Yoshi’s Crafted World makes playing together a joyous experience. I’ve been playing with my wife and we’ve had great fun playing together.
While not a gamer herself, she does enjoy playing the occasional Nintendo platformer.
My wife grew up playing Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country on the family Super Nintendo with her siblings; we even played Super Mario Bros. 3 together on our third date.
Yoshi is also her favourite Nintendo character and we have multiple Yoshi plushies adorned around our home.
Yoshi’s Crafted World Preview
Nintendo platformers have let people play together as far back as Super Mario Bros. for NES. Modern titles like New Super Mario. Bros. U Deluxe even allow up to four people to play at once. I’ve never really enjoyed playing Mario games with two people, let alone four!
In my opinion, it causes too much confusion on-screen with people jumping in all different directions.
Some argue this chaos is what makes these four-person play sessions funs. I agree somewhat, however, I prefer playing platformers on my own; so my stance is playing New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe with friends is only fun on rowdy Friday nights.
Yoshi’s Crafted World flips my stance on multiplayer in Nintendo games as its scaled back two-player approach encourages teamwork.
As we’ve seen Mario do countlessly, Yoshi’s Crafted World lets other Yoshi jump onto another Yoshi’s back. The carrying Yoshi retains control over their movement and ability to gobble up enemies with the push of a button; while the carried Yoshi can throw eggs at enemies or environmental objects.
This mechanic removes the criticism levelled at similar Nintendo platformers, where characters collide on-screen due to the collision physics; meaning characters don’t move through one another and instead collide together.
This makes jumping across platforms difficult, as you might bump into another player, lose momentum and you both fall to an untimely death. While the same collision problem remains in Yoshi’s Crafted World there at least exists the option to remove this frustration by jumping onto your partner’s back to work as a single unit.
Two Egg-Heads
When faced with difficult platforming challenges we’d always team up to overcome them more easily; rather than both of us attempting to navigate it individually. The same applied to situations requiring us to move around quickly while also shooting eggs at a static or moving target.
Working together also makes your Yoshi team more powerful. Most enemies/obstacles can be overcome with a single Yoshi, but partnering up gives you extra eggs and a far more powerful ground-pound.
The double Yoshi ground-pound can, for example, destroy a wider variety of enemies that otherwise couldn’t be defeated with a humble ground-pound, such as Piranha Plants.
Yoshi’s Crafted World also includes a considerable number of collectables to find. Each stage we’ve played so far has included up to nine smiley flowers to find, with extra smiley flowers awarded if you also find the 20 hidden red coins and manage to finish the stage with a complete heart-circle.
The heart-circle is Yoshi’s Crafted World’s version of a health meter. Playing with two-players requires only one of you to finish a stage with a complete heart-circle.
We’re Going on an Egg Hunt
Every one of Yoshi’s Crafted World’s stages is also brimming with gold coins to collect; because it wouldn’t be a Nintendo game without gold coins. Collected gold coins accumulate across stages and can be used in the various capsule machines found in the overworld map.
Requiring 100 coins per turn, each capsule machine features 10 costumes for you to collect that can then be adorned by your Yoshi to bring some fashion flair to gameplay.
Similarly, with the visual motif of the game that sees everything taking on the appearance of paper and craft materials, so too do the costumes resemble Yoshi’s Crafted World’s charming aesthetic. From paper trains to cardboard boxes made to look like cars, my favourite costume so far is definitely the one resembling a Yoshi armed with boxing gloves.
The best part? The arms rotate in a circular fashion whenever Yoshi jumps or runs.
At a certain point within the first world, you’ll unlock the ability to re-play stages from a different perspective. This gimmick was first presented during Yoshi’s Crafted World’s initial reveal at E3 2017 and lets you experience already-completed stages from a different perspective.
These ‘flip stages’ tasks you with locating missing Poochy pups within a certain amount of time and are fun and amusing, especially as it allows you to see elements of the crafting items that make up the game world from a different perspective; i.e. the tape used to make the clouds or Shy Guys hidden behind structures etc.
Egg-cellent
I’ve walked away fairly impressed by Yoshi’s Crafted World after only a few hours of play. The majority of people will likely play solo, but you shouldn’t discount Crafted World’s co-op mode. Gone is the hectic nature of modern Nintendo platformers, replaced instead with a stronger emphasis on teamwork that makes for a more rewarding experience when playing together.
There’s also a fair amount of content to keep you busy. With a decent number of collectables per stage, each with added replayability, Yoshi’s Crafted World is sure to keep players busy for some time.
A demo for Yoshi’s Crafted World is currently available on the eShop if you want to try the game for yourself. Expect PowerUp’s full review ahead of the official launch on March 29.
A digital code of Yoshi’s Crafted World was provided by Nintendo.
