upon my soul. Zelda’s super special move is to make me play the flute one more time.
And finally… phase 5. With Malladus’s weak point pried open by powerfully good music that does not belay the fact that forcing me to learn to play the fan flute is heinous in every single regard, we can bring the fight to him! Link can slice up Malladus to distract him, while Zelda… remember in Wind Waker, when Tetra used the Light Arrows to help us fight Ganon? What if we could control Zelda during that portion AS WELL as Link? Well, the brain geniuses who gave us Spirit Tracks did that, and it honestly rules. When I first played this part of the final boss it… genuinely made everything leading up to it worth it. Link distracts Malladus while Zelda blasts him in his weak apot, a perfect team up. Of course once the weak spot is blasted by a Light Arrow a DIFFERENT weak spot opens up, but that’s fine. And, importantly… we BOTH strike the final blow together.
With Malladus slain, the ending can finally roll. We did it folks, we defeated Spirit Tracks. And as far as Zelda endings go, I do quite like this one. There’s even some room for very slight alternate endings, though it ultimately doesn’t account for much. And that’s a wrap on Spirit Tracks.
I’d like to thank all of you for sticking with this. The hiatus right before the push towards the end was rough, but I managed to pull through it and so did you guys. This game was… substantially testing of my patience in a way I’d never really experienced before. Guess it’s true that recording something is way, way different than playing it by yourself. I’m glad I did it though, this is the first of like… three massive hurdles in playing through all the Zelda’s, and probably the hardest of said hurdles. We’ve put it in the ground, and now we can move forward.
So, what’s next? Well, here is a poll to choose what the next path we’re walking down next time we return to Hyrule. We’ve closed off a branch and now have to go back to Ocarina, and make a different choice. We went with the Adult timeline path, seeing how the world would work out without a chosen hero. As it turns out; lots of boats. Now we must choose one of two paths that remain… what happens when two children tell the King the man he’s meeting is secretly evil, or what happens if we all got merc’ed and evil won. Wisdom or Power. Let’s do this!
But that won’t be for a bit. What’s NEXT next is a fun little indie game called Ronin… and it’ll be starting this Friday! No break, Plague Time means chaos rules! I hope you all enjoyed this mess of an LP, and I hope you enjoy the next one. Take care everybody.
