That F*ing Flute

I've mentioned off and on that I've been playing the Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks on my DS when I get a chance. Well, I've finally finished it, but not in the traditional sense of completion. More like the "screaming expletives at it, throwing the cartridge across the room" sort of completion. Let me explain.

Spirit Tracks is a great successor to the Phantom Hourglass, the other stylus-based DS Zelda game. Some slight improvements are seen and the overworld map is now navigated by a series of railroad tracks rather than a boat in the ocean. It ends up being the same sort of thing, no complaints there. The same tap and swipe gestures return for sword fighting along with the excellent, "tap and hold where you want to go" control scheme. But this one has a #*%@ing Spirit Flute that you have to use the stylus & microphone to control. You need coordination between the touchscreen and (everyone's favorite) blowing into the microphone. That works fine when you have to play notes that are next to each other or don't need to be done in any sort of rhythm. Guess what you need to do to beat the last boss.

I somehow stumbled my way through all the other mandatory rhythm-game parts to enter each temple. But the last one was the last straw. To compound the issue, I had just done an elaborate series of fetch quests to power up my sword to be able to do a Super Spin Attack that helps a great deal with a different part of the last boss battle. While you could beat him without it, I could never get the timing exactly right in about 20 tries.

So I'll never know what happened to the Lokomos or if the world was ever saved from the...mysterious evil because I have no rhythm. you and die!

P.S. Here's another person that had the exact same problem I did but managed to give a better explanation of the microphone problem and use a few less expletives.