Lou’s Lagoon PlayStation 5 Review "A few patches away from being a recommended title" 🌴

The newest release from German developer Tiny Roar (Verdant, XEL, Into The Emberlands), Lou’s Lagoon is a charming adventure game that features both ground-based and aerial exploration tied to a simple narrative that is combat-free and suitable for all ages. Whilst it makes a solid first impression, technical difficulties do raise their head and can have serious, game-breaking ramifications, if my experience is anything to go by.

A storm has been blighting the Limbo Archipelago, the last place that your much-loved – and very missing - uncle Lou was seen. Arriving at the archipelago, the game begins as you meet the denizens of the islands and begin tracking down your uncle, assisting the many folks that inhabit the islands as you go.

With bright visuals that call Fortnite to mind, the world of Lou’s Lagoon is a very pretty one, and whilst the game doesn’t feature full voice acting, the characters do have a charm that comes through in the written text, which is tied to a lilting, gentle soundtrack that has some golden, melodic moments that stick in the mind.

Whilst you do spend some time in the air, travelling between the islands (your plane will bounce harmlessly off anything you hit, so there’s no danger of crashing), the vast majority of your time is spent working your way through the in-game crafting tree so that you can get stronger materials to assist the citizens with their various builds and repair requirements. On the side, you can also build up your own home using the driftwood and scrap parts dotted around the islands, sucked up with your trusty Swirler 200, a tool used for both collecting and building that – as with the various other tools you’ll uncover – is upgradeable. I had a really fun time with Lou’s Lagoon for the first few hours, and my five-year-old son was also invested in the world, upgrading the seaplane and jazzing up our house... but it was at this point that the cracks unfortunately started to show.

Lou’s Lagoon has some design philosophies that seem to work against the strengths of the game, from the grind involved in crafting through to the relative openness of the game making progress a slightly confusing affair. For instance, the main quest line at one point requires a glider, but to get a glider you need a certain material, but you need your Swirler 2000 upgraded to mine the material thst you need...but first, you need to do something else to unlock etc. etc. I started to drift off into some side quests to see if I could get ahead concerning the materials I may need down the line – no easy feat when you are constantly struggling with your limited inventory space – when I started to get technical issues popping up. 

It began with getting stuck in the scenery (luckily, there’s a button in the menu to reset your character), and then textures were not loading in properly, resulting in my character getting stuck in the ground textures and requiring a reload. 

These were minor irritants, but what unfortunately brought my time with Lou’s Lagoon to a grinding halt though, was after completing a series of challenges for the wonderfully named ‘Benoit De Bon Air’, the game hard-crashed to my PS5 home screen every time I tried to land anywhere, meaning all I could do was potter around the skies looking for some crates of the in-game currency, Shellings.

SUMMARY
There’s a lot to enjoy here, especially for those looking for a cosy aerial adventure, or those playing with children, etc., but this is a few patches away from being a recommended title, and it’s a real shame because of it.

6/10

💧MELTING💧

(also available on PC, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch & Switch 2)

Developer – Tiny Roar

Publisher – Megabit Publishing