#yoshiguide

Yoshi’s Island was a huge success so OF COURSE it was going to get a sequel. In other news, water is wet. However, what nobody could have foreseen at the time was just how difficult Yoshi’s next outing was going to be from his first one. Fun Fact: While this game began development as “Yoshi’s Island 64” the title changed midway through to reflect that holy heck is this not going to be like the first one.

Yoshi’s Story sits at such an interesting place within Yoshi's history. If Yoshi’s Island is the series’ guiding light, Yoshi’s Story is its second star to the right – everything that didn’t come from the former comes from the latter. As the only mainline Yoshi game for just shy of a decade after it came out, Yoshi’s Story had the strange honor of defining a lot of the franchise’s look and feel throughout the Gamecube and Wii era, kinda like how for a while Mario as a character was constantly associated with Sunshine’s aesthetics. Yoshi’s Story has TWO Smash Bros Stages compared to Island’s one, and when Yoshi needed baseball stadiums they follow Story’s design moreso than Island. This would be normal and understandable were it not for the fact that, well, Yoshi’s Story is a WEIRD fuckin’ game.

For every element of Yoshi’s story that would become iconic, there’s another that never showed up again. Its structure is odd, its graphical style is odd, its character designs are odd, its progression systems are odd, everything about it is… well you get the idea. Yoshi’s Story is the first of many games that could be considered “The Black Sheep of the Franchise.” Most of this game remains forgotten in a surreal corner of N64 history. We all know the more iconic parts of the game like the aesthetic, music or Yoshi's voice, but the rest of this experimental title remains shrouded in obscurity. Even its spiritual sequel decades later PULLS a lot from Story mechanically but doesn’t necessarily CALL BACK to it in terms of references.

All this is to say that unless you grew up with an N64, Yoshi’s Story is the kind of game that you know about, but haven’t really played. That’s certainly the situation that I was in when I sat down to emulate it (this would be the last time I would be doing so, I own all the other games physically). But even still, the game’s reputation preceded itself so I wasn’t worried. See, outside of the things that remained staples of the series, Yoshi’s Story is known for two things: Its aforementioned weirdness, and being a comically easy baby game for literal toddlers. Even if this was going to be a trip, at least it would be a fun, cozy and relaxing trip. Who knows? Maybe I take a stab at that kooky “all melons” thing people talk about just to inject some challenge into this otherwise trivial experience. Sounds like I’m gonna need it, given that I'm an adult gamer who plays real games for grownups like Kirby. I booted up the game and settled in for a cozy, easy, effortless time.

Let’s take a moment to talk about difficulty. Before I say anything else I want to make one thing ABUNDANTLY clear: Difficulty in games is ultimately an extremely complicated and nuanced topic. I think it’s interesting to discuss and this experience in particular has left me with a lot of thoughts about it, but ultimately I maintain that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to video game difficulty. Video games are an art form, and while it would be lovely to have every painting in a museum accompanied by an optional extensive write-up by the artist explaining their creative process, what they were going for, and the intended emotional response (I don’t say that sarcastically I think those things are fascinating and can help offer new perspectives you might not otherwise have), most artists would probably be like “...no?” and you’ve gotta respect that. Sometimes you've got to put in some legwork to understand and appreciate art. Sometimes that's part of the experience. Sometimes it isn't.

Difficulty is a tool in the designers toolkit and as long as the developer is okay with the fact that difficulty is going to alienate some people and attract others, the way they choose to use it is on them. (I secretly harbor a theory that Silksong is so cheap because Team Cherry knew the difficulty would be a turn off and figured people would be less likely to refund a 20 dollar game than they would a more expensive one.)

Super Mario Bros. Wonder recently came under a bit of fire for its implementation of difficulty settings in an argument best exemplified by this article from Nintendo Life.

While I don’t disagree with the article’s conclusions, there are a few things about it that caught my attention. First off, look at how the argument is framed. Not only is this being applied to Super Mario Bros, a series that historically has been fairly devoid of “easy modes” but the complaint being lodged is NOT that Wonder did away with the series’ existing Super Guide (NSMBWii through NSMBU would, if you died enough times, just straight up offer to beat the level for you) but instead that the game doesn’t add enough new to further simplify the experience (save the Wonder Badges which are treated as a band-aid on a bullet wound). Secondly, I find it interesting this is being applied to a game whose LACK of difficulty was frequently criticized by many critics and fans alike. Thirdly, I can verify that this is not an isolated incident. Comments and other write ups very much echoed with this sentiment. However the thing that I find most interesting of all about this article is that NINTENDO AGREED WITH IT. The Nintendo Switch 2 edition of Wonder not only allows players to apply Nabbit’s no-damage properties to any character, it adds a further simplifying mode where any damage that would otherwise even kill Nabbit is ignored, pits no longer matter and if that STILL isn’t enough now you can play as Luma who isn’t even bound by gravity. Don’t want to platform in your platforming game? We got you covered!

It may sound like I’m being negative here so let me be perfectly clear, I was a kid who sucked at video games once. Super guide was a godsend to me in games like DKC Returns and anything to help kids foster a (healthy) love of one of my favorite hobbies is alright by me. I just want to put into perspective what “a game for kids” looks like these days. Even Kirby’s Epic Yarn (a game that, make no mistake, I love. I have memorabilia of it on my desk at work) which removed lives, simplified platforming and made for an EXTREMELY welcoming introductory level game still had consequences (minor as they may be) for, y’know, getting hit. I bring all this up to illustrate why these days I cock my head at hearing Yoshi’s Story, a game with multiple instances of one-hit-kills as early as the second level, and what is essentially permadeath for your six cute cuddly lives (yeah you can theoretically get them back but how you do so is its own can of worms) described as “a game for literal toddler babies.”

So anyways after my first total party wipe in level four of six I came to the stark realization that maybe… JUST maybe… this game wasn’t going to be the walk in the park I had hoped. Sure save states were going to help keep things moving along, but it turns out that Yoshi’s Story might be a VERY different beast than what I had been led to believe. But we should probably start with the story.

At some point either before or after the events of Yoshi’s Island, the Yoshis are chilling having a great time under the loving embrace of the Super Happy Tree, a tree that grows fruits and provides happiness… somehow. Don’t question it. Unfortunately Baby Bowser gets jealous of this happiness and therefore steals said Tree that is Super Happy. He also turns Yoshi’s Island into a storybook because, you know, why not at that point? The Yoshis sink into a deep depression until a group of Baby Yoshis decide that enough is enough, they’re gonna get the tree back from Baby Bowser if it kills them. (Spoilers: It will likely kill at least one of them.)

The second you start controlling Yoshi things feel… off. Yoshi has one run animation that gets tilted further backwards to indicate speed, making the act of movement feel slippery and off kilter. Jumps are floaty, the momentum takes a moment to get used to, and you’re locked to a 2D plane despite using an analogue stick. Speaking of the analogue stick, it’s used to throw eggs which are aimed entirely differently than in Island. Rather than an automatically moving cursor that allows you to throw while moving Yoshi now comes to a complete stop and the egg can be aimed ANYWHERE on screen using the stick. None of this is inherently bad, but it’s a stark departure from Yoshi’s Island and it certainly takes a moment to get used to.

Speaking of differences from Island, the removal of Baby Mario means a switch to a more traditional health system represented by a flower in the corner screen. Getting hit reduces a set number of petals, and losing them all gives you one more shot to regain health before Yoshi kicks the bucket. During this time the music slows and warps which is a nifty effect. You can regain health by eating fruit scattered across the level, at the beginning of each playthrough you’ll roll a roulette to decide which fruit is the “lucky” fruit that will fully refill your health, while others will restore it piecemeal. There are also flowers and enemies that can help you get petals back but be warned that there are others who deplete them. Collect 8 of the same kind of fruit and Yoshi becomes Super Happy, having brief invincibility and unlimited eggs.

When your Yoshi dies, they’re taken away to Bowser’s Castle never to return! That’s right this game has PERMADEATH. You’ve got seven Yoshi’s to start with along with a secret unlockable Black and White Yoshi, but if you find a white Shy Guy secretly hidden throughout the levels you can get them back. Following so far? I sure hope so because we’re just getting started.

