Wednesday 14 Oct 2009

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias is a wonderfully crafted and beautifully imagined game that you will thoroughly enjoy escaping to for a few hours, and probably want to return to again after the last puzzles have been solved.

The story sees Toku, the small unassuming hero that we were introduced to in LostWinds, setting out on a dangerous quest to save his mother, Magdi, helped along the way again by the elemental powers afforded to him by the Wind Spirit Enril. The journey starts out with the giant boulder-like creature Magmok giving Toku a boost to the Summerfalls Mountains, but soon becomes a race against time as you discover Summerfalls Village has been plagued by an eternal winter and that the fate of the ancient Melodia people is entwined with Magdi’s.

The game features the same stunningly vibrant graphics and tranquil music that many of us enjoyed in the first LostWinds. However, somewhat impossibly Frontier has managed to make the sequel even more beautiful and the gameplay more varied by introducing the change between summer and winter to the game as well as giving Toku a couple of new skills to master.

The control system remains largely the same, although players will be introduced to Toku’s new skills and so will have to learn a handful of new commands along the way. It didn’t make sense to change the controls when they worked so effectively for the first LostWinds, but the variety introduced by the new actions are most welcome. Use the analogue stick on the Nunchuk to control Toku’s direction, draw up with the Wii Remote whilst holding down A to fuel his jumps on to higher platforms.

When you first set out you will marvel at the beauty of the icy land: snowflakes drifting softly to the ground, frozen icicles hanging from the ceiling of snowy caverns and the frosty breath escaping from Toku’s mouth. No detail, no matter how small, has been spared in re-creating Melodia and you will catch yourself marvelling at the sight of Toku’s ever so slightly distorted shape when he passes behind a frozen icicle. Wonderful.

As you progress through this icy land in search of Toku’s mother, you will soon learn that when Toku steps away from the warmth afforded by a burning lantern he will start to lose heat. It becomes challenging to navigate quickly between lanterns, if you take too long to reach the next point he will begin to lose health as he becomes colder, adding a sense of urgency to keep warm and keep moving. Luckily there are various lanterns along the route which can be lit and players can also spread this fire to new kindle by holding down B and creating a slipstream or simply pressing A and waving the fire on to the new point.

Before long Toku will meet up with his mother, as well as uncover a few surprises to do with the scary looking snow monsters and his mother’s fate. Here he will also be gifted with a few items to make his journey through the snowy land a little more comfortable. Without giving too much away, the new items will enable him to move forwards without having to worry about freezing and are very handy indeed.

Of course he will still have to worry about a variety of enemies along the way. Glorbs will challenge him every so often, with fiery Glorbs even emerging to attempt to halt his path. Dealing with Glorbs is fairly simple, press A while swiping at them, but to effectively counter the attack of a fiery Glorb you will first need to freeze him by pressing B and drawing a Z on the screen. Once frozen, you can then deal with them in the normal manner. Keep a wary eye out for large Glorbs as well and remember to keep your distance lest their spewing prematurely endangers your health.

As Toku progresses through the game, he will come across blocked paths and closed doors. Players will need to solve cleverly thought out puzzles in order to proceed. For example, drawing a circle around snowflakes will create a vortex and then sending the resultant snowball hurtling towards a frozen entrance may just smash it down, or directing fire towards an iced up door could possibly melt it, while using a snowball to weigh down pressure plates might just keep an entrance open long enough for you to sneak through. Sometimes snowflakes might get in the way of you lighting torches…no problem, simply gust the snow away before you light the torch. Ingenious.

While most of the puzzles are fairly straightforward after you have played the game for a short while, they will still leave you feeling suitably clever. Rest assured, they do become more challenging as the game progresses but never too difficult to solve, and always using the environment and Toku’s powers very cleverly.

Along the way Toku will discover small treasures, sometimes you will have to search for them and other times you may have to solve puzzles to stumble upon them, but you will always leave feeling rewarded and ready to discover more!

And just when you think you have mastered Winter of the Melodias, Toku acquires new skills - most importantly the ability to change the wintery landscape into a flourishing summer oasis using the power of Sonté Spirit of Seasons’ located in the bear shrines dotted around the levels. Frozen lakes are instantly transformed into ponds filled to the brim thanks to gushing waterfalls while lush vegetation overflows into streams. Apart from the appealing visual change, the new summer climate presents new opportunities for different puzzles.

Toku can now access new areas by swimming under regions that were once blocked by ice. Of course this works both ways, and now fast flowing waterfalls may block his path. Simply change the season back to winter and you can trudge up the frozen snowy slope. Learning when you need to change between seasons becomes essential to progressing through each level, and you may just find yourself having to backtrack a short distance once you have discovered that the path forward is now blocked by the elements.

However, you never have to backtrack very often thanks to the conveniently placed save points throughout the levels. You will also not find yourself getting lost or losing track of your next objective very easily thanks to the convenient new map. The map marks your next destination with a question mark or green circle to clearly show the path that you must take to reach it. If you are ever disorientated after exploring various tunnels or climbing to higher ground, simply consult your map and before long you will be heading in the right direction again.

As mentioned earlier, Toku does acquire new skills along the way. These include the cyclone, hold down A and B while shaking the Wii Remote back and forth to create a cyclone, handy to boost him up to otherwise inaccessible places. This new ability also allows Toku to drain small pools of water, creating a cloud above the pool which he can then move to another place to bring water to a dry area or move water between two pools. It’s also useful to create a cyclone and then draw downwards with the Wii Remote to drill into the earth and reach new locations.

At various points in the game you will notice fruit growing which Toku can eat to recover his health. Of course some fruit can also be used to reach higher places. If you see a small seed simply splash some water on it and it will grow, step into it and it will send you flying high! Likewise if you see a patch of muddy ground, you can collect a fruit, plant it and it will grow. You can then use the grown flower to fly to higher places…very handy indeed.

Toku will also face new enemies now that the summer time has returned to Melodia. It’s pretty useful to use the vortex moves on these new foes, stunning them gives you a gap to pass by unhindered. And then there are a handful of the usual boss battles too, which I will leave you to discover for yourself.

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias is a glorious achievement for the Wii – with graphics that will delight, a masterfully created storyline (told through well crafted cutscenes and discovering Magdi’s journal entries along the way) and puzzles that will keep you guessing. It’s a worthy investment for any Wii owner, one which will no doubt leave other console owners green with envy. 1000 Wii Points seems a very small price to pay for such a grand adventure.

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Contributor:	Lisa

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