This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
You wake up on a sunny beach with no memory of who you are. You see wreckage everywhere and no way to get home. Your only memory is a storm and being in a hot air balloon that crashed here. You pick yourself and decide to not only find out who you are but how to get off this island. As you investigate a lost and forgotten culture memories begin to flood back to you. Can you make sense of it all and finally leave this island for civilisation?
There’s a lot of HOGs or HOPAs that claim to be casual but either ramp up the tension or give you a time limit in order to complete a puzzle. Lost Lagoon: The Trail of Destiny (2010) by Intenium definitely can take the claim to be casual to heart. Stuck on this island you have a mystery to solve but there’s never any pressure on the player’s part to get going. The difficulty isn’t that bad either when it comes to the puzzles. You start off on the edge of land with three different places you can go to for a hidden object screen. From each of these locations you pick up an item that is then used to activate something. The idea of beginning by giving the player the choice as to what hidden object screen to do next is just to create a false sense of freedom as after that the player is literally guided by hand from one hidden object screen to another. Lost Lagoon has to be one of the most linear HOGs I’ve seen in a while. You aren’t given any more freedom to explore but that’s alright. This is a casual game after all so what’s wrong with that? Puzzles are the standard variety although the developers do cleverly include a silhouette hidden object screen within a main hidden object screen. The puzzles themselves are not taxing in any way with a skip button included, further cementing its casual status. It’s just a shame the story isn’t more interesting. It’s a short game which can be completed in just over an hour and the story doesn’t do enough to develop its lead character. The predicament of the lone survivor being swept onto an island by hot air balloon is compelling in itself yet it’s never properly explained. By the time you reach the climax with the whole ship curse plot the game loses the player and this HOG is begging for a more developed narrative. Special mention must go for the completely ridiculous ending where a sunken ship magically floats up to the surface like an inflatable dinghy and just sails away no problems.
It’s absolutely fine that Lost Lagoon: The Trail of Destiny follows a linear path but its length and therefore lack of narrative doesn’t do its concept justice. It also doesn’t make for anything that entertaining. It’s relaxing to play and expertly programmed yet it lacks anything to make it stand out and at the end of the day why should I play this over the latest Mystery Case Files? I’m sure Intenium could have done better than this as it all feels a bit lazy and not in a relaxing ‘casual’ kind of way.… Expand
