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March 29, 2019 8:21 AM   Subscribe

Yoshi's Crafted World: New Look, Same Yoshi [Game Informer] “Yoshi's Crafted World casts you as Mario's colorful dino friends in a cute adventure that sees the prehistoric crew running, jumping, and turning enemies into eggs. This time, the adventure brings the Yoshis across crafty renditions of themed worlds including beaches, deserts, haunted mansions, and even outer space.” [YouTube][Game Trailer]

• Yoshi’s Crafted World on the Switch is impossibly charming [The Verge]
“Much like its predecessor, Yoshi’s Woolly World, Yoshi’s Crafted World is a satisfying, if not particularly inventive, take on the Nintendo-style platformer. Don’t go in expecting Super Mario Odyssey-level creativity. But the game makes up for this through sheer charm. Yoshi and the rest of the characters are cuddly stuffed animals, complete with fuzzy exteriors, while the levels you’ll traverse look like they were made by an especially artistic eight-year-old. You’ll ride on trains made of cardboard, slip into discarded milk bottles to find coins, wear dinosaur skulls made out of clay, and use magnets to climb old aluminum cans. The new Yoshi is far from the first game to utilize this aesthetic, but what sets it apart is the attention to detail. This is a game where texture matters.”
• Yoshi’s Crafted World wants to be the Nintendo Labo of side-scrollers [Polygon]
“Nintendo creatives clearly treasure the latter possibilities. The company’s latest title, Yoshi’s Crafted World, adapts Labo’s follow-the-instructions experience to actual gameplay, constructing a paint-by-numbers platformer out of cardboard, woodwork, bamboo, and washi paper. The DIY art direction beams with card-cut clouds, hand-painted backdrops, and vehicles made of the contents of a junk drawer, and ultimately permeates the logic of each level’s puzzles. Like an Ikea build, a player can do a mostly good job — collect some sunflowers, find a prized red coin or two, move on to the next stage, “win” — but the scolding power of Crafted World’s pre-level instructions and post-level scorecard guilt me into perfectionism. For some, it’ll feel like a chore; to others, a provoking challenge of adulthood. For kids, Yoshi’s Crafted World may even be educational.”
• Yoshi's Crafted World: My Heart Melted [Kotaku]
“Sweet and competent though they were, there was something missing from the earlier sidescrollers from longtime Nintendo partner studio Good-Feel, Yoshi’s Woolly World and Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Their presentation was faultless, with their knitted adversaries, sewn-together scenery and cute yarn gimmicks, but their design was conservative; after a couple of hours, you’d seen every new idea that they had. Good-Feel’s newest game with Nintendo, Yoshi’s Crafted World, combines that touchably gorgeous aesthetic with a game that feels more focused, memorable and varied. It’s a little more ambitious, but just as welcoming. Set around the same time as the first Yoshi’s Island, before the little dino became acquainted with baby Mario, it sends you on a gentle adventure, collecting gems and stopping a pint-sized Bowser from causing trouble.”
posted by Fizz (15 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
So it's Little Big Planet with Nintendo IP? I can see how that would be pretty killer.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:49 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


Our copy arrives today. I plugged in our two classic controllers last night, to be sure we're ready to go. Super, super thrilled!
posted by tocts at 8:54 AM on March 29, 2019


Post title is perfect.
posted by ominous_paws at 9:19 AM on March 29, 2019


I'm so excited! My sister and I really enjoyed Kirby's Epic Yarn, which is in the same vein. Can't wait to try this.
posted by FirstMateKate at 9:59 AM on March 29, 2019


Although you might expect a Yoshi game to be created by Nintendo this was actually developed by a Good-Feel (to be fair - they're very very close to Nintendo, practically in-house). The interesting twist is that the game is built on Unreal Engine 4; very usual for a Nintendo project.

I'll be interested to see how tight the timing and platforming feels. I've read lots of complaints that Unreal (and Unity too, its a middle-ware not being well tuned for the platform thing coupled with a genuinely weak CPU) run into frame-rate drops all over the place on the Switch

60fps is a real challenge apparently, with lots of dips. I recently got Overcooked 2 on Switch (Unity engine) and it struggles to stay locked at a lowly 30fps and loading times are atrocious.

Fortnite is probably the "biggest" Unreal 4 game on switch, but its seriously compromised IMHO. Rocket League might be the one that's managed to keep closest to its other platforms (is that Unreal 3?). But something published by Nintendo ... a big endorsement of Unreal 4.

The digital foundry analysis has good things to say about the performance of Yoshi. Very interesting.

If they've got Unreal 4 working well, and if it's truly running at 60fps "almost always", then it bodes very well for lots of decent ports and interesting things from smaller studios.

The music though. Oh dear. Oh dear.
posted by samworm at 10:35 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


“Best in the Franchise? Yoshi's Crafted World Review!” [10/10] — Victor Lucas, The Electric Playground, 27 March 2019
posted by ob1quixote at 10:44 AM on March 29, 2019


I'm not going to get this for a while but I will get it. My kids will still turn on the WiiU to play Yoshi's Wooly World. Once they finish it and/or get bored of it will be time to get the latest version. (the same goes for Smash Brothers)
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:51 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


Now that Nintendo has explored paper, stickers, wool, I wonder what the next material might be sourced as a way of creatively engaging with the franchise?

🤞🏾 “Please be metal Mario. Please be metal Mario. Please be metal Mario. Please be metal Mario.” 🤞🏾
posted by Fizz at 12:37 PM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]


I mean, new materials are great but I gotta be honest, I just want them to make like 10 more Paper Mario games.

Yes, I know I'm in good company of dozens of people who apparently feel this way ...
posted by tocts at 1:54 PM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


Yoshi is green and tan and it seems everything in this world is green and tan and I can't make out anything that's going on and I feel really old.
posted by alex_skazat at 3:43 PM on March 29, 2019


Looks like it's got a two-player option? If so, it's going in the easter basket. Hopefully it will be more co-operative than the Mario Odyssee two-player mode.
posted by Slap*Happy at 12:53 AM on March 31, 2019


One review I read absolutely hated the two player despite liking the game otherwise, so might be worth reading up on first.
posted by ominous_paws at 11:48 AM on March 31, 2019


My wife and I are pretty dedicated 2-player couch gamers when possible, and we've played basically every Nintendo platformer that allows it including Yoshi's Wooly World which is clearly the predecessor to Yoshi's Crafted World.

What I would say is that 2 player is plenty fun, and we're enjoying it, but it has some of the same kinds of minor annoyances as Yoshi's Wooly World. The game lets you ride on top of other players (which I guess enhances some abilities of that player) which we've never used on purpose, but have used by accident a lot, because it's really easy to accidentally trigger. Similarly, the game lets you swallow your partner (well, grab and hold in mouth) and spit them back out, which again is a thing that in theory can let you do some things but in practice you will do accidentally sometimes and not be happy about.

It doesn't ruin the game, and we're liking it a lot, but it's a weird set of choices that I wish they'd left behind from the earlier game. Whatever potential uses these things have for co-op play is offset by how often they get in the way.
posted by tocts at 8:52 AM on April 1, 2019


Jumping on the other player to get better height is pretty useful. As is being able to use them as a ball of yarn when you're all out. But yeah they do cause a lot of shouting at times when used at the "wrong time", for extremely subjective interpretations of what the wrong time is.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:51 AM on April 1, 2019


If you are of a certain mindset, being able to creatively inconvenience your companion while also successfully completing a level is half the fun.
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:39 PM on April 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


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