Kirby’s Epic Yarn producer on why Kirby doesn’t inhale enemies in the game
Kirby’s ability to inhale enemies is a staple of the series. In Kirby’s Epic Yarn, however, this isn’t possible. Now that the game has returned on 3DS, producer Etsunobu Ebisu has revisited the subject.
Ebisu told Kotaku the following in a new interview when asked why Kirby’s signature move is missing:
“(Making Kirby out of yarn) means outlining the character with yarn, so the stomach would be hollow and enemies would just fall out after being inhaled. When discussing designs for a new action game, we often start with the player’s abilities. But for this project we took a different direction and started to discuss and pitch ideas from the structural and environmental perspective. From there, we figured out how the world would play by going over things like what the world would be like if it was made of yarn, how that would differ from a normal world, and whether there’s anything that can be done only because of the yarn.”
Kirby’s Epic Yarn wasn’t always planned as a Kirby game. It was Nintendo and HAL Laboratory who suggested turning what Good Feel had created into something Kirby-related. Good Feel liked the idea, but felt that it wouldn’t make sense for the well-known character to inhale enemies.
Ebisu explained further:
“In response, we created the basic ‘pulling’ ability for the yarn characters. We thought that this would fit the game, so we consulted with HAL Laboratory about Kirby’s ability in this game being to pull, rather than inhaling. HAL Laboratory understood that the hollow stomach meant air would just leak out even if inhaled, and kindly accepted our proposal.”
