While the gaming world still fondly holds onto the memories of Yoshi’s Island, its numerous successors have had the unenviable task of trying to live up to it. The latest title was hardly a critical darling. As such, it’s probably for the better that Yoshi’s Woolly World has such a distinct style attached to it; hopefully this will allow for the game to carve its own niche. Rather whimsically, it seems to be a nice addition over the top of Kirby’s Epic Yarn from 2011.

Something that Yoshi’s Woolly World has over its spiritual predecessor, is the power of the Wii U. Now before you laugh and joke about how woefully underpowered the Wii U is compared to the Xbox One or PS4, the detail to all the threads of wool in the game world were very charming. Each little bit of fuzz sticking out from the main thread added to the immersion of this new world. And this was on top of the colours and light-hearted style that often accompanies a Yoshi title.

An interesting point was made during the E3 edition of the Nintendo Digital Event by the game’s director; that where Mario was about completing challenges in a set time period, Yoshi had no such constraint and was instead all about the adventure and exploration. This is where the woollen world shone, through a set of very subtle visual cues that would point to the possibility of finding something new to explore. This could be the way forward, or it could be one the level’s hidden secrets.

Otherwise, the gameplay was very reminiscent of previous titles. It was a mix of platforming with devouring the enemies to turn them into eggs, which were then used on other enemies, obstacles or even to create new platforms. Just as with Epic Yarn, there is a vibrancy to the game that make playing it compelling and draws players in – even though some things can be difficult to spot at first. However, after playing for a few minutes it was easy to see how the game was supposed to flow. From there, the adventuring was quite smooth and charming. As Reggie himself said, there is nothing wrong with having a bit of fun, and those who can accept and look past the cutesy visuals will definitely find it here.

Yoshi’s Woolly World is among the many unfortunate titles to slip into 2015, but given that pretty much nothing has been heard about it for many months, it was great to see it and in a playable form. So far, it looks and plays great, and will hopefully see Nintendo creating many more games that take a unique visual perspective, while providing the core experience that we all love.