I’ve never considered myself a fan of Kirby before. I was a relative latecomer to the handheld gaming scene, and so my only real exposure to Kirby was through the awful Kirby’s Air Ride game. Epic Yarn caught my attention at E3 with it’s undiluted cute. One of the few advantages of having a younger sibling is that it wasn’t hard to sell my family on getting this game.
Seriously far too adorable.
Saying that Kirby’s Epic Yarn is adorable is a definite understatement that is far from capturing the full picture. The graphics are plush and incredibly detailed. I found myself wanting to touch the screen, it looked that wonderful, and the Treat Land levels were downright diabetes inducing.
While the graphics are the best part of the game, the gameplay still shines. The controls are easy to pick up on, while the platforming is deceptively simple. Said younger sibling only had to beg for my help once a World to complete the game, while I took on some truly complicated platforming challenges in my quest for 100%. There’s no Game Over, just an incremental loss of the beads collected on that level. I know that feature has gotten a lot of flack from so-called ‘hardcore gamers’, but I found it alleviated some of the frustration over trickier jumping segments. Some of the levels are really long and twisting, especially if you’re going after the hidden treasures. Starting from the beginning every time the control ignored a button press would have resulted in a thrown controller.
The controls were probably the biggest flaw. Well, not the controls themselves but rather the controllers – after about fifteen minutes of play my thumbs would hurt, and at least three levels have a section that requires you to hold down one button and press the jump button with the same thumb. They also seemed a touch unresponsive.
The story is simple, but I found I liked it that way because then it wasn’t distracting me from the addictive gameplay. And there is some depth – it’s only inferred by the cutscenes and left out of dialogue entirely who the ultimate villain is. I suppose I would have liked a little more, but it works out, managing to strike a reasonable balance between younger, newer players, and the old school hardcore crowd. The game is relatively short – I finished it with just short of 100% after fifteen hours, and it’d probably only take me an hour or two more to get those last few fabrics. A focused player might be able to breeze through the game in about seven hours.
I cannot stress how much fun this game was! I give Kirby’s Epic Yarn an A, 4 out of 5 stars, 8/10, or what ever score system is popular these days. It’s not perfect, but it’s a great game for all skill levels and I really had too much fun to care.