Guest Review: Kirby's Epic Yarn (by Samuel Broemmeling a.k.a. FrozenCelery)

Kirby’s Epic Yarn is a game made by Nintendo following the Kirby series, and yet focuses on an entirely different purpose. With the most clever and yet cutest graphics, this is one of the best Kirby games I have ever gone through. Keep in mind that I was looking forward to this game since I had heard about it on E3, and pre-ordered it about three months before the actual release date. As any other ordinary Kirby game, it starts out with a little child-like cut scene showing the problem Kirby faces. In this case, he steals a tomato that had belonged to an out-of-place character named Yin-Yarn. As his punishment, Kirby was sucked into a yarn and fabric- like world and ended up with a blue yarn fellow named Prince Fluff, who introduces the optional two-player mode that I will explain a little bit later. Kirby, with the help of Prince Fluff, now has to face all these different worlds to go face Yin-Yarn and save his world.

Now, at first, this game had me awestruck, in a bad way. Not only can you not jump endlessly or for a long period of time, but you also are unable to suck up any enemy and take their power, due to you being only made of yarn. Instead, you grab an enemy to either unwrap and destroy immediately, or turn them into a ball of yarn to throw. As for jumping, you jump normally once, and jump again to transform into a parachute to slow your fall. It doesn’t sound tremendously exciting, but as you get the hang of it, the game enhances and you become more alert of what you must do, such as through the yarn at a specific box in a specific order, or killing a mini-boss more toward the end. When you get to the actual bosses, you will never be disappointed in them. Every single boss in this game had given me joy to battle.

Another flaw for me I had found in the game is that it is impossible to die. Instead, you lose all your beads, which basically mean points. At the end of each level, you get a metal depending on how many beads you get, and for the bosses, you need a certain amount to get the two extra levels at the end of each world. This makes it so a child playing won’t cry and complain that he died for the 516^th time, and that actual game-players want to make it their objective to obtain the amount of beads and get a gold medal. I find this ingenious, since I have many relatives who were made to not play video games, and I feel like I am not the only one.

I basically had locked myself in my house playing this game non-stop until school had come around the corner, and by that time, I had gotten my good buddy Dengakuslash to share the flawless story and  endless cute with. Yes, two-player mode. Not a lot different than single-player mode, but it definitely added an advantage and disadvantage. The advantage was that you now had two pink and blue balls of yarn collecting beads and kicking fabric ass like no tomorrow, while the disadvantage being that the enemies could kick your ass right back, AND that the game expects you to collect more beads for a medal knowing that there are two of you. It was a blast playing with two people though. I wish we didn’t have to be at school in only a few hours, because otherwise I KNOW we would’ve beaten it, no matter how long it took. Like most Nintendo games(at least for me), It was hard to put the controller down.

As we played through the first two worlds, what we had noticed the most besides the incredibly vivid graphics and cuteness, was the soundtrack for this game. Each song to each level had added a dramatic effect to what was happening in the level, and definitely set the mood to what was going on, and in most cases, they were remixes of past Kirby levels. Like most games by Nintendo, you would think that the remixes made to the levels are disappointing, unfamiliar or just awful in every way. When I hear the remixes on this game, I automatically think of how bad the remixes on Super Smash Bros. Brawl were. The composer who made the music for this game was hardly shy of perfect. I cannot tell how impressed I was with the soundtrack in this game.

Besides collecting metals, there are a lot of neat little optional things you get to do in this game. For one, you can get furniture for your room, or furniture to make other rooms. When you make other rooms, you allow little fabric creatures to move in and offer an optional game to get different wallpapers and such. There are 5, and a few of the mini-games include ones similar to hide-and-seek, and capture the flag. Collecting furniture is a bit trickier, but sometimes easier. There are 2 furniture pieces hidden in each level of the game, and also the soundtrack to the level. It is really challenging to get all three and also end up with a gold medal, and yet, still soothes you.

Final Verdict: Play this game. It is fun to play with by yourself or with another person. The soundtrack will blow you away. The graphics are too amazing for words. It offers a great optional part to the game. The game itself is soothing and relaxing, yet challenging and fun. There is no reason for you not to play this game. I recommend Kirby’s Epic Yarn 210%.
Final Score: 98/100 points.