Spirit Tracks Six Armored Trains from the Dark Realm.

[athenian200]

All that the Zelda Dungeon walkthrough tells me is that the Tears of Light make me invincible, I can use the warp portals, I can go faster using the train whistle, and that the northeast part of the map is tough.

That doesn't help me at all. I'm having SERIOUS trouble with this challenge. There was one point where I managed to destroy every train except for one, and that train started using warps and flying all over the map so fast that I couldn't catch it, and eventually it cornered me in a place with no Tears of Light. Since that point, I've been trying to destroy trains in the harder parts of the map first, but I keep hitting the trains. There are three trains near the center of the map I can take down consistently, but one of the final three always kills me.

It seems like the armored trains are just too fast without the Tears of Light, so everything has to be "just so," or I fail.

I've never done well on challenges where one mistake means death. In fact, I spent a lot of time gathering all the Golden Train parts and getting every Heart Container in the game, just to make sure I would be able to beat this final boss, because the extreme difficulty of Skeldritch made me paranoid. Now, I can't even get to the boss... because I'm stuck on a segment where I'm always killed in one shot, no matter what.

Is there any advice anyone can give me other than to just keep metaphorically "banging my head against the wall"? I've tried this 10 times already, and I just can't do it. It seems like winning here is a matter of luck rather than skill, because my second try was the time I got closest to winning. All 8 of my subsequent tries only resulted in destroying 2 or 3 trains before I failed.

Also, there is something I need to know... can I save after beating these trains, or do I have to fight them all over again if I die to the final boss? If I do have to fight them all over again, I need to know that now so that I'll have time to cope with it beforehand.

 

[Meego]

I remember this from a few years ago. Okay, so I had trouble but if I could do this at 10 years old, don't worry you can too! Okay so my tips are, defeat all of the trains in the middle area, using the tears of light in a sensible way and blowing your whistle. Make sure to use the reverse on the train as well, this helps a lot. The portal part is a lot more tricky but try to come up behind the trains or smash into them from the front using the portals as quickly as possible. I know this may not be too helpful but keep trying, if you fail then try it differently each time. It just takes practise. I know it took me a few turns to do it but it it possible. Try to make sure you go the minumim amount of time possible with no tears of light too. I hope I have helped, but I am afraid it's more of a trial and error situation. From what I can remember, you don't have to beat them again after you have....I THINK. I could be wrong. But if you are having major trouble I would say leave it for a while then go back to it.

 

[Pocket Asian]

Confirming the save thing. It will save after all Armored Trains are defeated. Once they're gone, they're gone. If you do get defeated by the final boss, then you are placed back at the final boss upon entering the Dark Realm again.

 

[Xinnamin]

Okay, lemme see if I can remember this part. Basic tips, when drawing your paths, try to always have a tear of light along your path when possible. When invincible, blow the whistle and stay full speed, saves time to make sure you can always reach the next tear. You have to think fast to stay on the right track because you can get majorly messed up if the game plans the path for you. The trains cannot leave their specific tracks, be observant and use reverse and corners that the trains cannot enter to escape them if you have to.

I do it in this order. First one is the one in that little box immediately after the first tear. Kill that, then head up to the train circling the top center of the map. Then come down and get the train on the bottom right. Easy enough to get tears along those tracks.

The one in the top left is easy enough. You could go straight for the middle right warp and risk one of those trains coming down at you, or you can take the warp on the lower left (the one you entered from). There's a tear directly to the right of that warp to pick up along the way if you want. That takes you to the lower right warp, and from there you can move to the middle right warp while invincible for safety. Either way, the middle right takes you to the middle left warp, which is a linear track with a single tear. Keep going through the warp and this takes you to the top left, the area with a train and no tears. Stay full speed and kill it.

Top right is tricky. I suggest you maneuver back through the linear section with one tear and take that middle left warp to the middle right warp, then beeline for the tear on the upper right, then kill both trains. You have to stay full speed doing this or you risk running out of time. Hope this helps :/

 

[athenian200]

Okay, lemme see if I can remember this part. Basic tips, when drawing your paths, try to always have a tear of light along your path when possible. When invincible, blow the whistle and stay full speed, saves time to make sure you can always reach the next tear. You have to think fast to stay on the right track because you can get majorly messed up if the game plans the path for you. The trains cannot leave their specific tracks, be observant and use reverse and corners that the trains cannot enter to escape them if you have to.

I do it in this order. First one is the one in that little box immediately after the first tear. Kill that, then head up to the train circling the top center of the map. Then come down and get the train on the bottom right. Easy enough to get tears along those tracks.

The one in the top left is easy enough. You could go straight for the middle right warp and risk one of those trains coming down at you, or you can take the warp on the lower left (the one you entered from). There's a tear directly to the right of that warp to pick up along the way if you want. That takes you to the lower right warp, and from there you can move to the middle right warp while invincible for safety. Either way, the middle right takes you to the middle left warp, which is a linear track with a single tear. Keep going through the warp and this takes you to the top left, the area with a train and no tears. Stay full speed and kill it.

Top right is tricky. I suggest you maneuver back through the linear section with one tear and take that middle left warp to the middle right warp, then beeline for the tear on the upper right, then kill both trains. You have to stay full speed doing this or you risk running out of time. Hope this helps :/

Thanks, Xinnamin. That's actually an incredibly good walkthrough. ^^

I can see now a lot of the mistakes I made. One of them is that I was afraid to draw paths for fear of the enemy using that information to intercept me, and I kept relying on the pulling the track switches manually.

Another one is that I kept trying to get to the top right warp, evade the train in the top left, go into the warp it was circling, get the tear of light, and then reverse back through that warp to get the train while invincible. Eventually it worked, but I died to the trains in the upper right corner and the train circling the top left several times before it did.

The final one was that I kept trying to use two specific tears of light to get to the trains in the top right corner, both of which were more poorly placed than the one you suggested... the one on the bottom right near where you kill the second train, and the one in the top right corner near the trains themselves. What I tried to do at first, was get the one in the top right corner, but no matter how fast I was, one of the trains up there always got me before I could reach it.

So what I eventually did, was pass the Tear of Light near the bottom right corner, reverse back into it, and then go forward, accelerating at full speed to the top right corner, hopefully nailing one of the trains just as my invincibility wore off. This only worked about half the time, especially since I was pulling the track switches by hand, in an effort to confuse the enemy trains that thought they knew where I was going (this strategy had helped against armored trains on the Ocean Floor, which were less effective at intercepting me if I didn't draw my path).

After that, if I nailed one of the trains, I would make a mad grab for the tear of light in the top right corner, but usually the remaining train got me there.

When I eventually succeeded, it was by accident... after somehow destroying four of the trains with my poor strategy, I was reversing, lining up to destroy one train, when another one I didn't see reversed into me just as I grabbed the tear of light... I unwittingly destroyed it, and then accelerated into my intended target.

If I ever have to do this again, your advice will be very helpful. I'm going to save this for my second playthough.

Oh, and by the way... I found out that I could save after the trains, but you have to do it manually. It was the first thing I did, and good thing too, because I ended up dying to the Demon Train on the final stretch due to running out of track.