Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 - Will someone please shut that baby up???

Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 is the third Mario game ported to the GameBoy Advance. I have played all three and have decided to review them. I chose to review the last one first because it was the best out of all three, and there were no reviews on it so far. Since Christmas is near and many kids will probably have this game on their list to Santa, therefore I am writing this review to inform the public if this is a good or bad game.

Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 is a port of the SNES game Yoshi’s Island. It was released in 1995 and soon became of the best and memorable games of all time. I was never an owner of a SNES but all of my friends owned one and I still remember the countless hours I used to play this game. I am glad that Nintendo decided to port this game to their newer portable console because now I can play this classic on the go.

Story: This game starts off with a little introduction. Baby Mario and Baby Luigi are being carried by a stork to their anticipating parents. Suddenly a kidnapping occurs. Luigi is kidnapped while Mario falls down onto a Yoshis’ back on Yoshi Island. The Yoshis on the island hold a meeting and determine to reunite the brothers by helping Mario rescue Luigi from the evil magikoopa Kamek.

Gameplay: This game is very special and unique because you are not controlling Mario, the world famous Italian plumber. In this game he is a mere infant, who cannot survive without the help of the Yoshis. You must control a Yoshi and take Mario to his brother. To do this, you must trek through six different worlds, which contain eight levels each (48 levels total), but after every level, Mario is passed on to a different colored Yoshi, displaying teamwork. On every world, two out of eight levels feature a boss.

Yoshi can do all of the things he could in previous games and well as the new things in this game. He can jump on enemies, just like previously. This can be achieved by pressing on the A button, but if you hold the A button down, Yoshi will hover for a few seconds. If you press the B button, Yoshi sticks out his long tongue (just like in the Super Smash Bros. games also) and then you have two options. You can spit them out and knock and kill enemies or you can make him swallow the enemy by pressing down on the direction pad. If you swallow your enemy, an egg is made. You can use the egg to throw them in every possible direction to either kill an enemy, or grab coins or items! This is extremely fun. To throw an egg, press the R button, which make a target cursor appear, and then you press the L button when you have made a decision where you want to throw the egg and then tap the R button once more to release the egg. Yoshi can hold up to six eggs at a time and there are a few different kinds of eggs. The normal eggs (green) do what I have previously stated, but there are also yellow eggs and red eggs. If you throw one of these eggs at an enemy, you will gain stars or red coins. There are also the huge green eggs, which create an earthquake when you use them.

Yoshi also has the ability to turn into five deranged looking vehicles. If you see a train, submarine or any other vehicle inside a bubble, you can grab it, and then Yoshi turns into that vehicle! To return Yoshi to his previous state, you must find a block with a Yoshi face on it. The vehicles he can turn into are: helicopter, submarine, train, car or a mole. When Yoshi is a helicopter, he can fly into the sky to grab items and coins, as a train he can ride tracks (to grab items in the background), as a submarine he can go into the water and fire torpedoes, as a car he rises on stilts to elude obstacles, and as a mole he can penetrate through dirt and some walls.

The only way Yoshi can die is if he falls off the land, into lava or spikes, there he is impenetrable. As I have previously said, Mario doesn’t do anything but if Yoshi receives a blow, Mario will leave Yoshis’ back and float in a bubble, wailing uncontrollably (really annoying) until Yoshi rescues him by touching the bubble. There is a timer and if the time runs out and Yoshi does not rescue Mario, a Koopa will steal Mario and you will restart the level.

There are many different enemies and bosses in this game. There are the traditional enemies, such as the turtles, shy guys, goombas, piranha plants and Bowser. This game features many new enemies also, such as chomps, crazee dayzees, seagulls and even tin cans. The bosses tend to be huge and have different powers. Some bosses are fairly difficult to kill.

Like in all Mario games, you are encouraged to collect things if you want to complete a level 100%. If you complete a world 100%, you unlock bonus levels. First of all, there are the gold coins. If you collect 100 gold coins, you get an extra life. But if you want to complete a level 100%, you must track down all of the stars, red coins and flowers. There are 30 stars, 20 red coins and 5 flowers to be found on each level. The stars play a very important role in this game. When Mario is floating in the bubble, there is a timer. For every star that you have, you are given a second (if you have 20 stars, you have 20 seconds to rescue Mario). Since you can carry 30 stars maximum, you have a maximum of 30 seconds to rescue Mario. As you can see, stars are very important. Then there are 20 red coins, which are scattered throughout the level. They look exactly like regular coins, only they are a different color. Also, a red coin is equal to two gold coins. There are five flowers in each level, each equal to ten gold coins. If you collect 30 stars (30 seconds remaining on the timer), all 20 red coins and 5 flowers, you will have a perfect score for that level.

Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 has a bunch of mini-games, which enhance the amount of fun. You have to find the games if you want to play them. The mini-games include one and two player games. The one-player games include slots and flipping over cards (cool game because you get what is on the other side of the card). The two-player mini-games (against the ‘computer') are a little bit more entertaining and challenging. The games include a watermelon seed-spitting contest and the classic collect-more-coins-than-your-opponent game. If you win in these games you are rewarded with power-ups such as extra lives, a 10 star power-up (which you can use at any time and gain 10 seconds on the timer), watermelons for spitting seeds and various magnifying glasses (they show you the location of all of the red coins on a certain level).

There are many more exciting features (the circle of spinning white stars, about the key, how to complete a world, about Fuzzy Wuzzy and the drunk Yoshi) in the 1 player main game but since you should discover them for yourself and because I am slightly tired, I will stop describing the gameplay. I think everyone understands my point that this is a killer game packed with features.

Yes, I did state in the previous paragraph the phrase ֿ player main game”. This means that there is a multi-player feature also included. The multi-player game is the worst part of Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 because it is once again, Mario Bros. This was included in the other two Mario games for the GBA. Why did Nintendo decide to do this? I have no idea but anything would have been better than including that game. What did I do to deserve such a cruel punishment? I would have greatly preferred if you could link up with a friend and play against him in the mini-games, but noooo, they gave me Mario Bros. For those who don’t know what Mario Bros. is, well, it is the first Mario game. Instead of jumping on enemies to kill them, you go under them to knock them over, or if you find a POW! Block, you automatically kill all of the enemies. After the main phase, you go to a bonus level where you collect as many coins as you can before the timer runs down to zero. This is very simple and boring. The multi-player aspect of it is that you compete against your friends if you link up with them. The only possible reason why they might have included this game is because they think that we, the players, might get bored of being Yoshi in the main game and that we might want to run around as an old-school plumper for a while. But honestly, if they add this game in Super Mario Advance 4, I’ll sue them or something.

Sound: It is hard to recreate the sound from the SNES to a much smaller GBA but Nintendo has done a great job. The music is a bunch of happy songs, the majority is the exact same tunes that were on the SNES, and they sound great and blend well with the graphics. The in-game sound is well. The jumping, coin sounds and even the hovering sounds are exactly like the SNES sounds. The voices are a mix of a bunch of games. The core of the voices is the same as in the previous two Mario games for the GBA, but the voice of Yoshi has been taken from Yoshi’s Story, a completely different game for the N64, which fits in well with this game. All of Yoshis’ moves and sounds add to the music to create a game, for which you will want to turn the volume up, not down. The only annoying audio in this game is Mario crying. He makes an irritating sound and makes you want to scream: “Will someone shut that baby up?”

Graphics: The graphics have been improved on the GameBoy Advance version. At first glance, the graphics appear to be very childish. This is because the 2D backgrounds are scribbled with actual crayons, giving a very colorful and happy effect. The enemies, bosses, Yoshi and Mario are well-made and appeal to the eye. There is not much slowdown in this game, even though there is plenty of shrink, growing, disappearing things and the rotating platforms going on at the same time. Even though the graphics are nearly 8 years old, they will still appeal to newer generations to come. This game utilizes the graphical capabilities pretty well. Even though Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 is considered a port, Nintendo changed some sprites and they should receive credit for it.

Overall, Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 is a great game. It is the best Mario game on the GameBoy Advance so far and is considered one of the best platformers of all-time. I think you should buy this game, not rent or borrow from a friend because the replay value is pretty high. Even if you beat the game, you will probably want to unlock the bonus levels by playing a perfect game. Even if you have played the SNES game before, I think you should relive the classic and play this game on the GBA. I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys Mario games, platform games, classic games or are thinking of buying a new game.

Thanks for reading,
Vadimio