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 What happens when you take
Nintendo's franchise series, and give it a rest for four years?
The answer is simply one of the finest 2-D games ever made.
Ladies and gentlemen, Super Mario World 2 Yoshi's Island.
Nintendo took a radical step with this game, opting for a prequel,
and a different style of game play (more on this later).
The story line goes like this; baby Mario and baby Luigi are on their way home,
delivered by a Stork no less, when suddenly, they are attacked by the game's
primary villain, Kamek, a Koopa wizard. Kamek manages to snag baby Luigi, but
Mario is sent falling to the earth...and lands on Yoshi's Island. From there,
the Yoshis find him, and set out on a quest to find his captured brother, Luigi.
The very first thing you notice upon starting this game is the breathtaking graphics. Yoshi's Island really pushes the SNES to it's limits. The hand drawn look and vibrant colors really set this game apart from other platformers. From the front layers (seeing a Butterfly up close), to the back layers (huge sprawling landscapes), to the massive Super-FX enhanced bosses. It's truly a sight to behold. Besides the graphics being near revolutionary, there was also the game play that had a drastic change. Gone is the one or two hits and you're dead style and the clock, in it's place is something a tad more complicated. Throughout the game, Yoshi has to carry, and protect, baby Mario on his back. If Yoshi were to get hit by an enemy, then baby Mario would be launched into the air, causing a timer to come up. If Yoshi doesn't get Mario back in time, Kamek's henchmen will seize him, thus you will lose a life. To help things out, Yoshi has got some new tricks. First off, enemies you swallow now become eggs. Eggs can be used to knock out enemies, catch coins and flowers, or activate switches. Another usefull skill is the ground pound, needed mostly for finding obscure coins and such. 
Yoshi's Island also oozes something that makes good games great. Replay. Each stage holds a possibility of 100 points. Consisting of 20 red coins (1 point each), 30 stars (1 point each), and 5 flowers (10 points each). If you get 100 points for all 8 levels of an area, then a new stage, along with a bonus game will open up. Of course, this is no easy feat, some of these flowers and coins can be VERY difficult to find. But, it adds to the overall playability of the game. Not too many faults can be found in this game. Perhaps the difficulty of getting 100 points for each stage (in the later levels). Or, some people might be turned off by it's somewhat childish look, and music. Though it really helps make this game what it is. What you have is simply one of the greatest games on the SNES, and arguably, one of the greatest games of all time.
Highpoints: Graphics, replay, pretty much everything. Max/10 Graphics: 10 Overall Opinion Score: 10      |
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