LostWinds 2: Winter of the Melodias

I’m not exactly sure why it took me 17 years to play LostWinds 2 after playing the original near release. It’s almost certainly doing the game a disservice, since most of its identity is old hat for modern indie games. I worry that that’s why I don’t feel particularly nostalgic when I play the sequel. But after refreshing my memory of the first game, I still find Winter of the Melodias to generally be less charming than its predecessor. At the very least, I confirmed that the combat music did not used to so comically repetitive. Overall, it feels somewhat cheaper, with less life and detail poured into its world. The story is technically more interesting, but it doesn’t follow up on the initial sequel hook or even seemingly fit into the established timeline. It doesn’t even really advance the overall plot, and its ending is egregiously abrupt.

Make no mistake; there is still charm here. The puzzles have increased in difficulty but not too much, so the primary vibe is still of relaxation, which was an uncommon design goal in 2009. The core gameplay remains solid too. In hindsight, it feels like the sort of thing that would come out of a game jam, being a platformer where you can’t jump and have to manipulate the wind to do everything. The wind is inevitably imprecise even after trading a Wii Remote for a mouse, but when it works, it feels very fluid and ethereal. The main thing holding back Winter of the Melodias is that it’s very clearly the second installment of a series that was intended to be treated episodically. It has its own share of new powers and mechanics, but none of them are as remarkable as the first set. They also aren’t as fully-realized as I would hope, possibly to reserve material for a third game that we can now almost certainly say will never exist.