I got Yoshi’s Island for chrismas 12 years ago and it played 2nd fiddle to another game I got for Christmas, The legend of Zelda a Link to the past. Despite playing 2nd fiddle I put a lot of time in Yoshi’s Island and manage to find everything in the game, not having played in a couple of years I deicide to go through it again and review it.

Story.
Kamek the Magikoopa has had a vision of 2 twin plumbers that are just now being delivered to there parents by a stork being a pain in the keister to his newly born king Bowser. So how does Kamek solve the problem, hijack the babies and the stork before the delivery is completed. But is kidnapping operation fails when one of the baby falls out of the storks beak and falls towards Yoshi’s island and falls onto Yoshi’s back. The Yoshi clan decides to help Baby Mario in rescuing Baby Luigi and the stork by a pony express style of travel with them passing baby Mario to each other at the end of each stage.

Graphics.
With DK Country out a year earlier Nintendo forced Miyamoto to do something different with the graphics. In the end his water color design may make the game look a little bit overly cartoonish but it does fit in the game, and makes it look completely different then Rares DK Country. The colors are bright and so are the character designs. Backgrounds are a work of art and the game is full of eye candy. The coolest part is watching each Yoshi morph into a different contraption when they grab a power up item.

Sound.
We get some music that is completely different from your usual Mario fare. But it’s still for the most part the happy go lucky theme music you expect in a Nintendo game. The only bad part of the game would be Baby Mario. When ever Baby Mario is knocked off the saddle he’ll let you know by unleashing the most annoying sound effect in video game history, his baby cry. The only way to shut him up is to rescue him and you will be doing that post haste.

Oh and just on an interesting trivia note since I did beat LTTP at the same time I beat this I notice that Nintendo re-used the same ending credit music as LTTP for this game, it just as a different instrumentation.

Gameplay.
The game of Yoshi’s Island takes the basics from other Super Mario Bros games. It’s a platformer and the whole idea is to get to the end of the stage without dying but there are a lot curves that separate Yoshi’s Island from Super Mario Bros.

First you play as Yoshi, which should be no big surprise to anybody who sees the title. And Yoshi as his tongue to eat things, whenever Yoshi eats something he craps out an egg. Yoshi can then use the egg to throw at enemies, to collect coins, or to open ? clouds. He will also need them to break down things like spikes and other barriers that get in the way.

Eggs also come in handy to fighting the games bosses which is the coolest thing about this game, every time Yoshi comes across the boss they are small regular enemies, Kamek sprinkles them with magic and they become huge. Then you have to figure out what there weakness is and hit them with an egg to win.

Now getting hit and dying is different then the usual Mario fare, when ever Yoshi takes a hit he’ll get knocked back and baby Mario will be knocked off. Mario will float in a bubble in the air doing his annoying cry and Yoshi will have to pop that bubble in order to get him back. While Mario is crying a timer will go down, if it falls to zero Kameks toddies will come and pick up baby Mario and carry him off. The timer automatically recovers itself up to 10, but if you want more time Yoshi will have to find and eat stars, you can get 30 seconds total in a stage by eating stares.

This of course makes the game really easy to beat since it’s almost impossible to die to enemy attack. Of course in true Nintendo fashion the game may be easy to beat but to see and get everything that is hard. In order to unlock extra stages and bonus games Yoshi as to get 100 points in each stage of a world. In each stage there are 20 red coins worth 20 points, 5 flowers worth 10 points each and for each second on the timer is worth 1 points. So you have to find all the flowers, red coins, and be at full power in order to get a 100%, that can be very hard and will take a while to do.

Luckily there are bonus areas and games to play. If you find a key in an area with a locked bandit house you will enter and play a vs game against a bandit, win and he will give you an item. Items include stars, pow blocks, and magnifying glasses that let you see secrets in a stage. Also each flower you get can also give you a chance at a bonus game, when you get to an end of a stage there is a roulette circle with the flowers you collect, if the roulette lands on a flower then you get a bonus stage. These stages are simple games that can win you extra lives or items.

Final recommendation.
Yoshi’s Island may not be as fun as say Super Mario World but the game is still a solid and fun Nintendo platformer. While the cute colors and Mario annoying cry may be off putting it still doesn’t take away that this is a very fun game to play.


Recommended: Yes