LakeOf9
Member
It's really no secret I have been pretty unimpressed with Nintendo's lineup on the Switch 2. The Switch 1 made a Nintendo fan out of me for life, or so I thought. But then the Switch 2 has been a series of disappointments – Mario Kart World is very good, but a step down from Mario Kart 8. Pokemon Legends ZA is fine, but such a regression over Legends Arceus. Metroid Prime 4 is a fucking disaster. I appreciate Pokopia and Tamodachi, but those are in a genre I don't care about.
This Yoshi game looked supremely uninteresting to me. Like, it looked sleep inducing, I had no idea why making another fucking 2D platformer this early on in the system's life was what Nintendo was going for here. I had absolutely no interest in it, and was perfectly happy letting my Switch 2 and its dock gather more dust while I waited for this fucking company to release something interesting at some point in time.
Through a series of hilarious events, I ended up getting this for $11, so I decided to give it a go, because in the worst case, I figured I could trade it in for near full price value and get my money back. So what the hell.
And.. the game is... good?
Legitimately surprised. Like, for starters, it looks gorgeous. This is apparently an Unreal Engine 5 game on the Switch 2, I expected a blurry, stuttery, 30fps mess. Instead it looks absolutely stunning, arguably the best looking first party game on the Switch 2 so far.
But what I really like about it is how it plays. It's a delightful game. The entire game reminds me of an old game called Scribblenauts, in one way – every single thing you do in Yoshi is an interaction that responds to the player. No matter how minor, every single thing in the game reacts to you, and everything else. It's like a toy box, or learning a new subject for the first time as a kid – your imagination is unlimited, and the game lets you keep pushing and poking and prodding and getting delightful and often unexpected responses from how things respond to other things.
It's definitely an easy game, in terms of platforming. I'd actually argue it's not a platforming game at all, it's basically a puzzle game, where the difficulty is in having to suss out what you need to do, and how you need to do it, rather than difficulty in reflexes and response timings to level design and traversal.
It is built in the same style that so many Nintendo games have been since Breath of the Wild, open ended and inviting the player to push at the boundaries and see where they are able to go. Even as a grown man, this game is fun – I can imagine kids being able to get countless hours just from experimenting in a single level, let alone the full suite of all the game has to offer.
This Yoshi game looked supremely uninteresting to me. Like, it looked sleep inducing, I had no idea why making another fucking 2D platformer this early on in the system's life was what Nintendo was going for here. I had absolutely no interest in it, and was perfectly happy letting my Switch 2 and its dock gather more dust while I waited for this fucking company to release something interesting at some point in time.
Through a series of hilarious events, I ended up getting this for $11, so I decided to give it a go, because in the worst case, I figured I could trade it in for near full price value and get my money back. So what the hell.
And.. the game is... good?
Legitimately surprised. Like, for starters, it looks gorgeous. This is apparently an Unreal Engine 5 game on the Switch 2, I expected a blurry, stuttery, 30fps mess. Instead it looks absolutely stunning, arguably the best looking first party game on the Switch 2 so far.
But what I really like about it is how it plays. It's a delightful game. The entire game reminds me of an old game called Scribblenauts, in one way – every single thing you do in Yoshi is an interaction that responds to the player. No matter how minor, every single thing in the game reacts to you, and everything else. It's like a toy box, or learning a new subject for the first time as a kid – your imagination is unlimited, and the game lets you keep pushing and poking and prodding and getting delightful and often unexpected responses from how things respond to other things.
It's definitely an easy game, in terms of platforming. I'd actually argue it's not a platforming game at all, it's basically a puzzle game, where the difficulty is in having to suss out what you need to do, and how you need to do it, rather than difficulty in reflexes and response timings to level design and traversal.
It is built in the same style that so many Nintendo games have been since Breath of the Wild, open ended and inviting the player to push at the boundaries and see where they are able to go. Even as a grown man, this game is fun – I can imagine kids being able to get countless hours just from experimenting in a single level, let alone the full suite of all the game has to offer.
