Topic: Kirby's Epic Yarn

[that Baby guy]

You missed part of the pun, it looks like.

[vudu]

I assumed "askein" was a typo.

[that Baby guy]

Sundoulos is no Dr. Drew!

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

I pray that the inability to die does not detract from this game. Everything else about it makes me want it badly.

[that Baby guy]

I pray that the inability to die does not detract from this game. Everything else about it makes me want it badly.

Beads aren't cheap.  There's still incentive to play well.  Lack of death just means anyone can pick it up and play it, really.

[MoronSonOfBoron]

Again, there's that soft division between play and mastery that parallels Yoshi's Story: relatively easy to beat, but do you really have the patience and acumen to get all heart fruits, find the hidden Yoshis, and go in circles looking for 30 melons?

...I'm suddenly developing the urge to spend most of this game observing and experimenting with all the different ways to torment Kirby.

Don't disappoint me... or I'll make you wish you could die.

[Ian Sane]

Again, there's that soft division between play and mastery that parallels Yoshi's Story: relatively easy to beat, but do you really have the patience and acumen to get all heart fruits, find the hidden Yoshis, and go in circles looking for 30 melons?

Yoshi's Story is pretty infamous.  Bring up the topic of lousy Nintendo games and it is almost immediately brought up.  So it doesn't seem like a good design for Nintendo to emulate.
 
The Yoshi's Story design ends up with a game that is too easy to beat so it ends up appealing mostly to children... except almost all of Nintendo's games appeal to children ANYWAY so lowering the difficulty is unnecessary.  I think that was the ultimate frustration with Yoshi's Story.  Nintendo appeared to have dumbed down the Yoshi's Island gameplay for the purposes of targetting an audience that Yoshi's Island already appealed to.
 
Most Nintendo games already have kid-friendly visuals and are usually simple enough to get into and easy enough that kids and inexperienced players can usually make some decent progress.  Therefore any additional tooling to appeal to kids or beginners is overkill.  The attempt to give it more broad appeal ironically gives it more niche appeal.  I think Kirby being unable to die is going to turn off more experienced gamers then it will attract inexperienced ones.  I mean it's Kirby!  Who honestly is not playing Kirby because it is too hard?
 
If this is like a Wario Land II design then it should be awesome.  But if the goal is just to dumb down the game then that's going to ruin a game that has lots of potential and sadly will do so for no good reason.

[Mop it up]

I pray that the inability to die does not detract from this game. Everything else about it makes me want it badly.

Have you played Wario Land II or III on the Game Boy Color? Those two games seem to be the best parallel to this one, and if they're a good judge of what to expect, I have little to be concerned with.

[Sundoulos]

just tell the knit wits to button it

Please tell me this was intentional. 

Oh, yes.  It was. 

I've played a few Kirby games briefly on the VC, but I've never been a die hard fan of the series.  The no-deaths part of the game doesn't really bother me b/c deaths in many video games don't have many real consequences any more, anyway.   

This does remind me that I have an unplayed copy of Wario Land Shake It that I need to get around to playing.   'Tis my shame.

[vudu]

This does remind me that I have an unplayed copy of Wario Land Shake It that I need to get around to playing.   'Tis my shame.

Yes you do.  The game is great.  Especially if you have a nice TV and component cables.  So pretty.

[Peachylala]

Again, there's that soft division between play and mastery that parallels Yoshi's Story: relatively easy to beat, but do you really have the patience and acumen to get all heart fruits, find the hidden Yoshis, and go in circles looking for 30 melons?

Yoshi's Story is pretty infamous.  Bring up the topic of lousy Nintendo games and it is almost immediately brought up.  So it doesn't seem like a good design for Nintendo to emulate.
 
The Yoshi's Story design ends up with a game that is too easy to beat so it ends up appealing mostly to children... except almost all of Nintendo's games appeal to children ANYWAY so lowering the difficulty is unnecessary.  I think that was the ultimate frustration with Yoshi's Story.  Nintendo appeared to have dumbed down the Yoshi's Island gameplay for the purposes of targetting an audience that Yoshi's Island already appealed to.

/Um, yeah. Story wasn't absolute ****. Good? Not really. Easy? Um, depends on what level you take and if you try to get all those extra trinkets, then yeah. But let's go with a list of what made Island better then Story.

- Story had alternate paths and secrets that branched out the level very well. Island had the same idea, just not as robust. Problem? Story's stage progression was stupid, level could end easily by collecting any fruit x30. Island didn't have that, played like a traditional platform game.

- Graphics? Eh... Story looks better personally, but I won't fault Island since I consider it one of the most awesome looking SNES games. Story didn't have crying babies for that matter either.

- Music... uh, nothing against Kozumi Totaka, but holy **** the music sounds like something from a child's read-along story book.

