When our main character was a young child, their uncle Lou would often read them a bedtime story about how Light and Dark fell in love. They would create two children, wind and water, who did love each other but would often get into fights. Whenever they fought, huge storms would erupt across the world, until the two siblings made up again. This might seem like an inconsequential detail at first, but it soon becomes clear playing Lou’s Lagoon that there’s more to this story than it would first seem.
At the start of the game, we arrive on Lou’s island, where he runs a delivery service by seaplane, except that he’s nowhere to be found. The island is in shambles after a huge storm tore through it and the rest of the archipelago. Apparently, Lou took off during the storm and hasn’t been heard from since. Now, his friends remain behind, wondering what happened to him, while also needing help to get the business running again.
Luckily, our main character, who is very much customisable when it comes to their identity and look, knows how to fly a plane and is ready to take on this responsibility. They set out to help the surrounding islands recover from the storm, which still rages around the entire archipelago, all the while looking for clues on where their uncle might have gone. To do so, you will be doing fetch quests for an adorable cast of characters. Back on Lou’s island, you can build machines to help you transform resources into the items the islanders need, which you can then transport using your plane.
There’s a lot of variety on offer with how your fetch quests help out. This goes from crafting furniture for a restaurant as you try to rebuild the central town of Tangle Bloom to getting rid of goo that’s claiming the island of Gleam Reef and ultimately even helping the crab that carries the island of Boulderia escape the chains which have been placed upon them. Lou’s Lagoon very much feels like an adventure in the same way Saturday morning cartoons did back when we were kids.
The game feels very welcoming to players of all ages as well, with there being no fall damage, barely any combat, and a wholesome story that also features pirates! Gameplay feels very smooth, with all of your interactions with the world of the game happening through your Swirler, a tool which helps you collect items of all sorts but also transforms into a building tool, a glider, a fishing rod, and even an underground scanner. It really does help having an inventor as one of your friends, apparently.
The Swirler feels incredible to use. It tags onto the items you’re aiming at very easily, although it can be a little too eager to auto-aim, causing me to target animals (for their wool or sap, not to kill them) and in turn seeing me get attacked by said creatures. But still, it’s one of the biggest highlights of the game. Flying the plane is another one, with it feeling very intuitive, and the archipelago looking lovely as you soar through the air. Sadly though, the area you can fly around in is quite limited, and taking off and landing happens through cutscenes rather than doing it yourself. In a game where traversal is so important, it can get a little annoying to watch that landing sequence over and over again.
That’s not where the annoyances end either. Crafting items takes time, as is usual for a game like this, but here it can take a lot of time. More than necessary, really. Just like some of many, many side quests you go on, the time it takes to craft items can feel a bit like padding the game’s length. Especially as there are moments where you can’t really progress to make some money to upgrade your Swirler, so you’re just crafting things and selling them, playing the waiting game more often than not.
Pacing is another thing that the game struggles with. For a game all about the disappearance of your uncle, you’ll be spending a lot of time off his trail, as you’re busy doing other quests. You’re forced into this as you need to both unlock items to craft and earn enough money. Often it’s not even clear why you can’t continue with your main mission or your side quests, as you’re missing a resource which you have no idea how or where to acquire. I didn’t even get to complete my playthrough of the game for this review, as I’m stuck looking for an item using the underground scanner, and for the life of me I cannot find it within the area it’s supposed to be. I’ve tried upgrading my scanner, I’ve gone beyond the limits of the area, I’ve combed through the section over and over again, and I’m just stuck. There is still an upgrade available for the scanner, which might help, but that involves earning even more money and collecting even more resources, and I do need to get this review out sometime.
I also got lost trying to figure out the correct sequence to play this game in. As every island is available to visit from the start, I ended up clearing a lot of missions I was supposed to encounter much later on in the game, causing the story’s pacing to falter once again. Maybe I could have caught on a bit sooner, but the game could have been a bit clearer on this as well.
And lastly, storage is incredibly infuriating here. You’re constantly (and I do mean constantly) running out of space for the items you carry around. Items can be transferred to your plane, but those spaces are limited and never get expanded. Your personal storage does upgrade, but only with one slot at a time, which is agonisingly slow considering how many things you need to craft.
I do feel bad having to point out so many negatives in a review, because underneath it all, there is very much a game to love here, with a lot of heart having clearly gone into it. The character designs are delightful, the writing is both fun and funny, and you really do feel like you’re part of one of those cartoons I mentioned earlier. I just wish I hadn’t had as many frustrations as I encountered while playing this.
