Why Yoshi’s Woolly World deserves a second chance on Nintendo Switch

Of all the Wii U titles that haven’t made the jump to Nintendo Switch, Yoshi’s Woolly World is absolutely one of the most deserving.

Early on in the Switch’s life span, Nintendo filled what would have otherwise been gaps in their release schedule with plenty of Wii U ports. Between Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3, New Super Mario Bros. U, and especially Mario Kart 8, many of that console’s best-received titles found new life on Nintendo Switch. Lately though, we haven’t been seeing many Wii U ports at all. Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition could be counted as one, but between the graphical overhaul and added story content, one could argue that it goes beyond that.

The point is, we likely won’t be seeing many more Wii U ports on Nintendo Switch or even Switch 2. Nintendo has, for the most part, ported all of its heavy hitters. However, we’re now talking about one particular Wii U game that has sort of fallen into obscurity: Yoshi’s Woolly World. 

Yoshi’s Woolly World was developed by Good-Feel, the team behind the excellent Kirby’s Epic Yarn back on Wii. When that game released, its hand-crafted art style was a breath of fresh air – that hadn’t really been done for a Nintendo game at that point, and Epic Yarn was overall very well received. When Yoshi’s Woolly World was revealed in 2013, its cutesy crafted visuals didn’t quite have the same impact. It was considered a Yoshi version of Kirby’s Epic Yarn rather than its own thing, which (combined with its Wii U exclusivity at the time) is probably part of why it flew under the radar.

In terms of game quality, the Yoshi series wasn’t doing so well prior to Yoshi’s Woolly World. Yoshi’s New Island had released in 2014, just a year before Woolly World, and wasn’t well received. Though the graphics looked decent, the music was criticized for its heavy leaning on kazoos and the gameplay and story were nothing special, either. Go back farther than Yoshi’s New Island and you have Yoshi’s Island DS, Yoshi Touch & Go, and Yoshi Topsy-Turvy, which have all fallen into relative obscurity and aren’t often discussed amongst popular DS and Game Boy Advance games.

With that in mind, it’s easy to see why the same level of excitement wasn’t there for Yoshi like it was for Kirby. Especially with the recent release of Yoshi’s New Island, there was no guarantee the game would be any better. But when it finally released in 2015, it was met with positive reviews and universal acclaim. Yoshi’s Woolly World is arguably the best game in the Yoshi franchise – especially if you count its main competitor, Super Mario World 2, as a Mario game instead (you could argue either way).

Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Yoshi’s Woolly World both fall into the same “mini-genre” of sorts. They’re both 2D platformers with hand-crafted art styles, excellent music, and a joyous vibe not quite captured by any other game. The visuals and audio combine to create a uniquely cozy atmosphere – one that isn’t captured by Yoshi’s Crafted World, which we’ll cover in a while. Indeed, Woolly World’s aesthetics are sublime. Every level is packed with visual detail and almost every background track in the game is wonderfully catchy and fitting of the level. Kirby’s Epic Yarn’s music covers a wide range of moods and vibes – Yoshi’s Woolly World does that too, but with an emphasis on tropical instruments. Some of our favorite tracks are Bounceabout Woods, Up Shuttlethread Pass, and Scarf-Roll Scamper. In terms of gameplay, Woolly World is no slouch either. It’s the same as your average egg-throwing Yoshi game, but with added visual flair and yarn effects. The levels themselves, in addition to having wonderfully designed aesthetics and soundtrack, are all unique and the game includes some fun boss battles as well.

Yoshi’s Woolly World is also known for its extensive amiibo support. Even without them, you could customize your playable Yoshi to have any sort of pattern you wanted. But if you had an amiibo of a specific character, you could tap that figure into the game and Yoshi would change his color to match that character. This even counted for characters you wouldn’t think would be compatible – indeed, Yoshi even has custom patterns for Ness, Shulk, Mega Man, Pac-Man, and more. The game supported just about every single amiibo that was available at the time in 2015, except for the Pokemon ones. Interesting!

Also worth noting, the Wii U version of Yoshi’s Woolly World is not the definitive version of the game. In the same vein as Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Yoshi’s Woolly World was ported to Nintendo 3DS in 2017 and actually received new content that the Wii U version never got. For one, the Nintendo 3DS version is compatible with all of the amiibo that released since the Wii U version, including characters like Ryu, Lucas, Boo, and Wolf Link. The game also released with an exclusive yarn Poochy amiibo that would cause the character to appear in any level you were playing at the time. And although the original version had tons of patterns available, in the 3DS version you can actually create your own pattern for Yoshi and then use a Yarn Yoshi amiibo to transfer that pattern to another copy of the game (which we’re not sure if anyone actually did, but it’s a neat little tidbit regardless). Unfortunately, these patterns could not be transferred to the Wii U version. Importantly, Yoshi’s Woolly World only runs at 60 frames per second on New Nintendo 3DS systems – on standard 3DS consoles, it can only run at 30 FPS.

If you are indeed playing on a New 3DS system, then Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World is almost the definitive version to play the game. It technically has more content, but the HD visuals of the Wii U version couldn’t possibly be matched on such a small system. This leads us into our final point here – the Nintendo 3DS version of Yoshi’s Woolly World has additional content, but downgraded visuals, which means there is no true definitive version of the game. Whichever version you’re playing, there are compromises in some form or another.

In 2019, Yoshi’s Crafted World released for Nintendo Switch. In many ways, it’s similar to Yoshi’s Woolly World, both in terms of concept and gameplay. Rather than focusing on yarn for its primary aesthetic, though, Crafted World takes on more of a felt aesthetic. This art style is definitely a success, though in an odd way it doesn’t feel quite as cozy as Woolly World’s hand-crafted visuals. Where Crafted World loses out compared to Woolly World, however, is its music – the developers of the game changed composers after the release of Yoshi’s Woolly World, and you can tell that Crafted World’s music suffers from it. Almost all of its tracks are simply a remix of the game’s main theme, and generally feel uninspired and lacking in the joyous feeling that Woolly World captured so well.

Yoshi’s Crafted World isn’t a bad game by any means, but its mere existence has prevented Woolly World from receiving the attention it deserves. At this point, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll see the game again – it was already ported to 3DS in 2017, as we mentioned, which means Nintendo might not be so keen on porting it a second time – not to mention how similar the games are to each other; they might not want to release two that occupy the same niche. This leaves Yoshi’s Woolly World to fly under the radar, which we think is a real shame. We actually haven’t received a Nintendo game with a hand-crafted art style since Crafted World in 2019, so it appears that era of art style has come to a close – at least for now.

What do you think of Yoshi’s Woolly World? Does it rank among your favorite 2D platformers, or have you never really given it a shot? Let us know in the comments down below. We certainly hope to see this game given a definitive version sometime in the future, but we may be waiting for Nintendo Switch 2 or beyond for that to happen.