Mar 27, 2019 Yoshi's Crafted World review - at long last, a worthy successor to Yoshi's Island A material world. Review by Martin Robinson, Features and Reviews Editor Updated on 27 March 2019. Mar 27, 2019 Watch our video review above. Despite the chaos of later levels, the serenity of Yoshi’s Crafted World is its unique selling point. The wistful score behind each level wraps you in a sonic blanket. I think I fell in love with Yoshi’s Crafted World when I discovered the costumes. You don’t know cute until you’ve seen Yoshi running around the place in a little shonky cardboard cow outfit.

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Yoshi's Crafted World (Switch) Review

by Neal Ronaghan - March 27, 2019, 6:00 am PDT
Total comments: 1

Wrap yourself in a blanket and curl up with the cuddliest Nintendo game in a while.

Yoshi’s Crafted World plays like a comfortable warm blanket. A coziness pervades the entirety of GoodFeel’s Switch debut, following up on their similar past work of Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Yoshi’s Woolly World. It carves a slightly different path than Woolly World, though - one that I found far more enjoyable - and in the process creates a new Yoshi adventure that edges out of Yoshi’s Island’s shadow and becomes something more fresh by focusing on a gentler pace and an emphasis on discovery.

Let’s start with the very good: the visuals are spectacular, going for a distinctive look that relies on a handmade arts and crafts style. Crafted World is one of the prettier games on the system so far, blending GoodFeel’s craftwork aesthetic with the sheen of Unreal Engine. The cardboard and plush feel of the surroundings and world feel like you could reach out and touch everything. Nearly every level has a new twist or trick that adds to a sense of discovery, whether it’s the joy of Yoshi’s papercraft mech or Poochy’s playful prancing. Unfortunately the music doesn’t match the glory of the graphics; the soundtrack repeats a lot of similar variations of the same theme. The better tracks nail a music box toy feel, but nothing stands out as all that memorable or good. It’s a disappointment given GoodFeel’s generally great soundtracks for their games in the past.

The level structure and gameplay loop is a little peculiar (and also elegantly on display in the available eShop demo), with one to three levels making up a themed area. The levels feature the typical Yoshi collectibles of hidden flowers, 20 red coins, and full health. Here each level has a coin goal as well. You could more or less blaze through each level from start to finish without much interference, at least as long as you collect enough flowers to progress to the next area. Though taking Crafted World at a fervent pace seems ill-advised, especially as the variant Flip Side levels and souvenir hunts add more replayability to each level while encouraging you to stop and smell the cardboard roses. The Flip Side levels, which all fall under the conceit of playing the stage over again but in reverse and from the other side (or “Flip Side,” get it?), focus on speed, as you try to collect all three hidden Poochy Pups in a certain amount of time. On their own, I find those levels to be a little antithetical to the game’s overall pace, but combined with revisiting areas to find hidden objects for the souvenir hunts, I found replaying the beautiful levels amusing. Multiple steps are taken to make sure you have multiple avenues of collecting flowers to progress, and if the souvenir or Flip Side levels aren’t your bag, you can avoid them for the most part - or at least cherry-pick what you want to do the most of.

Unlike a lot of past Yoshi games, you don’t need to collect every object in a single run. Even better, when you do revisit stages for the hidden souvenirs, you can collect more red coins and flowers. Those extra collectibles will count towards your overall completion, even if you leave the stage when you find the object - which is an option presented whenever you find a souvenir in a level. Aside from areas being gated by collected flowers, Crafted World respects your time and focuses on delivering new environments, fun twists, and unique ideas.

The challenge, for the most part, never gets too tense. The last few levels get a tiny bit tricky, but nothing is ever all that hard. Bonus levels unlocked in the post-game are stronger tests, but in general, if you seek a terse platforming challenge, Crafted World won’t deliver. It’s a cutesy explorative platformer that rewards you for scouring every nook and cranny of this adorable tactile adventure. For the record, while I didn’t find it quite as egregious as past Yoshi’s Island games, this still has the hidden clouds that can only be found by walking over every square inch of the stage. That’s still a bad way to hide collectibles.

Adding to that cardboard glory are some of the adorable unlockables. Each area has multiple costumes you can unlock using accumulated coins. Most of them are generic, like riffs on found objects like fruit and milk containers, but some of the cuter ones are Labo references and enemy-inspired outfits. Amiibo can unlock a few extras as well, with the highlights being Yarn Yoshi and Yarn Poochy outfits that blend the style of Yoshi’s last outing with his new one. The costumes add additional health complementing their flair. Not that Crafted World is starved for an easy mode (which is also available in the toggleable Mellow Mode), but the costumes add a layer of protection if needed.

