Yesterday, I noticed that the Wii Shop Channel was selling WiiWare games. Honestly, my only real choice was the Final Fantasy game and LostWinds. The other ones just didn’t seem interesting. I went with LostWinds. I think I got my $10 worth.

WiiWare as a distribution model

I rather like the Wii Shop Channel. My biggest problem with it is that it doesn’t save credit card information. That’s annoying when I have to add Wii points. Entering all that data using the Wiimote is rather painful.

Other than that, I like purchasing games online. At just $10 a game (on average), I can make a purchase and play a game for a bit. If it’s good, I might finish it, if not, I can ignore it. At $10, LostWinds was a good purchase. I think $10 is kind of a good general price for most games. More than that might warrant more thought on an impulse buy.

The Premise

LostWinds is your basic fantasy platformer. You play a young kid named Toku in some fantasy world. You begin by stumbling across a crystal that contains a wind spirit. The wind spirit lets you take control of the air. You have to use these powers to open chests that contain the memories of an old magic guy. You’re also fighting an evil mystical power that puts evil blobs in the world.

It’s like one cliche after another. Eh, it’s $10. If you want a new story, read a book. Or go play Mario Kart Wii and forget that story lines even exist.

The Gameplay

I loved the basic gameplay mechanics of LostWinds. It makes great use of the Wiimote. Basically, the Wiimote is the wind. You can draw wind paths on screen. Everything is thoughtfully laid out. Nearly every object can be manipulated by the wind. It’s a lot of fun at first to realize that you can turn windmills, splash water, and push flames. Later in the game, this play mechanic becomes very important. There’s a lot of discovery that goes on and it’s great.

Like nearly all other adventure games, you accumulate powers as you go. They were never mind blowing but they always felt like the next evolution. Nearly every time, I would reach a situation and thought: “If only I could do this.” A few minutes later, I’d get the very power that I needed. That’s pretty good game design.

Low Octane Fun

There really aren’t that many thrills in LostWinds. The enemies aren’t threatening and you shouldn’t have any problem having enough lives. The lives system is implemented through filling up symbols by point at butterflies (or some other insect). The butterflies are plentiful so no one should have much trouble keeping those symbols filled. Given this, there’s very little threat.

Most of the game is spent walking. It’s a small world but there’s a lot of backtracking. In general, this isn’t a bad thing. It’s maybe 6 minutes to walk from one extreme. It is, however, really annoying when you don’t know where to go. It’s a very short game (more later) and I wandered aimlessly on at least two occasions. I nearly quit during these wanderings. At $10, I can afford to ignore the rest of the game. The in-game tips are so vague as to be useless. It was just frustrating that I spent at least one quarter of the game wandering with no idea where to go.

Otherwise, the game was very enjoyable. It looks nice enough and is filled with bright colors. I liked playing with the wind, fire, and water. It was, unfortunately, exceptionally short. I’d estimate maybe 3 hours of actual play time (+2 for wandering). By the end, it’s obvious that other chapters will be downloadable later. There’s no actual ending or conclusion to this game. I’m actually cool with this. I’d purchase a full LostWinds game for ~$50. If I get four more chapters, it’ll be about 15 hours of game time for the same price. As it is, $10 was perfect. It’s a great introduction to the concept and a good launch title for WiiWare. I don’t think I’ll go back and play it again any time soon but I’ll keep an ear to the ground for future installments.