LostWinds

LostWinds was among the first titles to appear on the WiiWare store right after its launch, and it immediately showed what digital distribution on the console was good for. It's a fairy-tale platformer in which a boy named Toku travels through a land plagued by an evil force and joins forces with a wind spirit named Enril. The player controls both characters at once: the Nunchuk moves the boy, while the Wii Remote is used to draw gusts of wind on the screen that lift Toku upward, carry him across chasms, or blow obstacles out of his path.

This dual control is the heart of the whole game. Wind is used to solve puzzle situations, to fan flames, to carry water to a withered flower, and to deflect enemy attacks, and new techniques gradually unlock previously inaccessible parts of the land. The world is one connected whole that the player returns to with new abilities, so even at a short playtime it feels exploratory and rewards curiosity with hidden nooks. The game can be finished in one longer evening, which was the most common criticism from reviewers, for whom the story stopped right when it was picking up steam.

Visually, it's a very pleasant title with watercolor backgrounds, soft colors, and smooth animation that Wii had no trouble with whatsoever. The music is calm and orchestral, and together with the sounds of nature it creates a soothing mood rarely found in action games on the console. At the time, the game was received very well and was often cited as an example of motion controls serving as the foundation of a game idea rather than merely an alternative to buttons. It received a sequel, LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias, and still ranks among the best things ever released on WiiWare. Anyone looking for a calm title for one evening without pressure to perform will find exactly that here, and the second part continues the story directly, so both parts can be played through back to back as a single whole. It's precisely in this pair that you can see what small digital games on the console were capable of back then.