First announced in 2017 and released on March 29th, 2019, Yoshi's Crafted World is a game in the Yoshi's Island series for Nintendo Switch. Developed by Good-Feel, the game is a sequel to Yoshi's Woolly World.
In Yoshi's Island, there is a mystical artifact called the Sundream Stone that can make one's wishes come true. But one day, Kamek and Baby Bowser found about the Sundream Stone and tried to make off with it. Unfortunately, a struggle with the Yoshis and Kamek results in a battle that causes the Sundream Stone and its five jewels to be scattered across the island.
The game stars Yoshi who appears to be made out of crafted fabric rather than felt. He is able to throw eggs in a three dimensional plane for the first time.
Tropes found in this game include:
- Advancing Boss of Doom: In the last level of Dino Desert, the Skelesaurus chases Yoshi through the whole level. He is also completely invincible.
- Alliterative Name: Plenty of world names use alliterations: Sunshine Station, Dino Desert, Pastel Pathway, Cardstock Carnival and Outer Orbit. Some levels use all iterations as well, including Altitude Adjustment, Spinwheel Shuffle, Deceptive Doors, Burts Bouncy Battle...
- Amusement Park: Cardstock Carnival. Includes Ferris wheels, roller coasters, carousels, and Bullet Bills (fireworks, perhaps).
- Antepiece: The game frequently eases the player into each level's mechanics through safe environments. Sometimes, an entire level basically trains the player for an upcoming boss fight.
- Art Course: In a game already based on arts and crafts, this game has one in the form of "Stitched Together", which actually reuses assets and aesthetics of the previous game, making it unique in a game that utilizes a different style of art. This also technically counts as a Nostalgia Level, in a way.
- Art Shift: Yoshi's Woolly World had mostly a yarn aesthetic, whereas Yoshi's Crafted World evokes what is essentially what happens when you ask a group of children to make dioramas with anything on hand, including paper plates, cans, cardboard boxes, drinking straws and so much more.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Typically represented by an X-shaped patch of tape. Some bosses weak to this include:
- Tin-Can Condor, whose weak point is under his crown.
- Gator Train, whose weak point is in its mouth.
- Burt the Ball, whose weak point is his crotch.
- Background Boss: Almost all bosses use this trope.
- The Yarrctopus boss in Pirate Pier sits on a ship in the background and shoots at you from there.
- Spike the Piranha has a phase where it hides in the background and makes his seedlings attack you.
- Burt the Ball not only shoots his minions at you from the background, he also rolls towards you from the back himself.
- The Gator train rides a railway in the background and only occasionally crosses to ram your own train.
- Lastly, the final boss Baby Bowser hides in the background in both of his phases.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: This time around, Kamek operates right alongside Baby Howser, who has grown up enough to talk and help in the quest to crush Yoshi.
- Big Boo's Haunt: Haunted Maker Mansion. Enemies in this stage include Zombie Shy Guys, Chompagobblers, and Shy Guy Reapers.
- Bonus Dungeon: Hidden Hills, which only can be accessed after beating the final boss.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: Tin-Can Condor is the only major boss who isn't a Tactical Suicide Boss, but it does have the misfortune of fighting Yoshi in an area where Mousers keep bringing in magnets Yoshi can use to weigh it down.
- Boss Arena Recovery: A downplayed example. Healing hearts spawn every time Yoshi hits a boss in a boss battle, but unless you're purposefully abstaining from using the costumes, they are not for recovery, but to get the bonus flower for finishing the level with full health.
- Boss-Only Level: If there's a level with a Dream Gem icon, it's this. It's also the first game where Yoshi doesn't have to go through a castle level of sorts. However, Kamek doesn't have a gem.
- Boss Subtitles: Every major boss is shown to have a title after Kamek creates the boss from resources such as Burt the Ball.
- Bragging Rights Reward: You gain three costumes which grant five extra hit points for beating all the levels, finding all the flowers, and finding all the sprouts in the levels. The thing is it's rather easy to come upon costumes which grant you five extra hit points through in-game gambling, meaning the rewards will be redundant when you get them.
