LostWinds 2: Winter of the Melodias

I picked up LostWinds 2 expecting a breezy distraction, and it delivered something more thoughtful than that billing suggests. You play as Toku, a kid whose mother has gone missing in a mountain kingdom locked in eternal winter, guided through the world by Enril, a wind spirit you control directly. The setup is warm and unhurried, and the game earns its gentle tone, but don't let that fool you into thinking there's no bite here. The core hook is season-switching. At a button press, summer lakes become winter ice bridges, sealed caves open up as frozen waterfalls shatter, and enemies that were untouchable moments ago are suddenly vulnerable to a well-placed gust. Frontier designed these dual-state puzzles with real care, building rooms where you need to reason through both seasonal versions before the solution clicks. The cyclone ability layers on top of this nicely: use it to hoist a pool of water into a mobile cloud, Gust the cloud to a new location, then drop rain to revive a plant that launches Toku onto a ledge. It sounds fiddly on paper, but the moment it flows, it genuinely feels clever. There is also a collectible statuette hunt running alongside the main path, with 48 idols scattered throughout, and roughly half land in your lap just by playing normally. Where the game shows its seams is in precision. The original LostWinds was criticized for slippery controls, and while the PC port improves matters compared to the old mobile versions, there are still moments where Toku clips an invisible boundary or an enemy refuses to fly in the direction you aimed. These friction points are infrequent enough not to ruin anything, but they do interrupt the flow that the puzzle design is otherwise so careful to build. The runtime, around three to four hours for a straight playthrough, is also a real consideration. The first game was criticized for being too short, and this sequel pushes back on that, but it is still a short experience. What it does exceptionally well is atmosphere. The mountain range of Summerfalls looks beautiful, the music fits the quiet sense of discovery, and the story manages a few genuinely touching moments without ever getting heavy-handed. Reviewers on older platforms compared it favorably to Zelda and Metroid in terms of how new powers gate map progression, and that comparison holds on PC. It is a small-scale Metroidvania that understands why environmental storytelling and gradual ability unlocks feel satisfying. Crucially, the story is self-contained, so you do not need to have played the original to follow along. If you have played the first LostWinds, this one is the better game in nearly every measurable way. If you haven't, it works fine as a standalone, though picking up both through the Blossom Edition bundle makes sense for the full arc. Recommended for players who like short, polished puzzle-platformers with a sense of wonder, and who can forgive occasional control imprecision in exchange for some of the more satisfying environmental puzzles in the genre. Alex, Scout Team