Yoshi's Woolly World is a game I want to love, but I just can't. Just by looking at the game, you can tell a lot of passion was put into not only the beautiful craft filled visuals, but especially the excellent level design. However, there are too many problems with this game that heavily detract from the experience.
The major problem for me is that the pacing in these levels is atrocious especially towards the end of the game. I understand that Yoshi games are meant to be slower formed platformers since the game is built around the egg throwing mechanic needing to stop and go to aim eggs at targets. However, these stages stretch on for around 6 to 10 minutes and it becomes exhausting to beat even 4 levels back to back. Even though a lot of the level gimmicks for each stage are fleshed out and fun to play with, I had to force myself to beat this game. It just wasn't fun anymore having to beat eight 10 minute levels for each world just to repeat the same process again for the next world. What's frustrating that this problem with level pacing is prevalent in all of the Yoshi games I've played especially in Crafted World where it's somehow worse.
There is another major glaring flaw. Getting the collectibles in this game is absolutely awful. For a game that is advertised and presented as cozy, trying to get all of the collectibles is a hellish journey. The amount of checks you need to 100% a level is baffling and almost laugable with how much they ask of the player to do for some levels. It's also almost impossible to get every collectible in one run especially towards the end of the game making it more frustrating as you now have to replay these long levels again. You might as well look up a video telling you where the collectibles are. However, this will basically ruin the experience as you have eliminated the fun of finding the well designed secrets scattered throughout these levels. This somehow presents a very unique issue that has the potential to ruin the experience for casual players as well. In my opinion, having collectibles in platformers is essential to the playing experience. Without these small form challenges that you do to get collectibles throughout these stages, platforming games can feel very shallow as players race to the end of the level without any issue. The problem with Yoshi's Woolly World is that there are too many collectibles and most of them are too frustrating to collect, so many players will priortize just getting to end of the level. Essentially the game is too dull to finish in an any % playthrough and way too tedious to complete in a 100% playthrough.
I can't say that the game is bad in any way. It's a good game that has many moments of brilliance with the level design. I was having an enjoyable time towards the beginning, but by the end, I just wanted the game to end which is a shame. All I can hope for is for the future Yoshi games to improve level pacing and fix the major problems with their collectibles system.
The major problem for me is that the pacing in these levels is atrocious especially towards the end of the game. I understand that Yoshi games are meant to be slower formed platformers since the game is built around the egg throwing mechanic needing to stop and go to aim eggs at targets. However, these stages stretch on for around 6 to 10 minutes and it becomes exhausting to beat even 4 levels back to back. Even though a lot of the level gimmicks for each stage are fleshed out and fun to play with, I had to force myself to beat this game. It just wasn't fun anymore having to beat eight 10 minute levels for each world just to repeat the same process again for the next world. What's frustrating that this problem with level pacing is prevalent in all of the Yoshi games I've played especially in Crafted World where it's somehow worse.
There is another major glaring flaw. Getting the collectibles in this game is absolutely awful. For a game that is advertised and presented as cozy, trying to get all of the collectibles is a hellish journey. The amount of checks you need to 100% a level is baffling and almost laugable with how much they ask of the player to do for some levels. It's also almost impossible to get every collectible in one run especially towards the end of the game making it more frustrating as you now have to replay these long levels again. You might as well look up a video telling you where the collectibles are. However, this will basically ruin the experience as you have eliminated the fun of finding the well designed secrets scattered throughout these levels. This somehow presents a very unique issue that has the potential to ruin the experience for casual players as well. In my opinion, having collectibles in platformers is essential to the playing experience. Without these small form challenges that you do to get collectibles throughout these stages, platforming games can feel very shallow as players race to the end of the level without any issue. The problem with Yoshi's Woolly World is that there are too many collectibles and most of them are too frustrating to collect, so many players will priortize just getting to end of the level. Essentially the game is too dull to finish in an any % playthrough and way too tedious to complete in a 100% playthrough.
I can't say that the game is bad in any way. It's a good game that has many moments of brilliance with the level design. I was having an enjoyable time towards the beginning, but by the end, I just wanted the game to end which is a shame. All I can hope for is for the future Yoshi games to improve level pacing and fix the major problems with their collectibles system.