- Broken Bridge: Two literal examples. The first one is in "Whistlestop Rails" and needs to be repared by Yoshi. The other one happens in the level "Exploring the animal kingdom" and separates a Rhino couple from one another.
- Checkpoint Starvation: None of the bonus levels of Hidden Hills have a single checkpoint. If Yoshi dies, it's all the way back to the beginning.
- Dead Weight: In Haunted Monster Mansion, there are massively overweight zombie Shy Guys sitting idly on sofas. If Yoshi swallows the Shy Guys, the sofas can move autonomously.
- Death Mountain: Whistlestop Train takes Yoshi to the top of a tall mountain, with rocks falling from the ceiling on the train.
- Defeat by Modesty: In grand tradition, Burt the Ball (who is still rather bashful) wears pants that lower as he takes damage, with the fight ending once his pants are gone completely.
- Dem Bones: One level consists of a pursuit by Skelesaurus which appears to be a giant fossil-skeleton dinosaur. Also doubles as an Advancing Wall of Doom.
- Depth Perplexion: Sometimes it can be difficult for the game to tell what you're aiming at, especially if it's in the background.
- Directionally Solid Platforms: Justified by those platforms being "tabs" that fold back when Yoshi is jumping through them. However, they only fold in one direction, explaining why Yoshi can't pass back through them.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: The Sundream Stone has five jewels that got scattered across the island.
- Dungeon Bypass: Required in the boss rematches—the time limits given are so tight that, if you let the bosses play out their attack patterns as normal, you will not have enough time. You have to figure out how to skip certain boss patterns if you're to succeed.
- Embarrassingly Painful Sunburn: The Torque who lives in Dino Desert has a distinct, glowing-red skin colour that strongly resembles a bad sunburn.
- Eternal Engine: Mr. Geary's Factory, which has a few Lethal Lava Land elements, and ends with a battle against Mr. Geary himself.
- Fetch Quest: The Blockafeller quests have you replaying levels from the world in search of "crafts", objects that can be found in the foreground and background of levels.
- Final-Exam Boss: The True Final Boss, Kamek Kerfuffle, involves fighting harder, Kamek-themed versions of Tin-Can Condor, Gator Train, and Baby Bowser's mecha, along with controlling Go-Go Yoshi one more time during the final phase.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: One of the Message Boxes in "Be Afraid of the Dark" simply reads "He'll come from behind." Cue axe-wielding doll bursting through the wall behind Yoshi.
- Flunky Boss: Spike the Piranha and Burt the Ball both fight alongside many of their minions. Yoshi can attack and defeat them as well, but in both fights, it doesn't help to defeat the boss.
- Gangplank Galleon: Pirate Bay features a lot of ships and pirate-themed enemies. In "Bombs Away on Pirate Island", you even battle opponent pirate ships with your ship cannon.
- Groin Attack: Burt the Ball needs to be Ground Pounded right between his stubby feet after being knocked into the water.
- Ground Pound: Considering Yoshi's Island is the Trope Namer, this comes with the territory. It can be used to bash in stakes and defeat tougher enemies who can shrug off a typical stomp, tongue or egg to the face. Uniquely, the left shoulder buttons are also mapped to Ground Pound, in addition to the classic method of pressing down.
- Guide Dang It!: One of the boss challenges requires you to beat the final boss in less than 4:30 minutes. For essentially every player, this is virtually impossiblenote . How do you get it? By abusing a mechanic from the two-player mode. At no point prior did you ever need this, and the mechanic wasn't even introduced if you have never started the two-player mode.
- High-Speed Battle: The fight against the Gator Train takes place on a railway, with Yoshi's train chasing the Gator Train and vice versa.
- Humongous Mecha:
- Go-Go Yoshi is a giant Yoshi mecha made out of cardboard.
- In the first phase of the final boss fight, Baby Bowser pilots a giant mecha.
- Instructive Level Design: The game makes minimal use of Hint Blocks by letting the level design itself teach the player how everything works. For example, Mine-Cart Cave teaches the player that the Action Bomb enemies can be used to blow up rocks by placing one of them in front of some rocks that blow up when it tries to attack.
