Yoshi's Woolly World - Tezuka on yarn theme confusion, taking New Island's reception into account

This is part of Game Informer interview with Nintendo's Takashi Tezuka...

Game Informer: Is there a fear of confusion between Kirby's Epic's Epic Yarn and Yoshi's Woolly World?
Takashi Tezuka: No, we’re not really worried about this being seen as like a sequel or something, because honestly, we didn’t create Woolly World as a way to create an Epic Yarn sequel – it was just an idea we had. The idea of creating a Yoshi platformer came first, and then we thought that it might be interested to see his world represented with yarn.

So, the yarn theme is just a coincidence?
No, it’s not a coincidence. We were aware of the work that Good-Feel did with Epic Yarn, and we thought it looked amazing. We weren’t trying to create a Yoshi version of that. We just thought, “They’re good at doing textures and things – what can they do for us?” So we asked Good-Feel to create a Yoshi experience.

Were you surprised by the reception of Yoshi's New Island?
There was one thought I had after Yoshi’s New Island, and that’s that Yoshi fans span many different groups, and that includes some hardcore gamers. When I set off to create this game, I knew Yoshi’s Woolly World had to appeal to both sets of groups. So while the graphics are adorable and of course kids are going to like it, I know that people who love the classic Yoshi gameplay style and challenge are going to be looking for that, too. So that was my goal from the start – to incorporate both. With that in mind, we created two different modes: Classic mode and mellow mode.