simpleek

Recently I finished Kirby’s Epic Yarn for the Wii. With this game, like most games I do play, I always get really excited when I complete a game. I don’t know how my friends manage to own so many games and find the time to finish them within a week or a month. I suppose dedication and lacking sleep to finish a game will do that to you.

For those who don’t know what Epic Yarn is about, the story is basically this, Kirby gets sucked into Patch Land via a magical sock. There he meets Prince Fluff after Kirby saves him from a monster attack. Prince Fluff tells Kirby how the evil Yin-Yarn has unraveled the world of Patch Land and enlists Kirby’s help to stitch the land back together again. It’s a simple and cute little story. In single player mode, you can play as Kirby as he explores the worlds and uses his new yarn powers to transform, swing, and unravel his way through each playable stage. Play with a friend in multiplayer mode, and Kirby and Prince Fluff work together to restore Patch Land.

I’ve read the reviews of this game and even discussed it with a few of my friends who played it. The general consensus seems to be that the game while cute and fun in typical Kirby fashion, doesn’t have much of a challenge in the gameplay structure. You can breeze through each level and probably finish the whole thing in a day or two.

Epic Yarn may seem too easy for most experienced gamers, but I find the challenge lies in collecting all the patch furniture and stage music scattered around each stage. Another challenge is keeping a certain amount of beads in Kirby’s collection to get the bronze, silver, or gold medals at the end of each stage. Not such an easy task as I found it. I have found myself frustrated several times over when I somehow miss a chest containing a patch furniture. I would be close to having a gold medal only to lose the beads somewhere along the way after getting spiked or mistiming Kirby’s jump onto the next platform too many times to count.

This is one game I absolutely have to get all the patch furniture and music for each stage per world. It seems like an easy task, but trying to comb through spots you may have missed on your first or second playthrough does not make it any easier to find. I still have yet to go back to several stages in the game to get all the patches and music for each land. As for trying to get better medals and higher bead counts on each stage, that’s more for fun and to see how far you can get in earning that shiny gold medal. I ended up finishing some stages without any medals at all.

On a scale of 1 to 10 I give it a 9. I adore the graphics in this game, I enjoyed the different worlds you get to explore (Grass Land, Treat Land, and Snow Land are my personal favorites), and it has a cute bedtime story feel throughout this entire game. Playing this game felt as if you are being wrapped up in a cozy and familiar blanket. For the casual gamer, I would highly recommend this.