I finally got around to playing, and finishing, LostWinds II… which I bought shortly after it came out and basically ignored it because I honestly wasn’t super excited about it and had other things on my mind.
Then I was finally bored enough, so I pulled it up and tried it. And pretty much felt immediately guilty that I had ignored it so long, cause it’s a really solid little game. :P
I’m not sure if I ever reviewed the first game, but basically the sequel is more of the same. The vast majority of puzzles are based on navigating terrain and managing door switches, but the linearity makes them fairly easy to figure out. I think, if you set me in front of this game years ago, I would have said that was a bad thing… but these days I don’t have much energy for serious brain busters, so honestly the simplicity was kind of a welcome relief. >_>;
They did have a couple of standard game mechanics show up from time to time that I had mixed feelings about… the beginning where you have to stand near torches or you’ll freeze really bothered me, but shortly went away. Breath meters for when you’re underwater, a sidekick AI that sometimes suffers from the usual AI issues. They were minor niggles though and generally I was impressed by how well integrated these bits really were to the original game scheme.
Plus it was just cute.
(Well, except that baby head singing statue thing. That was kind of creepy. >_> )
(also, that image isn’t from the game, it’s from the official website and serves as the footer image (which is what the tan gradient is all about), but I liked it more than any other screenshot I could find, so there. :x )
