Apparently I capslocked about Yoshi's Crafted Aventure and then forgot???
This week's hyperfocus: Yoshi's Crafted World! I say week, I've been cycling this and Animal Crossing since like the start of April.
(Q: Susan, didn't you say that you probably weren't going to buy this one?
A: *Howl's Moving Castle voice* My shining dishonesty will be the saving of me!)
It's cute! I've been playing it on mellow mode, because I'm honestly just here to doss around and have fun, and I don't want to stress myself out? Let's face it, I've almost finished it (including all the extra stuff like collecting souveniers!) and I've never done that with a platformer before so I'll take the win! The main difference between mellow mode and regular mode is that in mellow mode you have wings, so missing a jump doesn't immediately screw you, and if you really can't be bothered doing something properly you can just hover/glide your way to freedom. (Also if there's a timer on normal mode, there isn't on mellow mode, but I'm not going to check because see also: not stressing myself out.)
The thing that I'm enjoying most about the game, weirdly, is how textured everything is. Like the gimmick is that all the levels and things look like handicrafts, and it must have taken forever to make it because they succeeded! I can look at Yoshi or an animal or a background feature and go "Oh hey, that's made of felt!" or "That's a cereal box!" or "That's covered in tin foil!" It's SO COOL, A+, good work those humans. ... Seriously, I'm not an artist, but making everything look like it was handmade and leaving the seams showing must have been a lot of work! (It helps that periodically I just go "Hey, I have that exact washi tape!" and feel very pleased.)
Turns out that mellow mode is about the right difficulty for me, because I've actually been putting the effort into getting the 100% score on it. Some of it's taken A LOT of repetition, and some of them I've gone noooooooooooooooo the entire way through because a) I never like haunted house levels in games, this is why I keep
splend around to play the scary levels for me, and b) there's one level where I'm in a giant cardboard Yoshi and my inability to get timings right on things has snuck up on me to kick my arse. But on the plus side, getting through them! And learned new things about my preferred playstyle, which is "Obsessively do one set of levels over and over until I've completed everything that I need to do" rather than speeding through the whole game and then going back to it. I think the issue is that I don't trust myself to remember to do the "Going back" bit, and if I'm rushing everything to get to the end, I get impatient and stop enjoying it? Whereas just going "Nah mate, I will do this one level five times until I manage to find this one (1) bastard background thing I need to snag" somehow works better for me. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND MY BRAIN AND I DON'T EXPECT ANYONE ELSE TO EITHER.
UPDATE ON THIS: I unlocked the penultimate set of levels and the first one of that set was a level with this helpful hint! Turns out that it's almost entirely evil axe-murderer clown dolls with superspeed and invulnerability! That will chase you across the level until you find a light to scare them away! And the game likes to have them chop through walls with no warning, or drop out of the goddamn sky. I literally had to stop playing it because Lex was trying to work and I was squeaking in fear every thirty seconds, because I am a cowardy-custard and apparently get jumpscared by games aimed at seven year olds. I am seriously judging the souvenir robot for asking me to go back into that murder city REPEATEDLY for things for it, but I guess on the plus side I managed to rescue a dog and a frog robot from the City of Nightmares, so that's a plus? ... I don't understand why this level is here, oh my god, who looked at the cute bouncy game about finding gem stones and ruining a baby Bowser's day and decided it needed invulnerable murder clowns?!
One of the bosses is a gator train though and let's face it, a train that is also an alligator is pretty cool.
So yeah, most of my comments still stand, but Shadowville is a MASSIVE PILE OF NOPE.
(Q: Susan, didn't you say that you probably weren't going to buy this one?
A: *Howl's Moving Castle voice* My shining dishonesty will be the saving of me!)
It's cute! I've been playing it on mellow mode, because I'm honestly just here to doss around and have fun, and I don't want to stress myself out? Let's face it, I've almost finished it (including all the extra stuff like collecting souveniers!) and I've never done that with a platformer before so I'll take the win! The main difference between mellow mode and regular mode is that in mellow mode you have wings, so missing a jump doesn't immediately screw you, and if you really can't be bothered doing something properly you can just hover/glide your way to freedom. (Also if there's a timer on normal mode, there isn't on mellow mode, but I'm not going to check because see also: not stressing myself out.)
The thing that I'm enjoying most about the game, weirdly, is how textured everything is. Like the gimmick is that all the levels and things look like handicrafts, and it must have taken forever to make it because they succeeded! I can look at Yoshi or an animal or a background feature and go "Oh hey, that's made of felt!" or "That's a cereal box!" or "That's covered in tin foil!" It's SO COOL, A+, good work those humans. ... Seriously, I'm not an artist, but making everything look like it was handmade and leaving the seams showing must have been a lot of work! (It helps that periodically I just go "Hey, I have that exact washi tape!" and feel very pleased.)
Turns out that mellow mode is about the right difficulty for me, because I've actually been putting the effort into getting the 100% score on it. Some of it's taken A LOT of repetition, and some of them I've gone noooooooooooooooo the entire way through because a) I never like haunted house levels in games, this is why I keep
splend around to play the scary levels for me, and b) there's one level where I'm in a giant cardboard Yoshi and my inability to get timings right on things has snuck up on me to kick my arse. But on the plus side, getting through them! And learned new things about my preferred playstyle, which is "Obsessively do one set of levels over and over until I've completed everything that I need to do" rather than speeding through the whole game and then going back to it. I think the issue is that I don't trust myself to remember to do the "Going back" bit, and if I'm rushing everything to get to the end, I get impatient and stop enjoying it? Whereas just going "Nah mate, I will do this one level five times until I manage to find this one (1) bastard background thing I need to snag" somehow works better for me. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND MY BRAIN AND I DON'T EXPECT ANYONE ELSE TO EITHER.
UPDATE ON THIS: I unlocked the penultimate set of levels and the first one of that set was a level with this helpful hint! Turns out that it's almost entirely evil axe-murderer clown dolls with superspeed and invulnerability! That will chase you across the level until you find a light to scare them away! And the game likes to have them chop through walls with no warning, or drop out of the goddamn sky. I literally had to stop playing it because Lex was trying to work and I was squeaking in fear every thirty seconds, because I am a cowardy-custard and apparently get jumpscared by games aimed at seven year olds. I am seriously judging the souvenir robot for asking me to go back into that murder city REPEATEDLY for things for it, but I guess on the plus side I managed to rescue a dog and a frog robot from the City of Nightmares, so that's a plus? ... I don't understand why this level is here, oh my god, who looked at the cute bouncy game about finding gem stones and ruining a baby Bowser's day and decided it needed invulnerable murder clowns?!
One of the bosses is a gator train though and let's face it, a train that is also an alligator is pretty cool.
So yeah, most of my comments still stand, but Shadowville is a MASSIVE PILE OF NOPE.