Yatzee went full retard on this review. He should leave reviews games aimed to kids to 1) Kids, 2) People who have kids or (at the very least) 3) People who played the other games in the serie. Hopefully his eventual "hypothetical son" will set him straigth here.
Of course, any complain about Yatzee will be meet with resistance, but he doesn't have a leg to stand on here, and I actually welcome any rebutal other than "but but but that game is soooo eaaassyyyy". Yes, it is : It's aimed at 5-8 y/o kids. Are you 5-8? No? Then STFU about that "fact".
Let's start : The apartment building and it's tenants are NOT an Apartment Decoration Mini Game. If he really think that it is, then he didn't play the game, or even just interacted with the tenants he hate so much. Each of the "tenants" are really just Challenges Menus, nothing more than that. They are there as a cute way to introduce challenges to the players. The serve the same function as a list menu containing sub-menus, and to see it as anything else than that is being quite obtuse. But guess what? It's a menu that a kid too young to read can still understand.
There is about 100 of them, maybe more. They range from finding a number of objects in a level within a time limit to things like races or killing all the enemies in a level, and some of them are Meat Boy hard (the 1st and 2nd level of Meat Boy maybe, but still)
Why is he complaining? Every fucking games now have the same unlockables, Epic Yarn is just doing it in a way that catch the interest of the target demographic (which isn't Yaztee or his hypothetical son)
Also, about 25% of the levels are hidden, and unless he killed all of the Bosses without taking a hit (and some of the levels without taking a hit), he didn't unlock them, which means that he (or his hypothetical son) didn't finish the game.
You seem to have forgotten that not every gamers got their start with Mario, Contra and Zelda. Some played Kirby, Wonderboy and Alex Kidd, and Nintendo was trying to reach the same kind of people, not your hardcore hypothetical son.
There is about 10 other Kirby games in the serie AND THEY ALL PLAY LIKE EPIC YARN. Complaining about Epic Yarn is complaining about the formula that made Kirby what it is over the last 20 years. It's like complaining that there isn't enough car chases in Final Fantasy or wishing that Super Mario be more like Super Meat Boy.
For example : Metaknight isn't Kirby's nemesis since quite a few games ago, that's why he loan the Halberd to Kirby. This is part of the story established ever since the very first Kirby, 20 years ago. Metaknight lend a hand when Kirby needs it, he always does. He not only didn't play them, he is completely ignorant of anything that has to do with Kirby.
There are differences of course, the main one being that Kirby lost the ability to inhale enemies, but then again he couldn't do in the first game in the serie either. It's still Kirby though. I bought it knowing full well what it would be, and my expectations were more than meet.
Also, what's with his obsession to "learn" something in a game? WTF? Not dying means not trying? For fuck's sake, what a retarded assertion. What is the difference between not dying and dying, but just starting from the start of a level when you continue?
I'll counter his "experience" with children (eg : with his hypothetical son) with my (concrete) experience, coming from a real flesh and blood daughter : Last Fall, she played games with Dora The Explorer, Diego, all the Disney Princesses, Cooking Mama, etc. All of them were about wiggling her wiimote about, nothing like what I used to play at her age. She is a girl (!!) so the choices of games aren't that amazing. Bratz games and botched Barbie offerings, everything sucks. Then I bought Epic Yarn. In the space of 4 months, she beat it (at 100%), and she was asking for more... I got all the Kirby games on the VC, gave her my Gameboys and emulated the ones I couldn't find legitimately. She beat every single ones of them, all of them with all the unlocks. She even finished Avalanche, which is quite hard.
What did she learn? TO USE A D-PAD AND TWO BUTTONS. You rant about motion, what he should realize is that a *lot* of kids raised on a Wii can't use a D-Pad. They learn to use a D-Pad when they get a DS these days. Also, that games can be fun even without colors or 3D. She learned more about gaming more than with any other games she played, and she seemed to enjoy games more like how I remember enjoying at her age. (again, 5-8 here)
She spit on motion control now... In fact, she seem to be able to hold the pad in any direction. I saw her play holding it behind her head, upside down and even reversed. She put me to shame.
Anyway... This review felt thrown together based on a cynical kidless adult presumptions. I'm sorry, I wouldn't be defending the game if I didn't see it played nearly every day, along with all of it's ancestors, for the last 8 months. Kirby is quite Epic, ever since the first.
Wow that's a fucking wall of text...
TD;LR : Yatzee got it all wrong, and he wish his future son to be a cynic like him. Also, it's a fun game, if you are between 5-8 or have kids that are in that age.
