"Some great things and some bad things make an average game"

To buy a DS you have to admit to yourself you're willing to play some new and different kinds of games. You'd have to be pretty stubborn to want to play the same old games on a console whose main selling point is that it has two screens, one of which is a touchscreen (although it does happen).

Lost in Blue is a perfect example of a game that embraces the peculiarities of the DS. Not only does it use the stylus and mic to good effect, but it also embraces the idea of a new kind of game, combining elements of an RPG, the Sims, and Animal Crossing.

Like a lot of DS games, Lost in Blue takes a simple premise, and dresses it up with many different mini-games, variations, and atmosphere. The premise is that you're cast away on an island, and you have to survive. The dressing comes in the form of simple, mainly stylus-based actions such as fishing, hunting, and collecting.

Playing the game is a new and interesting experience, mostly due to the sense of progression and the difficulty curve. The game starts off very difficult, you have to scrape for food and you're constantly in danger of dieing from malnourishment, then slowly, the game rewards you by getting easier, and thus giving you more of a chance to explore your surroundings. This is a fantastic way to play. I've never encountered a game that progresses like this, and it's very engrossing. Especially due to the fact the graphics and sound are so good that the atmosphere of this game is quite involving.

There are some painful things about this game, however, that ruin the things it does well. Firstly, the time consuming and repetitive nature of the gameplay is overwhelming. The ratio of backtracking, stat management, and repetition of simple tasks to the actually interesting parts like exploration is something like 10 to 1, and quite quickly begins to feel not really worth it.

Another thing that irritated me was that two thirds of the way through this game there's a twist, which ought to make the game exciting and interesting, but instead re-introduces the extreme difficulty of the gameplay, and the slow progression, except this time it never really gets easier. Although it's a great idea, it makes the game feel tedious and as a gamer you feel unnecessarily rushed and forced to do things you'd rather not.

There are quite a few hours of solid, atmospheric gameplay to get out of Lost in Blue, and it's one of the more memorable DS games. I could recommend it to gamers looking for something unique, and who have played the other top titles. But this game relies too much on cheap game-lengthening, tons of repetition, and too much false difficulty to ever be more than mildly enjoyable. I liked it, but only for a while, then it just got tiresome.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/06