Last Monday saw the American release of Nintendo’s WiiWare, a service that will bring original games available for download straight to your Wii console. It’s similar in principle and execution to both Sony’s PlayStation Store for the PS3 and Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360. Like everything else on the Wii, it’s easy to use and offers a decent variety of launch titles.

Given that Nintendo already has classic and retro games covered with their Virtual Console offerings, this is a chance for either larger developers to take some risks and produce smaller, more off-beat games (such as Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King) or for smaller developers to have an inexpensive method for easily getting their games out to the public. There’s no option to demo the games first as on XBLA or PSN, but the games only range in price from $5-15, so you won’t be out too much cash if you happen to not enjoy your purchase.

With that in mind, I can say with absolute certainty that the title I downloaded, LostWinds, is worth every penny of the $10 I spent on it.

I must admit, however, that the game took me a little by surprise. I hadn’t heard much about it before playing, only that it was a side-scrolling platformer and the main hook of the game was controlling the wind. Those two elements are certainly present, but LostWinds is far from your standard platformer. It combines familiar elements found in other action and adventure games; think combining the advancement via newly gained abilities in Metroid with the Celestial Brush “painting” found in Okami and you’re on the right track. But the tone and pace of the game is undeniably different from any other adventure game out there - it’s slow.

Slow, thankfully, does not equal boring. In this case it’s actually quite refreshing. Sure, the speed of the game has a lot to do with the fact that our hero, Toku, doesn’t move very fast, but that’s fine since to rush through this game would be a shame. LostWinds should be savored. While the game has a fairly minimalist approach to its design (there are only three or four enemy types and the locales only include either the village and its outskirts or caverns), it’s the little details that make one stop and smile. Take, for instance, the way that everything in the game reacts to wind. It doesn’t matter if it’s an enemy, a shrub, a tree, windmill or villager, everything that can and should be blown by the wind is affected by the player’s wave of the remote. I spent a good five minutes at the start of the game just waving the remote around to see how many different ways the village’s girls would giggle and coo when a breeze swept past them or how water from the river would splash and spray from the gusts I’d make Enril (the wind spirit controlled by the player) create.

Once Enril and Toku finally set out to stop the evil spirit Balasar, it becomes clear that the developers at Frontier put a lot of care and thought into creating this truly charming world that not only looks gorgeous (it has some of the best bloom lighting on the system outside of Super Mario Galaxy) but feels organic and natural, a must when your game deals with the four elements as this one does. At first you’ll mostly make use of the remote to “draw” gusts of wind and slow Toku’s fall from great heights, or to give him an extra boost to reach high ledges, but as you explore more and more of the map you’ll unlock more abilities for Enril to use as she helps Toku on his quest. Enril’s powers can be used in combat, but it’s rather minor in the grand scheme of things as the game favors more environmental puzzle solving than killing baddies. Even the boss encounter at the episode’s end is more of a puzzle than a brawl. Overall, Enril’s powers exemplify some very smart use of the Wii remote’s capabilities. And while (as mentioned earlier) “drawing” the wind might immediately remind one of the use of the Celestial Brush from Okami, it eventually feels enough like it’s own thing to wipe away any cries of plagiarism.

Lost Winds isn’t very long (just under 4 hours) but the experience is sublime while it lasts. In many ways it encapsulates not only what a great WiiWare game should be, but what the Wii itself should be getting on a regular basis. Here’s hoping Frontier doesn’t leave the “to be continued…” hanging for too long.

By Stewart Smith