I remember prior to the launch of the WiiWare service, prior to any of the games being announced for it, there was a rumor going along the series of tubes that is the internet that the service would only be able to provide 3D graphics of Nintendo 64 quality. Though I’m not a graphics whore, I remember being slightly disappointed by the idea that we’d once again have to deal with big, blocky characters for original games on the service. Thankfully, the rumors were wrong and among the among the first games announced for the service were the stellar looking 3D titles Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King and LostWinds. Being short on cash the launch month and only able to get one game, I decided to go with LostWinds for my first WiiWare purchase.

I made the right choice.

The game, from a team I had never heard of up to that point, was a delightful and stunning adventure game that, when drilled down to it’s core, was essentially Super Metroid-lite. But that’s okay, Super Metroid is one of the greatest games of all time and nearly every game that has copied it’s formula has been just as outstanding. Everything about LostWinds came across as magical: controlling the wind to make your character jump, the beautiful pink trees, the moody underground and the silly, yet repetitive enemies. The only problem was the game’s magic came to an abrupt end when I beat it about 5 hours later. 5 hours for $10 is not that bad considering people paid $50 for 4 hours of gameplay in Madworld. But that little bit of gameplay had me salivating for more. With LostWinds not being episodic, I realized I would have to wait awhile until I got my next taste of the good stuff.

The time between the announcement of Winter of the Melodias and it’s release seemed like only days. Screenshots showed a new, wintery wonderland that could be changed into a cool, green spring. It was like Super Metroid crossed with Oracle of Seasons. The changing of the seasons offered up new possibilities of puzzle solving and it’s sad to say developers never really took advantage of.

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias finds our boy-hero Toku and Enril searching Summerfalls Mountains for Toku’s lost mother. When you arrive you find that the mountain has been locked in an eternal winter and you set out to find out why as well as continue searching for your mom. There is more to the story, but being such a short game any further I go will give away plot points, so I’ll leave it at this: there are Yetis in the game.

Once again the first thing you’ll notice about this game as with the original are the graphics. Frontier Developments has taken what made the original so great and improved on it in nearly every way. A great example of this is right at the beginning as you climb up the mountain. Magmok, the final boss from the first game, returns and helps you up the mountain. I had to pause here because I was blown away by the beauty of watching this beast work his way up in the background. It really is a sight to see. Once he’s thrown you to your destiny, the environment changes from a lush green to a blue and white snow land. You’ll also start freezing to death so find some fire, fast. As you make your way up the mountain, you’ll travel through everything from iced over towns, to frozen lakes and waterfalls to ice caves. Halfway through the game, when you unlock the power to change seasons, it’s incredible to go back through these areas and see the change from frozen tundra to a subtropical environment. I could go on about the beauty of the game for another five paragraphs, it’s just that beautiful.

The actual gameplay continues nearly unchanged from the first one, with a few exceptions. The controls remain just as tight as in the original. You still move Toku using the control stick and have to use the wind power to make him jump. You retain the important power-ups from the original and throughout the game will unlock about 3 more, all of which help you reach new areas, solve puzzles and defeat enemies. The most used of these new powers is the tornado. This allows Toku to reach new heights than just jumping could ever do as well as move water from one point to another, which is used in a few clever puzzles. Another new feature of the game is Toku’s ability to swim, however this is woefully underused and seems only to come into effect when trying to retrieve the little white statues that return from the first game. I can count on one hand how many times swimming was actually used to progress the game.

And that may be the biggest thing I’ll remember about this game: it introduces some interesting new features, but fails to truly capitalize on them. I remember with the first game there were a few puzzles that really got me, that I spent a while actually trying to figure out. The same can’t be said about this game as no puzzle in it ever felt really challenging. The changing from winter to spring, which could have lead to some awesome challenges, never presented a puzzle that couldn’t be solved within a minute. While most of the season changing puzzles revolve around freezing or unfreezing a lake, you’ll also have times where you must use snow to open doors or kill enemies. While it’s new to the game, making snowballs actually utilizes mechanics from the first game to give us new puzzle solutions in this new game. Most of the other puzzles are just rehashes from the original game. Like I said before, moving the water with tornados presents some really clever puzzles and they are probably the best in the game, but it’s just not enough. After my 4 hours of playing the game, I realized that while this sequel is superior to the original in many ways, it seemed to be missing the challenging puzzles that made the first one so great. It’s actually in the last area of the game that it decides to throw a challenge your way, forcing players to use items in the foreground and background to succeed. It may come a little to late, but it was nice to see some real creativity in the game.

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias is, all in all, a better game than the original. The story is much more direct, the environments are portrait-worthy, the NPC’s and enemies in the game really feel more complete and the final boss battle for the game is stellar. While I never really felt challenged, the game also didn’t hold my hand. Yes the title is once again short, but is thanks to the abrupt ending of the first one, I knew what to expect. In the end, the game is another great example of mixing old and new. Frontier Developments took an wholly original game and combined it a classic gaming mechanic to give gamers another wonderful romp through the world of LostWinds.