Once you’ve got grips on the controls, the next thing you have to do is get a handle on the level design. Levels have start points but no end points, they all loop infinitely if you just keep pressing forward. The goal of every level is, instead, to eat 30 pieces of the previously mentioned fruit scattered all over the place (any kind will do). Once you collect the final piece the level is over, no matter how much of it you’ve actually seen. Located throughout each level are 4 “Miss Warps” which (as the name suggests) can be used to fast travel across the levels to explore paths that you haven’t checked already. However, since fruit is basically everywhere, eating every piece you come across will often result in you finishing the level around the halfway point. If you want to see more you’ll have to actively AVOID fruit. Is there a benefit to doing so? Uhhh… sort of? We'll get to that.

Now that we’ve covered the game’s unusual approach to level design, now it’s time to cover the game’s unusual approach to level PROGRESSION. The game consists of 24 levels, spread out across 6 “pages”, 4 levels to a page. The “pages” don’t work like traditional video game worlds where you beat every level and move on, instead you beat ONE of the four levels and move onto the next. Every playthrough takes place over six levels, want to play the others? You’re gonna have to run it back again.

Of course finishing the levels will only unlock ONE of the levels on a given page, however if you find 3 hearts hidden in the level (they make a chiming sound when you get close) you can choose to access the others. These aren’t permanent unlocks, by the way, they happen on a run by run basis. Though beating a level allows you to access it in trial mode on the main menu at any time. This is the aforementioned reason to avoid fruit, if you have a specific level you want to unlock and don't want to finish too quickly. (Something something, obvious joke.)

Oh! And since all four levels of the first page are unlocked by default, if for some reason you DON’T pick level 1-1, then you won’t get the tutorials for basically ALL of that leaving you totally in the dark. Good times.

All this to say that Yoshi’s Story is… odd. It’s not unapproachable by any means, but that same off-kilter feeling that you get watching Yoshi run for the first time applies to the entire game. You only need to take a look at the character designs to see what I mean, yoshi’s story uses prerendered sprites instead of real-time models so characters are allowed to have a more rounded look than they would normally. This works, but it leaves everyone looking off. Series staples like Shy Guys, Huffin Puffins and Lakitu look alright, but the same can’t be said of some of the new entrants. Where Yoshi’s Island introduced a menagerie of enemies that would go on to define the series, it’s likely that we’re not going to see the likes of neurons, the snorkel snake, attackey sack or the bizarre sky snakes that are a pain in the ass to platform on and look like colorful, smiling condoms.

That said, while the character designs are strange, the environments are GORGEOUS. By generally avoiding 3D models outside of a few specific instances the backgrounds and platforms are allowed to be surprisingly detailed, and that detail is put to great effect. Yoshi’s Island used thick outlines and a bit of scribbly shading on some background elements to give the impression of taking place inside a child’s coloring book – a trend that would persist throughout the rest of the 2D Yoshi games. Yoshi’s Story, on the other hand, sets off the design trend for 3D Yoshi games where instead of going for something more impressionistic, the handcrafted look is much more literal. Yoshi’s Story is entirely built out of arts and crafts using a variety of materials across levels. Whether you’re traversing a tropical beach sewed into denim, a grassland constructed out of cardboard, or a tower made of wood blocks it all looks fantastic. This is helped by that aforementioned literal approach to design, whereupon the handcrafted nature of the level elements is heightened by emphasizing the inherent imperfection and artifice. The cardboard skybox has “fragile” symbols on it, the jean sky a tag, paper mache sewers feature unpainted headlines about something involving Luigi, and jungles made from inflatables wrinkle at the corners just like you’d expect them to in real life. The imperfection gives it charm and character, and it’s telling that (as stated before) this literal, handcrafted approach would become the norm for 3D Yoshi games (though many of them would eschew mixed media in favor of one specific crafting style).

How about that soundtrack? Yoshi’s Story would birth another trend for the series, rigidly building all its tracks around a main musical theme, with all other tracks being variations on said theme. This style of soundtrack is pretty common in Nintendo games, you can find it across Double Dash, Mario 64, like the Koji Kondo's Mario Sunshine tracks (the ones from the first half basically) and others. It works fine enough here, the main theme is catchy and the alternate interpretations bring in a lot of personality. That said at least for me it’s nothing to particularly write home about. I find this effect works best the more the composer plays with the meter, rhythm and style to really make each track sound distinct but here it tends to get repetitive after a bit. 

But that said… well you might have noticed something is missing at this point. Yeah I’ve told you a lot about what Yoshi’s Story IS and implied my feelings on it but there’s been a notable absence of critical analysis here. And I think part of the reason for that is that… even now I’m very mixed on how I feel about the game. 

This game is not for me. I can say that right out the gate. If it wasn’t obvious from my description of the mechanics I find the game clunky, needlessly obtuse at times and improperly paced. The game isn’t hard per se but it IS punishing, as mentioned earlier, introducing one-hit-kills as early as the second page. Oh and the less said about the big fish level (you know the one) the better. I’d heard so many people talk about how easy this game was, I was planning to avoid save states altogether. But upon reaching that first party wipe, ending up back at the title screen and knowing what a slog I had ahead of me I folded like a paper crane. I used save states to play through every level, and I’m not ashamed of it. There’s a part of me that wants to rag this game as a frustrating mess, one whose design decisions are borderline incomprehensible. I want to turn to the camera like the angry video game nerd and scream “What were they THINKING?”

But I can’t do that.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve become far more of the kind of hippie liberal cuck who likes to see the good in things. When I meet a piece of art I don’t like I want to at least try to meet it on its own terms. Call it the Sonic fan in me, but once you understand how a game was designed to be played as opposed to your first instinct in how you specifically play it, you’ll find a totally different beast from what you thought you knew. Something that was confusing becomes enthralling, something that’s esoteric becomes second nature, Balan Wonderworld goes from a frustrating mess to a solid 7/10 whose faults are more due to a lack of budget for polish than something at the core of its game design (yeah I said it! Fight me!).

That’s why I made it a point to play through every level, because I wanted to give this a fair shot. I WANTED to get Yoshi’s Story, but even now I’m not sure that happened. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out the best way to play this game. If I tried to speed through gobbling fruit the second I saw it I missed half of the level, if I took my time and tried to see everything I inevitably found myself wandering around aimlessly just looking for one piece of fruit to END IT ALREADY. And even people who like the 30 melon challenge admit that it’s bullshit without a guide.

Oh right, the 30 melon challenge. 

So in every level there are exactly 30 hidden melons that you can track down. In fact Melons are the ONLY fruit that there are exactly 30 of, meaning if you wanted to you could spend each level trying to exclusively track down the melons. Trouble is if you don’t know where the melons are beforehand, some of them are EXTREMELY unintuitive to track down, and the only real recognition in the game that this is something the devs intended for a player to try, is the slightly different end screen it gives you. I don’t think it’s ever told to you in the manual or the in-game tutorial, it’s just something you have to figure out.

Anyways, all this to say that I just don’t get Yoshi’s Story. Buy Yoshi’s Story isn’t made for me. Yoshi’s Story is a kids’ game. It’s made for kids. I enter a level and scream to the game, “How do you want me to play you?” and the game answers… “You PLAY.” 

The game wants you to play in the purest sense of the word. It wants you to explore and try things and ask questions and be curious and get lost in its world (both literally and metaphorically). And in that sense the design makes a lot of sense. The easy to grab fruits feel like an analogue to Mario Odyssey’s moons, rewarding less-skilled players looking for an easy way through with constant progression. Meanwhile, more dedicated players can track down the harder to obtain fruits tucked away in devious nooks and crannies. For as much as people grumble about kids’ shortening attention spans, it’s true that kids really do have a remarkable patience for play. I can see kids loving this game because it really is designed to reward just, for lack of better term, fucking around and seeing what happens. Did you know if you ground pound you change the color of the shy guys? Did you know if you ground pound while super happy they all turn into fruit? It's the sort of thing you want to excitedly show to a sibling. Look, come check this out!

