Title: Lost In Blue
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Platform: Nintendo DS
Category: Survival
Release Date: August 25, 2005
How we got the game: We bought it

This is a game Kris has had for a long time. I had given the game a go a long time ago when Kris didn’t seem to be too into it. I never finished it and was curious to pick it back up again.

Lost In Blue doesn’t have much of a learning curve to it. It’s a Nintendo DS game so, of course, the touch screen is used a good amount. However, you can use the analog stick to move your character around and there’s a task for every button. A allows your character to climb up and down things as well as search for items in the ground. X opens the menu and allows you check the items in your backpack or rest. Y is used when you find Skye and you can hold her hand to guide her to certain places. B allows you to run which is always a fabulous mechanic.

The touch screen is used when digging in the ground. The stylus is used to move the dirt around. It’s also used when you have a spear to fish. Once you see a fish swim by on the bottom screen, you can tap it with your stylus to send the spear down. The only problem with this is that the touch screen is pretty picky. A lot of times I thought I had the fish and it claimed I didn’t. Other times I caught a fish when I clearly didn’t even touch it.

The mic is also used. When making a fire, you need to alternate the L and R buttons to make the spark and then blow into the mic. I played this on my 2DS XL and it took me a minute to actually remember where the mic was.

That’s it for basic controls. The rest of the game play is simple and fairly repetitive. You explore the island as Keith, gathering food, finding new places to explore, and finding items to make new tools to use in order to survive longer. At the end of the day, you can go back to the cave and go to sleep, which will allow you to save your game and then start the process all over again.

Both Keith and Skye have three meters – stamina, hunger, and thirst. These will go down throughout the day. You have to make sure they both have enough to drink and eat. Keeping the thirst up is easy since you can drink from the river. However, making food, especially in the beginning, is hard since you don’t have a lot of resources. However, there are certain foods you can eat raw such as coconuts and carrots found on the island.

The stamina is really hard, especially for Keith. Since he’s the one exploring it goes down fast. He’s really slow at walking so I make him run all the time, which, I’m pretty sure, makes his stamina go down faster. However, when he climbs rocks, jumps, or pushes logs, it goes down even further. Each day is timed so there’s only so much he can do – only so far he can get – before you have to turn around and make it back to the cave. This gets harder the further you explore because you can spend the first half of the day just making it back to where you left off on the previous day.

Once you beat Keith’s story, you can start a new game and have the opportunity to play as Skye.

Being a Nintendo DS game, the graphics aren’t the best. However, they work well enough for the time the game came out. There aren’t any noticeable glitches or the like, so it definitely works. During the dialogue, there were pictures of the character speaking to one another which was a nice touch. It was a shift from the regular game play and animations.

The music was mellow. Seeing as you’re stuck on an island, the music isn’t too epic or anything. It flowed nicely along with the game play. The sound effects, on the other hand, were okay. The sound to gather items – digging in the sand or dirt, spearing fish – were just okay. However, sound effects to show danger – such as your hunger meter getting too low – were spot on and really grabbed my attention while playing.
In this game you play as Keith, a boy who is washed ashore from a storm that made his cruise ship go off course. He’s all alone aside from Skye, a girl about his age who got washed ashore from the same storm on the same ship. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else around. They don’t know if there were any survivors and they don’t know if anyone will come looking for them.

Together, they must survive on the island and find a way off back to civilization. Keith explores daily and gathers food while Skye, whose glass broke and she can’t see, remains in the cave (most of the time) and does the cooking for whatever Keith brings back.

This wasn’t a bad game, but it wasn’t great either. I can find myself trying to play this game again, but the beginning is pretty slow. It’s hard to get started because you have nothing. Keith tires easily and is hungry and thirsty so keeping the stamina is hard. There’s a lot to explore and items to find and make, but overall it’s pretty repetitive and can get kind of boring. I love these simulation kind of games but this one is just okay for me.

Lost In Blue gets…
3 out of 5 lives.

Have you played this game? What did you think? Let me know in the comments! 

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