“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.
