Guillaume said:

@kriswright

I was being sarcastic.

Haha, that sort of thing happens to me a lot too.

Some of the arguments there are pretty silly: "This game I haven't played might get a higher rating than this game I haven't played!? OUTRAGE"

@Guillaume

I was just giving you the benefit of the doubt, since I don't know Sterling that well and you do. Nothing in the review seems disingenuous to me, though.

Added a couple more reviews to the OP.

Heck with waiting until tomorrow, I'm doing a midnight run to Wallyworld for this sucker! Me 'n Kirby are ready to throw down, y'all.

GameDadGrant said:

@TriforceBun

Is this song a remix? This was the song that really "stuck out" to me when I playing Mass Attack tonight.



EDIT: I think this track rocks. There are some other songs that I liked too, but this one was the one that stood out the most.

I listened to ten seconds of it.

Gobi's Valley.

@Secret_Tunnel

Gotta love that Egyptian scale!

@Simbabbad

Awww, I love Epic Yarn.

@Simbabbad

I don't think so. I think he genuinely loved his time with Deadly Premonitions, even if for the "wrong" reasons.

GET PSYCHED



3 hours to go!

Aww, the flyer said it'd be available on Monday, so I checked and no dice.
I had a feeling it'd be tomorrow, but I tried. Alas.

Simbabbad said:

TriforceBun said:

Awww, I love Epic Yarn.

It was a good, charming game, and it's maybe worth a 9.5 for children, but certainly not for an adult. And it's certainly not better than Wario Land.

It was better than Wario Land if only for the ability to play co-op. Call me a child, but I gave it a 9.5

We talkin' KEY now? I gotta step in and white knight it!

Epic Yarn has a decent amount of challenge if you're going for the golds and doing the various challenges that the apartment-dwellers give you. Like Wario Land, it's super-easy to beat the stages, but not to solve all the puzzles and get everything. The two games have a ton in common, such as being developed by the same house, and both having amazing 2-D visuals.

I do prefer Epic Yarn's soundtrack, overall aesthetic/style (and how that tied into the gameplay), and gameplay variety with the transformations (Dolphin > Wario Ship). And yes, it makes for an amazing game to play with a girl.

I say this as someone who really likes Shake It and has 100%ed it twice (no small feat)!

I'm off to try again for RtD. Friggin' stores better have it in now since my midnight run was a bust.

@Simbabbad
Whatever, if I have more fun with a game than in my opinion it's better. So Kirby's Epic Yarn is better than Wario Land Shake It.

@#$%@$%@ NINTENDO, SHIP YOUR @#%$%@ GAMES OUT ON TIME

TWO TRIPS, ZERO KIRBY

@#%@%$%$@$%@

I had about the same amount of fun with Wario and Epic Yarn. As TBun mentioned, they are actually pretty similar in many ways. Specifically the "do the extra stuff for a real challenge" aspect.

Also, there should be some Kirby waiting for me at WalMart right now. Leaving work at 3:30 and then it's 2 player suction action for me and my wife.

Um.. Yeah.

Dirty.

@Simbabbad
You should watch the Jimquisition episode on "A Different Kind of Difficulty" to get why Jim Sterling takes issue with people that call Kirby's Epic Yarn "easy".

I think Epic Yarn is better than Wario too. I don't love either of them, though.

@TriforceBun

Clearly we've found the kryptonite to your calm and lovable demeanor.

@nacthenud Yeah, I guess, any game can be difficult. But the difficulty of collecting a bunch of random gems and then trying to hold onto them was kind of boring to me. The core gameplay design was still pretty easy.

I still liked KEY a fair amount, but the lack of any real difficulty in the core gameplay design turned me off.

@Zero
This new wave of difficulty by choice was really driven home to me when I got into Cut the Rope. I mean, simply getting the candy into the Om-Nom's mouth is simple. The challenge, and fun of the title comes from getting all three stars AND getting the candy into the Om-Nom's mouth. You can progress through the game and "beat" all the levels with minimal effort, but then you're missing out on the fun part of the game - the optional challenge.

That game changed the way I look at modern challenge in games - or at least brought it to the forefront of my conscious mind. A game can simultaneously be easy enough for the casual to enjoy while offering significant challenge for the hardcore without having to select a "difficulty setting".

Kirby's Epic Yarn is a fantastic example of this as well. My youngest children can enjoy the same game as me without having to choose an ego-deflating "easy" option. They can play to see the end and I can play for gold medals and we're all enjoying the same game, just on different levels.

It's like a brilliant Pixar film that provides enough eye candy and easy jokes to keep the kids entertained while also providing the sub-context and deeper levels that the parents will enjoy.

I don't really buy it though, Kirby is kind of a bad example to me because the actual platforming never gets very difficult. The system doesn't really allow for difficult platforming because even with the whole "can't die" thing going on, no casual player is going to be happy if they can't do the jumps. The other problem is that you have to care about something arbitrary like gems versus something concrete like earning your progression.

I dunno, I thought my girlfriend and I would both get into it because of the whole casual / hardcore thing (and her limited video game history including Kirby games she enjoyed), but ultimately neither of us did. She thought that the lack of any consequences for death made it have "no point" (note to developers: n00bs/casuals still like to be challenged and have consequences for their actions) and I just found it way too easy and collecting gems wasn't interesting enough to change that.

I still think it's a great game (I think I liked it more than she did) but I think it has a serious flaw as well.

We're going to try out Kirby's Return to Dreamland together... I hope it works better for us. I think I will let her be Kirby because it sounds like the 2nd player in this game has the same issue she didn't like about all of KEY, which is to say that there is no real consequence to dying.