There's one point where you have to hit four switches in a certain order within a time limit. The switches are arranged on the corners of a a rectangular wall. You would think that you're supposed to hit them all in order yourself, or make the Phantom do them all, but neither of you are fast enough for that. Instead you have to set the Phantom to hit 1 and 3, and after he hits 1, you hit 2 and then dash to 4 and wait for him to hit 3 so you can hit 4.

There's also a section where two bridges run across a pit and flamethrowers shoot across the bridges. You have to get the Phantom on the bridge closer to the flames so that he blocks them (he can't take damage) and then pace yourself on the other bridge so that you cross it as he blocks the flames.

One of the cooler uses of the Phantom is that you can ride on his square shield like a platform to pass through lava. This essentially means that when you get to lava areas, you can control a moving platform by drawing a path for it. In the dungeon demo, you needed to ride to a windmill switch suspended over the lava and use a new item (a whirl wind shooter) to trigger it. It causes a key to drop behind flames. You then have to position the Phantom's platform in a way so that you can use the whirlwind to blow the key onto accessible land. It was a pretty simple puzzle (that took me two attempts to figure out) but I'm really excited to see how they use this moving platform mechanic in the future--especially in a boss fight!

There was also a miniboss at the end of the dungeon. It was one of those fish warrior guys from Phantom Hourglass. He always keeps his shielded front facing you, so there's no way to attack his vulnerable backside on your own. You have to defeat him by attacking him on two fronts. You can make the Phantom attack him by drawing a line straight through him. While the Phantom and fish warrior guy are locked in combat, you can sneak around to the back and slash at his weak point. It was only slightly clunkier of a battle than most Phantom Hourglass battles, but it worked out pretty well. When the fish warrior guy was defeated, I got a heart container and the demo ended.

Interestingly, the Phantom actually had a lot of dialog in the demo. He would tell Link how to use most of the controls, (ie, "Touch me and draw a path to where you want me to go."). His dialog was surprisingly casual. Sometimes Link's sidekicks are stoic and reserved, like The King of Red Lions or Navi, and sometimes they're written like laid back 'modern' people, like Midna or Linebeck. The Phantom definitely seemed like the latter. In fact, I'd go so far as to theorize he may somehow be connected to Linebeck, who had temporarily transformed into a Phantom at the end of Phantom Hourglass. Regardless, I was expecting the Phantom to be a silent tool of some kind, but he's apparently a 'real character'.

Boss Demo
The Phantom didn't appear in the boss fight demo, but again I was armed with the new item, the whirlwind. When you activate it, the stylus is used to rotate a yellow straight line 360 degrees around Link, and when the player blows into the microphone while aiming this line, a whirlwind is shot in that direction. It can be used to blow away clouds away, push items in a specific straight direction, or stun enemies.

Before accessing the boss, you have to use the whirlwind to blow poison clouds out of the way. The way the clouds moved sort of reminded me of digging away solid walls with the Mole Mitts in The Minish Cap. After you clear the poison, the next area had these little spiky worm enemies. You could stun them with the whirlwind if you wanted to, but you're supposed to strike them with your sword. This causes them to curl up and become spikey bombs. Hooray for interesting new takes on the bomb flower! Because the bombs are spikey you can't pick them up with your hands and need to use the whirlwind to blow them into the crumbly wall that stands between you and the boss.

The boss felt how a Zelda boss should: Use your new item and sword together to take him out in multiple phases. It feels like it's quizzing you on the uses of your new item that you should've learned in the dungeon, the final test before expecting you to understand that item well enough for future puzzles. The boss was a giant stag beetle with a poison butt. You'd have to wait for a break in his pattern and run around to his back side and blow the poison clouds away so you could strike his obvious weak point. After a few hits, he'd fly to the top screen.

The second mode of the boss was a little harder. He'd drop spikey worms onto the battle field and fly by, attempting to ram into you. While he was in the air, you had to attack the worms and turn them into bombs. You could then see him dashing towards you in the distance in the top screen, and had to position yourself to ensure there's a straight line between you, the beetle and the bomb, and then use the whirlwind to fire the bomb at him. This would temporarily stun him, allowing you to strike his butt and ultimately kill him.

