Quick Review: LostWinds 2: Winter of the Melodias

Toku and Enril are back, and helping each other again in a new world giving them the cold shoulder.

I sure am glad this golem is friendly.

LostWinds 2: Winter of the Melodias, made by Frontier Developments and released to Steam on March 24th, 2016, takes place after the previous game (which I've reviewed, you can read that here). In a bright and colorful world, a young child named Riveren finds a magical stone. The stone… is black. Sure enough, it contains a malevolent spirit that takes over the kid. Cut back to Toku and Enril, and the game starts with Toku accidentally tearing his flight cape - sorry kid, gliding would make things too easy at the start of this new game. It turns out that his mother, Magdi, an adventurer, has left for the Melodia Kingdom and hasn’t come back in 12 days. Toku and Enril embark on a trip to rescue her, using the rock golem Magmok as a travel buddy towards their destination.

Nothing like a good fire around these parts.
I do wonder who lights them up, though...

What they find up there is a world trapped in an eternal winter. Toku isn’t prepared for this, wearing only his regular clothes, so the first part of the game involves finding and spreading fire between torches, creating pockets of warmth thanks to Enril’s wind-based abilities. If he stays in the cold too long, Toku will freeze and lose quarters of hearts steadily until he dies. He will eventually get his hands on warmer wear. He will also awaken the spirit Sonte, a wise old bear who can change the seasons for him. One path is blocked in winter? It might be open in summer. And vice versa. Time is running low, however, as Toku’s mom has been poisoned by the creature that caused the eternal winter…

This world is too cold.
It could do with a little bit of burning.

Kid. Behind you.

The original LostWinds was pretty good, but like any good sequels, this one kicked things up a notch. Once again, your main ability is to grab Toku and/or some items with Enril's wind powers to carry them around. On top of most previous abilities returning (or being rediscovered over time), you get new abilities as well. The most prominent one being a tornado that can be used to create clouds of water (which you can then move around) or drill the ground. Changing between seasons is nice as well, though I imagine it would do a number on the local wildlife. I also like some changes to gameplay, new puzzles to solve, like the start of the game where Toku has to stay around warmth. The story also has quite a few moments of emotion that struck. The statuette collection side-quest also retuns, with 48 idols to gather this time (the first game had 24), though speaking from my own experience, you’ll gather at least half of them while you go through the plot. Lastly, it retains the charm and cuteness from the original.

Ah, I think I like this better.

Tornado! Never doubt the powers of the
wind ever again!

It shares the main flaw of its predecessor, though; if you have to carry multiple things at the same time (Tuko and an item), the wind controls achieved through the mouse can get pretty annoying. Especially during puzzles. As for keyboard controls, you move Tuko right by pressing D and left by pressing... Q, which is counter-intuitive compared to all the games that use A for that function, per the WASD section of a keyboard. It caused me some trouble when moving around, because my finger would go to the A key instead, with no result. No clue why the devs did this, and I tried to change it, but there weren’t any options to do so. Last but not least, while I love the added complexity of the puzzles, I was annoyed during the last laps of the plot, in which you guide a slow and heavy character around and must cooperate with them to solve puzzles. And sometimes, they’re a pain due to how slow they are. I also noticed a few more glitches this time, such as said slow character vanishing between seasons for no apparent reason.

I did see more flaws in this one compared to the first, but I still think Lost Winds 2: Winter of the Melodias is a good game. Tops the original in a handful of ways, plays around with ideas a bit more, and although I spotted more issues I personally had with it, I still enjoyed the few hours I spent playing it. If you’ve played the original LostWinds, then I recommend the second.

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias is available on Steam for 9.99$.