Watch Da Birdie
I buy cakes for myself on my birthday it's not weird lots of people do it I bet
Kirby's Epic Yarn is an interesting game. I can understand it not being everyone's cup of tea, but I feel reactions to it over the years by gamers, and members of the press (fuck you Entertainment Weekly), bring up an interesting point of discussion that applies to the wider gaming culture, and an issue Nintendo in particular has been struggling with...the idea of difficulty, and how to appeal to both casuals and hardcore players.
Kirby's Epic Yarn enjoyed mostly positive reviews when it was released for its unique art-style and soundtrack, yet a common complaint was that it was "too easy", with the fact that it was impossible to die pretty much the biggest point brought up against the game. In some cases, it seemed like that and that alone was a huge turn-off for some, to the point they wouldn't even touch the game. I, however, gave the game a chance, and actually ended up enjoying it quite a bit---it's a very colorful and feel-good game, but beyond that, after playing it, I really don't understand why the lack of death was an issue for so many people. The truth is, Kirby's Epic Yarn isn't an easy game---at least, it shouldn't be for you if you're the type of person who demands a sense of challenge in your video games.
In this post-Demon Souls world, I think a lot of people have become sort of obsessed with the notion that the more you die, the more difficult a game is, and thus the more fun it is, which I find to be a really weird notion. For example, which game would you say is more difficult---Mario 3D World, or Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze? I think everyone would agree it's the latter, as do I. However, my death count in 3D World is much higher than Tropical Freeze. Tropical Freeze is harder, but for me I find myself much more skilled in controlling Donkey Kong than Mario, and thus I am able to catch myself from making mistakes far more easier than if I miss a jump in 3D World. Don't get me wrong, I think using the amount of deaths you incur (and deaths that feel fair, more or less, and not the result of glitches or bad controls) is a good measurement to judge difficulty and how much you'll enjoy the game, but only if the game uses death in the first place. For a game like Epic Yarn which removes the possibility of death, I think judging the game's difficulty based on a mechanic that isn't present in the first place makes no sense. Calling Epic Yarn an easy game because it's impossible to die is, in my mind, equivalent to calling Mario Kart an easy game because you can't die in it.
Kirby's Epic Yarn by no means is a casual game, in my opinion, and actually avoids a lot of pitfalls that other Nintendo games fall prey to. There's very little hand-holding---you're shown the controls in the first level through cute non-intrusive visual aids, but the game does not stop to tell you how to do thing, you actually get to apply it by playing the game. And after that, you're more or less on your own in each level figuring out how to find all the hidden extras. And it ditches the idea of a 'Super Guide'...although the game is incredibly easy to get through due to the lack of death, the game never removed control from the player and plays it for them, you remain in control. Considering how visually interesting Epic Yarn is, it's clear Good Feel designed the game to be easy so that every player could get through to the end and see all it has to offer, but never right-out insulting the player. When you play Mario Galaxy 2 or Donkey Kong Country Returns, you go in expecting a fairly challenging game---and when the Super Guide pops up when you're having difficulty, you feel insulted. But with Epic Yarn, the game doesn't insult you like that. Yes, it's easy to clear the levels, but the game makes that clear. It understand you're playing Epic Yarn expecting to not die, and respects that---it doesn't suddenly treat you differently because you play the game differently.
Epic Yarn's challenge comes in the form of Medals, which are obtained at the end of the level based on how many Beads you collected. Beads aren't infinite---each level has a certain maximum amount, and when you're hit by an enemy, Beads fly out of you like Rings in Sonic the Hedgehog. Although you can scramble to collect them, they'll fall right down through pits, and you'll be unable to retrieve them. In early levels, the game is fairly generous with how many Beads there are---you can mess up a bit, and still score a Gold Medal, but soon the game really ramps up in difficulty, and one hit from an enemy can completely ruin your score and mess you up when it comes to getting the Medal. In some of the last levels in the game, I was an absolute wreck treading carefully around the enemies in fear of losing my Beads, and found myself surprised at how challenging Epic Yarn could be when you actually went for the collectibles. I find it far more difficult than any of the challenges in the other Kirby games, actually, except perhaps Canvas Curse and Mass Attack.
