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Yoshi's Woolly World
Wii U
In Ur Collect-a-Thon, Collectin’ Ur Secrets
4/5 stars
“Yoshi’s Woolly World” (“YWW”) is the WiiU entry in the venerable ‘Yoshi’ franchise that was originally marketed as a “Super Mario World” spinoff, but ultimately was its own franchise with its own continuity and its own special mechanics. “YWW” is also the second game in a long-running Nintendo franchise to get an arts-and-crafts makeover treatment, following “Kirby’s Epic Yarn” on the original Wii.
Presentation
Like “Kirby’s Epic Yarn,” everything in the titular world of the latest ‘Yoshi’ game is literally woolly. The entire game world is highly skeuomorphic in imitation of fabric, beads, sequins, and especially yarn. Unlike “Kirby’s Epic Yarn,” “YWW” is an HD game, so all of these fancy visuals really pop… but unfortunately there are still a few noticeable jaggies for those who are sensitive to them.
The soundtrack is less of a departure from standard ‘Yoshi’ fare. It features a number of catchy tunes and jingles that mesh well with the overall happy vibe of the game.
Technically, “YWW” is pretty solid, except for one major annoyance: Load times. They are incredibly long, and the loading screens are populated with inane scribbles pulled off the game’s Miiverse.
One area I was prepared to ream the game was its use of Amiibos. The plush Yoshi Amiibos are heavily advertised on a loading screen every time the game is booted up, and I had heard ahead of time that having at least one plush Yoshi Amiibo was necessary to unlock multi-player coop mode. This is not actually the case, as the only coop unlocked via Amiibo is a CPU-controlled companion that I never actually used, despite having the plush Green Yoshi Amiibo from a bundled edition of the game.
Story
“YWW” takes place in the same timeline as the rest of the ‘Mario Babyverse,’ with Baby Bowser and his pedagogue, Kamek the Magikoopa, causing trouble. Of course, this is an alternate Yarnified version of the Babyverse, and Baby Mario is (thankfully) nowhere to be found.
Instead of the typical fight between Good Babies and Bad Babies, the conflict in “YWW” revolves around Kamek swooping into Yoshi Village and deconstructing all of the Yoshis into their component yarn, stuffing it into a bag, and flying off. Of course, Kamek, in his haste, missed one Yoshi, which is the one controlled by the player. As Kamek travels back to Bowser Castle, not only does he take the longest possible route, but his bag constantly dribbles skeins of yarn, which our Hero Yoshi can gather and knit back together into his friends.
As far as kid-friendly Nintendo platformer stories go, “YWW’s” is pretty good, despite glossing over the whole Yarniverse thing, and despite its lack of substance and plethora of predictability.
Gameplay
“YWW” is a 2D Platformer of the Collect-a-Thon tradition. That right there should be enough to determine whether or not a given gamer will appreciate it for what it is. Taking place over 6 worlds with 9 stages each, “YWW” tasks the player with collecting 5 Sunflowers, 5 Yarn Skeins, and 20 Miiverse Stamps in each stage, as well as completing each stage with full health. The Stamps are apparently their own reward, while the Skeins unlock new costume skins for Yoshi and the Sunflowers are required to unlock extra stages. Simply burning through the stages would go incredibly quickly were it not for the Collect-a-Thon portion of the game.
“YWW” is a fairly straight-forward ‘Yoshi’ game with regard to its basic mechanics. Yoshi can eat enemies and convert them into yarn balls (instead of eggs), which can be used as projectiles. He can also do his traditional flutter-jump to gain hang-time, however in “YWW” the flutter-jump can be used over and over in mid-air, essentially allowing Yoshi to fly (poorly) while losing a smidgen of altitude over time.
“YWW” features a wide spread of difficulty, with some stages being fall-off-a-log easy and others requiring perfection. Nintendo also built-in a couple of help systems for younger players or those without years of platforming experience. First, the player can activate Mellow Mode whenever they want, which provides Yoshi with wings. Second, the game incorporated a system of Power Badges, which can grant Yoshi a power-up for the duration of a stage.
The Power Badge system is actually incredibly well-done, and seems to be almost mandatory for certain evilly-designed stages. As the player completes stages, more and more Power Badges become available to choose from, ranging from immunity to bottomless pits, to immunity to fire, to magnetism that attracts collectables toward Yoshi from a distance. Each Badge does, however, have an associated cost in Beads, which are the ubiquitous pickup that stands-in for Coins in the Yarniverse. At random times, the game does allow the player to pick any Power Badge for free, but in most cases, a player that heavily abuses Power Badges might risk running out of Beads to pay for them.
One Power Badge in particular seems essential in EVERY stage: See Hidden Items. “YWW” has a very unfortunately designed method of revealing secrets, in that Yoshi must actually touch a space where a secret is hidden in order to make it appear. This naturally leads to a lot of random jumping around in an attempt to rub Yoshi’s body over every inch of every stage, and gets old very quickly.
Overall
“Yoshi’s Woolly World” is a solid 2D Platformer and a very nice entry into the ‘Yoshi’ franchise, mainly due to the absence of the Mario Babies. The game is, however, a Collect-a-Thon at its core, with annoying-to-find secrets that drag down the pacing significantly. It’s no system seller, by any means, but its ability to appeal to a broad skill range of platforming fans makes “YWW” a worthwhile purchase.
Presentation: 4.5/5
Story: 3.5/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Overall (not an average): 4/5
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