I was expecting this game to get boring quick. Instead a few cool moments and visuals kept me entertained.
Upfront the best thing about Unravel is the beautiful/gloomy environments that Yarney platforms his way through to reclaim lost memories in the form of a different yarn badge. To get to the beautiful looking mountain and other locations Yarney uses the different photos in the house to visit different memories. Not much time is spent on story other than a quick introduction and a bit of text/photos after reclaiming a badge. Which is fine since it is left up to the player to infer what is going on visually instead of the game explaining it to you.
As for the gameplay it is entirely a platformer played from the perspective of a 4 inch tall yarn doll. Yarney’s main skill is using some thread to latch onto different objects. So he can swing on hooks or pull a tree limb down to make a platform. He can also tie some of his yarn together to make a springboard that lets him get to spots he wouldn’t otherwise reach. All of these actions are easy to do and the game is much more enjoyable when it doesn’t weight the player down with a annoying puzzle or a tough platforming section. Jogging along the path seeing the next big thing that Yarney must overcome is delightful. The few times I got stuck was when the game almost lost me.
Nothing ever changes either other than a few special moments Yarney has all the skills he'll ever use at the start of his adventure.The puzzles never get very tough and the platforming challenges don't require much skill either. So if you're coming to this to challenge your skills then this isn’t the game for you. This also has a few collectibles per level but this doesn’t seem like a great replayable game. I consider it to be a much better one time experience.
So in the end this is a well made platformer that could get boring depending on if you like a lot of unique mechanics. Still I actually didn’t mind that I was doing the same stuff over and over again since they keep it interesting by showing you something new visually each time. Either by fighting a snow storm by hanging on to a lantern or going through a trash compactor. Each level is really unique even if the gameplay stays the same. From that point of view I think this is a game worth playing.