Yoshi blasts onto the Nintendo Wii U this week with Yoshi’s Woolley World. It’s a pleasant platformer that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but does bring a challenge when the time calls for it. Does the world need another platformer? In my humble opinion there is always room at the table for a good platformer. Brought up in an old school environment, the most memorable games I played as a kid were the platformers. To tell you a secret, they’re still played in my household — that’s how memorable they are to me.
Anyway, wrapped up in a wool overcoat of visuals, Yoshi’s Woolley World does a good job of keeping things simple and tries not to stray outside the bounds of a typical Mario platformer construct. From the outside, the worlds Yoshi travels are structured exactly like every Mario platformer title, even including a second world desert area. Even though the stages are wool themed, if you squint and pull yourself back a bit, you’re still going to find that same type of side-scrolling action you’re used to seeing in a Nintendo platformer. You’re going to find the hidden areas of levels that are somewhat obvious (and sometimes not) and you’re going to find yourself fighting bosses that become gradually difficult from stage area to stage area. Again, it’s the same formula of entertainment that made previous Nintendo platformers fun and exciting.
The controls, while unique, aren’t too different from what we’re used to seeing in a typical Mario title. You fight off enemies through simplistic measures (jumping on them, snatching the wool from them with your tongue — not typical, but the intention of the action is typical— and avoiding them). If Yoshi should acquire wool from a character via tongue unraveling, then he can produce a wool ball that can be shot and used to solve puzzles, acquire items or take care of enemies. It’s nothing too complicated in the scheme of things, even though it did take a little bit for me to get used to the controls of the game.
Getting back to collection, you collect material to earn a certain level of points that will feed the completionist inside of you. The collection part is a huge draw to the game, as it should be, and usually is in platformers nowadays. You pick up gems to score stamp icons, acquire yarn bonbons (yeah, they’re called that — had to google it) and smiley daisies; each one opens up new options and rewards, if completed, and it’s no easy feat to acquire them sometimes.
Overall, though, all of this, outside of the wool wrapper, is essentially the same gameplay design you’ve seen before from a Nintendo platformer. Super Mario World did this sort of thing back during the launch days of the Super Nintendo. Even Super Mario 64 and the Galaxy games maintained this sort of formula to make their games compelling. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that gameplay design, as it has worked over the years, but Yoshi’s Woolley World seemed like it was going to take some chances outside of the formula. It did to an extent, but not enough to separate it from the usual.
Having said that, not all of the game is the same as previous platformers. What Woolley World tries to do different is throw in a bit more puzzle heavy challenges to players, mixing up the expected formula just a bit. It also does a great job with expanding and encouraging the adventure to go on long after it should have been over through the inclusion of a home for Yoshi to hang out in and through the acquisition of more Yoshi Amiibo characters to play with through the adventure.
The challenges are interesting, as some range from incredibly easy, while others are downright hard. For example, at the beginning of the game you’re mostly on a search/destroy/unravel mission, where you’re just trying to find hidden areas and collect enough gems to open up new goodies. The game doesn’t show its hand at all when it comes to keeping things hidden from you, which is part of the challenge early on, but through small challenges such as destroying enemies (every possible one), you’re trained that hidden items and pertinent material can be simply acquired through easy actions. In short, finding objects and keeping a keen eye open is how challenges start in Yoshi’s Woolley World.
Other times, the game will require you to slow down and have to work things out, which makes the game incredibly less than platformer-y. Anytime you stray away from what works, you’re taking a chance, which sometimes works really well, and sometimes doesn’t. A chance is certainly taken with the harder challenges. For example, there is a level where you have to guide two chomps onto two separate buttons to unlock a door. When your wrap the chomps up in wool, you can roll them from point A to point B. Sometimes this level will require you to unwrap the chomps, which makes them angry and dangerous, but that is also part of the challenge. The challenge to get them in their spots is more than frustrating (my poor wife, bless her heart, threw out so many obscenities during this level that I had to close the door) and the gameplay slow down really hurts the flow a bit. Don’t get me wrong, challenges are fantastic, but when they ruin the flow of the game, especially a platformer, that’s never a good thing. The idea of a platformer is to make the gameplay into quick bursts of fun and challenges, while avoiding discouraging the player from continuing. Anyway, the harder challenges sometimes work really well, but sometimes don’t, as they can make the game un-fun quickly.
Now, as you complete challenges in the game, you reap rewards along the way (sometimes they’re on the side from the challenges themselves). The rewards, as stated above, come through collecting three main items: stamps, daisies and bonbons. How those are found come in a variety of ways. Sometimes they’re hidden in areas that Yoshi needs to unravel (literally Yoshi unravels a loose string with his tongue to reveal an area), sometimes its question-mark clouds (Yoshi can shoot these with his ball of yarn) and sometimes there are some hidden question-mark clouds that can only be revealed by taking down enemies. It’s nothing too difficult and it encourages exploration through the levels. Anytime you can encourage your gamers to explore levels, that’s a good thing.
Speaking of levels, one huge plus for this game is the level design. Like previously mentioned, Yoshi’s Woolley World’s basic construct is that of a typical platformer, sometimes literally down to the platforms. The levels are creative as can be, though, as they can remind us of how good Nintendo’s development teams can be when they want to be. For example, there is a great level where Yoshi weaves back and forth through caged walls that emulate a dual 3D platforming environment. This is clear homage to Super Mario World’s cage climbing spectacle (still love that level). Outside of the cage level, there is a level in the desert area, right from the beginning of the area, where Yoshi is walking along a wavy piece of cloth that has different sizes of waviness. Depending on how high the waves are and what areas you can reach, there is a lot of fun to be had with this level. It’s also quite simple, which is what makes it remarkable and interesting. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to bring a large amount of interest and intrigue into a platformer level. Anyway, the level design in Yoshi’s Woolley World is probably its strong point and that’s a great thing to have as a strong point when you’re trying to keep things interesting.
In terms of presentation, the visuals are fun and stunning for Yoshi’s Woolley World. The entire theme of wool, strings and bonbons is very well done and consistent. This is a pretty game, folks. It excels in a lot of solid areas in visuals and reminds us that the Nintendo Wii U still has some sparkle in its shine. The textures, background, foreground and character models are creatively put together and work well within the world built for them. A couple of E3 shows ago, when they showed off the title, it looked solid then and it looks just as good now. Everything is so alive in the game and the tiniest wool details, such as a hanging string to pull or maybe a patterned chomp that comes in various colors, make the visuals just feel special.
In addition to the visuals, the audio is probably the cutest audio ever made in a game. Yoshi’s grunts, quips and small beeps/boops make for an audibly entertaining time. Again, probably cutest ever.
Onto the summary.