I’m an adult. A fairly whimsical adult, sure but an adult nonetheless. I think play is important, but I won’t deny that I have a harder time with it now than I used to. I want some kind of a mechanical throughline, I want some kind of right answer. Yoshi’s Story isn’t interested in that and I kind of admire it for that. While all of its oddities can come off as offputting, they also create a truly unique atmosphere that I kind of love.

Yoshi’s Story feels like a retro throwback to an era of games that was dying out even decades ago. It reminds me of games like Earthworm Jim, Castle of Illusion or even the original Sonic that you just kind of get lost in for an afternoon. Maybe you make it to the end, maybe you die before you can get there, maybe you discover some kind of weird secret, maybe you just vibe for a bit. I have a soft spot in my heart for these kinds of games that I couldn’t get rid of, and I can’t bring myself to hate any game that follows in their stead.

We live in a time where games have to be bigger, better and longer. Short games still exist, but they tend to be artsier, more story focused affairs. And hey look, I’ve got nothing against artsy story-focused affairs! But whatever happened to just weird platformers where you basked in surreality for 90 minutes and then went about your day? I mean the obvious answer is they became unprofitable, you can’t sell those kinds of games at console price or gamers will feel ripped off. That’s just the nature of the beast. Today’s retro throwbacks focus on rigid levels, tight mechanics and the sense that you’re getting more than what the console they’re emulating could put out. But Yoshi’s Story goes for something looser, more freeform and out-there. It’s got a lot of heart, and I think that counts for something. You don’t make this kind of game cynically, you do it because… well… honestly I’m not sure why. But that’s kind of beautiful isn’t it?

Ultimately Yoshi’s Story falls into the growing category of media that I don’t like, but am endlessly glad EXISTS. Despite everything I recommend giving it a try. Maybe you’ll be confused, maybe you’ll be delighted, maybe you’ll have a good time, maybe you won’t. But no matter what you’ll have an experience unlike anything else coming out today. 

And I think that’s worth something.

Next time, a new developer enters into the world of Yoshi to further shake up (or is it tilt up?) the formula. If you thought this game was wonky, it's only getting more Topsy Turvy from here! See you then!

“Riding on a Yoshi is so much fun. Sometimes you think, “What if they made a whole game on Yoshi-back? Then you remember they did. It’s called Yoshi’s Island and it SUCKS.” - Me, age 12 or something.

Wow, bold words younger version of myself. It’s true though, I grew up on Yoshi’s Island for the GBA (as well as my sister’s copy of DS) and I… wasn’t the biggest fan to be honest. I found it more frustrating than fun and while yes, something definitely kept me coming BACK to it… I never wound up staying for long. So is that it? Was tweenage me right? Does this beloved, near-universally praised nostalgic classic actually suck? (Or, perhaps more accurately, lick?) Let’s find out.

Our story begins, as many stories do, on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Following Super Mario World, Nintendo EAD figured that they’ve basically done everything they could with Mario in 2D and so were experimenting with what would eventually become Super Mario 64. However, even though the plumber was weeping for there were no worlds left to conquer, the Super Nintendo still had some life in it, so the team decided to try their hand at a new 2D platformer starring SMW’s breakout star.

This would be different from a Mario game though, Mario games were fast and frenetic this one would be slower and more methodical. Mario games emphasize beelining through the goal, this one would emphasize exploration. Mario games used power-ups to augment your simple moveset, this game would offer a more complex moveset available at all times that players would need to learn to make the most of. This game would be Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. Or, as it’s more commonly known these days, just Yoshi’s Island.

Calling Yoshi’s Island a “beloved, near-universally praised nostalgic classic” isn’t an understatement. In my time amidst the gaming sphere I’ve scarcely heard a negative word about the dang thing (save the one, oft-repeated universal gripe). I vividly remember a retrospective in an issue of Nintendo Power where decades later the reviewer who initially gave the game a 7.5 on release admits that it’s a true 10 even by modern standards. And yet… you don’t see a lot of elaboration on that. It’s the sort of game that people casually call “perfect” and then move on from. Why is that? The only way to find out is to crack this egg right open so let’s get started.

We open in the night sky, high above the Mushroom Kingdom. A stork is on its way to deliver two baby twins to a pair of parents who, presumably, boned down hot and heavy nine months ago. Unfortunately Kamek has been scrying into the future and knows that these two babies are none other than the Super Mario Brothers who will cause no end of headaches for him and the Koopa clan down the line. As such he tries to nyoink them out of the air but only succeeds in baby-napping Luigi. Mario is knocked out of the sky and picked up by a friendly clan of Yoshis who set up a relay system to help reunite the kiddos.

TL;DR, help the baby save his brother. Go.

The first thing you notice upon booting up Yoshi’s Island is its art style. Initially Yoshi’s Island was intended to use cutting edge 3D rendered sprites like the acclaimed Donkey Kong Country Series (its opening cutscene is one of the few remnants of this) but Shigeru Miyamoto thought that look was already becoming dated, and so instead suggested something more akin to a child’s coloring book. With thick black character outlines, playful pastels and scratchy shading on background elements. Much as I have a soft spot for old DKC graphics, this was definitely the right call. It gives the game a truly timeless look that shines even decades after it first came out. Compared to future games in the series, Island is more understated in its handcrafted details… but we’ll get there in due time.

Though overall a slower paced game than Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island still keeps its gameplay pretty snappy. Yoshi’s default movement speed is a dash, no need for a run button here, and he can haul tail pretty quickly across the map. His flutter jump makes it easy to reach heights or correct off a jump but it kills your momentum, meaning you’ll want to avoid it if you get into a flowstate. Other than that you have a ground pound and, the series’ claim to fame, the ability to make and throw eggs by eating enemies. Of the 8 games we’ll be covering in the lead up to Mysterious Book, 7 use an egg throwing mechanic and 4 of those use the exact SAME egg throwing as this game so it’s clear they’re doing something right. I’ve heard that some people have difficulty with it but frankly I’ve always found it to be pretty intuitive. While the cursor moving on its own can be a little finicky at first, you get used to the timing fast and in a pinch you can always instantly aim up or lock the movement for more accuracy. Turns out, in the surprise twist of the century, Nintendo – very gameplay first developers – made good gameplay. Who’da thunk?

Its damage system too is a thing of brilliance. With Mario you get so many hits before you die based on the powerups you have, straightforward and to the point. But back in Super Mario World, Yoshi WAS a power-up. The dino was more or less invincible save for lava, crushing and bottomless pits. Wouldn’t players feel cheap if that wasn’t the case in his own game? The solution to this problem came in the form of Baby Mario who, as previously established, is riding along for the duration for the adventure. Sure YOSHI once again is impervious to basically everything, but Mario is a whole other story. Whenever Yoshi gets hit, Mario is trapped in a bubble and a timer begins counting down. The timer automatically starts at and refills up to 10, but stars you can collect will bump it up further giving you more time. If the timer hits zero, Mario is whisked away and you’re sent back to the last checkpoint. 

This is a great system, giving players a lot of freedom to make mistakes and recover from them easily (not unlike Sonic the Hedgehog now that I think about it). The only real downside comes in the form of the one universal criticism the game has that I hinted at earlier: whenever Mario is separated from Yoshi, he does what distressed babies are wont to do and starts crying. Much ink has been spilled about how annoying and awful crying baby Mario is and… I guess? I dunno it never really bothered me. Like, it’s incentive not to get hit, and it stops as soon as you get his bubble back. I never really saw what the big deal was. HOWEVER, this actually illustrates a greater theme that will emerge as we continue the retrospective – that gamers tend to latch onto certain elements of these games and use them as cudgels to beat the games with, overshadowing other more productive discussion. You might not know much about Yoshi’s Island, but if you know anything you know that Baby Mario crying is annoying. The same goes for a lot of future games, if you know something about them you know a one sentence description of their “worst” elements… but, once again, I’m getting ahead of myself. One game at a time.

