Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii)

Do you remember the days when computer games were simple, didn't require use of a motion controller, multiple complicated button pressing, but a 2D platform could keep you happily entertained for hours without being ridiculously difficult?

No?

Well you must be younger than me (not hard) - kids it's time to get back to basics and enter the wonderful world of Kirby with a game that will delight you with its beauty, entertain and thrill you and, what's more achieve the feat of making a game that makes the wii do more than I ever thought was possible. Quite simply this is a great game.

Kirby is, apparently, one of Nintendo's long established characters, last seen in a platform game on the Nintendo 64. Truth be told I'm not really the biggest of Nintendo fans, I do recall coming across the little blobby pink ball that is Kirby in Smash Bros or similar, he has apparently featured in about 20 games or so, if you are a die-hard gamer you may have come across him, I hadn't and am not about to regurgitate the long wiki entry on him here. Suffice to say Kirby is a cuddly looking character who, as soon as you meet him in this particular game, is completely playable with and very memorable. This is mainly as he features in a beautiful 2D environment, more of which later, but also as he is really, really easy to control and due to the fact that game play is refreshingly simple as the little fella can't actually die. In what can only be described as genius of game design, as the game goes on,Kirby can transform into lots of different forms, due to being made of wool which can unravel, change shape and be used to grab various items in the game.

So How did we Get there?

This being a Japanese game the story is predictably weird and involves a Big Boss having done something evil - here, Kirby finds himself in Patchland for reasons too convoluted and boring to recount and involve him swallowing a giant tomato and being turned into yarn; all you need to know is that this world is made of fabric and wool and is controlled by the evil wizard Ying Yarn. Kirby has an unlikely named companion, Prince Fluff (yes, seriously), and embarks on an adventure through 50 different levels with and about 8 worlds, literally sewing things up, with various hidden items along the way, and, it's fair to say not that much challenge at all. The is, however, plenty of interest throughout, due to the fact that a world made of fabric and wool has just so many possibilities.

Of course we've seen fabric worlds before, there's a nod to Little Big Planet on PS3, but this is no pale imitation, and succeeds in doing what no other Wii game has done for me before, being absolutely beautiful to look at and totally absorbing at the same time. The game has won a raft of awards for its graphics, (it has, I believe been out for about a year in the US), and it does not disappoint. The world you play in has fabric backgrounds, with sewn in buttons to swing from or pull to reveal hidden areas, sewn platforms to jump onto and enemies that, literally, unravel. The world is in fabric with a lining background so you play on two planes either jumping up sewn on bits of the top level or, at times, going into the "lining" to continue to explore and find things, in this case jewels and sequins that you collect for points.

Kirby himself, who as I have explained, starts off as a little blob, has the ability to transform. Jump into water and he becomes a mini submarine or a dolphin and at various points he jumps and is a parachute or goes fast and turns into a little woollen car, or is a UFO, tank or train. It's all highly imaginative and highly pleasing stuff and hopefully the photos I have taken capture something of the game which manages to be cutesy but not too kiddy and is just a really, really good game environment to play in,though, as I shall explain perhaps a little short-lived and, for some, lacking in any real challenge. Neither point really mattered too much to me, as soon as we picked up the game it was instantly compelling and playable with, once we had got through the cut scenes. This is a game that can be played with 2 players or one and works on both levels.

Controls:

As I have suggested this game is easy to play and doesn't really make that much use of the motion control. In the main you hold the wii controller horizontally and simply use the arrow buttons and "1" and "2" to jump or throw a small ball of yarn which is an extension of your arm which grabs things which you can then throw at enemies you can also unpick, this being a world of knitted things. It's as simple as that, though there are some points where you might, in two player mode, have to shake the controller up and down to make a tank made of two of you swing its arm or in order to hover. There are also a few points where you have to hold the controller vertically to draw a line for a track for the train to be sewn, but in the main it's simply a question of jumping and grabbing with the odd bit of slam dunking. It's, child's play - in fact my 7 year old can manage it and we've played a great deal of it together, both enjoying it in our own way, which leads me on to...

Difficulty:

I've suggested already that this is an easy game, no for me, that's no bad thing. I quite like the fact that though this is a platform game it's not too frustrating, you don't inexplicably fall of things, and in the main when you jump it's easy to get to where you want to, though at times fairly challenging eg when you have to jump onto a floating and deflating balloon or stay on a swimming dinosaur's head (I mentioned this was a bit of a crazy Japanese game, right?), it is quite challenging.

