Having never played Yoshi’s Wooly World, I was at least given a chance to play a small portion of the game’s successor, Yoshi’s Crafted World, thanks to a short demo available on the Switch.  One of the biggest features that stand out with both games is the unique aesthetic.  Where the former took place in a world made out of yarn, Crafted World’s aesthetic is based on cardboard and crafts.  (One of the top examples that stood out to me were the fish made from paper plates that were shown in the video at the demo’s conclusion, which was just too cute.)

The demo includes just one level, Rail-Yard Run, which features grassy hillsides and a train running through it all.  The game played quite similarly to Yoshi’s Island from the SNES, where Yoshi can eat enemies to turn them into eggs, then, throw those eggs to defeat enemies and hit objects, including those outside your main play area.  The game even features the same collectibles, flowers, hearts, and red coins, most of which I found with ease, except for a flower that I somehow missed during the train ride at the end of the level.

The game is very cute, to be sure, but an appealing art style is certainly not enough to keep the experience engaging.  While I can’t exactly comment on the full game just based on one stage alone, I did already notice a trend that I think could get old rather fast.  You see, after I finished the stage, I then had to go through the level again to find three hidden poochies.  Although the level was reversed so that the background was a bit different, I was still largely going through the exact same path, just in reverse.  Then after finding all three poochies, I was asked to revisit the level again and find five cows.

Having to repeat a level in order to get objectives that I missed is fine.  But having to repeat a level so that I can complete tasks that only became available after I finished it just feels like a lazy way to pad a game’s length.  Sure, I imagine that these extra goals are probably optional, but being the kind of person who likes to get 100%, Crafted World sounds like a rather tedious game indeed.

Naturally, another question that was on my mind was: how does this game compare to its prequel on the Wii U?  Well, some research online taught me quite quickly that the prevailing consensus is that Wooly’s World is the superior game, with a more appealing aesthetic, better soundtrack, and better gameplay.  With that said, if you’ve never played Wooly World, many people agree that the game is still a lot of fun, if not a bit easy and tedious.

Crafted World is available on the Switch for $60, which seems like a steep price for the mere 8 hours the game can take to complete.  Sure, I hear that getting 100% can take closer to 35 hours, but if most of that time is due to padding the levels by making you go through them multiple times, then that doesn’t sound like the kind of game for me.