Review: LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias (Wii)

I feel like a sinner that must repent, for I didn’t fall in love with the original LostWinds as much as most of my journalist colleagues did. I have to remind myself though that, no matter how good a game may be, it can’t please everyone. GTA IV, Fallout 3, and Oblivion are all arguably brilliant games that have more than their fair share of doubters.

And it’s not that I didn’t like LostWinds; far from it. I thought it was a lovely little cutesy platform-adventure that was a pleasant experience…for the two hours it lasted. It was nothing more than that for me though. I didn’t mind that it only lasted two hours (two hours and 12 minutes, to be precise) but it was more that it didn’t do anything spectacular during that time, or present any sort of challenge. It was just, nice.

It’s important to put this into context as if you were a huge fan of LostWinds then you’re going to love the sequel even more than the first. Toku will once again wrap himself around your little gaming finger, bidding you to do his gaming work and to enjoy every single minute of it.

Floating in a winter wonderland

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias follows on perfectly from the original. It doesn’t require you to spend ages unlocking the abilities that Toku learnt from the first game, nor does it take long to get into the action. It’s slightly more difficult and about double the size yet much more succinct, thus while it may only last four hours, it’s got a lot more action crammed into those four hours than the first one.

There is still a fair amount of retracing your steps, a complaint many had with the first, but this time the game world has a tendency to change, thus placing new challenges on old ground. The puzzles are also more challenging, requiring you to actually use a bit of brain power this time (albeit nothing that even the most casual gamer would get stuck on for long). In addition the interaction with other characters no longer feels tacked on and the plot encourages you to take more of an interest in them than the original ever did.

The controls are just as tight as the original, meaning that this is one of the less frustrating Wii games to play. At no stage did Toku do something else other than what I had asked him to do. For a game reliant on motion gestures for the majority of the controls, that is an amazing achievement and something that many larger developers should learn from with their premium priced games.

The visuals are equally impressive. It’s not going to win any awards for technical achievements, but everything is just so charming and gorgeously cutesy, in a non-sickly way, and so brilliantly animated that it’s hard not to be impressed. Even the wintry backdrops bring the game-world to life even more than the first, taking what was an already lovely looking game to the next level. Colours are vibrant, backdrops are interesting and, above all else, this proves that 2D visuals can be just as impressive as 3D when done right.

Chill out

But it still only lasts four hours, and it’s not a huge improvement over the original. At 1000 Wii points only you can decide whether four hours is enough to provide you value for money. Personally I’d much prefer a tight, memorable four hour long game than a 20 hour game that has too much padding and short on thrills. And LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias just about sits in the former category.

It’s a more enjoyable and slightly more challenging game than the first, and it’s perfectly suited to the system and to the typical Wii demographic. The progress made is steady rather than game changing, but for many this will be all that they wanted. And as long as you go into it without buying into some of the melodramatic hype, you should find an enjoyable, relaxing game to chill out over a few hours to.