Roll up folks, here’s another video game from one of Nintendo’s most popular characters, Yoshi! You would think that Nintendo has their work cut out making new 2D platformer games for Mario & Co, but here is a prime example that Nintendo are still pioneers of that particular video game genre.
The first hour playing Yoshi’s Woolly World was just me observing every little detail, especially the items made of yarn. There were so many instances when I’d just stop playing and go “Awwww” or even ask myself whether the fabric I was looking at was real. The high definition graphics really shine through. It’s therefore one of the most beautifully looking games I can remember playing in a long while.
The games animations are just as cute, especially when you move Yoshi in one direction for a continuous amount of time and his feet turn into wheels made of yarn. The music and sounds are brilliant too. Wouldn’t seem out of place even on the Cbeebies channel!
I highly recommend that if you choose to buy the game, make sure you get the edition that comes with a Woolly Yoshi amiibo. Amazingly the figure is made entirely of wool, which is quite a contrast to the hard plastic of other amiibo characters. The woolly amiibo still has the same NFC technology built into the bottom, and when you scan your character onto the WiiU gamepad, you gain an extra Yoshi on screen (perfect for those who are playing solo).
The story starts off by introducing players to a knitted world filled with various different patterned Yoshis, then the evil wizard Kamek flies in on his broomstick, uses his wand to turn the majority of woolly Yoshis into bundles of yarn and scatters them across the 5 available worlds. Fortunately two surviving Yoshis are tasked with exploring these levels in order to knit the family back together.
There are many things to like about Yoshi’s Woolly World, like the biggest plus for the girls is that you can turn the difficulty to mellow mode, which gave them the advantage of being able to jump and fly to different ledges. Unlike previous Yoshi games, instead of swallowing your enemies and turning them into eggs for throwing, you now turn them into balls of yarn.
Also, throughout the levels you can collect beads, which in turn can be spent on Power Badges. As you progress through the game you unlock more badges and they can be used to do things such as make all yarn balls big or recover from bottomless pits. Again these are features that make the experience all the more enjoyable for my two little gamers.
It’s a little disappointing that the game is only 2 player co-op, as I would really have enjoyed the girls and I being able to all play at once. A bit like in Super Mario 3D World. Nevertheless, I’ve found myself the comfortable role of stepping in whenever Elizabeth or Alison find a level too difficult.
Yoshi’s Woolly World is available from most game retailers at around the £30.00 mark. There also a digital version available to download from the Nintendo eShop, which costs £39.99 and requires just over 7GB of free space on your hard drive.