Category: Video Games

I think that, for the next few months at least, that I am set for video games.

And by that, I mean that I have been playing Xenoblade Chronicles X and that it’s going to take me a good long while to get my fill of it.

Over the weekend I squeezed in a whopping 20 hours of play. It’s essentially the only thing I did on Sunday (and the only thing I will be doing for many a Sunday to come). During that time, I did a lot of exploring, a lot of collecting, and a lot of dying, but weirdly enough I didn’t actually “accomplish” all that much.

I played through the story up until the end of chapter 3, at which point I said “that’s enough of that; I’mma go muck around on my own now.” And muck about I did. Here are a few highlights and notes from my first weekend on Mira:

• Five minutes into the game, I met a large dinosaur with a leech face and elastic legs. It killed me over and over again. So I levelled up by slaughtering a family of massive boars and still got killed by the elasti-saurus a few more times.
• Near the start of the game, there is a wrecked robot on a small plateau across a wide gap, many feet above the ocean below. I took a running leap and just barely made it across. I felt like a superhero. And then my level was too low to examine the wreckage.
• There are no invisible walls anywhere. I spent a good twenty minutes climbing the crystals and mountains surrounding New LA just to see if I could.
• There is a force field around the edges of the map though. It’s a solid fifteen-minute swim to hit said barrier. I learned the hard way so that you don’t have to.
• I found a small, completely unmarked island populated by super-powered crabs out in the middle of the ocean. So maybe it’s worth swimming around in the empty space for a while.
• Some dork asked me to find his lost cell phone. Somehow it had ended up on a hill populated by vicious four-armed apes. He did not pay me enough for retrieving it.
• My party was being chased and killed one-by-one by a way-too-strong Grex. I tried to escape by jumping into a lake and swimming away, but it just followed me in and killed me just as I reached the shore. I should have known, as Grexes look like a cross between a wolf and a shark..
• I climbed up to the highest peaks that I could manage, and jumped off. No matter how high up you jump from, there is no fall damage.
• Jumping off a cliff is a great way to escape a pursuing monster. I have been saved many times by leaping to what would be my doom in any other game. Except for that one time that I accidentally jumped into a pack of even stronger monsters.
• One time I was slaughtering a pack of sheep when a titanic spider-thing strolled in and then smooshed my party because a stray laser dinged one of its legs.
• There is a gigantic waterfall In Primordia. It is exceptionally beautiful, but also disappointing because there are no hidden caves behind the falls (there is one that goes in the side, but it’s not the same).
• I could not figure out for the life of me how the online multiplayer is supposed to work. Which is a pain, because I was actually really looking forward to the multiplayer component.

It’s a pretty place. Prettier than Boston, that’s for sure.

Well, I meant that the planet itself is pretty. The creatures that live there are another story.

I have spent hours and hours (days, even!) researching and pondering it, and I believe that I have finally discovered all three things that are wrong with Yoshi’s Woolly World.

1. Too Many Costumes

Yarn Yoshi is damn near the cutest thing ever conceived (the crown goes to Yarn Poochy), so you already get that joy of watching cuddly little Yoshi waddle around as you play. But then, there are the costumes. Dozens and dozens of patterns to dress up Yoshi in, each more adorable than the last. Having to choose one to play as at any given time is an impossible task, and trying to select a costume has siphoned away hours of my life.

Granted, you have to earn them all, so if you aren’t collecting those smiling yarn skeins obsessively, you’ll only ever have to choose from the standard green and red Yoshis (which is still a struggle). The amiibo costumes can only be unlocked by scanning the corresponding amiibo, so that’s another saving grace, I guess. Buying them all is a massive hurdle in itself, and the monotony of scanning each one individually could kill a man.

Still, how am I supposed to get any levels played when I have to actively make a choice between Citrus Yoshi and Duck Hunt Yoshi? The game should really have included a random pattern spinner at the beginning of each stage.

2. The Appeal of the Woolly World

All I can think about when I stop playing Yoshi’s Woollly World is how much the real world sucks. I want to live in a world where everything is made out of craft materials, where any type of terrain is soft and plushy, and even the fiercest creatures are cute and huggable.