Train Demo
This was, surprisingly, the hardest demo! I had to play the dungeon demo twice to beat it in the time limit, the boss demo once, and I played the train demo three or four times and could never complete it. It was actually pretty fun too.

You'd think it'd be exactly like the steam boat in Phantom Hourglass, but it's really not. Using the steam boat (and the sail boat from Wind Waker) was basically charting a course through an endless open sea, hoping for random encounters with something interesting. The train routes are all pre-determined to be interesting, and feel more like an on-rails shooter.

You can use on-screen levers to control the speed of the train or choose the track you want to take next. The map will tell you which path you're heading for, and which you'll take if you switch. The top screen map is more helpful here than it has been in any other DS game. In fact, the train sections would be totally unplayable without it.

You can also tap anywhere on screen to shoot the cannon or pull a rope to blow the whistle. You can drag the screen in all directions to move the camera, but it'll eventually pull back to it's default position in front of the train. You can use the cannon to blow up boulders to look for rupees and hearts, and to attack enemies. The whistle is used to clear cows from the road. If you hit cows with your train or shoot it with the cannon, you'll invoke a "Cuckoo's Revenge" type beating that will cost you a few hearts.

The first time you get to a crossroads you can choose to enter a forest or a cave. I played the demo multiple times so I was able to try both. The forest featured skulltulas swinging in front of the train like a pendulum. There's a lot of challenge in aiming the cannon, because everything is a moving target, but there's an added level of challenges when targets are also moving side to side. The cave featured mini ghomas scurrying around the ground like something Samus Aaron might step on. Both the cave and the forest weren't terribly difficult, but I did take damage on the first attempt of each.

The next section of train part was pretty difficult. You could see the routes of three other NPC trains using the tracks on the top screen. They were all moving in loops on three intertwining tracks that sort of resembled the 'club' card suit. You have to carefully time the speed of your train and the tracks you pick to avoid conflict. You're supposed to stop your train and wait for the right moment to enter the tracks. The first time I played the demo, I recklessly powered through without thinking and found myself unable to get out of a head-on collision. When you collide with another train you die, regardless of hearts. It's a game over. The next two times I played this area I was a little more careful, and chose to time my entry into the tracks so that I was coming up behind NPC trains, moving in a similar direction as them.

The last section of the train area was really hard and I never managed to beat it. You enter a cave and pass under Queen Ghoma, who falls from the ceiling and starts chasing your train. The camera defaults to looking behind the train as Ghoma chases you. Her giant eyeball is actually inside her mouth and only vulnerable when it's open. She also climbs on all sides of the cave and it's dark and foggy so only her exposed eyeball is visible from a distance. You can deal damage by either firing at her eyeball (which is hard because you have to compensate for the movement of the train, the movement of Ghoma, the contours of the cave, and the way the cannonballs fire) or by shooting at explosive barrels embedded in the cave wall. I tried twice, and though I did much better the second time, I was never able to defeat Ghoma.

It's worth noting that the front of the train features a simplified version of the Hyrule royal crest (a bird and a triangle) and that the cover at shows the train towing a cargo load that wasn't seen in the demo. From the looks of the trailer, Link could be some kind of goods transporter for the royal family. It also may be worth noting that the individual planks laid under the tracks are triangles and 'magical sparks' come of the train's wheels as it runs across them which may have something to do with the title, Spirit Tracks. Another final note is that the Phantom seems to be riding in the train with Link, as someone inside the train was explaining the controls in a tone similar to the way the Phantom spoke in the dungeon demo.

Overall
This demo was a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to the final game! I don't really have any complaints or criticism about Spirit Tracks at all. I hope this article provided you with more information, if you're chomping at the bit for details, because I know I was. I think I was pretty thorough, but if you have any other questions be sure to leave them in the comments.