Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World 3DS review: We’ve romped our way through Woolly World on the Nintendo 3DS and fallen in love with a bunch of yarn Yoshis, who have just as much personality as the fleshy version. Here’s our full Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World for 3DS review.
Feb 01, 2017 There have evidently been occasions in recent times when Nintendo started looking at sales figures and picking out projects that deserve a second chance on the 3DS. Yoshi's Woolly W. Jun 22, 2015 Although it has no real bearing on the overall quality of their review, I find it very appropriate that the quotation chosen on Metacritic for their review of Yoshi's Woolly World includes an.
Everyone loves Yoshi, cute dogs and yarn, so Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World is bound to delight gamers of all ages. This side-scrolling platformer for Nintendo’s 3DS offers a unique graphical styling, to help freshen up one of the oldest game genres – not to mention bags of content and secrets to unlock. Here’s our full Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World review for 3DS.
Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World 3DS review: What’s this all about then?
Woolly World’s story makes about as much sense as Donald Trump’s political strategies, but with a lot less menace. Essentially there’s a wizard who’s turned a bunch of woolly Yoshis into balls of yarn, for whatever nefarious purposes, and now it’s up to our hero to retrieve all of the yarn and knit his mates back together.
Frankly, it’s the kind of plot that requires liberal use of certain class A drugs to comprehend, and in the end who cares. You play these games because they’re fun, not for the captivating storyline or the inspirational character arcs.
Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World 3DS review: Gameplay and difficulty levels
Gameplay is as solid as you’d expect from Nintendo. Woolly World is a simple side-scroller at heart, although Yoshi differs from Mario in that he can hover indefinitely if you hold down the jump button. And as well as jumping on enemies’ heads, you can hurl balls of wool at them to despatch them.
At set points you’ll even automatically transform into a special powered-up Yoshi, similar to Kirby’s souped-up forms in Planet Robobot. From a super-speedy biker Yoshi to a Godzilla-sized Mega Yoshi, these short but thrilling segments add another dose of welcome variety.
Woolly World’s difficulty level is quite low, provided you don’t rush things. Finding all of the hidden treasures is where the true difficulty lies, although taking on the boss creatures is also fun. They pop up every four levels and each boasts his or her own attack sequences and weak points, as you’d expect.
If you’re struggling to complete a level or find all of its secrets, don’t get too depressed. You can stick Woolly World on casual mode at any time, which gives you constant access to some of Poochy’s helpful pups. These little balls of delight can sniff out hidden items for you, whenever you can’t be bothered to do it yourself.
And even if you find yourself seriously struggling, even on casual mode (highly unlikely), you can employ the help of one of your power badges. These are basically cheat codes which are unlocked by completing levels, and they offer a helping hand in many ways; be it making you immune to certain damage, or giving you big balls (don’t ask). Of course, you can’t constantly rely on these, as they cost virtual cash to use.
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Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World 3DS review: Game length
The game is split into six worlds, each with its own distinctive look and feel. Fans of Nintendo platform era know what to expect: desert world, lava world and so on. Each world offers eight levels of platforming shenanigans, giving 48 levels in total (not including bonus stages). Thank god we paid attention in maths class.
These levels are a good size too. If you spend some time hunting down the secret collectibles, you can expect each one to take roughly ten minutes to complete.
Completists be warned: you’ll have your work cut out to hit 100 percent on Woolly World. In each stage, Yoshi can collect up to five smiley flower heads, five balls of yarn and 20 special coins. You’ll have to explore carefully and use your wits to max out every level, but the rewards are solid.
For instance, collect all of the flower heads in a world and Yoshi gets a bonus stage to play. Find all five balls of yarn in a level and one of the kidnapped Yoshis will be resurrected, unlocking them as a playable character (the only difference being appearance sadly).
Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World 3DS review: Presentation and 3D effects
Yoshi and Poochy’s Woolly World offers some truly unique presentation, thanks to the yarn-based theme of the game. Every character and indeed the world itself is stitched together, giving them fantastic texture. Every World is a colourful delight and individual levels are pleasingly distinctive.
As for the 3D element, Woolly World does a great job of popping out the visuals to make the world feel even more immersive. Thankfully it’s still perfectly possible to play in 2D if the 3D makes you feel a bit iffy, or you own a 2DS. You only miss out on the striking depth.
Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World 3DS review: Bonus content and comparison to the Wii U version
In addition to the main game, Woolly World also offers plenty of engrossing bonus content, which wasn’t found on the Wii U version of the game.
For instance, head to the Poochy Hut and you can race through courses as Yoshi’s pet dog, who is otherwise criminally underused. These stages are great fun, with set objectives to complete in each one for maximum financial rewards. And although the controls are simple – just tap to jump – you’ll want to replay them over and over to grab every last gem.
You can also watch a series of stomach-achingly cute stop-motion videos starring Yoshi and Poochy, and then answer basic observation questions to unlock more virtual cash (used to enable the power badges in the standard single-player levels).
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Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World 3DS review: Verdict
Basically, you get a lot for your money in Woolly World and none of it is filler. Every single level is a delight, offering dozens of secrets to hunt down, while difficulty levels are perfect for a younger audience. And with extras like the Poochy Hut races to master, you’ll be gaming for many, many hours before you find and see everything on offer.
You can grab Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World from Friday February 3, for £35.