- Final boss battle? Story screwed it up, massively. JUST GRAB A SUPER HEART FRUIT AND BEAT THE **** OUTTA BABY BOWSER FOLKS. Island? OH MY GOD BOWSER GREW HUGE HOLY **** AWESOME!

So yeah.

This does remind me that I have an unplayed copy of Wario Land Shake It that I need to get around to playing.   'Tis my shame.

Yes you do.  The game is great.  Especially if you have a nice TV and component cables.  So pretty.

I second this. Just don't like the fact the game is still 4x3 with borders.

[Caliban]

Good-Feel has to work on a 2D Metroid game. 3DS, or Wii.

[Kytim89]

Good-Feel has to work on a 2D Metroid game. 3DS, or Wii.

Good-Feel needs to make a sequel to Yoshi's Island or Yoshi's Story for the wii.

[Caliban]

Fair enough. Just as long as they keeping developing 2D goodness, it's all good.

[Peachylala]

Fair enough. Just as long as they keeping developing 2D goodness, it's all good.

It's pretty much what they did when they were still Konami developers. Not that it's a bad thing or anything.

[Caliban]

They worked for Konami? Wow.

[Peachylala]

Ganbare Goemon, if I can remember where I read that. Former Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe, I believe. They worked on the Castlevania GBA games.

[Luigi Dude]

Ganbare Goemon, if I can remember where I read that. Former Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe, I believe. They worked on the Castlevania GBA games.
 

They made both of the N64 Castlevania games and Circle of the Moon for the GBA.  The other 2 GBA Castlevania games were done by IGA and his team after he took full control over the series in 2002.

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

I pray that the inability to die does not detract from this game. Everything else about it makes me want it badly.

Have you played Wario Land II or III on the Game Boy Color? Those two games seem to be the best parallel to this one, and if they're a good judge of what to expect, I have little to be concerned with.

I have indeed played those games. You're right, we can absolutely have incentives and challenges without the threat of death looming over us. In fact, the GameSpot impressions from TGS suggest that the collectible beads are necessary to unlock harder secret levels, so I'm encouraged.

[Peachylala]

The fact that the gaming media is fawning over this game makes me wonder what the hell was wrong with New Super Mario Bros. Wii in their eyes.
 
But let's face it, Kirby's Epic Yarn could knock NSMBWii off it's throne if it received so many show awards... but then again...

[Luigi Dude]

The fact that the gaming media is fawning over this game makes me wonder what the hell was wrong with New Super Mario Bros. Wii in their eyes.

That ones easy to answer, the lack of online multiplayer is what made the gaming media hate on NSMBW.  Notice how a lot of the NSMBW reviews would say it's the greatest 2D Mario ever made but then do nothing but b!tch about the lack of online for the rest of the review.

The thing that's a real surprise though is how the videogame media is loving this game even though most of them took a sh!t on Wario Land Shake considering Epic Yarn is basically the spiritual successor to Shake and is made by the exact same studio.  Notice how all the people in the previews act surprised that while the game is easy, it offers more challenging content in the form of hidden treasures and secret stages that are more challenging.  Even though Wario Land Shake offered the exact same thing and none of them even mentioned it.  Hell, most of Wario Lands reviews talked about how the game only had 20 levels which proves the reviewers never played the game since there's well over 30 levels because a dozen hidden ones become available to find after you beat the game.  Pretty much proves that most reviewers only played the game straight forward until they beat the Shake King and then turned it off and wrote their reviewers which were 100% false bullsh!t, by saying it was a 5 hour game with no replay value after you beat the final boss.

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if since 2008 a lot of the people who gave Wario Land Shake poor reviews because they complained about it being too easy and short, got so many negative messages telling them they were lying idiots caused them to replay the game and this time find all the treasures and do the achievements which made them finally realize that Wario Land Shake was indeed a great game that actually offered a lot of replay value and challenge.  So now when they play Epic Yarn they realize that the point of the game isn't to just finish the levels but to try and complete all the optional challenges as well so that's why they're loving this game from the very start now.

[Ian Sane]

Epic Yarn has a really impressive art style and graphics.  I can imagine really superficial reviewers being attracted to that.  It stands out in screenshots more than NSMB Wii or Wario Land do.

But you are comparing previews to reviews which isn't really fair.  A lot of games get hyped to **** in previews and then are given a cold review.

[Mop it up]

Who crapped on Wario Land Shake it!? Most reviews I read of it were positive, and I've never read any criticisms that seemed unfair; most of them were things like the gimmicky controls.

[Peachylala]

Decided to check WL:SI MetaCritic page, guess who was the biggest offender.
 
I lawled when I saw when NWR was. It's pretty bad when fan run websites can offer more honest (though sometimes I don't agree with them) reviews.

[vudu]

Decided to check WL:SI MetaCritic page, guess who was the biggest offender.

Yeah, Parish is notorious for not liking Shake It.

Which is odd, because he really likes Wario Land 4, which most people don't think holds up as well as the rest of the series.