The original LostWinds was a bona fide hit for me, and a real showing of exactly what I hoped to see from WiiWare, so I have been counting the days until the promised sequel came around. Now I’ve finally had a chance to finish up the sequel to my previously favorite WiiWare game, and long story short, LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias is my new favorite game on the service.

The first thing you’ll notice when you start up LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias (WotM) is the graphics. For having a limited amount of space to work with, the folks at Frontier Developments have really outdone themselves. I’m not being facetious when I say that the game looks better than many retail Wii games, and is definitely one of the best looking games on WiiWare. The use of color and softness gives off a dreamlike feeling that really makes the world feel special. This graphical fidelity is literally doubly amazing when you realize that pretty much every section has been done twice—once for winter, and once for summer. There are some really cool effects in both summer and winter. For example in the summer you may see a rainbow in the background, while in the winter you’ll walk Toku behind a pillar of ice and you’ll see him become distorted by looking through the ice. Little things like this make it feel like a real, living world. Speaking of, one of my favorite effects that I didn’t notice until near the end—when there is a pool of water in the summer, if you switch to winter, the water will expand and the surface of the pool will be higher up. Little things like that that just make you smile.

And it’s not just the look of the graphics themselves. The animation quality is phenomenal. Everything seems to move and flow in a realistic manner, from the trees blowing in the wind to water running down a hillside, to Toku and the other characters actions and behaviors. For animation, the only thing I can complain about is one scene where you meet and are talking to a character, when you progress in the text, their animations stop suddenly. This is a very minor thing, but it bears mentioning.

As for sound, the music in the game really fits well with the whole theme of the game, and the graphics themselves. The tunes that are in the game are well done and sound great. The problem I have with them is that there are really only a couple of different tracks. Some more variety would have been a welcome addition, but seeing as the game can be run through in around 4 hours, I can understand the smaller selection of tunes.

But who cares about graphics and sound when it comes to a game, right? The real test of a games merit is the gameplay. Well I’m happy to report that WotM is not only a great looking game, but it’s a great playing game as well. You control Toku with your Nunchuk, running back and forth and swimming. Jumping is performed with a quick swipe of your Wii remote while holding down the A button, drawing a breeze through Toku up into the air. You can perform a triple jump this way, getting a bit higher every time you draw through Toku. Be careful about going up too high though—if you fall from a large height, you’ll end up losing some health. You can prevent this loss of health though by holding down the A button and rapidly waving the pointer over Toku as he falls towards the ground. I did notice that sometimes this didn’t seem to work though, but I can’t say for certain if it was a design decision or a control issue.

Along the way, you will gain new powers, which gives the game a tinge of a Metroid feel. Also there is quite a bit of backtracking, especially later on, which again feels a bit designed to be like Metroid. Generally the backtracking isn’t too bad, but there were a few times that I found myself wishing that I could just teleport to an area instead of having to walk all the way back. Another note on these powers: while they are fun to play around with, there are a few that are found so late in the game that you may find yourself wondering why were they even included. Again, a minor issue, but one which I felt was worth mentioning. Mostly though, the powers are used to help solve puzzles. Many of these puzzles to me had that classic Zelda feel. You know, the one where you are stuck and trying to figure out what the heck to do, but once you figure it out you find yourself smacking your forehead and saying “of course!” To me, those are my favorite types of puzzles in a (non puzzle specific) game, so I was glad to see there were many of them. The problem with this though is once you finish the game, there is not much to get you to come back, unless you want to find all of the hidden collectables. The more of these you find, the more models you open up in the extras section of the main menu. I probably spent a good 20 minutes just turning around the different models in this menu and looking at them, which again gives you a good indication that the graphics are well done.

Finally, a note on controls. For the most part the game controls great, and you find yourself doing exactly what you want to do. However there were times where I would say try to form a snowball, but instead Toku would jump into the air, or I’d try to jump one direction and Toku would jump in another. I think this is to be expected with a heavily IR game, especially if you play during the day and suffer from the dreaded “sunlight jitter”. I did find that for me the best way to play this game was with the blinds drawn. It’s not just all the jitter though. There were times I was playing at night, with all other lights off, and I still wasn’t able to get my controls quite right without a few tries. So just be forewarned that there might be a couple of frustrating control moments. Luckily though these were few and far between.

All in all, LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias is a fantastic game and a welcome addition to the WiiWare service. It takes the positives of the original LostWinds and expands upon them in a way that makes the entire game feel fresh and different. Personally I can’t wait to see what Frontier Developments comes up with next.

Pros:
Fantastic graphics
Interesting puzzles
Thoughtful storyline

Cons:
Controls can be a bit iffy
Slightly repetitive soundwise
A bit too much backtracking