LostWinds, one of the first downloadable wii ware games.
It arrived during Wii Ware's launch. It was one of the big titles, and had a bit of hype.
Firstly, i'll get started on why.
The hype was around Lost Winds pretty much because it looked fun, intuitive (and wii owners love new bold games) and had a nice art style.
In LostWinds, you play as a boy named Toku. He wakes from sleeping in a nice lush valley with cherry blossoms. He soon meets Enrill, a wind spirit. He tells Toku (sounds like Tofu) to go and save the lands from another evil spirit. He does this by getting back powers of Enrill and then doing another fetch quest. Sounds very repetitious, but it's not, due to the puzzles and combat that you'll encounter.
You move Toku with the nun-chuck, no surprises there. You point at the screen to control Enrill. When you press A, his gust move can make Toku jump by drawing a line under and to the side. You can also interact with items and water and fire, making some neat and shamely sometimes ridiculously easy puzzles. Enrill powers up however, and you can press B to perform a slip stream, which you can ride once you get an item but before that can be used in many puzzles. When you use these attacks, the game slows down into slow motion, which is kinda weird, and does break the already slow pacing.
Combat is simple. A bit boring really. Little black blobs and some varieties (including a fairly cool end boss battle) attack you, which is when you come in and wave them around with your wind, maybe throwing them into the ground or against a boulder.
When you defeat them, little fairy like things appear. They are your back up lives, which make the game even easier. When you die (if), you can mearly shake the wind over Toku and he'll wake right up again. You can eat fruit to gain energy back as well.
The music is this game is very calming. It loops continuously, with only 2 tunes, from memory. The music changes from its calming, tranquil state into a faster kinda drummy song when enemies are around. There is no voice acting, which doesn't matter too much, as not much dialogue is present. When it is, little boxes pop up.
The graphics are very clean. Above ground, the colours are vibrant and very nice. Below ground, it's dark.. and cave like. It still looks good, i'd just prefer to be above ground.
One thing about the game that you may have guessed is that it's really slow. Toku moves very slow and chunkily, making the pace of the game slow. This could drive some mad, but others will like it's change of pace. It suits the game well.
If your worried that the game is too short, don't worry. The 3 hour story has optional totems to collect, and if your a bit of a "must get 100%" kinda gamer, like me to some extent, you can go back and spend 2 hours trying to find that pesky last 24th totem.
LostWinds will be getting a sequel on WiiWare, and i think the problems with this game, such as the shortness, the looping music and the pacing issues with the slowdown at attacking will be fixed. It's a great game though, and worth buying, especially if you like unique games. It's 1000 Wii points, and a unique, if not problematic, game.