Review: LostWinds (WiiWare)
May 22nd, 2008 by admin
LostWinds is one of the first games that can be downloaded on Nintendo’s downloadservice WiiWare and it’s the best one to start with. In LostWinds you take the role of a young boy named Toku who saves Enril, the Wind Spirit, who was trapped in the Spirit Stone.
Enril explains that Balasar, the Spirit of the Sun and Moon, wanted to become a stronger god and be worshipped by all creatures of the world called Mistralis. Enril is one of the old spirits that tried to stop him a long time ago but they failed since Balasar came back even more powerful then before. The story sounds a lot like The Legend of Zelda, because Ganon keeps getting out of his prison.
Enril and Toku decide to work together to stop the evil god and Toku thereby controls the power of wind. This is where the gameplay comes in. In LostWinds you have to draw lines in any direction with the Wii-Remote (or Wii-Mote) so the wind can carry you in the desired direction. When you float in the air and press the A-button on the Wii-Remote you slow down time and it kinda looks like bullet time. Wind can be a very powerful and destructive force in real life and it’s not different in this game. You can draw lines to start tornados or keep objects hovering in midair. For instance: make a boulder float in midair and then use wind to smash it against an enemy or against a gate.
There’s also the ability to burn specific stuff like tree roots that form a gate by using wind to light a torch and then spreading the fire with more wind. As the game progresses you can make “fire-tornados” which are good for taking out enemies. These enemies are not the enemies you might encounter in bigger games like The Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy. They’re aren’t smart and you have to smack the little black blobs (which are the enemy) against a wall to defeat them. As you approach the final region of the game you will find some other enemies but they’re not different from the first enemies you see in terms of intelligence.
About the world of Mistralis itself… It’s not a huge place for starters. It has some nice little regions like mines, caves and a couple of villages. Sadly there’s not a lot going on in these villages since you can’t talk to every character you meet. There are characters that stand in the background and look at you when you pass by them. It’s pretty basic. You have to find someone who knows where you can find chests that contain upgrades for your ‘Wind Power’. You then have to find the chest and release its contents and then go back to the main village to find someone else who knows the whereabouts of another chest. That’s pretty much it. There’s no Level Boss to defeat when you discover a chest until the very end when you face Magmok.
The game costs 1000 Wii Points and you get what you pay for. It’s a simple, fun and innovative adventure by Frontier Developments. The game is probably a little short for fans of the platform genre or the adventure genre but when you play it you can’t help buy enjoy it to the fullest. There are some disadvantages in the game like when you try to use the wind to make Toku jump and instead he just stays put. But it’s not really a glitch, it doesn’t affect the gameplay that much. Besides that you have the fact that LostWinds is something very unique. Frontier Developments did their best to make it and since LostWinds 2 is already in the making we probably don’t have to wait long until we can continue Toku’s adventure.
Gameplay: 85 (innovative but sometimes there are problems when you control the wind)
Graphics: 85 (a cell shading style of graphics but not like Zelda:Wind Waker or Zack & Wiki)
Sound: 75 (very relaxing music but not a lot of variation )
Replay value: 75 (the game is short but you’ll have fun when you play it again (after a while)
Final score: 80/100
Our opinion
If you want to download your first game on WiiWare, you need to download this one! Don’t spend your money on anything stupid this month and save some extra for a Wii Points Card to get you this sweet downloadable game. We can’t wait for LostWinds 2 to come out…
On the official site of the game you can check out some nice desktop wallpapers and you can download the introtheme on the official website of LostWinds. There are also other reviews that are very praising!
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 2:53 pm and is filed under News, Nintendo, Reviews, Wii. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Woot!
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Nice review, thanks to the anonymous author!
June 9th, 2008 at 7:52 am
i wasn’t sure where else to put a review so….
*LOSTWINDS* (1000 points)
LostWinds is a totally new direction for developers FRONTIER. Having created the “Thrillville” simulation franchise, the team went in a bold new dierction: platform gaming!
LostWinds is a essentially a side scrolling platform game in which you control a little boy in his quest to save the world. Sounds familiar? Well where this game breaks the boundaries is with its control scheme.
Using the Wii-Mote, you control the wind to guide your budding hero. With a simple flick of the wrist and a hold of a button you can draw a path for the wind to carry you. There is a slight learning curve for thankfully the game guides you through it nice and slowly! Before you know it it’ll come to you naturally with no fuss.
Throughout the game you learn new “wind skills” that range from fire manipulation to a form of flying. My one gripe with the game at this point, however, is the lack of enemies to try all your skills on. With baddies only ever appearing in caves, the overground is baron of things to kill… Another downer is the fact that there is only one boss in the whole game. LostWinds essentially suffers from the gamers expectations. When playing such a good game you can’t help but want more from it!
But don’t let this put you off! This is still worth your hard earned 1000points! Other reviewers argue that the game is too short and i agree on some level but think that what FRONTIER has done with 40 odd megabites of space is a real achievement.
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THE SCORE:
(Gameplay) - has solid controls but suffers from a small environment… if there were more enemies to fight the controls would really have shined through! –9/10–
(Sound) - has a really soothing and catchy soundtrack that’ll have you humming! music is a little repetitive though and the enemies and townsfolk tend to make the same 2 noises all the time. still this is probably due to the space limitations and isn’t that big of a deal… –8/10–
(Graphics) - wind, water and fire effects look very nice and react in a believable manner. the environments are lush and rarely dull, especially the overhead town. –9/10–
(Value) - around 3 hours of solid gameplay. there is also a co-op mode that is fun to play with a friend but it suffers from slowdown which is a pain. there is also one side quest that could add to the total gametime but with no reward for completing it, would you really want to? –7/10–
(Presentation) - all of the menus are easy and simple to use and the in game info is laid out in a clean and unconfusing manner! –9/10–
*84/100* (like a pic “n” mix without the cola bottles… its delicious but it’s missing that little something!) ^_^