Lost in Blue

[goatdan]

I just got this game recently based on all the praise that I was hearing on here...

Nothing against anyone's opinions, but how can some of you be overlooking the bugs that frustrate me to the point that I'm thinking about putting this on my "done" stack of DS games incomplete, which hasn't happened for many games.

A few examples of my frustration with the game:

- I fill Skye's water tank and leave for a while. I get further and further away, and she starts going down on water. She doesn't drink the water. So I spend a ton of time walking back to have her drink the water even though the tank says it still has 13 servings in it.
- Skye says, "I can tend the fire as long as you give me the wood!" and I was excited to get that out of the way, so I spent two days gathering over 15 twigs for her to burn. Yet, over the next four days, she has let the fire burn out twice.
- How much food do you really need to eat to get full? I understand the concept and that time is passing faster, but you practically have to gorge yourselves on everything to get close to full. Eating eight fish between two people with seaweed and coconuts got me to 70% full. Could you imagine eating five full pineapples and not even being half filled in real life? I really want to like this mechanic, as it is fresh and new, but the amount you need to eat is just insane.
- Once you are below 30% of anything, your meter drops faster. Why? It would seem then that you aren't really at 30%, but perhaps instead at 20. I don't care for that decision at all.
- You can carry 20 things period. No more, no less. It doesn't matter the size. This seems odd. Considering raspberries only replenish 2% of your healt (a proper amount, in my opinion), it would seem you should be able to carry more of them. Also, I journied into the jungle and got myself four "logs," 8 pineapples and some bread fruit. I wish the inventory system would've been managed by points (you can carry 50 points of stuff!) and then larger things would've cost more points (log = 20 points, pineapple 10, for example) and would've done more for you. Smaller things -- raspberries, mushrooms, twigs -- you would be able to carry more of.

So overall, while this game gets about 80% of the way to being something I really like (I love Harvest Moon, although I'm in the middle on Animal Crossing), the other 20% bothers me so much. I got Trace Memory at the same time, so I think it might be time to pull that out and see what it has to offer.

Oh, and I just wanted to add this as I just saw the question about how far someone played in relationship to liking the game -- I'm on day 22 now. I have done from a FAQ I was looking at to see if there was something I was missing about the water / food / etc I was missing with Skye, and it seems like I've made it through about a quarter of the exploration already, and have over half of the things built and found already (I found the slate on day 6 or 7 for cooking). I believe I've put five to six hours in it. So I think I've given it a really good chance. I just can't get past these little quirks.

[Julio III]

[quote="goatdan
A few examples of my frustration with the game:

- I fill Skye's water tank and leave for a while. I get further and further away, and she starts going down on water. She doesn't drink the water. So I spend a ton of time walking back to have her drink the water even though the tank says it still has 13 servings in it.
- Skye says, "I can tend the fire as long as you give me the wood!" and I was excited to get that out of the way, so I spent two days gathering over 15 twigs for her to burn. Yet, over the next four days, she has let the fire burn out twice.
- How much food do you really need to eat to get full? I understand the concept and that time is passing faster, but you practically have to gorge yourselves on everything to get close to full. Eating eight fish between two people with seaweed and coconuts got me to 70% full. Could you imagine eating five full pineapples and not even being half filled in real life? I really want to like this mechanic, as it is fresh and new, but the amount you need to eat is just insane.
- Once you are below 30% of anything, your meter drops faster. Why? It would seem then that you aren't really at 30%, but perhaps instead at 20. I don't care for that decision at all.
- You can carry 20 things period. No more, no less. It doesn't matter the size. This seems odd. Considering raspberries only replenish 2% of your healt (a proper amount, in my opinion), it would seem you should be able to carry more of them. Also, I journied into the jungle and got myself four "logs," 8 pineapples and some bread fruit. I wish the inventory system would've been managed by points (you can carry 50 points of stuff!) and then larger things would've cost more points (log = 20 points, pineapple 10, for example) and would've done more for you. Smaller things -- raspberries, mushrooms, twigs -- you would be able to carry more of.
[/quote]

I haven't played this in a long time but these quirtks didn't really annoy me. The carrying 20 items I accepted as a videogame. The water and fire with Skye is normally fine, I find she eventually does drink the water and I can leave loads of food in the place so I can go out on long trips, I tended to go out for 2/3 days, come back to replenish the food/twigs and then go out again. I never noticed the meters dropping more quickly below 30%. And the food thing used to be annoying but a lot of times I can give Skye hardly anything to cook and we both get full (I guess its good quality fish/meat which does it). I should get back into this game really, its just been a while.

[suckerpunch5]

I realize these "problems" were posted long ago, but in response, the chick does eventually drink water, as long as it's in the barrel. No need to pannic. Also, once you build the shelf, if you leave food on it, the chic will find it and eat it.

Oh yeah, at first the girl really sucks at cooking food. So, even if you get good stuff (for example, bass fill you up significantly), since she can't cook well, you don't get as full. As the game progresses, she gets better at cooking, to the point where even if you bring her total crap, like seaweed and rasberies, she can turn it into an o.k. meal.

*heads off to trick potato guy into dropping boat key*

[Red Hedgehog]

I really loved this game despite its flaws. The sense of exploration, of finding new items and new places was just great for me. It was very hard at the beginning, because you have to do exactly the right thing in order to survive, and then you need to spend a lot of time building up supplies and food before you can explore just a little more.

I got to the end of the game, but couldn't quite figure out how to beat it. I could see two ways to possibly get off the island, but couldn't figure out how to implement either of them (being purposely vague here to avoid spoilers). I therefore haven't played the game in a few months, but I guess I should probably just look at a FAQ so I can beat it.

[suckerpunch5]

Yeah! I finally beat this game. I mean, I finished it a lot of times where I died, but I finally got the good ending! Woot!

So now, I can replay it as the girl. I started it, but (as always) my weak performance in the building mini-game is a real hinderance. Ah well, I'll keep trying. I know there are some haters, but this really is a cool DS game, IMHO.

*goes back to looking for spices*

[Graham Mitchell]

I really liked this at first; it was really unique, and reasonably well-executed. But damn, it's hard! Figuring out where to go and what to do is like doing a New York Times Saturday crossword--it's very esoteric, and it really gives you no help at all. I realize that with Metroid and such, that feature added charm to the game. But Lost in Blue is just too big for that, and you have too many options available to you, and most of them end up with you dying. The manual wasn't much of a help, either. On top of that, I got to a point where I was supposed to start really exploring further from the cave, but I couldn't keep people fed long enough and I wasn't bumping into the proper necessary items to advance. Therefore, instead of growing, I was just struggling to keep my characters alive. It got old. Maybe I just need to restart and try again.

In interesting news, however, did you guys hear about the sequel coming out, I think it's called "Into the Blue". It looks identical to the first game, except that you can play as the girl right off the bat, and the cooking is much more elaborate. You can milk a cow, and apparently usable/edible items are more clearly labeled. Maybe some of these gameplay mechanics will be fixed.