LostWinds

May 2008 saw the release of Wiiware, the Wii's game download service. Like the virtual console, it's accessed through the Wii shop channel but all the games on offer are brand new. Frontier Developments have produced Lostwinds for the service. Of the 6 games available on the release of Wiiware, Lostwinds was one of two games, along with Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As a King, that seemed the most like complete projects, as opposed to lightweight puzzle or high-score offerings.
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Since its announcement, concerns had been expressed as to what quality of games Wiiware might deliver: all games are restricted to a size of 43-megabytes, the hope being that this would keep development costs low and allow independent developers a fair shot at making games for the Wii. In contrast, Xbox Live Arcade downloads are limited at 150-megabytes and some developers have had to twist Microsoft's arm so as to break this limit. Anxious Wii owners, then, were worried that Wiiware titles might not really be up to much, given Nintendo's even tighter size restrictions. They need look no further than Lostwinds to dispel these concerns.

As the titles suggests, Lostwinds is all about the wind. Although Lostwinds is presented in 3D, it controls like a 2D platformer, the nunchuk analogue stick being in control of left to right movement. At the start of the game, though, this is pretty much all your character, called Toku, will be able to do: move left and right as well as climb very short walls. There is no jump button. Now, jumping is normally the crux of 2D platform games but Lostwinds gets around this as you'll see. After a brief bit of exploration, you will stumble accross Enril the wind spirit. Enril explains the plot of the game: you are on the island of Mistralis which is threatened by the evil spirit Balasar who, many years ago, was locked up by several good spirits, including Enril, who was unfortunately trapped with him. They have both escaped and it is down to Toku, with the help of the weakened Enril, to save Mistralis from whatever Balasar might be scheming. Uninspiring stuff, then, but the quality of the plot is neither here nor there. Conversations with some characters you encounter later in the game will pad it out a bit but, in all honesty, the plot just acts as a reason for the game to exist and it serves this purpose just fine. You have to search the island for pieces of the wind spirit that have been scattered, steadily increasing its power [and your abilities] to eventually overcome Balasar.

The powers of Enril the wind spirit are what really make this game interesting. It is these powers that overcome the "no jump button" problem. Once you've found Enril, holding down the A button will cause the game to enter a slightly faded, slow motion state. Drawing a line with the remote and releasing A brings the game world back up to full speed and releases a gust of wind. If the line is near Toku, he'll be taken up by it, essentially giving him the ability to jump. Shortly after acquiring this ability, you'll discover the ability to use multiple gusts in succession, enabling jumps accross great caverns where bridges have broken and the like. Thanks to this gust ability, the game world is more than a simple left to right affair with a few floating blocks, it spreads up and down as well. This makes exploration interesting and the maze like quality of the world is quite compelling: I spent my first half hour with the game aimlessly wondering through the areas available to me, just to see how it all pieced together.

As you progress through the game and discover more pieces of the wind spirit, further Wii remote controlled wind powers will be unlocked. The first of these, slipstream, is much like gust. It is controlled with B instead of A and the game slows down as described before when the button is pressed. The difference here is, though, that the lines you draw will translate to a path for the wind to take, not just a straight line gust. This is useful for directing Toku around corners and the like, as well as the simple puzzle elements of the game. You might discover a wall you can not pass with a torch above you. Using slipstream you can manipulate the flames of the torch to burn the wall down. Similarly, slipstream can manipulate water, say to make a plant grow so as to climb it and reach a previously inaccessible area. This is all pretty neat first time around, but the puzzles quickly become repeptive. Using slipstream is not hard, so the recurrence of such challenges never drags the gameplay down, but you still do feel that there might have been more variation than is actually included.
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[SIZE="1"]Manipulating fire with slipstream.[/SIZE]
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On top of the slipstream ability comes vortex: draw a circle around an enemy, as opposed to a path or line, to trap them in the air, allowing you to hurl them at something. This is also used in a few puzzles, as well as combat. Combat is by far and away the games weakest point. Once every now and then you will stumble upon small gelatinous enemies who can be defeated with a gust slamming them into the floor or a wall. It's not that this mechanic doesn't work it's just that it forces you stop in mid-exploration and adds nothing. It also cuts out the games ambient music and introduces silly drum beats. As a feature it just feels unnecessary for the bulk of the game, really.

What's important about all these wind mechanics is that they are very easy to get the hang of: Frontier have supplied the easy entry level required for the non-gaming audience Nintendo is vying for. That is not to say hardcore gamers can't find anything to enjoy here- the controls are great to use, quite reminiscent of Okami actually, while a hardcore gamer can also take real pleasure in exploring the entire game world just for the sake of it. The game's not long though, I wouldn't expect it to take more than 5 hours from start to finish. The world is littered with collectable statues, which give some incentive to play through again or play for longer first time around, but even so, Lostwinds is not a committment.

As far as presentation is concerned, Lostwinds is impeccable. Graphics wise, the backgrounds are great to look at and react to your Wii remote pointer: vegetation will sway in the wind and people will be ruffled by it. There are some nice lighting effects, a little bit of perspective blur, lovely reflections and the look of water being manipulated by the wind is great. The ambient music in the game is very pleasant, albeit occasionally ruined by the interjection of battle music. Your character, Toku, though, is completely silent. This makes him slightly soulless for a leading character. This is only a minor gripe, though, since, as mentioned, the plot is essentially irrelevant.
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[SIZE="1"]Lostwinds is lovely to look at.[/SIZE][/CENTER]

Overall impressions then. Well, Lostwinds will set you back 1000 Wii points when you download it. That's basically £7.50, or $10.00 at the price that Wii points are selling in different regions. In spite of it's length, that's great value for money. There are retail Wii games out there that are basically broken and retailing at £40. Lostwinds, then, is pretty much a no brainer. The only question you might have is whether it's worth it over an N64 virtual console download: a much longer but very familiar classic or a brief but compelling use of the Wii's software. I think, ultimately, this is the choice you are making every time you look to spend Wii points. But if ever you feel that maybe a 15th run through of Ocarina of Time is a bit much, or realise that you have the enemy patterns of Lylat Wars burned into your front cortex by now, Lostwinds is definitely a title worth playing.

4/5