Where Yoshi’s Island REALLY separates itself from Mario is in its approach to 100% completion, in that the whole game is built around it. Over the course of the Super Nintendo’s lifespan gaming saw a notable shift in its attitudes towards completion (one best tracked by the aforementioned Donkey Kong Country series). In the beginning, games followed the NES model where there were secrets to find but it was all optional, not good for much more than bragging rights. (DKC1) As the console evolved, games became more consistent about offering rewards for players who went out of their way to see everything the game had to offer – though doing so was still often needlessly esoteric. We gotta sell those strategy guides or tip hotlines somehow after all! (DKC2) By the time the console was reaching its end however, it was clear that 100% was becoming a core part of games and so games were built to be completed in a way that was challenging but fair to the player. (DKC3) 

For those who aren’t as intimately familiar with DKC as I am (which I assume is most of you) think of it this way. DKC1 has random bonus rooms scattered throughout the levels. Some have one, some have two, some have a bunch, some have none. Most of them are hidden in weird places. Find them all in a level and you get an exclamation point on the game’s name in the menu. Find them all in the game and you get (magic conch voice)... nothing! DKC2 meanwhile added rewards for the bonus rooms, track them all down and you get coins that open up an entire new world of the game! That said, there still isn’t a rhyme or reason to how many are in a level. You know they’re there but the only way to truly find them all is sometimes to do some ass-backwards nonsense until you see that exclamation mark. By the time you get to DKC3 (secretly the best one… wait who said that? Must be a ghost), things have shifted. Every level has two bonus rooms, one before/at the halfway point and one after. If you haven’t come across the one you’re looking for yet, you have a good enough idea of where to find it and they’re all more or less pretty intuitive to track down. 

Coming in at the end of the Super Nintendo’s lifespan, Yoshi’s Island is very much in the DKC3 camp of completion. Every level has a standardized assortment of stuff you need to collect if you want to get a perfect score out of 100 points. You’ve got 5 secret flowers to find, 20 red coins hidden amongst the clusters of regular coins and remember those stars that you can use to raise your timer? Collect enough to raise that number to its max of 30 and keep it there until the end of the level. Do all of these in one go and you’ve perfected the level. While getting the perfect score is trickier than it sounds, the abundance of red coins and automatic 10 on your timer means that you’re gonna have to go out of your way to score less than like 15 on any given level. It’s a good system, one that returns in some form for most other games in the series

Before I go any further I should probably mention how I played this sucker because that’s going to be important. While yes, I own a copy of Island for the GBA… unfortunately I wasn’t able to FIND said copy in order to make this review so I wound up emulating the GBA version instead. I initially was going to emulate the Super Nintendo version instead, but having grown up on the GBA control scheme using R to throw eggs is so natural to me at this point that I don’t even think about it, and the “jump” button not double as “confirm” was SERIOUSLY throwing me off. Personally I think both are fine versions to play. The OST is a bit nicer on the Super Nintendo and the GBA version suffers from some screen crunch (which I won’t hold against it) but it also has some extra levels. Six in one, half dozen in the other. The other reason I mention this is that emulating Island meant I could take advantage of save states to alleviate some frustration as it pertains to 100% completion.

100% completion is a HUGE part of the Yoshi series, and while I will not be going for 100% in every game (to date I’ve only ever 100%ed ONE of them) I WILL be talking about what that experience is like. In other words, I’m going to approach each level as if I’m trying for 100% completion, exploring thoroughly for secrets and detailing that process, but I’m not going to be going back if I miss something unless I really feel compelled to. Perhaps you might think that doesn’t sound fair to which I say by all means spend three months writing your own video game retrospective and I will happily read it. (That might sound sarcastic but I genuinely mean it. I love video game retrospectives!)

When starting up Island for the first time I was actually worried that this was going to be one of the more frustrating games to complete, since it would theoretically be following antiquated design philosophies, but nope! The reason I don’t feel guilty about using save states is that Yoshi’s Island is actually pretty dang fair in terms of its completion requirements. Tough? Sure. Perfect? No. But a heckuva fun time all told. 

If you go in, like I did, expecting needlessly esoteric hiding spots you’ll be pleasantly surprised. You definitely have to explore, but the game knows the real challenge is doing everything in one clean run moreso than doing any individual task. You’re showered in lives (I had about 200 by the end of my playthrough) and you keep everything you have every time you cross a checkpoint ring so it’s easy to die and retry if you make a mistake. Yeah you have to listen to some more crying baby or jump in a bottomless pit but it’s a small sacrifice to make. What’s more, the game has a plethora of items you can win through end of level roulettes that make the experience even more completion friendly. Need more eggs? There’s an item for that. Want to more easily sus out red coins and hidden bonuses? There’s an item for that. Get hit right at the end or miss some stars and need to boost your count up? There are items for that too! Want a fucking screen nuke? Yoshi’s Island has you COVERED baybeee.

Like lives, items are generally pretty easy to come by and do a great job of removing any unfairness of 100% completion. Yeah there are parts where you go the wrong way and are locked out of going back, but levels are short enough that it’s not a HUGE deal.

I remember during my playthrough I started off getting periodic 100s that petered out by world 2-4. I thought that maybe this was the game losing the plot but now I think the problem was my own motivation, because by the time I hit worlds 5 and 6 I was 100%ing nearly every level on my first try WHILE ON CALL WITH A FRIEND. It’s just good intuitive game design.

And if you’re not the explorative type, Yoshi’s Island is one of the more fun games in the series to just blitz through. Remember, the dino in question runs as his normal movement speed so you can schmove your way through levels at a breakneck pace if you just gun it for the end. My last playthrough a couple of years ago was done in exactly that style and it felt great, I only slowed down this time to get a change of pace and because I knew I’d be judging all the games on their approach to completion.

So like… why isn’t there more discussion about it?

This is something I’ve thought about long and hard and the conclusion I came to has to do with my one OTHER complaint about the game that I’ve never really seen brought up, but has colored my perception of the series since I first was introduced to it: its approach to level design.

I want to be perfectly clear, this game doesn’t have BAD level design. Far from it. Levels are well paced and fun to play… but they don’t really go beyond that. Bringing back Donkey Kong Country as a point of comparison (not to keep pitting two queens against each other) but that game is also a journey across and island and it feels like it. Your journey across DK Island takes you through naturalistic environments made more real by the fact that everything is diagetic within the world. DK Island feels like a real place despite the bottomless pits and other gaming conventions. Yoshi’s Island, while also full of well-realized naturalistic environments, instead feels, for lack of a better term, made in a level editor. It’s difficult to describe but it’s hard to shake the feeling that these are just assets in a space. They’re well designed assets, sure, but even if you’re hopping around pretty squares you’re still hopping around squares. Levels range from claustrophobic mazes to open bottomless skyboxes packed with floating platforms and very few of them manage to find a sweet spot in between. 

Now I’m no professional game designer and I’m sure someone could articulate WHY it feels this way better than I could but the fact has always remained that the levels in Yoshi’s Island have always blended together in my mind. I can remember various level ELEMENTS, like chain chomps that jump from the background, monkeys spitting watermelon seeds, jumping around chairlifts and skiing down a mountain. However, despite the lovely aesthetics, despite the ample level variety and despite the fact that every level has an adorable little name, I’d struggle to ID any one of them if you showed me a picture. Hell you could show me an entire level and I’d probably struggle to ID it either by name or by placement in a world. (And depending on the level I might struggle to ID the world as well.)

This isn’t any kind of huge problem, again it’s still a very fun video game, but I think this points to why it lacks some of the recognition of its peers. I’ve been prepping this retrospective over the course of a month or so (wow has it really been that long? Time flies. FUN FACT: I wrote that two months ago what am I DOING with my life?) and so it’s been a hot minute since I finished Island. In preparation to write this entry, I went back and tackled a few secret levels as well as going back to speedrun/100% some main levels and even now I struggle to remember them. I know I had a good time, but it all just sort of fuzzes together.