That said, due to the fact that you can't actually die, but simply lose some of the "jewels" you collect and get rewarded less of a high medal at the end of the level, there may not be enough challenge for some. Like I said that for me is good, especially having recently tried to play "Donkey Kong" with my nephew, also on Wii and finding it ridiculously hard and annoying. That doesn't happen here, but the downside is that the gameplay is likely to be quite short, in actual fact we finished the whole story as such in under 5 days, and being a busy adult and a 7 year old, there's no way we could play for very long periods of time, if you can spend a day playing a game then, no doubt, you would finish it in 8 hours or so, especially if you were more skilled than we are.

The game is equally good whether played in one or two player mode, though in two player mode we did find that one character is rather prone to inadvertently grabbing and throwing the other one and this was slightly annoying, however everything else worked well, including the ability for one player, when times got tough, to "drop out" and get carried up to their partner - this does happen to if one player wanders too far from the other but isn't done it too annoying a manner and most of the time two players can play co-operatively with none of the issues that plague, for example, two player games such as the lego games. It's good clean fun which *almost* had us looking like the Rednapp family in the adverts as we played with our wii - only less photogenic and with a slightly messier house - still we enjoyed playing this game together.

Longevity:

Once you have finished the game there is some additional fun to be had, as you go through the game one of the items you collect are little patches that you literally peel off or unzip. These can be used to decorate Kirby's flat and then other flats in his building. There are also a number of mini-games which see you revisiting levels to play hide and seek and do various other mini challenges. These are quite fun, and you can, of course, re-play everything to get a better bead score than you did first time round, or find objects you missed, but realistically you are going to have played through the whole thing rather quickly, still doing so is such fun that you may well forgive the game its comparative short-livedness.

Music and Narration:

What's harder to forgive is the annoying music that runs throughout, and is also an item you can collect. The music is very Nintendo jolly and repetitive, it sounds like they have let someone loose with a stylophone (remember those?) and a keyboard, circa 1985, it's annoying and at times extremely grating, a bit like wandering around Legoland for hours on 2 hours sleep. Still, I suppose it goes with the style of the game, and you can always console yourself with listening to the narrator - I haven't been able to work out who he is exactly, but the accent is British for the UK version, and it's definitely someone who narrated Jackanory or similar when I was a child - whoever it is he has done a fine job and almost makes me pay attention when the cut scenes make the story progress - is it just me who finds them a bit pointless - still they are what you expect in this type of game, and for what they are relatively well done.

Progression and Graphics:

Talking of which, things to expect that is, this game is quite generic in the way that you go through it, there are different "lands" within Patch Land, and you have to travel to each and through various levels, and beat a boss, some of whom Kirby has no doubt encountered in previous games at the end of each level. The bosses are not too tricky to beat in all honesty, and there really is nothing new to the way the game is laid out. Still as I have suggested, the interest here is more in enjoying and marvelling at the graphics, albeit not in HD, this being the ageing Wii, they are truly stunning. What's not to like about a world where you can jump on bouncy Toadstools or swing on a button tree? We particularly enjoyed the Space world which saw gravity being switched on and off, but it was fun exploring fabric worlds made up of Snow and Water too and there really is plenty of scope and oodles of imagination here. The game does get progressively more difficult as you go through the various levels, but within the confines of what is, at the end of the day a refreshingly easy and uncomplicated 2D platform game - old stylee.

So should I buy it?

So, overall then, this is an absolutely great game, and I can see why it has received the accolades it has, and scored quite highly in all the major game publications, Gamespot give it 8.5, which in my mind is about right, it does lose out a bit for being a short game and may prove a little easy for some.

That said, the good things about this game far outweigh the bad. You don't have to have played previous Kirby titles to enjoy it, neither do you have to be a fan of the Wii ;for me I will join in Wii party but until now have yet to really enjoy any wii game as much as this one. Sure it would be better in HD with PS3 controls, not to mention even prettier, but then it wouldn't be a Nintendo game would it?

Though the challenge level and longevity of this game could both be slightly better, the sheer enjoyment to be had from the game, beautiful graphics and all, far, far makes up for any slight shortcomings that this game might have. At the rrp of £39.99 this is an expensive game, but for the £27.99 from amazon that I paid, I'm happy with the amount of fun that this game has provided, and will no doubt continue to provide us with as we go back over the levels to find the remaining items we haven't yet found.

Overall it's hard not to forgive Kirby the little niggles and downfalls that this game does undoubtedly has, instead, if you have a wii, buy it, and enjoy the refreshing change of being transported to a beautiful, simple world that will, I'm convinced,amuse, enthral and entertain you in equal measures, whether you are young or old. I didn't expect to enjoy this game, but I did, and on that basis I can only highly recommend it.