Yoshi's Island (1995-2002)
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Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995) was an amazing sequel to the already-brilliant Super Mario World (1990) for the Super Nintendo. Instead of controlling the usual Mario Brothers, this time around Yoshi is the star. And actually, this is technically a prequel because Yoshi is charged with protecting Baby Mario after Baby Luigi is captured. Eventually the game was re-released for the Game Boy Advance as Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 (2002), which is the version I've been playing for a few months now.
In terms of the GBA port specifically, it plays about the same as I remember. I haven't touched the SNES version in decades, but I can't imagine it being very different. As near as I can tell there have been no updates in graphics or sound (as they have done occasionally with Super Mario Bros refreshes) — which is a very important topic to get into right now.
The music in Yoshi's Island is memorable but probably not as well-known as the original NES games (1 and 3), or the music that's popping up on TikTok lately from Super Mario World. The sound effects are overall great, but there is one specific sound that has me playing the game with volume muted: Baby Mario.
For context, the general gameplay revolves around Yoshi (more specifically, different coloured Yoshis, plural) carrying Baby Mario on his back as you navigate the various levels. The usual Mario platform elements are there: various enemies (usually Shy Guys, but there are other new ones), moving platforms, and some maze-like levels that require some problem-solving to complete. But unlike the Mario-centric titles, you don't start out "little" and grow with a mushroom. When you get hit by an enemy, Baby Mario is knocked loose; you have to catch him in a certain amount of time or else it's game over.
And that's where I come back to sound: when you lose Baby Mario, he cries, and it's easily one of the most annoying sounds in all video games, ever. The timer is urgent enough that you shouldn't need the crying to make you hurry up; but I suppose it's added to help with immersion of the in-game experience and also to help show off what the platform is capable of. But it is grating. I can't in good conscience leave the sound on while playing if my wife is next to me.
Gameplay #
Playing Yoshi's Island is pretty simple. It's a platformer so from that stand point, you have your basic controls: left/right/up/down, a button for jumping, and a button for sticking Yoshi's tongue out and swallowing enemies (not all enemies can be swallowed) to turn them into an egg. Oh, an egg? Yes, there's a throwing mechanic where you can throw your egg at things. Sometimes it's to break walls, other times it's to throw it at a big boss (there are two "big bosses" in each world). Yoshi also floats a little when you jump in the air, which introduces some different challenges within each level.
Something fun introduced in these games are different "vehicles" Yoshi can transform into temporarily. I haven't encountered all of them to my knowledge (I'm currently finishing World 3, but according to my save files I've gotten as far as World 6 before) but some of them I've seen are: a mole, helicopter, and a car that can raise its legs to avoid enemies. You can also get a star that has you control Baby Mario temporarily so you can run up walls etc. It's neat.
Other mechanics #
As with most video games high scores are a thing. In each level there are a certain amount of stars, red coins, and flowers (I think they're daisies?) that you collect to earn points. When you complete a world, your points are added up and you get different things as a reward (I can't recall all of them right now). In the early levels it's fairly easy to collect all of the flowers but it gets progressively more difficult. In many levels you need to seek out hidden passageways that lead you to these collectibles. You could certainly spend many hours trying to be a perfectionist and collect them all.
Personally I do my best, but in this recent playthrough I've been more interested in solving the level and moving onto the next one. By contrast, were I to replay Donkey Kong, I would try to get ALL of the collectibles in each level. Granted, it helps that there are only 3 of those in each level and I'm very familiar with how to reach all of them — and the levels aren't nearly as tricky as those in Yoshi's Island.
Overall the game is really clever in terms of what you can do.
Graphics #
Nothing surprising here, they're your standard SNES-era 32-bit graphics. They have a certain charm, though. Apparently the graphics were hand-drawn and then recreated by scanning them and converting them to pixel art. I very much enjoy it and the character designs are great. Or rather, the new enemies are great; Yoshi pretty much looks the same, and Baby Mario is...Baby Mario. Other than shrinking Mario to baby-age there's not much interesting about him.
I really recommend this game if you want a solid platformer but want something different than a "normal" Mario Bros game. I would actually call it more of a "puzzle platformer" than a standard platform game. Time well-spent.
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