Yoshi initially debuted back in Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo as a companion to Mario, but the character quickly became much more than just a side character. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island was a critical darling on the system and Nintendo has tried to replicate that formula over the years to mixed reception, but they finally seemed to hit the mark with Yoshi’s Woolly World on Wii U. As has been seen with other games like Hyrule Warriors, Nintendo has decided to port the game to the Nintendo 3DS with some new features as Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World.
Developer Good-Feel has worked exclusively with Nintendo since its inception and may be most well known for creating Kirby’s Epic Yarn, which was a unique spin on the Kirby franchise. Yoshi’s Woolly World built on that idea by taking the classic Yoshi’s Island gameplay and mixing it with yarn-based mechanics on the knitted island of Yarn Yoshis.
The story found in Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World is as simplistic as one would expect from a Yoshi game, with Kamek coming in and turning the majority of the Yoshis found on this island into bundles of wool, leaving you with only two Yoshis to go on a journey to save the rest. What is new in Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World is the addition of more of the ever adorable Poochy into the mix, though his appearance in the actual story is more of just being there for the sake of the title of the game than anything else.
Going with the cloth aesthetic in Yoshi’s Woolly World really allowed Good-Feel to provide some very interesting visuals and gameplay situations that fit right into the woolly world that the game takes place in. There is certainly a drop off in graphics and visual clarity from the Wii U release, but this visual style definitely translates to the 3DS quite well, with the game still looking handcrafted.
Across six worlds with eight levels a piece, plus a few bonus stages as well, Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World mostly manages to avoid getting stale due to variance in level design and settings. The knitted style may have seemed very simplistic at first, but the development team did a fantastic job at gradually introducing new mechanics like eggs that create cloud platforms, unwrapping yarn strings, and even a late color based stage puzzle that required some thinking and exploration. There are some levels that may be a little too straightforward and uninspired that feel like they could have been fleshed out further, but the majority of them provide splendid platforming that was almost on par with Yoshi’s Island.
Beyond the main Yoshi stages, there are also new bonus stages where you take control of Poochy in a series of auto-run segments, with the goal being to collect as many beads as you can. These are a nice little addition to the game, but they definitely get a little tiresome before too long. If you purchase the Poochy amiibo alongside the game, you can turn these stages in time attack levels as well. It will also allow you to use Poochy in non-Poochy stages in the regular game, so it is a little disappointing that such content is locked before an essential amiibo paywall.
One of the complaints about Kirby’s Epic Yarn was its low difficulty level, which has befallen certain Yoshi games in the past like Yoshi’s Story, but thankfully Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World avoids that pitfall by providing a tightly controlled experience with varying levels of difficulty. Some of the checkpoint placements can be a pain in certain levels, but being able to continue again and again alleviates this a little bit. For an entirely kid friendly experience, there is also Mellow Mode that makes the game a breeze, which thankfully was not the default difficulty level in the game.
Visual style definitely translates to the 3DS quite well
There are plenty of collectibles to find for the completionist as well, with each stage holding five Wonder Wools, five Smiley Flowers, and 20 Pencil Patches, the latter of which replace the Stamp Patches in the original. This is in additional to the infinite number of beads you can collect throughout the game and spend on badges that make the game a little easier for you.
The original release of the game on Wii U featured a 3D styled level select where you would walk between levels in order. However, the 3DS release of Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World streamlines this a bit with a level select that is strictly left to right, with the bottom screen showing a select screen that looks similar to the one from Yoshi’s Island on SNES. This is definitely much more basic, but it feels just right on the 3DS.
As you play through the game, you will have the opportunity to unlock a new Yarn Yoshi design by collecting five Wonder Wools in each level. You can also tap your amiibo that you own to unlock special skins for every Smash amiibo except the Pokemon ones, as well as the Super Mario Bros. line. Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World adds even more to this lineup, including the Splatoon and Animal Crossing amiibo as well. Taking it even further, the 3DS version includes a pattern creation tool that lets you create your own Yoshi design from scratch, which is a fantastic feature for creative minded gamers.
One of the early marketing tools used to promote Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World were some incredibly cute stop-motion shorts featuring the various Yarn Yoshis and Yarn Poochy, and the game also features a number of these as well. Inside the game’s Yoshi Theater, you can view 30 different shorts featuring these characters. They are definitely very simple, but kids especially will enjoy them, with adults being able to appreciate them as well. The only real issue with these is that these unlock one at a time, with you having to wait a day between each. With a game that won’t take you all that long to complete, this felt like a tactic to keep you coming back for 30 different days than anything else.
Nintendo 3ds Yoshi's Woolly World
The Verdict
Yoshi’s Woolly World was one of the best looking games on the Wii U and that has translated quite well to the Nintendo 3DS with Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World. The titular Poochy is mostly an ancillary piece of the game through a series of mini-games and shorts, but they pair well enough with the other new additions to make one think about double dipping with Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World.
Yoshi's Wooly World 3ds Review
Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World
- Available On: Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Wii U
- Published By: Nintendo
- Developed By: Good Feel
- Genre: Platformer
- US Release Date: February 3rd, 2017
- Reviewed On: Nintendo 3DS
- Quote: 'While the titular Poochy is mostly an ancillary piece of the game through a series of mini-games and shorts, they pair well enough with the other new additions to make one think about double dipping with Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World.'