Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World is an expanded port of the Wii U game. It contains all 48 levels of the original game plus bonus new levels featuring Poochy. The game is super cute, as you would expect, as the world is made of yarn. This is a spiritual successor to Kirby’s Epic Yarn. It’s a platformer at heart and plays into the yarn theme extremely well. The setup is simple, Yoshi’s yarn friends have been taken by Kamek and Yoshi must chase Kamek to save his friends.
The game has simple controls and Yoshi doesn’t have a huge move set. You can play through the game using only the four face buttons and ignore the shoulder buttons. Yoshi can jump and after a slight delay, he can hover upwards, mimicking some of the floaty feel from his appearances in the Mario games. Furthermore, he can use his tongue to grab enemies and turn them into yarn balls which will follow him around. Yoshi also has a slam attack.
Those yarn balls are key to most of the gameplay. Yoshi can fire the yarn balls to attack enemies, as well as getting platforms and other objects to appear in the world. Pressing a button will allow Yoshi to aim where to shoot the yarn balls and pressing it again will fire it. It takes a little bit of getting used to at first, but you’ll soon get the hang of it. This is a sidescrolling platform and the 3D effect is fine, it’s not too intense but does help make a difference giving the game some real depth. Of course, the graphics take a downgrade compared to the Wii U version.
Yoshi has a bunch of hearts signifying his life, and if he loses it all, he will go back to the previous checkpoint, where you’ll have to repeat everything, you did since, which can be annoying. Although the game is easy in general anyways, and it can be made even easier with Mellow Mode. In this mode, three Poochy’s will follow Yoshi and can be thrown like the yarn balls. This means Yoshi has unlimited yarn balls, and the Poochy’s will also highlight hidden areas and collectibles.
Each level is a decent length, taking ten to fifteen minutes to complete. It can take longer, especially if you try to find all the collectibles. Each level has a lot of collectibles, and it can be too many. In addition to the normal gems that Yoshi collects, each level will have five flower pieces, and five yarn pieces. Collecting all five flowers is required to unlock a bonus level in each world, while all five yarn pieces will unlock a new skin to use. There are also twenty coins which you can obtain by collecting batches of the gems. And finally, you will aim to finish each level with full hearts.
Spicing up some of the gameplay are parts of the levels where Yoshi transforms into something else. In one he will be gigantic and can easily stomp over all obstacles and enemies. In another he turns into a motorcycle and you’re zooming through the level. These are usually very fun, although each of them has a timer, so you need to speed through them, and collect clocks to extend the countdown.
Multiple levels contain mini bosses as well as bosses. They generally all follow a similar pattern and method of defeat. You dodge their attacks until you can fire a yarn ball, and then attack them again by jumping onto them or using Yoshi’s tongue. A neat element is progressing through the game will unlock badges which you can choose one to equip Yoshi with. These will cost the gems that you’ve been collecting from each level, which gives you a good reason to collect these gems. The badges will give Yoshi additional helpful powers, such as not dying from falls, or increasing the power of his stomp attacks.
While the controls are generally good enough, it can be way too easily to trigger the ground stomp while you’re jumping. If you’re using the circle pad, what seems to be the slightest downward pressure while jumping will cause you to ground stomp to your doom and it can be frustrating when you’re sent back to the last checkpoint, having to repeat a lot of things again.
The difficulty generally isn’t too hard. It adds new things as things go along, such as constantly moving or rotating platforms, where you need to aim and shoot something while it’s moving at the same time. Or on rails sections that gives you just enough freedom that you need to jump from place to place with the right timing or you’ll get left behind. With these harder sections, there also comes obstacles that can feel cheap. In particular, the instant kill ones are annoying, especially when it sends you back to the last checkpoint and you need to find the collectibles again…
The additional Poochy levels are auto-runners, and each level will have bonus objectives to meet, such as collecting a certain number of coins, or hitting a certain number of targets. You control whether Poochy jumps or ducks. These levels are pretty good for getting gems. The game takes around 10 hours to complete, and you can spend a lot more to find out every single secret. There are some shorts to watch as well and while they are cute, new clips only unlock every 24 hours which isn’t that great.
Overall, Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World is a fantastic platformer that’s fun. While it may not be the most inventive game, there is enough variety to keep things interesting. The game starts off easy but does increase its difficulty towards the end, especially if you want to get all the collectibles. The port from console to handheld is extremely well done, only let down by the hardware limitations of the 3DS’s low resolution screen.
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