Archview #43: Kirby's Epic Yarn

 I'd rather play Wario.

 Kirby's Epic Yarn is yet another Nintendo experiment that had Kirby attached to it, and to be fair, Kirby was probably the best fit for it. In this instance, Nintendo decided to make everything look made out of yarn, while giving it a very children's story-book feel. The end result is a gorgeous game, that may be a little too boring for most people.
 As with most Kirby games, Kirby is hungry and eats more than he should have, finding himself victim to Yin Yarn's anger, who turns him into yarn and sends him into a world made out of yarn. Here he befriends Prince Fluff, and together they venture forth to unite the land and save Dream Land from Yin Yarn. The story is told via some cut scenes, while a narrator, who sounds like he came from a children's show, explains what's going on and reads the lines that characters say. As for the children story-book feeling, they nailed it.

 Unlike other Kirby games, Kirby no longer inhales them, instead he uses thread to either unmake them(They are made out of yarn) or roll'em up into a throwable projectile. Gone too is the flying, instead he can slow his descent by turning into a parachute of sorts. Yeah, transformations are now part of Kirby's default moveset, Dashing makes him turn into a car, ground pounding sees Kirby turned into a weight and swimming turns him into a miniature sub. There are more transformations, but these are achieved by grabbing certain icons, these turn him into anything from a Dolphin, a Firetruck, a Spaceship to a giant tank.
 The biggest change is the fact that you cannot die, instead, Kirby will lose beads(Currency that doubles as stage score) when hit, just like older Wario Land games. You may think that it makes the game easier, and it does, but in order to unlock the secret levels, you must finish the bosses with a certain score. Hidden throughout the levels are 3 collectibles(two stickers and a piece of music), and these may offer a bigger challenge than the game itself. There's also a lot of "Sidequests", Minigames or what have you, that task you with reaching collecting a certain amout of beads, finding characters, bringing to characters to a particular place or beating a certain amount of enemies under a time limit. These can get quite hard, and you need to beat them all if you aim for 100% completition.

 All the beads that you collect are added up to your total bead count after each stage, and these are used to buy "furniture" and "wall papers". Stickers(Found in each level), furniture and wallpapers are used to decorate Kirby's room in Patch Land. There's no real purpose to it, but I'spose younger children may enjoy it.
 Probably the coolest feature of the game: It can be played in Co-op, in which the second player takes control of Prince Fluff. Fluff and Kirby play the same, and the only real difference between them(Besides colors) is the little crown that Fluff sports. Interestingly, Co-op opens up a couple of possibilities, and certain collectibles that you may have missed, and would have to otherwise restart the level to grab, can be reached by using Fluff or Kirby as a plataform and thus reach even higher places. Or treat your partner as a projectile to open up roads that needed you to carry an enemy-turned-projectile in order to break them! Co-op breaks the game, but it makes it much more fun.

 The graphics in the game are something to behold. Everything is made out of yarn and patchwork, with little things like buttons and zippers. It's very cool, specially the first time you pull a thread and affect the enviroment, but to be fair, some of these get old after a while, doesn't help that you have probably seen these moments in the trailers before, so it loses it's charm after a while. The music... I didn't really like it. It's good, but it's too... boring and... relaxing, I'd prefer something with a bit more oomph. The sounds are on the chirpy side, it IS Kirby after all. The Narrator also pulls an awesome performance, completely selling you on the idea that this is a story being told to little children.
 As for me... I didn't really enjoy the game. The art-style is really commendable, and it's always fun when Nintendo pulls off these experiments with styles(Yoshi's Story anyone?), but graphics alone cannot carry a game. I found the gameplay to be very boring, and this comes from someone who enjoyed the Invincible Wario games, the slow-paced music doesn't help at all. It's hard to recommend this game, but I guess there's no harm in trying it, at least.
 5 out of 10.