I think that’s the conclusion that I’m left with at the end of the day: Yoshi’s Island is a great game and a worthy entry into Nintendo’s platformer hall of fame… but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t linger too long. With that said, it's one that I still HIGHLY recommend to any Nintendo fan, hell any gaming fan in general, who hasn't tried it yet. Seriously, if you haven't given it a try you can play it via switch online or emulate it online. It's a piece of gaming history that feels just as good now as it did then and who knows, you might just find yourself with a new favorite series.

As we come to the end of this chapter I'm going to begin an ongoing ranking of the games because ranking things is fun! Right now this one is at Number 1 because... well... it's the only one we have. Spoiler Alert: It's gonna stay in that slot for a while. But not forever...

Ongoing Yoshi Game Ranking

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

With Yoshi's Island, Nintendo had a bonafide hit on their hands! And you know what that means, IT'S SEQUEL TIME BAYBEE!!! Fans waited with bated breath to see how the classic Island formula would translate to the shiny new Nintendo 64, and that's where we'll be picking up in the next post!

Join us next time when we cover the natural evolution of this game, Yoshi's Island 64!

*Offscreen Whispering* Sorry what now? *More offscreen whispering.* What do mean "It's not Yoshi's Island 64 anymore"? What is it then? *More offscreen whispering.* Something totally different?

Okay... looks like things are gonna get weird in the next one. Yoshi's Island was a cut-and-dried classic, but it's sequel? Well, that's a very different Story. See you then!

YOSHI! You know him, you love him, you may-or-may-not main him in Mario Party. This adorable dinosaur has been stealing hearts and munching fruit since his debut in Super Mario World, eventually going on to (like most mainline Mario characters) start his own side series of games.

To me, the Yoshi games are pure comfort food, a cozy cup of cocoa snuggled under some warm blankets. They’re the kinds of games you want to curl up with and play just one more level of before going to bed. They’re breezy and fun… yet often overlooked in Nintendo’s catalogue.

And like… why is that?

Look, this is the point where I WOULD say something to the effect of, “With Yoshi and the mysterious book releasing next month this felt like the perfect time to dive back in and reexperience this classic series from a modern perspective.” And sure, that’s TECHNICALLY true but I’m not going to bury the lede here: The Yoshi series fascinates me. 

There are currently eight games in the Yoshi series (I’m ignoring spin off puzzle games like Tetris Attack, Yoshi’s Cookie, etc.), and you could easily describe FIVE of them as “the black sheep” while still being technically correct. Of the remaining three, two are “the  good ones” and one is “the awkward middle child” so not exactly a great batting average there. This series never really comes up in gaming discussions, and even with a new game seeming to bring a genuinely exciting approach to the core gameplay loop… the general attitude online is indifference. 

Why is that? Is there a rot at the center of the Yoshi series preventing it from getting the acclaim it deserves? Does it deserve acclaim at all? Are the bad games as bad as people say they are? What can we learn from this dinosaur? And, MOST IMPORTANTLY, how does Sonic the Hedgehog fit into this? The answers to these questions and many more might just surprise you!

So come along as we take a retrospective look at the adventures of one Theropoda Yoshisaur Munchakoopas in order to determine what makes them tick. It’s sure to be a journey full of clever insights, terrible opinions, groan-worthy jokes and repeated half-remembered trivia that’s probably wrong. We’ll laugh, we’ll cry, we’ll buh-da-ring-HA as we make our way through nine delightful(?) little games. Think of it as some kind of Nonuple Yoshi Exploshi, if you will. Posts will come out as I write them, but rest assured that I already have notes and drafts in the works so hopefully we’ll be able to get to Mysterious Book (or Mysterious Field Guide, hence the name of the retrospective, for non-English speaking countries) by the time it releases. Key word here being “hopefully.” I’ll try my best to link the posts together but in the meantime you can follow along at #YoshiGuide. Tune in next time as we kick things off with one of the only universally enjoyed games in the series: Yoshi’s Island!

Way back at the beginning of the retrospective I mentioned that there were three games in the series that could not be described as “the black sheep.” Yoshi’s Island and Yoshi’s Wooly World were “the good ones”... but the third game there is Yoshi’s Island DS, universally known a “the awkward middle child” of the series.

Following the experiments of Topsy Turvy and Touch and Go, DS was supposed to be a return to form. Originally named in development as Yoshi’s Island 2, this was going to be the true follow up to the SNES classic that fans have been waiting for for a decade. Launching on a console that would become synonymous with excellently executed old-school throwbacks, this should have been a slam dunk. Should have been.

Going into this retrospective, my plan was to keep an open mind and I’d like to think I’ve done a good job of that. That said, I’d played all of these games before. I may not have finished all of them. But I’ve played all of them. As such, I had some kind of preconceived notion of how I would feel about them going in. I definitely had games I was more excited for than others. I had one game I was dreading. DS was that game.

I had... shall we say... reason to suspect that this was going to be a rough one for me. And having come out the other side I can confidently say that it was probably the roughest experience out of the entire retrospective bar none. But as for why... we'll get there when we get there.

The story of DS feels like an echo of the original Yoshi's Island. Kamek is kidnapping babies to help Bowser (both baby and adult) find seven legendary Star Children. Mario gets knocked out of the sky, Yoshi gets Deja Vu, go find Luigi and maybe some other babies along the way. Despite the addition of some extra cutscenes to flesh things out, the story feels like a bit of an afterthought but hey, it works.

Booting up Yoshi’s Island DS was one of the single biggest nostalgia rushes I’ve ever gotten from any game ever. I’m the type who likes to replay games, so most old favorites stay close to the top of mind but it’s been YEARS since I picked up DS and the moment I did everything came rushing back.

I simply have to shower some love onto DS’s score, Yukata Minobe and CHAMY.Ishi did an amazing job crafting a series of tracks on par with (and in my estimate exceeding) the original Yoshi’s Island. The OST goes for the Yoshi’s Story strict leitmotif approach while taking a musical approach that feels more tonally in line with Island’s style. Music is peppy and upbeat rather than playful and plodding. The heavy use of marimbas and woodwinds give the ost a more primal sound while still keeping up with the jaunty atmosphere of the original. Yoshi’s Island is a delightful place, but it’s a delightful place that’s been cut off from the rest of the world. The Yoshis know this place well, but you – the player – are in uncharted territory. Whenever I think of Yoshi Series music its these melodies that pop into my head before anything else, ask me to hum a song from a Yoshi game and it will be this one — hell anytime I try to think about the music from Yoshi’s Island I’ll subconsciously slip into DS and have to manually course correct.

While DS is overall lighter on handmade details and shading compared to its Super Nintendo predecessor, the game still looks lovely. Chunky outlines are back in vogue with bright colors popping off of pastel backgrounds. Everything is vibrant and eye-catching, even if a few things sometimes look… off. Like the game missed one final art pass that would have helped it all look a bit more cohesive. 

As far as gameplay goes, it’s Yoshi’s Island alright. Save a few minor tweaks, and one major addition, that I’ll touch upon later it’s easy to slip into the familiar rhythm of egg throwing, ground pounding, flutter jumping and collectable nabbing. 100% uses the same scoring metrics as the original Island, red coins, smiley flowers, full health. After so many more experimental titles, DS is like riding an old bicycle again, maybe it feels a little different than you’re used to but once you settle into the familiar rhythms you’re good to go.

As I made my way through the first world, scoring a surprising number of 100 point scores, I was having a blast getting caught up in the past… but I knew it couldn’t last forever. No amount of being pleasantly surprised by how well the opening of the game held up could detract from what I knew was going to happen as I got further in. The experience of playing Yoshi’s Island DS to me was like that of a horror game, and it was just a question of when it was going to drop.

It dropped in World 3.

In so many ways, World 3 is the high point of Yoshi’s Island DS. Previous worlds took us through the expected flower fields and jungles, and future worlds would re-trod well-worn grounds of mountains and sunset vistas. But world 3? World 3 decides to do its own thing by crafting a pirate adventure for the player.

The opening sees you travelling aboard a makeshift raft riding through river rapids before storming a series of pirate ships and exploring an archipelago of mini islands. The world’s midpoint fort takes place almost entirely in the belly of one of the ships, forcing you to criss-cross your way through before culminating in a boss fight with a giant Cheep Cheep who spelled trouble for you earlier. From there a massive wave washes Yoshi into a treasure cave where he meets up with Baby Wario and does some well earned plundering, until a fall further down winds you up in a different cave lined with booby traps. It all culminates in a daring escape past a rolling golden Tap-Tap to close things off.

