LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias Review

Howdy:    *The game’s awfully pretty.
                *The controls are as tight and intuitive as the first game
                *Toku is dressed like a Wookiee during the winter segments

See Ya’:  *The game’s still not very long

Back in May of 2008 Nintendo launched their downloadable service, WiiWare, and one of the games available at that launch was LostWinds. The game was heralded at the time for its use of motion control and beautiful art style. The game ended up being one of the best games at launch and is still considered one of the top titles on the service.

Fast forward to 2009 and the release of the sequel, LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias. This game takes place shortly after the events of the first game and center around a mystery involving Toku’s mom, Magdi and a village known as Summerfall. It’s perpetually winter there, and mysterious creatures are causing the residents to live in fear. Toku and Enril must unravel all of the mysteries and save the world, yet again.

At the end of LostWinds you had befriended the wind spirit, Enril, and along with that friendship came the ability to use a number of Enril’s powers. Toku wasn’t able to do much himself, but with the help of the wind could jump, freeze enemies in place and slam them against walls and float on the breeze. At the beginning of this game Toku has most of those powers still at his command and along the way will learn new ways to use those powers. They have completely different uses in summer compared to winter. For instance the vortex power which could cause an enemy to float in the air temporarily can now create snowballs that can be used to weigh down trip plates or throw against walls of ice to shatter them. They really combine these different powers to great use and the puzzles in this game take on a whole new level of interesting. They’re not terribly difficult, but they are quite fun to solve.

Some of the new elements that have been created for this game are the use of cold. Early in the game Toku is not properly dressed for the weather and because of that you have to manage his heat levels. If he gets too cold he’ll start to shiver and will take damage. You can warm Toku up by standing near a source of heat, in most cases a fire. Toku also has the ability, with the help of the spirit of season, change the world from Winter to Summer. These causes the world to take on a whole new look and if you thought the first LostWinds was beautiful, wait until you see the locations in this game during both seasons. Snowfall glints in the sunlit areas and breath escapes from Toku’s mouth when he’s cold. One of the coolest touches I saw was as Toku gets colder his face turns varying shades of blue. It’s not crucial to the gameplay, but it is a nice touch and gives you an easy visual idea of how cold he is without looking up to the cold meter.

The best addition to Winter of the Melodias has to be the map. There was an endless amount of wandering in the first game if you didn’t know exactly where you were going. Frontier added a world map that you can access with the push of a button and it makes it very easy to navigate the world. Areas that you need to visit next are marked in green and areas that you should probably try to visit for helpful items are marked with a question mark. There’s no chance you’re going to get lost in this game and it’s a good thing because the world feels much bigger the second time around.

The summertime portions of the game seem to have gotten a bit of a graphical upgrade as well. There appears to be more stuff going on in the background that extends further than the previous game. In one of the early portions when Toku is climbing up a mountain you see the rock monster, Magmok, traversing the background doing his best Spiderman impression. It’s just another of those touches that adds a bit more life to the game.

One of my favorite elements of the original was the music. It was just a soothing soundtrack that was relaxing to listen to at the end of a long day and Frontier has upped their game with the soundtrack to Winter of the Melodias. The same themes are still present that were in the original, but the addition of the winter portions of the game has given them the ability to add another part to the music and calm things down a bit more. You really get the sense that they were trying to make you feel the difference in temperature with the look and sounds of the game and it’s pulled off brilliantly.

If there is anything bad that can be said about the game it’s that the length is still a bit on the short side. I finished the game at about the three and half hour mark. While it’s not a bad length of time for a WiiWare title it really shows that if you’re making a game that uses graphics and level design to the extent that Frontier did the size limit really hinders the ability to add a large amount to the game. It’s a great experience for those three and a half hours, but I really wanted to keep playing and I hope we get another game on the system because it’s really turning out to be one of my favorite franchises.

The additions that were made to the game, the beautiful art style and the soothing music all combine for what is one of the best experiences on WiiWare since the original LostWinds. Collectables now make a difference as there are more of them and they are used to unlock additional content. Frontier scored big with LostWinds and it’s only too obvious that they’ve made a world they care a lot about. In reality, you should too. For 1,000 points Winter of the Melodias is a must own experience

Final Score: 5/5 Excellent

Review copy of the game provided by Frontier Developments.