A relaxing and overall good experience
Lostwinds winds gives Wii gamers the type of control they want. You use the Wiimote to make Toku jump and glide through the levels of the game. You control Toku himself with the Nunchuck. Throughout the game you unlock a few new control schemes such as the slipstream to guide Toku and various objects through obstacles or onto platforms and such. It's very innovative and works very well. Things that can be bad are that the game never explains too much. I still have no clue what those little blue enemies are or why theyre there nor do I know what those collectible statues are. It's kind of annoying. Also I think the game should be a little more than 3 hours. It's better than buying a 50 or 60 dollar 12 hour game but couldve added a bit more length.
This game is a lot of puzzle solving. Basically you blow rocks and objects onto these squares that make doors open so long as the rock is on there. This idea isnt all that great to me as it borrows heavily from Paper Mario and I'm getting tired of doing stuff like that. On the other hand you use the wind to guide fire and burned down some vines that are in your way to the next area and you can also use it to attack enemies and burn down little trampoline plant thingies so you can carry them around. It's a great idea and is implemented well. Also it;s very fun to draw shapes with the fire. A big complaint is how the game expects you to know how to do some of these things. Like how am I supposed to know how to defeat certain types of enemies and how certain obstacles can be broke with rocks. I know that most of this info shouldnt be handed to you but for some things it's just ridiculous.
Level design? Level design is spot on. All the areas have interesting things going on such as waterfalls, pits, houses and things like that with plenty of cute background characters that you can have some fun with with the wind. You can also blow the grass, trees, bushes and stuff around with the wind just everytime you point at them. It adds a good sense of physics.
What's bad here? No Map. It can be very easy to get lost and have no clue just exactly where your supposed to go. It's very frustrating but can be figured out by good use of memory. And another thing, the way you translate from one area to the next can sometimes not make sense. Like a lower door can lead to an above ground place and a door above that can lead to an underground place. It's not much of a problem but kind of a pet peeve.
Now lets look at the visuals. This game has a beautiful artstyle that is always fun to look at. It has goofy looking characters and amazing looking backgrounds that sometimes you might wanna stop and say WOW. Sure it's no PS3 or 360 game but it still is great looking. The enviornments, grass trees, diamonds, rocks etc all are complimented additions. The water looks good but I think what really looks good is the realistic looks of the fire that stand out from the cartoony game. Also the boss? An amazing to look at
As for the games audio, well there's a great summarized word for that: "Peaceful". It has this relaxing sorta asian style flute playing music which definitelly matches up with the look and feel of the game. The game also has neat sound effects with realistic sounding wind, fire, water, and the occasional bouncing objects off walls and such. Great additions. No voice acting is in the game except that Toku makes cute sounds when he's climbing up onto platforms and getting hit by soemthing. All talking is done through text boxes. Doesn't sound too bad right? Well actually the text can be pretty hard to read due to the small letters, it's kinda aggrivating.
Despite its few but noticeable flaws LostWinds delivers a platforming experience much better than most retail Wii games and I am proud to have it on the Wii launch lineup. $10 is a steal for this game