Touch fuzzy, get dizzy.

I might be one of those formerly rare little girls who spent more time playing video games on her SNES then playing with her dollies. Yoshi's Island has been one of my favorite SNES games since I was a kid. Since my SNES is now defunct and unable to function without swift kicking motions to encourage it I decided to buy Yoshi's Island 3 for my GBA. Let me tell you this; I still love the game, and I still hate the baby.

The Game

Purchase and Technical:

I actually went to Wal-Mart to buy this game and picked it up for $24.99. Went home and booted it up on my GBA. The game will start with a cute little movie you can skip it by pressing A or B or just about any other button. You're greeted with a menu in which you are able to choose single player or multiplayer. At which point it will prompt you to either play the main game. Pressing the right button will bring you to a menu in which you can choose to place your game on sleep mode or not. Sleep mode is basically a system which will pause your game if you are inactive for a certain amount of time. You can chose to play the main game at which point you will be prompted with a menu to choose which file you'll be saving your game in. Once you're done tinkering with that go play the game!

The Concept 5/5:

Before Mario and Luigi were superhero plumbers, they were helpless infants who relied on Yoshi and his friends to help them defeat Baby Bowser who is holding Baby Luigi captive. The dangers of Yoshi's Island are ahead and Baby Mario is all but defenseless so it's up to Yoshi and his pals to keep Mario safe and save Luigi. Finally something that doesn't revolve wholly around saving the world. Basically you're Yoshi and your abilities include eating enemies and making eggs out of them, throwing said eggs, hovering and when appropriate power up is eaten you can also spit fire, ice and watermelon seeds. Sounds fun? I thought so. There are end level bosses and mid level bosses you must defeat before being able to have the final showdown with Bowser, along the way you have mini games and some surprises in levels, each more cute then the last.

Technical/Gameplay

Graphics 5/5:

Even on the SNES Yoshi's Island boasted magnificent graphics (this is the SNES after all). It ranked up there with the best of the best, and the GBA with its more powerful graphical ability has only managed to enhance the intensely cute pixel world of Yoshi's Island. Some graphical touch ups have been done to enhance the game's feel such as the suspicious hallucination Yoshi goes through when he touches a "fuzzy", to the fading and foggy feel of one of the later levels, to the minor shading I noticed that they've added in. It all improves on some already wonderful graphics.

Music/Sound 4/5:

I love the music in Yoshi's world, it blends in marvelously with the game. The music is happy and fun, mellow and calming and it always suits whatever world you find yourself in. The sound effects were equally well done. With the explosions of the cannon balls, to the newly added Yoshi's voice I enjoyed the sounds almost as much as the music. However, one extremely annoying aspect from the old game managed to continually grate on my nerves in this installment. It is of course Baby Mario's crying. You get to hear Baby Mario burst into tears whenever Yoshi gets hit with an enemy and trust me you'll get hit a lot. What makes this sound so annoying is the fact that it is only one sound byte being repeated over and over and over again. I would have loved it if they had made the crying mute or at least added in a less loud and annoying crying sound.

Controls 5/5:

Perfect controls, what else can I say? Yoshi's island has very easy to remember and master controls, A button allows you to jump, B button allows Yoshi to stick out his tongue and capture an enemy ahead of him, R button targets and shoots eggs. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what the arrow buttons are for, you can figure that out on your own.

Battlesystem 4/5:

You have to admit Nintendo knows what they're doing. Yoshi's Island's battle system is nearly perfect. It allows some strategy to be had, keeps the player on their toes, and provides a variety of ways to defeat the level bosses. Mid-level bosses are pretty much all defeated the same ways, but level bosses require different strategy to be defeated. No you don't have to think really hard to figure how to defeat the level bosses, but a game that offers some strategy to keep the player interested is always a winner. As for how you would normally defeat an enemy, Yoshi has 4 regular weapons at his disposal; his tongue, his shoes, his pound ability and the eggs he receives when he swallows an enemy. Adding to his already deadly dinosaur arsenal are various power ups in the game. If you touch or swallow the appropriate power up Yoshi can spit fire, ice or seeds at the enemy. There is also a power up which allows Baby Mario to transform into Invincible Baby Mario. Needless to say whatever Yoshi does in the game is extremely adorable. So why would such a well thought out system lose one point? To be honest with you it’s too easy to defeat your enemies. With such a variety of ways to defeat them, one would think the enemies would be a tad more difficult, but whether you are fighting a “Shy guy” or a Boss all the enemies fall before the might of Yoshi and his friends rather quickly.

Entertainment

Characters 4/5:

Adorable characters to fit into an adorable game. I enjoyed all characters in this game, especially the unusually huggable Baby Bowser. However, Baby Mario did eventually get on my nerves; I believe the crying and burden of having to save him whenever I got hit with an enemy soured my view on him. But nonetheless the characters in Yoshi’s Island will win you over with their cutesy antics. If you fall for that kind of thing that is.

Main Plot 4/5:

Thank you Nintendo for creating a game whose main plot isn’t to the save the world. Yoshi and his pals are simply doing two twins a favor by embarking on a journey to find Mario’s brother, Luigi. Turns out Luigi was kidnapped by Baby Bowser and his evil witch Kamek. Travel through Yoshi’s Island and get Luigi and Mario back together so they can be properly delivered to their parents and one day grow up to save the world (-_-;;) in earlier and later installments of Mario games. For someone who is excessively tired of saving the world, this game’s plot is a breath of fresh air. It did however lose a point for the lack of plot development. Pretty much the same thing happens in every level but this is a platform game so I didn’t expect a whole lot of plot development to take place.

Gameplay 4/5:

Yoshi’s island does not require rocket science to beat, however it does offer a minimal amount of puzzles to keep you entertained. The bonus levels available to you on each of the worlds can only be unlocked if you find all the coins, stars and flowers in the normal levels. Doing this is not easy and frequently requires a little bit of thinking to achieve. It is a nice touch to give a platform game some puzzle solving elements it keeps the player interested and willing to play more. Yoshi’s Island had more replay value then most games in its genre and for that I salute it. What it lacked however was difficulty as I have mentioned before the enemies in the game are ridiculously easy to beat, that hurt it’s score in my eyes. Although there were plenty of enemies coming at you, many of them lacked difficulty to hinder Yoshi’s quest.

Overall 4.4/5 (88%):

High score for Yoshi’s Island. Had I been reviewing the game in its original SNES form it would have received a slightly lower grade. Converting this game to a newer and more powerful console was a great investment. The Graphics are better, the sound quality is better. However, Nintendo left some glaring faults in. The annoying cry of baby Mario, the very easy difficulty level and other small faults the SNES version had. However, this game will not let you down. If you like playing extremely cute games or don’t mind playing it Yoshi’s Island is a game that provides excellent entertainment if you’re just looking for a cute game to play.