So, I've decided to make a review for Ryan. Horrific sentences and hard to understand ideas (ED: And editor commentary!) are in your near future. So, I've decided to review Yoshi's Island; A wonderful game, one of the best games I have ever played. (ED: I agree wholeheartedly) On to the article!
It's great when your subject does the work for you, but there's a little more back story than this. So, as they say in the streets, "This is how it goes down." Baby Mario and Luigi are on there way to what I assume is their parents house in a stork's bill. Magikoopa attempts to steal both babies, and fails 50% when Mario falls to what we believe is his doom. Luckily, he falls to Yoshi's island and onto either, The Yoshi, or a yoshi. To be honest, I'm not sure, it says "It's a lovely day and Yoshi is taking a walk." but Yoshi the common noun is capitalized too... Oh screw it, it's of less importance than the game. We'll just blame the translators. (ED: I think they were referring to the character Yoshi, not the Yoshis as a race.)
Here we can see the anger of failure. Notice the gaping peanut shaped mouth, and the fists of frustration. If you take a look at those 4 smaller Magikoopa-esqe toadies, these are the only things in the game that can make you fail, other than to fall into one of the holes in the game. To help your confusion, the game play works like this; You have baby Mario on your back for the vast majority of the game, if you get hit, Mario gets enclosed in a bubble, floats away, and you have X seconds to get him back before the red quartet snatch him away. It's a real pain in the butt, but I really like the idea. It's a "truly original idea" that even John Nash (ED: WTF?) would be proud of. The goal of the game I guess is to get Mario back to his parents. I really don't know. All we know is Yoshi is following a map that fell along with the future hero. Heck he could be going to Motocross Madness.(ED: Hilarious!)
Alright, now that the back-story has been dealt with, onto the game! Look at
this brilliant piece of work, it's the best opening screen I've ever
seen. It's so colourful! This is really where the cartridge's FX chip really
came into play, all the background stuff rotates! It's really a beautiful
thing to see, I could spend hours just watching this. Wow, now that I think
back on it, I was 9 when this thing came out, I think a little math will
prove my accuracy. 1995-1986=MeBeingRight. There's a brilliant song playing
in the background too, I got this from
The Mushroom Kingdom website.
Yoshi's Island Title song
Hey, I never said I was good at the game. (ED: It's true) Besides, he got behind a wall that takes far more than 10-30 seconds to get to the other side of. One of the things that bothers me the most in this game is Mario's wailing. I mean, he's in a bubble, he should be happy that he's floating around. But enough bad. I think the best part of this game is that it's chalked full of everything. There's so many different things in it. Since I'm being a bit vague, I suppose specifics are in order. Let's take the bosses for example. One boss is a big fat bouncing something or other, and you have to hit him till his pants fall off. it sounds perverse, but he's just a ball with eyes and feet, and there's nothing there that the pants could be covering. Another boss is a blob that also bounces, but he tries to shove you into lava. I haven't really played this since grade 4, so I remember very little, but I believe there's also frog that eats you, and you have to hit that hanging thing at the back of his throat. There's so many different things in this game, there are new things every level.
So, I'm losing interest in writing this, and am going to do the ratings thing
Graphics: 10/10
The graphics are mind-boggling. Some of you are saying "but it's 2D blah
blah blah" the thing is, it's a lot harder to do things in 2D than it is in
3D, with 3D, the graphics engine does all the work, and practically
everything is the same. In Yoshi's Island, there was so much work put into
making the different levels/bosses that I can't even fathom how they did it.
Sound: 10/10
I love the music to this game. If you really want to know what I'm talking
about, here's a site with a few Midis people have made.
The Mushroom
Kingdom -- Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island Midi Page
Game play: 8/10
Good, but I find myself in a lot of trouble when Yoshi turns into a mole
car... the controls go to hell. Also, shooting could have been much better
designed.(ED: I think the shooting is pretty good...)
Well, that's it. This was my first article. It took me an hour to make
it... What can I say, loosing interest is what I do best. I strongly
recommend getting this game by any means necessary.
(ED: Read: get the GBA version) It's great.
~Edwin
E-Mail: Is a surprise!