The first major Nintendo game of the year is arriving in March, and it stars an unlikely Super Mario character
- Nintendo's first big game of 2019 stars Yoshi, the ever-helpful dinosaur friend of Super Mario.
- The game is named "Yoshi's Crafted World," and it's set to launch on March 29 for $60.
- "Yoshi's Crafted World" is a blend of platforming, puzzle solving, and egg shooting. Yes, egg shooting!
Nintendo's first major game of 2019 puts a side character into a rare starring role: In "Yoshi's Crafted World," players control Super Mario's dinosaur friend Yoshi through a variety of unique, perilous worlds.
The game is set to arrive on March 29, Nintendo said on Wednesday morning; it's headed to the Nintendo Switch, and will cost $60.
For fans of the Super Nintendo, "Yoshi's Crafted World" may look familiar - it's a bit of a spiritual sequel to "Yoshi's Island: Super Mario World 2," which was originally launched on the SNES in 1995.
This is most evident in the trail of eggs following behind Yoshi, which he creates by swallowing his enemies whole. Those eggs can then be aimed and fired at enemies, traps, puzzle solutions, and all manner of other target. It's a unique twist that sets these two Yoshi's titles apart from Nintendo's other platforming franchises.
The other twist in Crafted World, of course, is the game's distinct style:
As the name implies, "Yoshi's Crafted World" is made up of what looks like craft projects.
The background above, for instance, is made up of colored cardboard cutouts, shirt buttons, and pieces of paper shaped into cones. The bushes on the right are newspaper cutouts, with visible writing still on the paper.
The overall aesthetic is clearly built around the "crafted concept,' and it gives "Yoshi's Crafted World" a distinctly Nintendo look.
Given Yoshi's origins in the "Super Mario" series, it's no surprise that the game's main villain appears to be Kamek - a particularly pernicious enemy from "Super Mario World" who also served as the antagonist in the original "Yoshi's Island" game.
Nintendo released a trailer detailing the game's story in broad terms, which you can see right here:
But you probably want to see the actual game in action, don't you? Great news - you can do that right here: