Review: Lost Winds

So for about a year now, Nintendo has been stuffing my email Inbox with the weekly promotional email touting the latest and greatest releases on the WiiShop channel. For those of you who have been living in a small cave off in some desert island somewhere, WiiWare was released a few weeks ago in the United States. A few days ago I decided to give in and download Lost Winds by Frontier Development. I have to say that I found the game to be quite impressive and well worth the 1000 Wii Points ($10.00) to download. The object of the game is to navigate the hero, Toku, through various side scroller style puzzles. His sidekick, Enril, an ancient wind spirit assists him in clearing obstacles and vanquishing his foes. Toku is unable to fight enemies directly and relies on Enril and his surroundings to take care of enemies. The gameplay features WiiMote like gestures to direct the wind which indirectly affects the surroundings of the main character. The game’s progression reminds me of the Metriod series of games. Each area has several doors or passageways just out of reach, and the player is left to unlock new powers and abilities to enter new areas. The game tries not to repeat itself too much, but parts of tend to drag. The usage of the WiiMote as a pointing device proves itself well for this title, although it can get a bit awkward at times. Also, as far as I can tell, the main character can’t die. Even when he runs out of health, all it takes is a shake of the WiiMote to revive him. This seems to take some of the challenge out of the game, though the game is still fun to play. Overall, I have to say the game is well done and I look forward to seeing more titles from Frontier Developments.