That layer of protection circles back to the feeling of being comforted by a blanket while rolling through the variety of cozy levels and cute touches. Yoshi’s Crafted World is a stable, enjoyable adventure that brings enough of a twist to the expected Yoshi adventure to make it stand apart in a way no Yoshi platformer has done in years. It has a few blemishes along the way, but just break out the duct tape and stick that cardboard back up so you can romp your way through this delightful easy-going platformer.

Summary

Pros

• Comforting
• Gorgeous visuals
• Level variety and creativity
• Lots to collect, do, and see
• Pleasantly relaxed pace

Talkback

It is a very cute an a fun game. I highly recommend it for anyone.

Yoshi's Crafted World Ratings

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Yoshi has a long history of enjoyable platformers yet he's never quite reached the high notes of his SNES classic Yoshi's Island since it debuted. Does Yoshi's Crafted World have what it takes to make him a platforming superstar yet again?

When I first started playing Yoshi's Crafted World, its distinct visual style of paper crafts come to life immediately reminded me of Media Molecule's fantastic 3D platformer Tearaway. However, Yoshi's Crafted World has something that Tearaway doesn't: Yoshis! Watching the little cuties run, jump, and flutter around is a treat and I particularly enjoyed the brief albeit memorable cutscenes that have the little fellows interact and react to surprising circumstances. Plus, being able to dress them up in oversized costumes (many of which can be unlocked by scanning certain amiibo) offers plenty of goofy fun. On the audio side, you'll hear plenty of familiar Yoshi noises as he charges his egg throws and flutters his little legs while the music is charming yet not as catchy as previous entries in the series.

Adorable graphics and sound aside, how does Yoshi's Crafted World set itself apart from other games in the franchise? For starters, it has a semi-3D element in that you can throw eggs at objects in the backgrounds and foregrounds and even travel up and down pathways to change lanes. It's still very much a 2D platformer but these touches definitely give it a whole new dimension, literally.

The core gameplay of Yoshi's Crafted World isn't far removed from what you'd expect although it does feature plenty of twists that keep its campaign feeling fresh. You'll encounter many different kinds of stages and segments throughout the campaign such as automatically scrolling levels, a stage where you can only see shadows whenever a screen slides in the way, and portions that have you control certain vehicles or ride everyone's favourite pup: Poochy! This amount of variety definitely makes for one fulfilling adventure.

Yoshi's Crafted World's campaign is uniquely designed as well. First of all, you'll reach a point early on where you can choose various paths on the world map that each include a precious jewel at the end and the goal of the campaign is to retrieve them all. Having this non-linear level structure is great as not many platformers allow you to have this much freedom. As you play through levels, you'll amass a collection of hidden Smiley Flowers that are also earned through finishing levels at full health as well as after collecting 100 regular coins and all 20 hidden red coins. Some stages are played like mini arcade games where you have to reach certain score thresholds to earn Smiley Flowers. Anyway, these flowers are used to unlock more levels so earning enough is crucial if you want to progress further.

Believe it or not, there's plenty of replay value within Yoshi's Crafted World's campaign in addition to collecting everything in each stage. Almost every stage allows you play it again in reverse while trying to collect all of the Poochy Pups which is as fun as it is adorable. There are also 121 hidden crafts that you can collect to fill out a rewarding catalog as well as toy vending machines that grant you costumes and such by spending your hard-earned coins. You could spend dozens of hours and still have a lot more to see and do.

Although it sounds like an excellent game, Yoshi's Crafted World unfortunately has its fair share of faults. Primarily, it's far too easy even for a Nintendo platformer. Not only can you breeze through the majority of the campaign while almost never biting the dust, some of the stages can be downright boring. For example, controlling a giant automatically moving Yoshi by merely punching up, down, or straight ahead made me want to fall asleep. Also, the arcade-style stages where you have to earn points are more tedious than many NES Zapper games. Next, I enjoy playing cooperatively but many co-op mechanics here are irritating to deal with. Accidentally hopping on each other's backs or eating each other made me and my gaming pal almost constantly annoyed, especially during crucial moments.

Finally, even though Yoshi's Crafted World is an extremely easy game, it also has many 'what the heck do I do now?' moments. There were more than a few times when progressing through a stage or defeating a boss required a very specific yet unclear set of steps and wandering around while trying to figure these situations out just isn't fun. For example, you may have walked by a key object that you needed or not noticed a side path and a couple of bosses even require some outside the box thinking to defeat although they're still technically very easy. These sorts of key steps could have definitely been highlighted in a more intuitive way.

Yoshi's Crafted World is one of the cutest games that you'll ever play but it's incredibly easy to the point where it becomes unengaging. That being said, the amount of variety and replay value is top-notch and that makes the familiar gameplay really shine.

• + Familiar Yoshi gameplay yet with an interesting 3D element and plenty of twists
• + Adorable visuals and music
• + Lots of stages, variety, and replay value

• - Little sense of challenge and some stages are just plain boring
• - Co-op mechanics can be irritating
• - Plenty of 'what do I do?' moments