Yoshi, for the Nintendo Switch, is a spiritual successor to the Nintendo WiiU title: Yoshi’s Woolly World. Yoshi games have taken on a their own visual style separate from the Mario franchise. Yoshi 2018 is animated and designed to be played in a world of arts and crafts.
Yoshi is animated in green felt, while running through cardboard doors with hinges made from duct tape. Yoshi 2018 plays like the platform adventure game of its previous iterations. Each individual level is lovingly built as if it were a diorama in a child’s crafts fair, with moving parts and materials that border on photo realism. Yoshi explores these levels from a two or three dimensional perspective, sometimes traversing a level side to side, sometimes hitting an object with a signature egg to reveal depth to the level. The newest design that Yoshi 2018 brings is the ability for Yoshi to turn the entire level around and play “On the back side of the level”. Again, these levels are build as if they are from a craft fair, so Yoshi can explore behind paper walls and cardboard bushes that are inaccessible if he were “In the front side” of the level. Finally when viewing the backside of a level, the perspective of the game peers out beyond the level and into a what appears to be a child’s room, further driving home the theme that everything here was made by hand by a parent and child inspired by a game they love.
Why is this awesome?
Beyond the scope of what is going to be a fantastic Nintendo Switch title, this game will spark the creation of arts and crafts with adults and children alike. It is not very often that games will have direct tie ins to visual creative outlets outside the games itself. I see many felted Yoshis and cardboard castles being made as the result of this game. The possibility of two player co-op shows potential for adult/child cooperation or young children playing side by side with the joy cons.