- It's All Upstairs From Here: The secret level Under Siege has Yoshi climbing up a tower by means of moving platforms, while avoiding the tower's defence system (which is triggered by light)
- Jungle Japes: Rumble Jungle is a jungle-themed area with a lot of jungle-based scenery and enemies like rhinos or apes.
- King Mook: Surprisingly sparse in comparison to every other game, with the only bosses qualifying for this being Spike the Pirahna for the Pirahna Plant enemies, Burt The Ball for the Beach Burt enemies, the Shogun of Skewers for the Chompagobbler enemies and the Gator Train for the Gator enemies.
- Last Chance Hit Point: No matter how many hearts Yoshi had, he will always have exactly one hit point left before he really dies with the next hit.
- Leaning Tower of Mooks:
- Shy Guy Towers are shy guys standing on each other's shoulders.
- Mels are rectangular-bodied enemies that stand on each other's heads.
- Lethal Lava Land: "Poochy's Magma Run" takes place inside a volcano. Inexplicably, Poochy can swim inside the lava without being hurt. "Mr. Geary's Factory" combines this with Eternal Engine.
- Level Ate: "Poochy's Sweet Run", where bridges are made of sandwich crackers and bounce pads are macarons.
- Level in Reverse: Each course has a "Flip Side" where you play the level backwards, with the perspective flipped to match, and try to find and escort Poochy Pups to the goal.
- Level in the Clouds: Windward Way has an interesting take on that: The "clouds" are paper balls that move up or down, moved by the fan below them.
- Levels Take Flight: "Altitude Adjustment" involves Yoshi standing on a flying plane, whilst collecting coins, battling Shy Guys (including those on enemy planes) and popping balloons. The plane will fly lower if Yoshi stands on the front end, and it will fly higher if he stands on the rear end.
- Lily-Pad Platform: In the level "Ride the River", Yoshi travels on a river riding of lilypads (made out of sponge, to fit the crafting theme of the game).
- Locomotive Level:
- "Rail-Yard Run" (part of Sunshine Station) involves Kamek disassembling a steam engine, and Yoshi must find the three missing pieces to reassemble it. When he does, the train will take him to the goal.
- "Whistlestop Rails" from Big Paper Peak is another locomotive level, this time with the better part of the level spent riding trains through fields and caves and dodging Fangs.
- "Jungle Tour Challenge" from Rumble Jungle involves Yoshi riding on a train as he shoots eggs at the animal targets.
- "Gator Train Attacks!" is a Traintop Battle against the titular Gator Train, which rides on rails parallel to Yoshi's.
- Make My Monster Grow: Averted this time. Rather than enlarging an enemy, Kamek gather resources from the scene for example, he used a tin can as the body base for Tin-Can Condor or acorns and sweet gum balls for Spike the Piranha's vines However it's played straight as per Yoshi game where he enlarges Baby Bowser for the second part of the final fight and the final phase of Kamek's boss fight where Kamek himself grows giant.
- Marathon Boss: Subverted. In the second phase of the final boss fight, The Baby Bowser mecha has a health bar that displays he has 9,999 HP. In the end, this phase barely takes longer than the first phase.
- Monster Clown: The ragdolls in "Be Afraid of the Dark" are invincible clowns who make demonic screeches and charge at Yoshi with axes.
- Monster Is a Mommy: Done in the first stage of Rumble Jungle. You're chased by much of the stage by an angry, aggressive Rhinono. At the end, you see that she's worried because her baby is stranded on the other side of a broken bridge. When you fix the bridge, she and her baby team up to break one last obstacle for you before they stop chasing you.
- Musical Nod: Some of the music, particularly in the world contain elements from the main theme in Yoshi's Story.
- Musical Spoiler: Upon completing the level "Many Fish in the Sea", you can view its song in the Scrapbook. Said song is entitled "A Teeny, Tiny Universe".
- Mythology Gag: Some of the fake food cartons that the levels are made out of reference other Mario series, including:
- Moo Moo Meadows milk.
- Yo'ster Cookies.
- Starbeans Coffee cans and bottles.
- Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: Falling into a bottomless pit just deals some damage and makes Yoshi lose his eggs before turning into a winged egg and flying to the last solid ground he was on. Falling into a bottomless pit in the Hidden Hill levels or the True Final Boss is instant death, though.
