“Kirby’s Epic Yarn” is less a video game than a public service. If there’s a better cure for seasonal affective disorder, I don’t know it. Whatever is ailing you, “Epic Yarn” is a dose of joy. Kirby fans have gotten used to the series mostly squandering the premise established by “Kirby’s Adventure” on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Sequels had you still inhaling enemies to steal their powers, not enough changes were made to justify the release of a new game. As if to say “This one’s different,” “Epic Yarn” plucks Kirby out of Dream Land and plops him down in Patch Land, where everything is made out of yarn. The grass under his feet “feels like pants,” Kirby notes, and what’s more, he himself has been transformed into a yarn outline. His hollow body means Kirby can’t create a vacuum with which to inhale enemies, and, like its star, “Epic Yarn” is incapable of sucking.
Indeed, Kirby is not longer the copycat he once was, and instead tosses his yarn out like a lasso to unravel enemies. Pretty as it is to see blue yarn “rain” or a dragon that looks like an explosion at Michaels, the yarn treatment is much more than a gimmick, and rarely have a game’s graphics been so integral to how the game is played. Fabric backgrounds can be unzipped or unbuttoned to reveal new areas, and Kirby himself, being of fiber and dye rather than flesh and blood, cannot die. This would seem to rob the game of any tension, but it turns out to be an inspired choice, as the game can be made quite hard for those who want to find all its secrets, but anyone can play it through to the end.
The ability to change his silhouette also allows Kirby to reshape himself into all sorts of stuff, from a tank to a dolphin, in sequences that recall the titular dinosaur’s transformations in “Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island.” Indeed, “Epic Yarn” feels less like a Kirby game than the long-sought follow-up to that overlooked Super Nintendo platformer, especially in the inspired level designs, which transcend the positive-feedback loop of video game objectives and enter the realm of pure joy. “Epic Yarn” is a game you play, not just complete.
| ‘Kirby’s Epic Yarn’ |
| » System: Wii |
| » Price: $49.99 |
| » Rating: 5 out of 5 stars |
Throw in “Animal Crossing”-style interior design, a robust two-player mode, and lovely piano tunes that would make a “Peanuts” special jealous, and you have the best of an uncommonly good crop of recent Wii sidescrollers. “New Super Mario Bros. Wii” is more nostalgic, “Muramasa: The Demon Blade” more evocative and “And Yet It Moves” more original, but “Epic Yarn” spins the best experience of them all.
