Yoshi’s Crafted World is focused on Yoshi and is a spiritual successor to Yoshi’s Woolly World. Rather than set in a world made of wool, it expands on that idea and it’s a paper crafted world, very similar to Paper Mario in that aspect. However, Yoshi and the other characters still look very fluffy, so there is a bit of a clashing aesthetics at first. You’ll soon get used to it, and the bright colorful graphics, along with the paper craft theme make for a beautiful looking game.
This is still a Yoshi game though, so the gameplay remains familiar. It’s mostly a sidescroller platformer, but set in a 2.5D perspective, where Yoshi will be able to go between the layers at certain parts of the levels. Yoshi doesn’t gain too many new moves, he can jump and float, and while floating, there is a point where he can go just that tiny bit higher. To defeat enemies, he can either jump on them or shoot out his tongue to swallow them and then turn them into eggs. The eggs trail behind Yoshi and he can then take aim and throw them.
Levels are mostly straightforward, but there’ll be simple puzzles along the way. Throwing eggs and other objects will often be required for these puzzles. To change the gameplay up every so often, Yoshi may be able to ride a train, or he turns big and can crash and stomp on everything. These moments are often fun without being annoying. Lastly, Yoshi can also do a ground stomp.
The collectibles in this game are flowers, and each level gives you a lot of opportunities to get them. Each level has three flowers with the same conditions: collect 100 coins, finish the level with full health, and find 20 red coins. The rest of the flowers are hidden within the levels, but the game is quite easy, given that when you’re in the vicinity of a flower, the flower counter pops up so you’ll know you need to stop and search. Flowers are required to progress the game. The game is quite easy and can be made even easier with Mellow Mode, which gives Yoshi wings, allowing him to float indefinitely.
The story is simple, but there is dialogue. Yoshi and his friends are living peacefully on the island, which holds the Sundream Stone, surrounded by five Dream Gems. Kamek and Baby Bowser appear to steal the stone and send five of the Dream Gems across the land, and now it is a race between Yoshi and Baby Bowser on who can find all the gems first and restore the Sundream Stone.
The game is split into various “worlds”, and each of these worlds are very small. There are only one to three levels in each of these. The benefit of this is that each world is a different theme, and so you’ll often move onto a different theme. This means that there is a lot of visual variety, as well as different level designs that change with each theme. Nothing outstays its welcome.
Further increasing the variety is that while most of the game is platforming, there are some levels that changes the gameplay up. It keeps it from being too repetitive such as having a giant Yoshi crashing and stomping everything in his path. Or having Poochy show up, adding a minor puzzle element. Although the auto scrolling levels are less fun given the time pressure that it naturally adds.
Thanks to the slower paced gameplay and the chilled music, it gives the game a very relaxed atmosphere (well, barring the auto scrolling levels). You can go your own pace in most levels, and you can backtrack in most of these in case you’ve missed something and wanted to check it out before moving on. Bosses aren’t overwhelming. They’re your typical bosses, where you need to do a certain action to hit them three times and aren’t that stressful.
The game’s story takes around ten hours or so to reach and beat the final boss. That’s around 40 levels to go through, making it a decent amount of content for a platformer. However, the game still has plenty of life left in it, as each level has a “backside”, where you effectively play the level in reverse (or the “background”), collecting three Poochy pups. These are more like time trials since you also aim to find them all within a time limit to get an extra collectible. Furthermore, after the final boss, a new area opens, but these require a lot of collectibles to unlock each of those levels. These levels are harder than anything before it (the game is very easy, even when it gets a little bit more difficult towards the end).
Overall, Yoshi’s Crafted World is a fantastic platformer, and one that while still very easy, is not as boring as some of Nintendo’s other games. This is because the level design is great, even if Yoshi can feel a bit too floaty at times, making it less fun to speedrun through a level. The variety of gameplay, where each type doesn’t outstay its welcome as they’re only limited to a level each, truly enhances the fun factor.
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