Reviewed: May 22, 2008
Reviewed by: Jeff Gedgaud
Publisher
Konami
Developer
Konami
Released: March 20, 2008
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1-4
6
6
4
3
4.8
Supported Features
Lost in Blue 3 is the third simulation game from Konami with you and fellow cruise ship sinking survivors trying their best to scrounge a living on a deserted island with a secret lab. If this plot sounds familiar, the similarity ends with the island survivors and lab, there is not much action or adventure here.
While the story may not be original or even very inventive the gameplay and graphics are pretty good but the games quality just about ends there. Lost in Blue 3 gives you a good complex survival sim using one of four characters playable from the start but you have too much to do for one person and not enough time in the day.
To get anywhere in Lost in Blue 3 you will have to spend most of your day running around the island playing fetch just to keep yourself and your deserted friends alive. While this may be a bit more realistic it detracts from being able to spend more of a regular day getting what you need and less just holding hands with your cave mates to lead them to water.
I spent the first few days of Lost in Blue 3 with a girl who also was on the cruise ship that sank not getting used to the unique gameplay features such as blowing on the glowing embers to start a fire but in leading my wayward fellow survivors to the river for water every day. If I took her with me by holding her hand she would follow me puppy dog style around but then I would have to feed and make sure she rested enough.
If I left her in the cave I did not have to worry about feeding her as much as I could easily eat coconuts and get by but I figured out no way to get her to eat anything but cooked food. During the day you could cook by cutting up items you choose and found around the island or you could have her cook for the both of you but you had to stay at the cave and tell her to cook.
This dilemma of dragging along or leaving behind the other characters that pop into your life is a bad way to run a survival camp. The game is not all that interesting or engaging but it does work and works very well. They have done some unique game play events in things like cooking, making tools, furniture and just everyday things like searching for stuff that is buried.
But the game is just not that interesting and does not get much better the further into the rather short story you go. Yes, there is a lab somewhere on the island but there is not much there and answers are not all that unique or revealing to the plot of the game. Basically you are in for a long time of surviving on a small deserted island by roaming around gathering items and food and figuring out how to build things.
Lost in Blue 3 uses the two screen situation of the DS to great advantage and you will be able to use both most of the time. Sometimes you can use the top as a map of your world while your wandering around and others will have your backpack on one and your choice menu for cooking on the other.
The characters look really good and the entire land and world is well done but there is a definite openness to the area you are in. The beach area where you start the game has a total of about ten palm trees and there are about six other trees to get twigs for your fire from. There may be about twenty plants in the entire area to get some food and spices from but that is it in an area that should have a forest and hold hundreds of trees.
The game has done really well with the mini games or puzzles of making items like a fire starter out of a stick and piece of bark or further along the bow you will use to hunt and make fire with. They do have varying weather as well in the game but it is kind of laughable for the rain as a few drops will splatter the ground but the screen is a bit darker on those rainy days.
I will say this once and move quickly on, the sound was a monotonous tune played throughout the game with no other sound effects at all. The tuned varied depending if you were in a menu or in the regular world but there was nothing else for audio.
Doing all the survival things would not take as long if you didn’t have to hold the hands of the people stranded with you. Finding others on the island only means more mouths to feed and you have to do it, they will not do anything on their own except feed wood to the fire.
The entire game will be spent keeping not yourself alive but in feeding and watering the others like they’re pets and not free thinking individuals who can walk across a room and get a drink themselves. This is one part of the game that really fails and should have been a major portion; if you have water in the cave the others there will not drink it until you are with them. The same thing with food you can store in the cave, they won’t touch it until you tell them.
I really can’t see much excitement in the multiplayer games that consist of a cooking challenge or one of three of the mini games or puzzles like the fire starting. Value here is really dependent on whether you like these sim survival games and can face day after day of leading the other survivors around all day long.
I am pretty disappointed in Lost in Blue 3 as I think there really could have been a decent game here. The survival puzzles and mini games are well done and uniquely put together and the world with its graphics is pretty good if a bit sparse. The excitement is lost having to lead your fellow stranded mates around constantly and having to do almost everything for them yourself.
If it were not for having to spend so much of your valuable time doing everything for the other three people you’re saddled with Lost in Blue 3 could have been good. As it is Lost in Blue 3 is a very acquired taste and I’m not talking fancy recipes.