This looks so freakin awesome. If wiiware can continually pump out ideas like this I will be in heaven. Reminds me of the glory days of SNES. Day 1 purchase for me.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/853/853353p2.html
February 20, 2008 - Nintendo's WiiWare service has Wii owners anxious, both in anticipation and trepidation. The possibilities are great -- many of the most addictive and enjoyable games on Xbox 360 and PS3 are turning out to be the little downloads made by fledgling studios, and giving the power of the Wii controller set to these hungry, creative types will hopefully take the indie gaming movement further. The constrictions, however, have some worried about how much can be done with the service. Let's face it, many of the hardcore have already filled up that half-gig of onboard storage space simply by downloading old NES and Genesis games. Square Enix has shown off its attractive Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles WiiWare, but even that is a simplified and confined concept, and meanwhile most WiiWare developers have shown puzzlers and other tidy little game ideas. Just how much game will developers be able to provide players with their WiiWare creations?
Given the boundless thrills we saw in our first look at the previously unannounced game LostWinds this week at GDC, the worries about WiiWare look to be mooted. Design studio Frontier Developments (the design studio behind the Thrillville franchise and the upcoming game The Outsider) has crafted a platforming/adventure game that spans 22 areas of play in a 3D-modeled world that is detailed down to the blades of grass in the background that blow as you breeze by. It's impressive in scope for a downloadable title, and better still, it delivers on the promise of original and innovative gameplay only possible with a system like the Nintendo Wii.
LostWinds follows the plucky hero Toku on an adventure to save the world of Mistralis from evil. Little Toku is not much more than a regular boy (despite his destiny to be the world's only savior), but following along on his journey is Enril, the wind spirit -- a mighty and mysterious deity of nature that can use the powers of the air around to accomplish great things. Players control both Toku and Enril at the same time -- one hand with the nunchuk moving Toku, other hand with the Wiimote moving Enril as the spirit of the wind (shown in the first screens as just an icon, although the final game will make sure to pronounce the wind spirit as a real presence.) In simplest terms, you have a platforming game (rendered "2.5D" on an old-school 2D plane, only here rendered here with 3D polygons and particle effects) where you control the character with the joystick and then have a "cursor" to interact with the world. The hero carries objects to and fro and talks to townfolk, while the spirit of the wind whips up tornadoes that sweep away enemies and blows steady jet streams that Enril can ride.
Frontier calls the concept here "Single Player Co-Op" -- the more you play, the more you become attached to each character as they team together for their goal. It's gameplay that is incredibly easy to understand at first viewing -- take a look at the Nintendo DS game Kirby Canvas Curse if you want a hint of what can happen here -- and the way that the developers have implemented the dual-character gameplay mechanics promises not only gameplay that anybody can pick up and play (with just a simple download, remember), but that gamers of all skill levels can get a unique and challenging experience out of. If it comes together properly, this is a game that your girlfriend will probably be into, and yet it's also a game that you will be able to do killer moves with that will ring up YouTube views on your tricky speed run. And if you both would like to play in a way that was never intended, you and your girl can turn this "Single Player Co-Op" game into a real co-op game, with one player controlling the boy and the other commanding the wind.
For an example of the kind of play depth in the game, take the "jumping" mechanism. Toku has the ability to jump, but he doesn't achieve much vertical. To traverse the land, Enril will need to blow in to carry Toku on his mighty wind. With one hand, players move the character while with the other, they draw swirls of gusts and breezes that Toku can ride. Whip loops in the air or draw jet streams underneath finished streams and you'll have little Toku flowing through a wind rollercoaster. Enemy interaction is also unique. With the power of the wind, you have choices. The basic gameplay mechanic would be to sweep up the minions of Balasar and them blast them away into the sky. Players can also, however, trap enemies for a short time in a circular puff of air and have Toku run underneath safely. If you're sadistic rather than nonviolent, you can instead "play with" the enemies, gusting them about and smashing them into the ground or into cliffs.
Puzzle elements are also unique and open-ended because of the play system. Your wind spirit will continuously be gaining powers, and there are at least two basic powers to his wind blasts -- hold down the button and you can deliver a powerful blast that can blast away at the ground or carry Toku into the sky (a handy trick if the boy is trying to pull a lever that's longer than he is tall or yanking at a turnip stuck deep in the ground.) Enril will also be able to suck up things such as water and fire from different spots on the map -- in one sequence we saw, the wind spirit blew a fire over to an overgrown thicket, burning it down to reveal a seed that Toku then carried over to another spot to trigger a kind of "plant cannon" that blasted him up to the top of a tall ledge. Stages are stitched together to interconnect and are meant to be explored many times over, and you will be able to back-track to find things you couldn't reach with previously limited powers or to reach new areas that were previously inaccessible.
Despite it being a downloadable game, LostWind is an attractive platformer that, at least in the short video we were able to check out (which we hope to have available for your viewing in the next few weeks), compared favorably with Wii games like Zak & Wiki. Granted, it won't make you forget those overly-expensive rival systems, and there are aspects about the game's graphics that do look to be kept in check to maximize the small download space, but the rich colors and impressive details do present a game we'd love to see more of. What you don't see in the screenshots is how the wind spirit's wind interacts -- as you gust about, plants in the 3D background flutter in the breeze, and if you buzz Toku, his tunic will catch the air. It's a game that is in motion with you, the player. Frontier is right now adding particle effects to enhance the visuals, adding details and effects while also testing concepts for how to represent Enril. Lighting and texturing are already looking nice for the style, and the character design is quite cute -- Toku and the other folks of Mistralis have that "puffy" look of the Professor Layton games, and the enemies in the game look like a cross between the cartoonish Heartless of Kingdom Hearts and the shadowy fiends of Sony's ICO (they're shadowy and formless demons that leak droplets of darkness when you get aggressive with them.) One nice detail about the "2.5D" graphic approach is that you will sometimes see aspects of worlds you've previously explored or will soon visit off in the distance -- the opening of the mine area in the game's first screens, for instance, has the town peeking through an opening, also all rendered in 3D.
LostWind is a concept that couldn't easily be done justice on any other system (the sole exception being the Nintendo DS, of course -- in fact, this game has a very "DS" feeling to it), and yet it's also a small, old-school, play-oriented idea that owes a lot to the timing of WiiWare's introduction. The work of about 12 dedicated staffers at Frontier Developments over a year's cycle, it's the kind of game that could have been overcooked if it had to balloon into a disc-based game, and yet it probably wouldn't have been as compelling as a portable game since the two-character play fits each of the Wii's controllers so well. Frontier is aiming to have LostWind be a launch-period title for the WiiWare service (recently announced by Nintendo as starting this May), and we'll be taking a further look at at LostWind to see how the gameplay measures up to the promise of the video highlights we've seen of it in motion.
You can find me on facebook as Markus Van Rijn, if you friend me just mention you're from VGchartz and who you are here.