I think the use of Medals are good for Epic Yarn for two reasons:
First, it gives you something solid to aim for when challenging yourself. It's clear through the Medals being awarded to the player that this is a challenge built into the game by the designers, and the levels reach their full potential through it. I think it wouldn't be fair to say, for example, Pokemon is actually challenging because you can do a Nuzlocke Challenge, because that's clearly a self-imposed challenge created by the player, and in no way is the game built around such a challenge nor does it acknowledge your accomplishment when you do so. Epic Yarn provides feedback for the player for challenging themselves, which I think many players need to feel a sense of accomplishment.
Second, the Medals provide a long-term, continuous challenge. It's quite common in Nintendo platformers such as the other Kirby games, Mario, and Donkey Kong, to fill each level with three or so collectible items, to increase the replayability of each level. But often, this just means keeping your eye out for that item, figuring out how to collect it, and then grabbing it. Once you've gotten it, that's pretty much it, you've got the item, and never have to worry about it again. And if you miss the item, you usually don't look forward to replaying the level---you just want to get back to the part where the item is and grab it. But in Epic Yarn, going for the Medals is a challenge that persists through the entire level, it's not a one off deal. You need to find Beads, collect Beads, and then keep them safe. When you replay the levels to get the Medals, you don't just go "oh, I just need to go here", you need to memorize where everything is, the placement of the enemies to avoid them, and focus on dodging hazards throughout the level. This is actual replayability. To be fair, Epic Yarn has the one-off collectibles as well, but the Medals are something the other games lack---there's no corresponding level-wide challenge in Kirby's Triple Deluxe or Mario 3D World, and Donkey Kong Country Returns has the Time Attack, but that's not presented to the player till after they've already beaten everything else, whereas Epic Yarn allows the player to go for the meatier challenge from the get-go.
In a way, I feel like Epic Yarn is comparable to the Wonderful 101...in the Wonderful 101, you can die, and the game is obviously more complex than Epic Yarn is, but often death in the Wonderful 101 is a slap on the wrist. You're pretty much dumped right back where you left off (I believe the Bosses don't even heal from the damage you inflicted), and allowed to continue with no real penalty when it comes to getting through the game. Although Wonderful 101 is certainly more difficult to get through than Epic Yarn, nevertheless anyone can do it simply through attrition. If you want to play the Wonderful 101 for the story, you're free to do so without really needing to learn all the various intricacies. But like Epic Yarn, going for the medals requires much more skill and knowledge of the levels. If you took away the chance of death from Wonderful 101, and getting hit just resulted in losing money as well as your score being negatively effected, I'd argue you'd still have an equally great game, and one that's challenging to boot. Actually, I'd argue perhaps removing death might even make the game a bit better, since dying in the Wonderful 101 felt more frustrating to me than fun, and the score was a bigger impetus for me when it came to the area I wanted to improve in rather than simply surviving.
Epic Yarn in my opinion is one of a few games that I think have nailed a great difficulty scheme that appeals to both casual and hardcore, without offending either. The World Ends With You and, what probably worked off of it, Kid Icarus Uprising are two other games I feel are in the same boat, offering an interesting take on difficulty that eschews the usual Easy/Normal/Hard dichotomy. All three of the games are fairly easy to complete for anyone, but how you complete it depends on what you want out of the game. Good Feel seems to understand difficulty better than a lot of developers, as Wario Land Shake-It also had a similar style based around an interesting scoring system that rewarded players without simply relying on death (although death was present), and I for one am looking forward to Yoshi's Wooly World and will not be upset if that game ditches the concept of death as well.
I don't think death needs to be removed from every game, of course. But I think that in a more diverse gaming ecosystem, games belonging to genres that almost universally feature 'death' can exist, and shouldn't be written off because they can't be pigeonholed by a mechanic that's only necessary because some gamers and developers aren't imaginative enough to think of difficulty beyond life or death.