Yoshi’s Crafted World Review

Yoshi is back with a new game, but is it any good? Whilst you shouldn’t expect a challenge from Yoshi’s Crafted World, take delight in its charm, and experience a contender for the Switch’s most beautiful game yet.

Baby Bowser and Kamek are up to no good, trying to rob Dream Gems, and everyone’s favourite green dinosaur must embark on a quest to retrieve them all. Not the grandest narrative, but that’s not what you’re here for – this is a game with visuals as its main selling point, and it is stunning. The aesthetic is that of homemade craft, with a world made of cardboard and construction paper – it’s full of bright colours and it looks as though you could make these stages yourself. Developer Good-Feel, who also made the Wii U’s Yoshi’s Woolly World, have outdone themselves, with a game that is a thing of beauty.

These are worlds that you want to explore, and the game invites it – there are no time limits, and the risk of dying is non-existent. Yoshi retains many of his classic moves, flutter jumping through the stage and turning his enemies into eggs (the game has improved his egg throw, you can aim rather than judging your throws with a swinging reticule). Controlling Yoshi is sheer fun. At the risk of sounding too twee, it’s all just really adorable, and there were a few points when I found myself going ‘aw’ as I played.

There won’t be many players who don’t reach the credits after seven or eight hours

Though, perhaps the biggest issue with Yoshi’s Crafted World is that it’s rather easy. If you’re the kind of person that likes to sit down with a game and plough through it, I think a good afternoon would see you reaching the end stages. There won’t be many players who don’t reach the credits after seven or eight hours. After that, there are four post-credit stages that amp up the difficulty a little bit, but four doesn’t stretch far.

100%ing the levels is a bit trickier (especially finding some of the Red Coins that are scattered throughout), and worth doing. You get little tasks to complete, but only ever one at a time, making it a bit frustrating to jump in and out of finished levels. Then there are the capsule machines scattered throughout the overworld. They let you buy nearly 200 costumes with the coins you earn – they’re cute and can grant a little more defence during levels, so are worth pursuing. Add onto this the challenge of the Flip-Side levels– you play through the stage backwards, able to see the tape and folds that make up their construction. The aim here is getting a fast time rather than gathering collectables, and these speedruns are more fun than they have any right to be.

An abundance of mechanics avoids the feeling of repetition, but they typically only appear as one-offs

There are those that argue you shouldn’t expect a Yoshi game to be particularly difficult, and I’d agree with them. So I want to raise issue elsewhere. Certain mechanics repeat (like the ability to ride Poochy around), but most courses offer a completely new mechanic for you to learn and master – using a magnet that sticks to cans, thereby creating new platforms, was one I particularly enjoyed. An abundance of mechanics avoids the feeling of repetition, but they typically only appear as one-offs, to be discarded before the next level, and this feels like a missed opportunity.

Yoshi’s Crafted World is inventive and incredibly fun, and an absolute treat for the eyes – I can’t remember the last time that a game felt so relaxed and breezy. It makes me want to go back to discover every last nook and cranny in the hunt for 100%. It’s a shame that it’s lacking in challenge and refuses to develop some of its strong ideas but I feel like the trade-off for such a beautiful and well-crafted game is worth it.