Thematically World 3 is a TON of fun, with levels telling a narrative that progresses as it goes on. It’s genuinely admirable, but thematics are only one part of the equation. What about gameplay? Gameplay is where it all falls apart.

To this point, DS has been remarkably fair about 100%ing each level, but now that you’re midway through apparently the kid gloves have to come off. Now more than ever you’ll find yourself easily missing collectables, you had one chance to grab or forgetting to go down a pipe or realizing only too late that there’s a nook or cranny you forgot to search. World 3 marked my final two 100 scores for the entire game: one for the first level and one for the last one before the castle. Things are getting more esoteric, and that’s not what you want as the levels also get longer. Oh sweet merciful lord do the levels get long. You don’t realize how short the original levels of Yoshi’s Island are until you play DS and they just keep going and going.

By the time you reach the end of World 3, you don’t even have the energy to complain that the final castle doesn’t match the established mechanical or thematic progression at all. I mean maybe using billiard ball to unlock doors that lead to a relatively-giant-but-not-really-giant-by-the-standard-of-other-bosses-doodlebug has something to do with pirates but frankly it’s lost on me.

This is the trouble with Yoshi’s Island DS, the further you get in the more frustrating it becomes. I started out this retrospective wanting to be positive, but despite the nostalgic bias DS wore my patience right thin. It just makes so many decisions that make it difficult to like at every turn. This was the thing I worried about when picking up the game and it certainly manifested itself by the end of my playthrough.

Let’s start with the game’s central gimmick: multiple babies. Instead of carrying baby Mario to the goal, you now get access to five babies: Mario, Peach, DK, Wario and Bowser (who has a falling out with his future self). Each baby comes with a main gameplay power, unique egg properties and context sensitive abilities that can be used throughout the game. You can exchange them at various Stork Stops scattered across every level based on which one you think would be best for the current situation.

Given that I tend to at least ATTEMPT completion and exploration in these games, I’m sure you can understand how the prospect of jumping between babies to scour every nook and cranny of a level Donkey Kong 64 style sounds like it’s gonna get real grating real fast, but fortunately that almost never happens. There are a few points where you might need to combine powers but mostly if you absolutely MUST switch to a baby at a stork stop to collect everything, it’s either to take a slight detour and then switch back or will carry you through to the next stop. The babies aren’t the grating part. We’ll get to the grating part (I’ve already hinted a bit at it). Put a pin in that. 

While the box art shows five babies, this proves to be more than a little misleading. Really you have access to THREE babies for the vast majority of the game. Wario shows up for the back half of world 3 then dips. Bowser shows up for the back half of world 4 then dips. Both return for the final level but, in an admittedly fun callback to the original Yoshi’s Island, there are multiple routes through the castle and you only need to take one. The routes are determined by which baby you pick and act as a sort of final test of that baby’s abilities, meaning Wario and Bowser can be ignored entirely.

That leaves you with a core trio of Mario, DK and Peach who end up taking on a sort of Sonic Heroes style dynamic between speed, power and flight. 

Baby Mario is the speedy option of the bunch, an ideal choice for getting through levels quickly. See, DS slows down Yoshi’s base movement speed, a move that SOUNDS like a recipe for disaster but works fine enough for the more explorative level design. However if Baby Mario is on your back, holding the Y button lets you return to speeds more akin to Island (complete with Island’s run animation, a cute touch) for speedrunning, frantic escapes or timed challenges. Mario’s egg property is that his ricochet where the others don’t, giving players a bit more leeway with sloppy tosses and allowing for trick shots. Finally on the context sensitive end he can hit these otherwise-outlined M blocks (sure, why not?) and grab invincibility stars should they show up in the level.

Peach, your next baby, is all about keeping you light on your feet in a different way. In general Peach has a buffed flutter courtesy of her parasol, and can use said parasol to ride context sensitive wind gusts for even further height. The catch is that her eggs are nerfed, unable to bounce or do much of anything once they hit a surface so you’re sacrificing that for simpler platforming.

DK, on the other thing is where things get interesting. DK is most recognizable for his context sensitive ability allowing him to climb vines and swing on ropes, but it's his other moves that make him a more worthwhile asset. DK’s eggs have an explosive quality to them that doesn’t just do damage, it also nabs collectables in a range. This makes his eggs equally useful to Mario’s just for different situations and I found myself regularly choosing him for this alone. That’s not all though, DK also has a dash attack that can be used to clear out weaker enemies and even cross gaps since you don’t lose height when dashing off a ledge. To balance him out however, he has a supremely nerfed hover that gives you less distance and height (he is a chunky lil monkey after all).

On paper this sounds like a really solid system that turns every stork stop into an active decision even beyond context sensitive challenges. Do you want to run through the level? Maybe through your weight around? Or do you want to soar above it all? I could even forgive Bowser and Wario’s lack of presence as just ways to shake things up in the midgame. But unfortunately there’s one thing that makes this whole argument fall apart: Baby Peach.

So remember how I said that Baby Peach had a buffed flutter? Well… she does… I think. I’m sure if you compared Peach’s flutter side by side to Mario’s you’d notice that it is buffed… but in practice it doesn’t FEEL buffed, certainly not in the same way that DK’s feels nerfed. This is a problem for two big reasons, firstly it kind of throws a whole wrench in the entire baby system once you realize it. Remember, Peach’s eggs are nerfed to make up for the supposedly improved flutter, but if the flutter doesn’t offer a noticeable buff then why bother playing her outside of the specific contexts where you need to? Sure, having one of your babies be a bit of a clunker isn’t an issue when there’s five, but how come Bowser and Wario are relegated to cameos when they’re arguably more useful than Peach is?

The lack of unique egg properties definitely mark Bowser and Wario as a bit half-baked compared to the other babies but their other moves make up for it. Wario has a magnet that can contextually move metal blocks and (extremely fucking finicky) metal platforms, but also *grabs coins from midair*. I don’t think I need to explain why, in a game that constantly asks you to put yourself at risk to snag hidden coins, having a magnet to assist with that might be a bit useful? Instead he’s here and gone in a blink. 

Bowser, on the flipside, is somehow more useful AND more limited. He can’t swallow eggs at all, but instead has an infinite ammo stash of fire that travels more slowly than eggs but features the same range, can be aimed horizontally or vertically and can do other things like melt ice or… uh… okay yeah they only really use it to melt ice. I think maybe you light a torch at some point? Or am I confusing this with Wooly World? I’m not sure. But even still, infinite ammo isn’t a bad trade off to have, by any means.

In practice this brings the “every stork stop into a distinct choice” philosophy right back into Donkey Kong 64 territory. I’m not picking babies based on unique properties that they bring to the gameplay, I’m just color matching with the context hazards. Oh there’s M blocks? Grab Mario. Wind? Peach. Vines? DK. Metal Block? Wario. Ice? Bowser. Purple bananas? Tiny. Trombone pad? Lanky. Pineapple switch? Chunky. You get the idea.

Okay but while yes, it’s not as engaging as it COULD be, surely it was an exaggeration saying this ruins the game, right? Well that brings me to my other point. Remember how I said that I couldn’t tell a meaningful difference between Peach’s flutter and the others? That’s because, both as a child and now, I actively THOUGHT to compare them. That’s because I was actually in a position where I wanted a buffed flutter, and was disappointed to find there really wasn’t one. That’s because Yoshi’s Island DS is hard. Really. Fucking. Hard.

I harped on about the levels being long before, as you might remember. Instead of Island’s 6 Worlds, DS only has 5, so naturally the devs made the levels longer to compensate. On paper this is a lateral move, but it becomes grating when as early as midway through the third world the game starts putting the screws to you… and those screws only tighten the further you go.

