LostWinds

File:Lostwinds.jpg

From left to right, a Glorb, Toku, and Enril.

A unique WiiWare Platform Game, LostWinds stars a young boy named Toku. One day, while out playing, Toku finds a strange blue stone. Inside the stone is Enril, a wind spirit from a forgotten age. She needs his help — long ago, she helped to seal the evil spirit Balasar, trapping herself along with him, but now Balasar is on the verge of breaking free. Enril, however, is still confined to the stone; she can only go where the stone, and, by extension, Toku, goes. Controlling Toku with the Nunchuck and Enril with the Wii Remote, you must use your wind-based powers to jump, glide, and explore the world and find out how to stop the ultimate evil from breaking free once more.

The sequel, LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias, begins with a new character, Riveren. After being late for his duties regarding the Melodias King's homecoming event, he stumbles onto a black stone containing Balasar's spirit. Incidentally, this sounds rather familiar. The rest of the game shifts back to Toku as he and Enril attempt to discover and break the curse befalling the Melodia City and also affecting his mother, Magdi. This game features the ability to change the seasons with the spirit Sonte, adding a new dimension to solving the various environmental puzzles.

It remains to be seen where Toku and Enril will blow off to next, though given that the story is far from complete, we're sure to find out sooner or later.

Tropes used in LostWinds include:

• Action Mom: Toku's mother Magdi, explorer extraordinaire.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Winter of the Melodias starts out with you controlling a Melodia named Riveren to start.
• Bag of Spilling: You keep all your wind powers from the first game, but due to falling out of a tree, your Jumpbrella Cape gets ripped at the start of the sequel. Don't worry. You get it back.
• Blow You Away: Basically the whole premise of the game. The various ways you use these powers reach epic levels.
• Cliff Hanger: Originally, the game was planned to take a sort of Episodic Gaming approach to its story, but the sequel was in Development Hell for almost a year and a half.
• Collection Sidequest: The Melodia Statues scattered around the levels. 24 in the first game, 48 in the sequel.
• Easing Into the Adventure: The first game starts with Toku waking up late before going to see his mentor. The second game has Riveren waking up late before a festival.
• Episodic Game
• Escort Mission: The entire endgame of Winter of the Melodias, including the Final Boss fight. Luckily, the NPC escorted cannot take damage.
• Exposition Fairy: Enril.
• Floating Continent: You're on one!
• Gentle Giant: Magmok.
• Giant Mook
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Toku can eat a fruit as big as him in two bites.
  • Actually, what he does is that he takes two bites of the big fruit, and then crushes the leftovers with his own body. Considering two bites can fully heal him, it's quite a bit of food that goes to waste.
• Ironic Echo: Not with dialogue, but with action. The sequel starts with Riveren waking up before a festival, just like Toku. And just like Toku, he finds a fragment of a mystical stone in a glade just like the one Toku woke up in that starts to fly and glow. But because this power is black, it's clear that this is going to end much worse.
• Kid Hero: Enril's the one with all the powers, but she's confined to a stone. Without Toku to carry her, she's helpless.
• Kill It with Fire: You can't control fire directly, but if there's a fire nearby, you can push it and control the flames with Enril to an extent. Effective for killing enemies and burning vine barriers.
• Lost Forever: There is a glitch in Winter of the Melodias that, if invoked, will prevent the player from getting one of the Melodia Statues.
• Magic Music: The Melodias had Magitek powered by their singing.
• Mook Maker
• Playable Epilogue: The first game lacks one, but the second one lets you play around all you like in the overworld after the final boss. Good thing, too--collecting all the Melodia Statues unlocks character profiles for you, and the last two are in the final boss' lair. It'd have to save afterwards to make sure you get all the goodies.
• Precursors: The Melodias.
• Scenery Porn: Absolutely gorgeous cel-shaded scenery with the world's most soothing soundtrack. You'd be forgiven for just wandering around and taking in the sights.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Balasar.
• Sealed Good in a Can: Not just Enril, but also all the other spirits she speaks of. And your mentor, Deo.
• Sequence Breaking: In Winter of the Melodias, it seems to be possible to find the Jumbrella Cape sooner than you're meant to, making some subsequent puzzles a bit easier.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The entire world in Winter of the Melodias.
• Taken for Granite: The fate of the citizens of Melodias City. As well as Magdi.