When I previewed Yoshi’s Crafted World a few weeks ago, it was seemed to be more of what I loved about the Yoshi games, but I was worried that it wouldn’t vary enough from Woolly World (and the last few entries in the franchise). Thankfully, this isn’t the case at all. The game retains a lot of what makes Yoshi games fun, whilst adding in some new, fun mechanics that fit well within the franchise.
On the surface, the core gameplay doesn’t differ too much from Yoshi’s Wooly World. Obviously, you need to get from start to finish, shoot eggs to unlock hidden areas, and take out enemies. It’s never really too challenging, which some gamers will have a problem with, but it’s a great game to play whilst you’re watching a bit of TV in the background, or looking to get away from the AAA games that flood the market at the moment and involve hours upon hours of investment.
The game cleverly takes advantage of the foreground and background. Yoshi can shoot at objects in the foreground and background and can move towards the screen and away from it. This means that puzzles are harder to solve, and the completionists will have their work cut out in order to find absolutely every sunflower and heart.
Yoshi’s Crafted World is Nintendo at its best. Gameplay simplicity with creative level design and tonnes of personality. Every level is a genuine pleasure to explore and I was constantly surprised with new enemies and some pretty clever puzzles. There’s a lot of little details throughout each world hub and every level. Whether it be a box of biscuits or an origami frog, everything is built out of household materials and I can’t even imagine how much time it took to put each level together.
New to this game are costumes. Each world has a Gacha machine, which you’ll use coins to unlock costumes (ranging from rare to common). These costumes can actually be used in levels and basically work as armour. Whilst Yoshi looks incredibly cute in each of them, I was a little bit confused about the need for even more armour outside of the already generous allotted health.
The game really shines when playing with someone else. This more mellow line of 2D platformers that Nintendo has gone with recently is really well suited to bringing in casual gamers, and I definitely took advantage of that with my partner this time around. You can carry each other through levels, and it feels like a decent amount of difficulty balance for those that might not play games that often.
If you find what’s in front of you too hard, there’s also a Mellow mode which makes it near impossible to fail. Yoshi literally gets a set of wings and can essentially fly through each level. It’s probably suited to younger gamers or those that literally love Yoshi (who doesn’t) but wants next to know challenge.
There’s some other reasons to keep playing this game post the credits. Each level has a flip-side counter part which will basically have you running through each level in reverse trying to chase down three Poochy pups. There’s also an NPC in each world which will task you with finding certain objects in each of the levels (which you’ll need to shoot to activate). Both of these are appreciated, but don’t offer a lot above the core experience.
At the end of the day, this game doesn’t do a lot outside of what you’d expect, but that’s not a bad thing. Just when I think I’m going to start getting over this type of game, it tends to find itself popping up at the perfect time, when I need a break from everything else on the market.
THE NINTENDO SWITCH VERSION OF THIS GAME WAS PLAYED FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS REVIEW. A DIGITAL REVIEW CODE WAS PROVIDED BY THE PUBLISHER.
