Yoshi's Woolly World first thoughts

Just got the game yesterday. I actually was intending to buy the hard copy of Shovel Knight but I was a day too early, so I settled for this. I haven't played much, just the first world, so I don't have too much to say yet, but here's my review of what I've seen thus far.

I was never really behind the idea of pretending Yoshi has his own separate series. He was a power up in Mario World who quickly became so popular he spawned several puzzle games, as well as other strange spin-off games like Yoshi's Safari, all of which still starred Mario as the main playable character. The actual "Yoshi series" seemed to start with Yoshi's Island on SNES. This was the first time players assumed the role of Yoshi and his fellow dino-buddies in a full-length platformer. It was, however, still a Mario game. Almost all the enemies were Mario enemies, or inspired by them, the story was involved with the Mario world, and it even had Mario, Luigi, and Bowser in it. It served as a bizarre retelling of the SMB origin story that we all knew and loved. No longer did Mario and Luigi, plumbers from Brooklyn NY, get sucked down a pipe that led them to the Mushroom Kingdom. No, now there's no explanation as to why they're Italian, plumbers, or even humans for that matter. Now, Mario was lost as a baby due to a Magikoopa named Kamek, who would become a series main stayer after that, and who'd also have to be old as hell by this point. Kamek tried to destroy them before they could grow up and become trouble for the future King Bowser, as he sees the future with his magic. Mario's discovered by dinosaurs who run an insane fun-house of a world to reunite the brothers and bring them back to their... mushroom parents??? The story sucks. People say the original one was ridiculous, but, really? This one is better? Is the Yoshi Mario and Luigi meet at the beginning of SMW the same one that saved them? Did he forget them? Did he die and this is a new one? It's a mess, but, Nintendo's seemed to keep this as their story ever since.

As a game, though, Yoshi's Island was great. It was a big, lengthy quest with great controls, interesting physics, crayon-like graphics to follow the baby theme of the game, great music, and technical/graphical advancements that pushed the SNES to its pure limits. Despite liking the game a lot, I do have several major complaints with it, namely the fact that the levels are built far more around finding secret items than actual platforming, there are way too many items to find in each stage, and it seemed to really kick-off the trend of platformers being nothing but item hunts. There have been several sequels, like Yoshi's Story on N64, where they tried something different and, wow, I hate that game, or Yoshi's Island DS (thought it was just a port of the SNES one for years due to the awful title) which pretty much tried nothing new and ended up being mediocre at best. Not a bad game by any means. The different baby idea was pretty full of potential, but it ultimately just felt like a YI SNES hack. That's how the Yoshi series goes. It just feels like YI for SNES over and over again. I even played a little Yoshi's New Island for 3DS, and, yep, same damn thing. I feel Yoshi's Island was a good one time spin off, probably mostly due to the odd formula. Yoshi doesn't have the ability to hold his own as well as Wario in my mind. Wario instantly began to get games completely separate from Mario's world and physics. Between the Wario Land series (funny enough, derived from a Mario game) and the WarioWare series, he's got enough unique flavor and replay value to keep his series afloat forever (although Nintendo seems to have killed his series off after the flop that was Game & Wario). Yoshi's games just seem too much more cut and paste, and too dependent on the Mario world to exist.

So, let me just dive into Woolly World already. The graphics are very cool looking, and the game's super cute, even though it is sort of a random idea, and kind of just a redo of Kirby's Epic Yarn. I must say, the effects do look far superior in Woolly World than those in Epic Yarn, but Epic Yarn was more of a flat, quilt-like world, while Woolly World is more of a 3D plushy kind of world. The music matches the gentle charm of the game, but isn't terribly interesting for the most part. Often times I can barely hear it. It's also better than Epic Yarn because, well, it's actually a game. Kirby couldn't even die in Epic Yarn. There was no way to lose the game, thus no real reason to play the game. I assume you can die in Woolly World if you run out of hearts, replacing the stars from the SNES, though the game has been pitifully easy so far, I haven't seen it happen yet. Unfortunately, just like the SNES Yoshi's Island, this game is ALL ABOUT collecting hidden items. Levels are empty, easy, simplistic nothings that you just roam through, checking every nook and cranny for the same beads/jewels from Epic Yarn, stamp beads, yarn bundles to make more Yoshi skins to play as, flowers, or hearts. I know there must be a huge audience for platformers like this, as 95% of the platformers that have come out since 1997 have been built in this fashion, but I find it dull and redundant. I don't feel like I'm being challenged, nor do I feel any satisfaction for clearing levels. Why even have a linear level choice? The only purpose they serve is to house secret items. If you just clear it and don't find any items, then you didn't really clear it. You won't experience the whole game unless you stop and check every spot of every stage for secret items. Clearing the stages ultimately is not the real goal of the game. Games like this just seem like chores. You can never just concentrate on beating the level and playing the game, because if you do, you'll be skipping several essential items, and in games like this, you constantly have to worry that you might be missing something. And as stated before, if you don't bother with the items the game is piss easy and has nothing to offer at all, so you might as well collect what you can.

The game really didn't seem to improve any of the things I found to be flaws in the original Yoshi's Island, yet, seemed to make them worse. It's not a bad game, just not something I'm terribly into myself. I'll probably finish it, but I may not revisit it for looong time.