Video game number three hundred and nine: Kirby's Epic Yarn

Video game review number three hundred and nine in my 365 Games in 365 Days project is "Kirby's Epic Yarn".

You may have heard the expression "cute overload" before, but you may not have actually experienced it. If you play this game...you will get to see what it is firsthand, and only your a serious disposition and strong intestinal fortitude will be able to save you from barfing up rainbows after playing it. Kirby is one happy little pink dude, made out of yarn...and he spends the game bouncing happily around a land of trees and clouds.

I'm pretty sure this is the most "cutesy-poo" game I've ever played....and I've played a lot of different games in my life. This game is a Valentine's Day card dipped in Syrup propped on top of a birthday cake at a puppy's birthday party.

To play, you hold the controller sideways, and you lead Kirby on an adventure through different worlds. There is nothing wrong with this formula, and I totally enjoyed playing it...but honestly, if any of my friends would have walked in during this, I think they probably would have snickered at the graphics.

This game looks and sounds like Fisher Price, for girls...and it's just unabashedly cute. Kirby squeals and "boings" when he bounces, and the music is a piano lullaby of happy little tunes that you might find playing in a baby's crib. Sometimes Kirby turns into a happy little car that goes "beep beep" as it drives. The game could just as easily have featured Elmo or a Teletubbie, and honestly...you wouldn't even have noticed.

Overall Score: 7.5/10 I played through the first four levels of the game, and it's not that I had a bad time or anything (it's actually a really strong platformer). This is such a hard game to score because on the one hand...it's a really good video game, but on the other...it's like the bunny suit in "A Christmas Story". The thing may be well crafted and cute, but the 12 year old gamer inside me just sees a pink nightmare. I had fun playing this, and I might even like to finish it someday, but after playing it for a few hours in one sitting, I felt like I needed to move on. I hate to say it, but video games are becoming a world of Halo, Gears of War and Rock music. If Kirby wants to stay relevant, he might need a machine gun or something. Or a flamethrower. :-)