The game LOVES plopping you into do or die scenarios over bottomless pits, or bombarding you with enemies, or surrounding you with instakill spikes, or popping you into The Cave That Never Ends, the only Yoshi level I ever remember the goddamn name of because it was so bad that it singlehandedly ended my only serious attempt to finish this game as a kid. Do you like autoscrollers? Do you like autoscrolling around enemies and instakill lava? Do you like SLOW SCROLLING that goes on FOR MINUTES ON END and if you make a mistake you’re sent back to the last checkpoint to scroll again? The last level before the final boss is called “Superhard Acrobatics” and yep! Can verify! It is!

A bit about me. I enjoy a good tricky platformer. I’ve beaten Acceptance in The End is Nigh. I’ve done base playthroughs of Celeste and Super Meat Boy. Difficulty isn’t a problem for me. But Yoshi’s Island DS often feels less like a fun, fair, fast paced challenge and more like a slow masochistic slog. Slow paced exploration and knife’s edge difficult platforming just DO NOT MIX, and this game is living proof of it.

And the cherry on top of all of this is: THERE ARE NO SUPPORT OPTIONS. The items from the first game have been completely removed, so while the already easy Crafted World gets a Mellow Mode attached onto it to really make sure nobody stubs their toe TOO hard the bullshit difficult game just gives you a smile and a shrug.

If Peach was just there to help younger gamers, I would have bemoaned the mediocre flutter buff as a missed opportunity. But given how the game is, it feels like a missing piece of game design that would go a long way towards helping gamers of any skill level… but nope! Fuck you!

By the end of Yoshi’s Island DS I was exhausted, aggravated and just relieved for the whole thing to be over. The increasing, frustrating difficulty soured an experience that I loved as a kid and left a bad taste in my mouth. By the end of this game I was not having fun.

AND YET, is it wrong that I still kind of respect the hell out of it?

Back during the Yoshi's Story chapter I talked about difficulty in games, how games on the whole were getting easier save for specific genres where the difficulty was allowed to crank up. Yoshi's Island DS came out at a time where retro revivals were expected to come with retro levels of difficulty (just look at how Donkey Kong Country Returns is harder than any of the games in the original trilogy) but even still, it's kind of refreshing to have a game that's this bright, this colorful and this bullshit hard at the same time (and I didn't even play the dedicated bullshit hard bonus levels! Just the main campaign!).

That's the thing I can't help but take away from DS. No I didn't enjoy playing it, but I did enjoy how much effort was put into it. I loved the story that carried through World 3. I loved the castle level set in a shy guy stronghold where we can see them going about their daily lives in the background. I love all the weird new enemies that the game introduces that never return save for one level in one future game. DS will always be a game close to my heart and nothing could make me hate it, even though I REALLY want to.

I'll say it straight out: placed in the context of everything else, Yoshi's Island DS is my least favorite game in the series. While I have no doubt I will play it again someday in the future to enjoy the parts I like, I have zero intention of beating it in full ever again. Even still, like it's a solid 7/10 game. 6 if I'm feeling PARTICULARLY mean.

All of the Yoshi games are good games, and I stand by that. DS specifically, while flawed, owes so much of what works about it to Arzest's willingness to take swings. There is so much love and effort put into this game, with my personal favorite detail being the little museum that functions as a tour of all the game's enemies sectioned off into different exhibits. I spent SO much time messing around the museum as a kid, even though being crap at the game it was only ever a little bit full.

Even though I don't like this game, I can still recognize that it's good. I can still recognize that Yoshi's Island DS deserves to be played. And if you're the type of gamer who has ignored this series because of how easy it is, play DS through world 3. You might just find what you're looking for.

And what of Arzest? Well eventually Artoon disbanded and reformed becoming the Arzest we known and... have opinions about... today. Nintendo was satisfied enough with DS that they gave Arzest another shot with the Yoshi series but the fanbase was less kind. The multiple babies, the weird new additions, it was all too much. The fans respected that it went back to basics... but it wasn't basic ENOUGH.

So, with that in mind, Arzest went back to the drawing board with one goal in mind: to make a new Yoshi's Island game... but without any of the new stuff they added in DS. The result was the most near-universally hated game in the Yoshi series... at least from what I've seen. See you then.

OVERALL YOSHI SERIES RANKING

Yoshi's Island

Yoshi's Story

Yoshi's Universal Gravitation

Yoshi Touch and Go

Yoshi's Island DS

Yo did you see this shit? Nintendo made a new console! And it has two screens! TWO! And you can TOUCH one of them!

I know, I know. Witchcraft. You’re sitting there, person in 2005, struggling to wrap your head around this whole concept. But fear not, Nintendo has a variety of technical demonstrations to help you understand the potential of what would go on to become their most successful console until *checks watch* about a month ago when it was surpassed by the Switch. (Congrats to the Switch!) 

One of these tech demos was a little game called “balloon trip” in which you drew lines of clouds to guide a falling/floating Baby Mario to safety where he would be picked up by Yoshi. This little curio apparently was received so well that Nintendo made it into a full fledged release, Yoshi Touch and Go. 

Touch and Go was given to my sister one year as an Easter Present after how much we all liked Yoshi’s Island DS so I’ve played it a bit here and there.

Yeah, not a whole lot of backstory here. This post is probably going to be on the shorter side (relatively speaking) because Touch and Go is less a traditional Yoshi game, it’s honestly more of a spin-off. However, its existence marks a shift in the series that needs to be addressed to put the the rest of the series in context. Touch and Go is the bridge that links everything that came before, to everything that would come after. Yes. I’m serious. Let’s get into it.

Opening up touch and go we see a stork flying through the night sky on the top screen a la the opening of Yoshi’s Island, and a mode selection on the bottom. There’s no opening cutscene and no real story to speak of beyond a vague echoing of the events of Island. Choose your mode, Kamek will attack the stork, and you’ll be thrust into the game. 

No matter what mode you choose, you’ll always start with a round of Balloon Trip. Baby Mario is falling from the sky, his descent slowed by three balloons that make up your health. Your job is to draw lines of clouds he can slide on to avoid obstacles and collect coins. You can also draw circles around enemies or clusters of coins and fling them towards Baby Mario to get bonus points. The number of points you get will determine the color of Yoshi you get once you reach the bottom, with different colors having higher egg capacities. Once you finally reach the ground, the actual game begins.

At its core, Touch and Go can best be described as an endless runner. Yoshi automatically runs forward and will jump if you tap him (tap repeatedly to flutter). You can tap on the screen to throw eggs, and eat different fruits to replenish your egg supply. Like Baby Mario before, you can draw lines of clouds to guide Yoshi around enemies but UNlike Baby Mario Yoshi doesn’t have any hit points. One touch to anything or slip down a bottomless pit and your run is done. You’re thrust onto the high score screen, given the chance to enter onto the leaderboard if you scored high enough, and given three options. You can restart from the beginning to get a better Yoshi, restart post Balloon Trip to get right back into the action, or jump back to the main menu to pick another mode. 

Aaaaaaand that’s the game! 

Touch and Go is a high score chasing arcade-style romp that serves more as a fun novelty to pick up now and again than an adventure you can sink your teeth into. The different modes have different goals to mix things up, but what you’ll be doing is fundamentally the same. Score Attack has you on a set path to return Baby Mario to the stork, trying to rack up as many points as you can in the process. Time Attack sees you chasing down a hoard of toadies to rescue Baby Luigi as quickly as possible. Challenge sees you trying to get a high score running endlessly over a bottomless pit with spikes everywhere. VS gives you a chance to play against a friend (I’ve never tried this so don’t know all too much about it unfortunately). And then finally Marathon Mode is the real meat of the game.

Marathon Mode is exactly what it sounds like: get as far as you can. Every 500 meters you’ll enter a cave and emerge to find your scenery has shifted. From windy canyons to ukiki-filled jungles to crystal caverns, each area brings its own enemies, gimmicks and music into the fray to keep things fresh. Every 1000 meters you trade off to a new Yoshi with a higher egg capacity. Scoring enough points lets you turn into Super Baby Mario who is invincible, fast as heck and can throw infinite stars… but be warned that his speed also makes him a liability. (Technically this applies to most of the modes but I’m including it here for pacing.) Remember that one hit when you switch back to Yoshi, or a fall into a bottomless pit, means instant game over. 

