WiiWare could have been a failure. It could have been plagued with a list of not so great games with overpriced costs. However if you get the chance to buy Lost Winds you’ll see the whole concept of WiiWare more than justified. Lost Winds is a great game and one that shows developers can think outside the box when it comes to new ideas.

You play as Toku a simple villager who unfortunately has the huge task of saving his island from the dark character Balasar. Along with the help of a wind spirit called Envil you must make your way along the island locating memory chests and generally being the hero. There is no spoken dialogue or proper cutscenes but rather a series of still parchment-like images which oddly enough doesn’t feel like a cop-out from actual videos and instead adds to the games natural organic feel.

Toku can walk and well... that’s about it. The real skill comes in the form of how you manipulate wind to his advantage. Using the remote to point at the screen you control Envil who can perform simple actions involving wind. Hold the A button and flick in any direction and Toku will be gusted that way. It basically serves as a jump button with some neat twists. Since you’re playing with the wind element you don’t necessarily need to use air just to affect Toku but rather your environment around you too and this is where the fun puzzles come in. As you progress through the game you earn more abilities that include being able to double jump and even draw paths for wind to follow. Using these abilities you can access previously inaccessible areas by completing puzzles found around the island. You can blow water onto a seed in order for it to grow or trace the path of a gust of wind to guide fire to a blocking tree. It’s these little puzzles that make this title so unique.

The game is not split into the usual levels seen in many platformers but more a continuing series of rooms and areas much like the old Metroid games on the NES and SNES. Backtrack haters may be a little annoyed at the fact that you’ll do that a bit here but it’s only a small part of an otherwise fresh and exciting game. You even have a similar upgrade system to Metroid where you’ll discover moves as you move on in the game.

The biggest downside to the game is its length. At only around three hours long you could easily finish this in one evening and once you’ve done that there’s little incentive to go back other than to locate a few hidden statues. While you could argue its the experience that counts and its only a WiiWare title, not a fully fledged retail game, an extra hour or two could have made this near perfect.

While the game is extremely fun to play it does feel a little on the easy side. Not exactly a walkover (I did manage to get lost on more than one occasion) but rather in terms of the enemies and health given. Things are kept too straightforward with it possible to store up to three revivals at once which can be used should you take a nasty fall. Enemies are also few and far between posing little threat whatsoever. But what it lacks in difficulty it makes up for in sheer fun.

There is the option to play two player co-op with another friend using another pointer but it isn’t great fun for the person taking the backseat and not controlling Toku so I can imagine people ignoring this feature.

Visually Lost Winds in my opinion is the best WiiWare has to offer thus far. It has such an organic feel to it and the environments feel alive especially since whenever you run your cursor over any plant life it sways in the wind. It has so many nice touches in it and is a high benchmark for developers out there to meet with their titles. The soothing music you hear throughout the game accompanies the visual style and goings on well. The game feels fairly relaxed and the music matches that tone nicely. It’s just a shame there are no voiceovers.

Lost Winds is a short lived extremely fun blast that may at first seem a little expensive for what it is, but take the plunge and you’ll definitely find yourself pleasantly surprised. After initial worries that WiiWare wouldn’t live up to the hype, Lost Winds has shattered those doubts and turned them into high anticipation for what lie ahead.