This Kirby doesn't suck. He's physically incapable of it. (Videos included)
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressions/24034
At Nintendo's offices, I had a chance to play through Hot Land, the second world in Kirby's Epic Yarn (the stages shown at E3 were from the first world, Grass Land -- can you see a Super Mario Bros. 3 pattern emerging?). Before getting into gameplay, I saw the introduction video, the Japanese version of which you can watch below. There are rumors that a wizard has been tormenting Dream Land, and Kirby accidentally comes across the character when trying to eat the tomato off of his head. The wizard sucks Kirby into his sock, but not before Kirby eats the tomato. Kirby ends up in a textile-based world, and has turned to yarn. Immediately, he sees Prince Fluff being chased by an enemy. Kirby tries to suck the enemy in, but air passes right through his now-hollow body. He then realizes that the tomato he ate wasn't a Maxim tomato, but a "metamato," which has given him the power to transform, so he turns into a car and drives away with Prince Fluff. The story is pretty random, and it's narrated in a Kindergarten storytime manner. The game is overtly cutesy, easily rivalling Yoshi's Story.
I'm not going to go into the basic mechanics, since James already did a good job in his E3 impressions. Everything about the game has been carefully crafted as yarn and fabric, from characters and their attacks to levels and their deformations.
You can't die in this game, instead losing beads when hit or falling off the screen. The beads scatter like in Sonic the Hedgehog, and so can be recovered, but they do not act as health. Since I was playing in a fire-based world, I found myself charred gray several times, though you can't fully catch on fire. This certainly makes the game much easier to complete -- Kirby's Dream Land was originally designed to be a game that anybody could easily complete. However, the challenge comes from finding all of the collectables, making it through the levels with enough beads to get high rankings, and unlocking other levels. Some levels are not required, being unlocked after the boss of that world is defeated.
The removal of Kirby's flying ability makes platforming more difficult than previous games, and there are several sequences where carefully timed platforming comes into play. One annoying consequence, if you're used to his old mechanics, is that pressing jump after jumping makes Kirby turn into a parachute, the exact opposite action. While the game feels easy to plow through, care must be taken to make it through unscathed.
Each level seems to have its own section where Kirby transforms into a special vehicle a la Yoshi's Island, and sometimes Kirby and Fluff combine in a super tranformation. I saw a off-road racer, UFO, digger mole, and fire engine, to name a few. The fire engine is used to put out fires, and uses Remote tilting to control the direction of water. Upon leaving the area, Kirby is automatically forced back into his normal yarn form. Kirby can also travel through narrow passages by unravelling completely, and I passed through one maze-like area that required this ability.
The world maps are similar to previous Kirby game, except, like everything else, they are made of cloth. Upon completing a level, a badge activates a creative yarn-based animation sequence, such as a genie or a dragon, that unfurls the next level.
The boss of Hot Land was a fiery version of Dynablade, and the battle was similar to that of previous games, with some clever yarn-based lava effects thrown in. At the end of each boss fight, Kirby recovers a piece of magic yarn. Exploiting tailoring ideas to their fullest, the yarn is necessary to literally tie the various worlds together so that Kirby can progress to the next stage.
There are a large number of collectables and unlockables in the game, many of which can be uncovered by pulling and peeling parts of the levels. Each level has three fabric patches to be collected from treasure chests, much like Wario Land: Shake It or Kirby Super Star's The Great Cave Offense. These patches can be taken back to the apartment complex where Kirby is staying to be used as decorations. The apartment setup is like it's own sub-game, reminiscent of Animal Crossing. Players can customize their apartment with furniture and patterns, and can purchase some of the said items at a nearby store. The patterns can be customized and applied to furniture, or used as wallpaper or flooring. The complex's landlord will build new apartments in exchange for beads. Once the appropriate patches are installed in other apartment, new tenants, similar in design to the Pixls of Super Paper Mario, will decide to move in. These neighbors open up new mini-levels.
Some patches are CDs, which unlock corresponding tracks in the game's sound test. The music, by the way, is just as elegant as the game's visuals, featuring tracks both new and old, in a variety of light renditions such as piano. The game also has several cutscenes, which can be viewed later from a menu.
The game is the same between single and two-player modes. Playing with two people makes the collectable part of the game much easier, as players can throw each other over or through obstacles that are hard to reach individually. However, the bead gauge is shared by both players, so both have to be careful of getting hit when going for medals. You can't stray too far from one another as an angel will drag the player left behind back to his partner.
The developer, Good Feel, has a very apt name. Between this game, and Wario Land: Shake It, the careful attention to all aspects of the game, from artistic presentation to gameplay leaves you with a good feeling. Kirby's Epic Yarn is another fun Kirby adventure that's great to play in pairs.