Whenever a new Yoshi game comes out, the only sensible question is “Is this a worthy successor to Yoshi’s Island?”. This time the answer is: yeah, probably.
It certainly feels like a Yoshi’s Island game. The mechanics in this game are either taken from YI, or seem to arise naturally as a consequence of everything being made out of crafted materials. It creates a mix of warm nostalgia and appreciation of clever new ideas. The game also looks amazing, with everything being knitted, felted, woven, or what have you, as well as incorporating buttons, knitting needles, etc.
It’s not all good news though. The health system is a more basic health point thing like Yoshi’s Story. I’ve seen a lot of baby backlash, ie. “I’m glad that annoying Baby Mario isn’t in this one.” That’s WRONG. The babies are great, they tie gameplay and story together in a meaningful way and provide motivation and a unique mechanics. That being said, the more streamlined system is more conducive to co-op and there’s circumstances where your partner acts something like a baby. The game is also devoid of story in that irritating Nintendo way; especially disappointing because its developmental predecessor Kirby’s Epic Yarn is entirely justified in-universe and coheres with the other Kirby games. This game hangs in an obscure plot void, its connection to other Yoshi or Mario games unclear.
Also the music is a very mixed bag. It frequently changes genre but it’s often boring. It sucks because Yoshi’s Island got so much right including story and music, but this game falls short of fulfilling every aspect despite its promise.
But enough fanboy whining. This is one of the most accomplished 2D platformers in the last few years, which is saying a lot when DKC Tropical Freeze and Rayman Legends are still current. Here’s one of my typical short praise lists: good controls, good level designs, amazing looks. To be more specific, it always feels like you’re doing something different in a level: you’ve got your normal left-to-right but also ascending, finding your way through a maze-like cavern, managing a Chomp Rock, not to mention the transformations. I found myself saying this a lot about different things in the game: it’s just like Yoshi’s Island (and that’s a good thing!).
And the game has Poochy! Always a plus (along with other things that caused me to spontaneously exclaim with excitement). You can even use him anytime with the badge system, but he’s not always useful depending on the level. And he doesn’t come to bosses with you. Boss battles are usually a highlight for Yoshi games; these are good, but the mid-bosses can be a little bit simplistic and I got irrationally angry over the re-use of said midbosses: you fight the same two 3 times each. It’s maddening that they would just drop the originality ball and let it roll under the fridge like that. Ok that analogy got away from me but the other bosses are quite good.
Since I played this totally in the company of my lovely wife, the co-op experience must be addressed. It’s great! The game is friendly and has concessions for new players, to the point where she remarked that this was the first ever platformer that she actually enjoyed. The co-op mechanics themselves are fair—as long as one player survives, they can revive the other as normal (and no life counter, thank goodness!) but you may find it quick to cut one player off when scrolled off screen. The amiibo implementation seems like a hack job, adding a simple clone into the co-op framework.
I feel like as with Tropical Freeze my high expectations for this game caused me to be overly nitpicky. But at least some of my criticisms are valid, or I think so anyway. Woolly World could have been even better than it was but for some fairly fundamental choices, but it’s still the best Yoshi game since Yoshi’s Island, which is all any Yoshi game could hope for.
