Somewhere, maybe in another universe with different laws of reality and incomprehensible methods of interaction, someone once said "Yay, inventory management!" The hypothetical being was deeply excited to engage with the challenge of figuring out exactly what items to carry around and what to leave behind due to restrictions on available space, regarding the choices as an excellent enhancement to the overall gameplay. Strange and alien as this other universe and the creatures inhabiting it were, though, even the excited alien's friends thought it kind of weird.
Lou's Lagoon is a crafting platformer adventure set in a colorful archipelago that's just starting to recover from a tempest caused by the bickering gods Wind and Wave. Lou is a living legend, a deliveryman flying wherever needed to keep the islands supplied with whatever the residents need while handling every adventure that comes his way. He's also gone missing in the recent unnatural storm, having taken off to investigate its causes but never returning home. Nobody's too worried, seeing as Lou gets into trouble bigger than this seems to be on a regular basis, but it would still be nice to know he's safe.
While everyone else knows Lou as friend or legend, to you he's Uncle Lou, and you were on the way to his island when the storm struck. Arriving the next morning, the island is a wreck and Lou is gone, so the logical thing to do is for the employees to do is hand over the keys to the plane and let you take over. A few mini-quests around Lou's island involve putting the plane back together, taking care of a couple of children, and exploring the place top to bottom while collecting everything that isn't nailed down.
Rather than manual labor, scavenging is done with a gadget called the Swirler, which is basically a vacuum that sends out an electro-tendril to collect whatever in range is highlighted. It's prone to overheating, which is a fancy way of saying it needs upgrades to be able to collect the more advanced resources, but for the basics of driftwood and metal scrap it's more than enough to get started. A refiner converts junk into handy materials, relatively quickly for the starting recipes and taking significantly longer the deeper into the tech tree it goes, and it's eventually joined by three other crafting machines you can set up that process their own types of materials. The Loomer does textiles, the Manufacturer creates components, and at the tail end of the game, the Processor makes food. And before getting in to how the crafting aspect of Lou's Island is completely let down by its ridiculously cramped inventory, the other major aspect is a platforming adventure.
Lou's Lagoon is divided up between four major areas, each one being a town set on an island with a decent amount of exploration needed to find all the goodies it holds. Your custom character is indestructible, taking no damage either from long falls or being whacked by pirates, so there's no reason to worry about exploring every inch of the archipelago. Starting off with a double-jump, aerial mobility is soon enhanced with a glider that, like the Swirler, needs upgrades so that it doesn't overheat when being used for too long. The islands are relatively intricate in their design, with plenty of areas to hide bonus chests holding extra cash or customization items, and without any path signposting it's up to the player to make their way to the goal pinpointed on the map.
It's a fun and lively world to explore, with plenty of characters kicking around everywhere needing various errands completed, ranging from delivering X number of Y item, rebuilding storefronts, decorating the interior, helping with a secret fishing spot, etc. The cast keeps you running everywhere, and it also helps that traveling between islands is done by plane. Lou's plane is now yours, and it's worth the time to explore the skies to pick up crates of goodies or fly through the ring challenges. None of it is overly difficult, and the game is incredibly likable overall, which is why it's so mystifying that the inventory system seems to go out of its way to make accomplishing the crafting goals so deeply unpleasant.
Lou's Lagoon is divided up between four major areas, each one being a town set on an island with a decent amount of exploration needed to find all the goodies it holds.
As a game with a focus on crafting, Lou's Lagoon has materials everywhere, ranging from fruit and nuts, the previously-mentioned scrap and driftwood, stone, fish scales, and other random bits and pieces. There's a lot to collect and plenty to craft with it, but the inventory is tiny at fifteen items or so and, while it grows to a bit over thirty spots by the end of the game, that's still far fewer slots than there are items to collect. The plane has a storage hold adding a bit to the total, and a helpful shopkeeper will buy anything you want to get rid of and hold on to it to sell it back for a small profit, but these systems aren't explained and are inadequate even if they had been.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://hardcoregamer.com/review-lous-lagoon/
