Kirby’s Epic Yarn is the follow-up to a long-running series of much beloved games, leading back to Kirby’s Dreamland all the way back on the Gameboy. As is Nintendo’s wont, the game is a complete stylistic change-up from everything else in both the Kirby series and from games that Nintendo makes in general. While playing the game, I couldn’t help but feel like this approach that they’ve crafted is almost a reproach to the idea of “realism” in gaming.
You want realism? Well, Kirby’s Epic Yarn has that in abundance. Sort of. You see, the entire game world is made out of yarn, string, beads, felt, denim – basically, any sort of fabric and (occasionally) textile is fair game. In fact, the game could rightly be called “photorealistic,” as the backgrounds and the characters all look and generally behave like their fabrics would in real-life.
Of course, making the claim that Kirby’s Epic Yarn is in any way a realistic game, though, is specious at best, because this is a delightfully absurd game. From the inter-chapter storybook sequences read by a man who sounds like your uncle (by the way, he delivers the classic line “This ground… it feels like pants!” perfectly), to the vaguely unsettling way in which Kirby can rip his foes apart, to the sometimes-surreal transformations that take place, allowing Kirby and his companion Prince Fluff to turn into everything from dolphins to fire trucks to flying saucers – it all adds up to create an interesting aesthetic experience that goes far beyond its apparent childish nature.
Those are heady concepts to be sure, but the game certainly is a game for kids first and foremost. That’s not to say that there’s not enjoyment for an adult – there most certainly is, especially if you’re an adult who can still give in to the powers of sheer overwhelming delight – but the game’s soft and fuzzy nature is definitely intended for kids.
Unlike a lot of 2D platformers on the Wii, such as New Super Mario Bros. Wii or Bit.Trip Runner, Kirby has a nice, leisurely pace that some could mistake for being easy or even facile. Despite the fact that it’s impossible to die on a level, the game has an interesting approach to the question of difficulty. Like the very best Nintendo games, the player is essentially allowed to set their own difficulty level without the game offering “easy, medium, hard” settings. If you get hit by an enemy, you lose all your beads (the game’s currency) and have to make a mad dash to pick them all up (think Sonic’s rings, except that you don’t die without beads). At the end of the level, depending on how many beads you pick up, you’ll be awarded a gold, silver, or bronze medal. If you get enough gold medals in a world, then you get two bonus levels for that world. For a retro buff or completionist, this makes playing to the best of your abilities essential. This allows anyone who picks up the game to get the most out of it, and scales the difficulty depending on your skill level.
As seems to be the case with every platformer released post-New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Kirby’s Epic Yarn includes a two-player co-operative mode. While the game isn’t quite as refined in its mechanics as NSMBW, as it doesn’t include a smart camera that pans in and out like that game, it is still a lot of fun. I played through the entire game with my girlfriend, and this is the type of game that only gets more delightful with more people in the room. Rest assured, a lot of “awwws!” were emitted (by me, mostly).
In essence, Kirby’s Epic Yarn is, underneath its unbelievable exterior, a straight-ahead platformer, in line with the NES classic. That’s not to say that there aren’t amazing things being done in this game that couldn’t be done in the original. This game switches up what you’re doing from level to level so well that the level design is almost on par with a game like Super Mario Galaxy 2. But the mechanics are so streamlined that the game feels simpler than it actually is.
What I feel one should take away from the experience is a renewed appreciation of the links between aesthetics, control and gameplay that characterize the best games. Much of the focus has been placed on the game’s aesthetics, of course, but it’s the perfect symbiosis of all of these elements that makes Kirby’s Epic Yarn such a delight to play. That might seem like a superficial reason to love a game like this, as it’s an epically silly premise and doesn’t really speak to any sort of human “truths” or what have you. But when a game comes along and satisfies so many of the elements of great game design, and avoids the awful pretension that often accompanies “those kinds” of games, well, who can’t help but feel a little silly? Sometimes, joy is its own reward.
Note: this review was originally posted, in abbreviated form, in The Carillon, the University of Regina's students' newspaper.