- Nostalgia Level: "Stitched Together" is done in the style of Woolly World, with most of the level being made out of yarn. In addition, a lot of its setpieces are inspired by iconic ones from Woolly World, such as the windmills and mobiles.
- Our Slashers Are Different: Rare E-rated example of this trope. The ragdolls in "Be Afraid of the Dark" are invincible clowns who make demonic screeches and charge at Yoshi with axes.
- Painful Pointy Pufferfish: In the Yarrctopus Docks level "Many Fish in the Sea", Yoshi has to ride on a variety of papercraft fishes, which serve as platforms. Some of the fishes are pufferfishes, which Yoshi has to avoid unless he wants to get damage.
- Pass Through the Rings: Hoop-Jump Hop is a circus-themed level that requires Yoshi to pass as many rings as possible during a rather tight time limit.
- Patchwork Map: Literally and figuratively. The "worlds" only consist of 2-3 levels this time and they all have very different themes, like the Space Zone being right after the Jungle Japes, yet those settings connected by simple paper trails guarded by cardboard robots.
- Pixel Hunt: The myriad Fetch Quests can often result in checking the background and foreground obsessively.
- Plot Coupon That Does Something: Smiley Flowers help make unhappy characters happy.
- Power Up Mount: Poochy returns as a mount for Yoshi to ride on, and retains his invincibility to enemies and hazards.
- Puzzle Boss:
- The Shogun is different from other bosses in that the point of his battle is to navigate a maze of moving rooms and spike walls until you reach his chambers, at which point he is completely defenseless.
- Several bosses (such as Tin Can Condor and Baby Bowser himself) become these in their Time Trial rematches. Fighting them as normal reveals the given time isn't long enough to defeat them in—the player must figure out how to skip some of their attack phases in order to beat them quickly enough.
- Racing Minigame: "Solar Zoom" involves Yoshi riding a solar-powered car, and racing against Shy Guys in their own race cars. The car gains speed in sunlight and loses speed in the shadows, and running to the left or the right sides of the solar panels changes lanes.
- Recursive Ammo: The newly-introduced Blue/Teal Eggs (made by ricocheting a red egg) give the player 3 more eggs if used to defeat an enemy.
- Retaliation Mode:
- Yarrctopus pulls up the bridges of his ship and shuffles around behind them; he also spits sets of three spiked balls on his last hit point.
- Tin-Can Condor performs a sweeping set of ground pounds across the arena.
- Burt the Ball acts much like the aforementioned Big Montgomery, sending regular Burts to lob waves of beach balls at Yoshi from the background, before being spiked onto the arena himself.
- Spike the Piranha sends a sweeping wave of vines towards Yoshi from the background when hit.
- Gator Train becomes dizzy and rams all of the train cars Yoshi is standing on, forcing him to flutter-jump until the next train arrives.
- Baby Bowser's mecha performs an attack where he spins a bunch of rocket-shaped bottles around the arena.
- Mega Baby Bowser retreats to the background and summons several meteors whenever he gets hit.
- Rhino Rampage: Several aggressive rhinos appear in the Rumble Jungle. They ram on Yoshi on sight and are very persistent. This can prove useful, as they can be tricked into destroying obstacles Yoshi would otherwise be unable to pass.
- Ring-Out Boss: Burt the Ball has limited ways to harm Yoshi, and mostly just tries to knock him into the water with Bumpties and beach balls, and by tilting the arena. Spitting Bumpties at Burt allows Yoshi to turn the tide against him (figuratively and literally) and expose his weak point.
- Rise to the Challenge: At one point in Mr. Geary's Factory, Yoshi must climb to the top of a vat as the lava inside it rises.
- River of Insanity: "Ride the River", especially with the Lunge Fish that try to eat Yoshi. One of which serves as an Advancing Wall of Doom near the end of the stage.
- Scenery Porn: This game is absolutely gorgeous and one of the gimmicks is to play in both the front and back halves of the stages!
