Flower Fields (Piano Cover) - Kirby's Epic Yarn
0Kirby's Epic Yarn is a sidescrolling 2-D platformer and a spin-off game in the Kirby series, developed primarily by Good-Feel. Despite being in the same genre, the game departs from the main Kirby series in several key ways, chief of which being the setting, art style, and Kirby's move-set: instead of inhaling enemies to gain their powers, Kirby uses a Yarn Whip to unravel his foes or wrap them up into projectiles. As implied by the title, the game is centered around a yarn and fabric aesthetic, and the setting, story, and stage gimmicks play heavily off this theme, from Kirby interacting with buttons, patches, and threads to reshaping himself and other characters by various means.
Another key aspect of Kirby's Epic Yarn is its accessibility and ease of play. Unlike most other platformers, the player can't lose the game, with damage to Kirby and his second-player companion Prince Fluff being punished only by losing beads instead of actually having a health meter or extra life counter. As such, the only real difficulty the game presents is entirely to the player's discretion, taking the form of earning medals in stages by completing them with more beads, or by grabbing all of the optional collectibles. These collectibles include pieces of music that can be listened to in a separate area of the game and pieces of furniture and fabric that can be used to decorate an apartment given to Kirby in the game's world of Patch Land.
Originally beginning as a non-Kirby game, Kirby's Epic Yarn would eventually gain the pink puffball as its main character and be shown at E3 2010, to much critical acclaim. The game was subsequently released for the Wii later that same year in Japan and North America and in 2011 in other regions; this game would also be the first game in the Kirby series to be officially localized into Canadian French and Latin American Spanish for the North American market. Kirby's Epic Yarn would later be ported to the Wii U as a downloadable eShop title in 2015 and 2016. In 2019, the game received an enhanced port for the Nintendo 3DS, titled Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn.
Trivia
The use of the word "yarn" in the game's English title may refer to both definitions of the word; the actual material of the game world, and that the game is a narrated story. The same can be said for "epic", as it can be used as an adjective or as a type of story.
This game retains a few elements exclusive to the anime, such as the inclusion of "poyo" in Kirby's vocal exclamations and the use of "-zoi" after some of Dedede's dialogue in the Japanese version of the game.
The art design of Kirby's Epic Yarn bears similarities to Japanese TV commercial for Kirby's Adventure, which aired in 1993. The commercial showed Kirby made out of fabric eating up other enemies, similarly to Kirby's Epic Yarn. It is unknown if this commercial was an inspiration for the game or not.
Kirby's Epic Yarn originally started as a non-Kirby game starring a character named Fluff named Fluff's Epic Yarn, (Japanese: Keito no Fluff, lit. "Fluff of Yarn"), which is where Prince Fluff comes from. However, in the summer of 2009, it was decided to turn the game into a Kirby game, as the original prototype didn't meet Good-Feel's expectations, and they thought that attaching Kirby would make the game more enjoyable. The internal codename of Kirby's Epic Yarn and Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn is "fluff".
Notably, the original idea of making a game featuring a world of yarn was provided by Madoka Yamauchi, the same person who directed Wario Land: Shake It!.
According to Tomoya Tomita, the original story of Fluff's Epic Yarn involved Prince Fluff searching for his lost mother. The staff credits theme was initially planned to be the stage theme for Fountain Gardens, which would reflect the bittersweet emotions that Fluff had been feeling in the story. As development progressed, Tomita decided to create a more conventional theme by taking the theme he wrote for Flower Fields and giving it a fuller arrangement, which is how the final theme for Fountain Gardens came to be. Tomita also included this motif into the theme of the level Yoshi and Cookies from Yoshi's Woolly World as an easter egg.
The developers of Kirby's Epic Yarn, Good-Feel, have also released Yoshi games with similar concepts: Yoshi's Woolly World, Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World and Yoshi's Crafted World.
Interestingly, the data for every stage in this game appears deep in the files of Yoshi's Woolly World. These were most likely used for testing in the early stages of development.