I have often said that I would love to live in a house made of pillows, and here Nintendo has realized that to some degree. Stages are built from knitted grasslands with yarn ball trees and bushes, mountains made of stacked cushions with scarves and doilies laid on top of them, and literal pillow forts. Sequins line the waters to make them sparkle. On the world map, there is a volcano that is a propped-up toque with a red and orange striped scarf draped over it as an approximation of a lava flow.

After visiting Yoshi’s Woolly World, reality just looks that much more awful.

3. The Start-up Screen

Every Wii U game has a little splash screen that shows up when you launch it. It sits there for a bit, and some of them are more complex than others. Some are a static screen, some have little animations, and some segue very smoothly into the actual title screen of the game.

The start-up screen for Yoshi’s Woolly world is actually three screens. First, an adorable image of Yoshi and Poochy. Second, a page with the logo and the three yarn Yoshi amiibos. Lastly, a chart of all the controllers that are compatible with this game. The actual images are not the issue.

No, the problem is the music. There’s a jolly little tune that plays on the loading screen, albeit very strangely. When the first picture changes to the second, the tune fades out and then restarts, which is a little jarring. And then when it’s showing the control options, the music just stops. That image tends to be the one that stays on-screen the longest, so you’re sitting there in silence for a good five-to-eight seconds. It’s really weird.

Oh, wait, that was almost an actual knock at the game in this post that was supposed to be humorously suggesting that Yoshi’s Woolly World actually has no faults. Opps!

Yoshi’s Island is a perennial favourite around these parts, and what I believe to be one of the most well-crafted television games ever made. My big secret? I’ve never ever 100%ed it.

“But Ryan! You always 100% games!”

Silly rabbit, not always. But yes, usually I will go out of my way to collect all the doodads or complete all the challenges in a game that I really like. Sometimes even in a game I don’t really like, just to prove my dominance over it. Kind of like hate sex.

Anyway, the point is that I’ve never really felt like getting all the collectibles in Yoshi’s Island (or its sequels) was really worth the effort. For one, it’s incredibly difficult; some of those kajiggers are really well-hidden. Secondly, you have to collect everything and clear the stage with full health in a single run, which is just bonkers after world one. Also, it doesn’t really do much for you, outside of a little fanfare. I mean, sure, you unlock a bonus level if you 100% every stage in a world, but those bonus levels are concentrated evil. Kind of like the game is hate sexing you.

Yoshi’s Woolly World is a little bit different. The collectibles can still be an absolute pain to gather, but this game takes it easy on you. Each collectible can be completed independently, you don’t have to get everything in one run, which takes off a ton of the pressure. That means that on harder stages, you can focus on just getting through with full life and not have to search for all the secrets at the same time. Or you can just go back and grab that one thing you missed, and not have to pick up the other hundred things you all ready got for full marks.

More importantly, every collectible does something for you. Well, completing a stage with full life is still just for bragging rights, but the rest hand out goodies on a semi-regular basis.

The flowers, of which there are five in every stage, are the only key to unlocking the bonus stages this time around. You still have to find every flower in the world, but it’s only the flowers that count toward the bonus stage.

The yarn skeins come in sets of five as well, and they will reassemble a new Yoshi for you to play as. These prizes are handed out more liberally, with one unlockable Yoshi in each stage. It’s kind of a fun game to guess what kind of pattern you’re going to get as you collect skeins, as they’re coloured to match the Yoshi that is unlocked in each stage.

Stamp patches are the hardest to get because there are a whopping twenty in each stage, and they’re collected from normal-looking beads that are randomly mixed in with all the other beads (just like the red coins in previous games). For every so many (80, I think?) stamp patches you find, you’re given a new set of five Miiverse stamps. These are perhaps the least desirable prizes, but they’re still something.

Also, there’s a badge that you get later on that highlights all the secrets in a stage. It makes invisible clouds visible, makes false walls glow, and puts a radar pulse on beads that contain stamp patches. It’s a little pricy, but if you save all your beads until the end of the game, you’ll probably be in good shape to buy it for a replay of every stage that you didn’t clear out on the first go.

I still haven’t even finished the game, and I’m not completely certain that I will go back for 100%, but Yoshi’s Woolly World surely makes the strongest case for convincing me to do so. It also helps that the game is a joy to play, and an absolute delight for the ears and eyes as well.