Lou’s Lagoon Switch 2 Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2
I’ve always loved the idea of a waterplane, and as you may already know, I’m a big fan of cozy adventure games, so when I heard about Lou’s Lagoon, I couldn’t wait to give it a go. But will it satisfy my cozy craving, or put me in a Tailspin? What’s it like? Put on your aviator goggles, pick up your Swirler, and prepare to fly as we review Lou’s Lagoon on Nintendo Switch 2.
Lou’s Island begins with a children’s story about how light and dark met and had two children, Wind and Wave. Wind and Wave were great friends, but when they quarrelled, they’d bring hurricanes and floods. Eventually, the two had a fight so big that Wind left. The tale ends with you on a tugboat in a huge storm, responding to an emergency call. In something of a switch-up, you immediately go into character creation, where you’ll find simple styles with enough variety that you’ll soon find a character you like. You arrive at Lou’s Lagoon and are greeted by Hefti, who tells you Lou has up and left and Lou’s delivery is in shambles. To progress any further, you are tasked with cleaning up the island using your Swirler. I found the Swirler mechanic somewhat of a non-event that seemed superfluous and time-consuming when picking up items from the ground, but handy for items placed higher up. You meet and greet the Islanders and are given small tasks to learn the game mechanics. Soon, you have done enough to fix Hefti’s plane and are able to take to the skies. This will have you flying your waterplane through air balloons to collect fruit and items, completing flying challenges that are progressively more challenging, and navigating to other islands to complete quests.
Early in the game, you are tasked with helping Bobster fix his radio tower, which unlocks Fidge, who will return to Lou’s Lagoon to open her lab back up, meaning you’ll be able to access the rest of your tools for shillings and materials. You have access to a refinery from the start, and these materials quickly become valuable when you unlock the Builder 1.0 and, shortly after that, a small building called the Manufacturer. Along the way, you will use these items to open up more areas and complete quests for the villagers, which will have you opening restaurants and clothing stores. Gameplay will have you fishing, collecting fruit, upgrading your plane, using your Swirler to collect materials, and turning them into usable items to unlock more access throughout your maps. It will also have you hunting for treasure chests, assisting characters to restore their shops and boats, and feeding giant krakens! There is even a section for designing yourself a home to live in, although I only got to touch on this gameplay mechanic a little bit, which I’ll explain later.
At times, the Island maps were arduous to navigate around, and I quite often found myself standing on the red quest marker with no idea what the heck they were looking for. Later, I would find ways to get where I needed to go, but it was really frustrating at times. In fact, quite often while trying to progress the game, I’d get blocked. For example, when attempting to complete the “Where Sunshine?” quest, although I had acquired the Scooper, unblocked the pipe, and had the water spout ready to carry me to the top to remove the goo, I couldn’t figure out how to ride the spout up. I must admit, I never figured out (even after Googling it), which you’ll understand later on when I go into the performance.
Lou’s Lagoon has a bright and vibrant island aesthetic, with interesting characters that have animal themes and a generally welcoming and happy vibe. Each island has its own little touches that help make the world feel inviting, and there is something genuinely enjoyable about flying around the map and seeing what you’ll discover next. The colourful environments, quirky characters and cheerful presentation all work together to create that cozy adventure feeling I was hoping for when I first started playing. Flying around the map is enjoyable as long as you avoid the giant ominous storm on the map, and I was engaged for quite a few hours. It’s such a shame, then, because for us, this bright and colourful world suddenly came to an end.
When it comes to performance and polish, this is unfortunately where Lou’s Lagoon really started to fall apart for me. I encountered a number of glitches throughout my playthrough, from seeing through cliff faces to getting stuck in the environment, and while the game does provide that “Help I’m stuck” option, having a dedicated escape button for getting trapped in the world doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in how polished the experience is. The bigger problem, however, came when I reached Gleam Island. After being instructed to return to Lou’s Lagoon to get the Glider, I found myself completely unable to continue. Every attempt to fly back into Lou’s Lagoon resulted in a loading screen followed by a hard crash. I tried leaving the area, completing flying challenges, saving elsewhere and then returning, but nothing worked. Eventually, I reached the point where I simply couldn’t progress any further.
A visual glitch is one thing, but when a crash prevents you from accessing an area required to progress the story, and the main hub no less, it effectively brings your playthrough to an end. In my case, that meant I couldn’t finish the game. We reached out to the publisher regarding the issues I encountered, and they acknowledged the problems; the developer is aware and hopefully working on a fix. There are also public reports from other players experiencing progression-related issues, although I couldn’t verify that those reports are the same issue I encountered on Nintendo Switch 2. It’s particularly frustrating because, despite its flaws, I was enjoying what Lou’s Lagoon was offering before these problems brought my playthrough to a premature end. The colourful world, flying and cozy adventure elements had me invested, but eventually the technical issues became impossible to overlook. For me, that’s the biggest problem with Lou’s Lagoon’s performance and polish: it’s not simply that the game has bugs, but that those bugs can potentially prevent you from playing the game at all.
For my aviators looking into accessibility options, there aren’t any, and the game does have epilepsy warnings at the start. You can really only adjust your controls for flight by inverting your X and Y axis directions where applicable. At just under $38 AUD for the digital version, Lou’s Lagoon would have been fairly affordable, if it actually worked. Noting here that a physical version has been confirmed; however, there are no further details yet.
It’s a real shame that Lou’s Lagoon has these issues, because underneath the glitches and progression problems is a bright, colourful, cozy adventure that has the potential to really soar. With a future update, Lou’s Lagoon could spread its wings and become the charming adventure it clearly wants to be, but right now, our progression lock left us with only two options: restart from scratch, or crash land.
So what’s it like? Lou’s Lagoon is like Summer in Mara crossed with Tale Spin.
In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this doesn’t influence my score.
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