- Shielded Core Boss: The Tin Can Condor is normally immune to your eggs or any form of damage, due to being plated in a coat of armor made of tin cans. However, Little Mousers periodically run across the screen with magnets, which you can then spit at him, dragging the feather armor off his head and exposing the weak point.
- Space Zone: Outer Orbit.
- Stalactite Spite: Several falling icicles appear in Slip-Slide Isle.
- Stop Motion:
- Whenever Kamek uses his wand to assemble a boss or when the Sundream Stone grants the wishes to make something for whatever one desires, it happens in what seems to be Stop Motion for the inanimate objects.
- The costume capsule dispensers have jerky, low frame rate animations. Given how realistic the material objects are made of can look in this game, it gives a very convincing stop-animation feel.
- Surprisingly Creepy Moment: The majority of the game is bright and cheerful, as per usual for Yoshi. Then you meet "Be Afraid of the Dark" and start to wonder why there are murderous axe-wielding dolls akin to slashers in this cutesy, colorful game. This is despite "Haunted Maker Mansion", the other spooky level, mostly being cute.
If he
- sees you,
run
- away...
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
- Spike the Piranha is basically the land version of Naval Piranha.
- Burt the Ball has new attacks involving Bumpties and beach balls, but otherwise, he's just Burt the Bashful with a different name.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: Overall, a lot of the bosses would be invincible if they didn't keep summoning enemies Yoshi can throw or spit back at them.
- Spike the Piranha would be invincible if it didn't keep spitting out containers above it that can be hit to drop spike balls on it.
- Burt the Ball would be unbeatable if he didn't summon those Bumpties that Yoshi can spit at him.
- Gator Train is invincible, but when he tries to bite Yoshi, he exposes the soda can in his mouth, his weak point, as dictated by the tape over it.
- Baby Bowser would be unstoppable if he didn't keep summoning enemies Yoshi can use against him. His second phase would likewise be unbeatable if he didn't keep pulling out weapons Yoshi can use against him.
- Kamek keeps exposing himself to make his attacks more powerful, even though he'd be invincible if he just stayed hidden the whole time.
- Thematic Sequel Logo Change: The logo is made from cardboard to represent the game's focus on environments made from arts and crafts.
- Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack: Nearly all of the music consists of remixes of the game's main theme. The only exceptions are the map theme, boss theme, and final boss theme.
- Towering Flower: The Origami Gardens are filled with various flowers several times bigger that Yoshi and the local fauna alike.
- Traintop Battle: Gator Train is train fought by Yoshi on a train of his own.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: There are plenty of mini-game levels that differ strongly from the game's standard jump-and-run levels, but the prime example is the Solar Cart race, using a completely different perspective to all other levels in the game.
- Unique Enemy: Plenty of enemies and variants of Shy Guys only appear in one single course. Special mention goes to Koopa Troopas, Wigglers and Swoopers, which are among the most regular enemies in the Mario universe, but in this game only appear in one course each.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: After the Yoshis gather four of the five Dream Stones, Kamek and Baby Bowser have an unspoken plan on what to do next. Turns out the plan was to just let the Yoshis get the last Dream Stone and reassemble the Sundream Stone so they can swipe it for themselves.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Spike the Piranha will likely give one a tough time if they were off guard from the cakewalks that were Yarrctopus and Tin Can Condor, mainly due to his very hectic bullet patterns.
- Weakened by the Light: The dolls in "Be Afraid of the Dark" get stopped by spotlights and will not chase Yoshi through them.
- Wintry Auroral Sky: Slip-Slide Isle, which takes place on a frozen island, has blue auroras shimmering in its nighttime sky.
- Wutai: All of the Ninjarama world is set in some kind of Japanese landscape;
- "Deceptive Doors" takes place at a dojo at night with Shy Guys throwing paper stars and green straws emulating bamboo stalks.
- "Behind the Shoji" is an autoscroller with the twist that portions of the level are hidden behind the titular sheet.
- "The Shogun's Castle" is a Big Fancy Castle guarded by yogurt-cup swordsmen and featuring puzzles involving elevators.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: On finding the very last Sundream Stone, the victory fanfare plays and the Yoshis jump up gleefully - only for Bowser Jr. and Kamek to crash the party.