On the whole Touch and Go is solid fun, it’s enjoyable to get into a rhythm slinging eggs since Yoshi can hold a heckuva lot more than the 6 in island (your minimum is 20 and that number goes up with 5 at each rank of Yosh). The game can feel a bit slow at first, but the reduced speed can be a blessing more than a curse given how easily Yoshi dies. Get ready to have the Game Over jingle burned into your brain. Honestly that’s my one real critique with Touch and Go, I wish there was some way to score a hit point because it’s WAY too easy to die by accident in ways that don’t feel like your fault. Obviously all marathon runs at least are bound to end in death, but giving one oopsie would go a long way towards making those deaths feel more my fault.

Other than that Touch and Go works just fine for what it is, given that what it is is a pick-up-and-play timekiller that would feel more at home on a mobile phone than a console (honestly now that Nintendo is doing mobile stuff they could totally release a port of this to the app store and it would fit right in).

Presentation-wise the game looks great bringing in a lot of iconography from Island but touched up in its own style. The black outlines of Island are replaced by subtler colored outlines and more shading on the character sprites. To make up for this though, the backgrounds lean hard into watercolors with some really lovely looking effects.

This game sees Kazumi Totaka taking his role as the official sound supervisor for the Yoshi Series and it’s… fine? When I think of Touch and Go music my mind immediately jumps to the Flower Garden remix that plays during Score Attack because that was my go-to mode as a kid (I liked having something with a distinct end point). The original pieces aren’t bad but they kind of go in one ear and out the other. One thing Kazumi Totaka brought over from Yoshi Story is the theme and variation soundtrack structure, and he would bring this to every single game he sound-supervised for going forward… at least I *think* he did? Touch and Go’s main theme isn’t as strong as the others. The melody kind of meanders and the variations don’t hew AS closely so listening to it I’m like 90% sure it’s a theme and variation structure at least for the original music but I could be wrong. It DEFINITELY is the case for every other game going forward (save one). As far as other music thoughts go… the Windy mountain theme has instrumentation on its main melody that sounds kind of like a Pikmin theme? That’s all I got.

Touch and Go is a small game, fun enough for what it is but nothing you’ll be banging down the door for. If you can get it for cheap or your DS emulator has really solid touch simulation with your computer mouse give it a shot but definitely don’t break the bank for it. Touch and Go was just an experimental little spin-off to hold fans over until a proper Yoshi game was released the following year. It’s the final Yoshi game fully developed internally at Nintendo, but it didn't serve as any kind of passing of the torch. Remember, Yoshi as a series was already with its new developer. Nintendo didn’t get the gang back together for one more Yoshi game, they were expanding on a tech demo that just *happened* to be Yoshi themed. Why bring this game up at all when I skipped over all the other spinoffs?

Because this game marks a major shift that would go on to define the franchise for two decades. 

Touch and Go has an obvious reverence for Yoshi’s Island… but it expects you to have one as well. It expects that when you see that stork in the sky, you already know where we’re going. You already know what’s going to happen. There’s no need to explain. The aesthetics are back in line with Island. The music pulls a bit from Yoshi Story’s stylistically, but through and Island lens, interspersed with Island remixes.

Touch and Go is a spin-off, but it’s also a spin-off that feels cut from the same experimental cloth that brought us Story and Universal Gravitation. 

It would be more than twenty years before the franchise would be willing to experiment again.

For its first decade, the Yoshi series was defined by its experimental spirit. Remember, even the original Island came from Nintendo asking the question, “How can we make a 2D platformer that feels distinct from Mario?” This attitude extended to titles like Yoshi's Story, Universal Gravitation, and Touch and Go.

For its second decade, the Yoshi series will be defined by Yoshi’s Island. It’s all Yoshi’s Island all the time. Yoshi will become not unlike series such as Sonic or StarFox, trapped in an (until later this month) endless loop of trying to repeat the past. Every game will attempt to recapture the magic of Yoshi’s Island… to varying results.

And even as the one game in its third decade dares to poke and prod at the confines of what this series can be, it will still do so through the lens of Yoshi’s Island.

In a vacuum, Touch and Go’s love for Yoshi’s Island feels innocent and I’m sure at the time it was. It’s just using familiar iconography to frame a spin-off after all. However, after Universal Gravitation pulled so much of its aesthetic identity and general vibe from Story, and with the context of what comes after, this feels more like a line drawn in the sand. This is what the Yoshi series is. This is what it needs to look and feel like. We had our fun but it’s time to go back to basics so the series can find its footing again.

If only we knew how long it would be there.

Join us next time as we head back to Yoshi’s Island for its decade-later sequel on the Nintendo DS. It’s a game that was known in development as Yoshi’s Island 2… before switching to a name that was somehow even more generic. (Guess Arzest blew all their naming creativity with “Universal Gravitation”.) Thanks as always for reading and I’ll see you then!

OVERALL YOSHI SERIES RANKING

Yoshi's Island

Yoshi's Story

Yoshi's Universal Gravitation

Yoshi Touch and Go

Arzest. Ohhhh boy Arzest. 

If you’re at all familiar with this studio, chances are you immediately had a knee-jerk negative reaction to reading the name. If you aren’t, they’re the studio behind Yoshi’s New Island (which we’ll get to in due time), Hey Pikmin, Sonic Superstars and Balan Wonderworld. Maybe it’s just the circles I travel in, but when it comes to studios of this caliber you’re going to be hard pressed to find one with a worse reputation than Arzest. 

Arzest is primarily known for games that are bland, mediocre, shallow and/or whatever Balan Wonderworld is. They’re a studio seen as the equivalent of a corporate suit, coming in to fill the baseline obligation of “make a game” and collect a paycheck. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t understand why.

So you can imagine my surprise when I found out that the president of Arzest was none other than Naoto Ohshima.

On the flipside to Arzest, Ohshima has an extremely GOOD reputation at least from what I’ve seen. Best known as the character designer behind Sonic the Hedgehog, the director of Sonic CD, and the creative drive that made NiGHTS: Into Dreams a reality, Ohshima is often characterized as a major force of creative spirit within the early days of Sega before his departure from the company. His love of dreamy surrealism and abstract imagery helped cement him as a legend, and even in the Sonic fandom (where nobody agrees on ANYTHING) you hardly ever see a bad word about the guy. (Though to be fair he's worked hard to cultivate a great relationship with fans from what I’ve seen. Check his Twitter and it’s like 10% Sonic promos, 15% pop culture things he’s interested in and 75% reposting fanart.)

Probably the best indication I can give of Ohshima’s reputation is that during the Balan Wonderworld fiasco, I heard PLENTY of criticism over Yuji Naka’s contributions to the project but crickets when it comes to Ohshima, even though arguably there’s MORE red flags coming from his direction (it was seen as a bad sign when Arzest came in to assist with the game because of the studio’s reputation, but frankly I think it’s a bigger red flag that they weren’t involved from the get-go. Imagine, for a moment, that Satoru Iwata was working on a game, and then halfway through production it was announced that Nintendo was being pulled in to help finish it. Um... feels like maybe they should have been involved from the start?)

So how did someone so creative and passionate go on to become the president of Arzest? And what on earth does this have to do with Yoshi’s Universal Gravitation (or Topsy Turvy if you’re in the US)? Well, before Arzest was Arzest, it was Artoon, the company that Ohshima left Sega to establish. And Artoon/Arzest (I'm going to call them Arzest both 1. to make a point and 2. because "Artoon" gets autocorrected constantly in the Google Doc I'm writing this in so that saves time for us all) is one of the three* developers who have had a hand in the Yoshi Series, starting with this game.

(*Mysterious Book looks like some of the GoodFeel-iest shit ever so I feel confident enough in guessing that’s them. But I could obviously be wrong and Nintendo could be bringing in someone else. We’ll know later this month.)

But even more importantly, I bring up Ohshima to illustrate that despite a reputation as guns-for-hire this team genuinely did have a creative spark behind them. I would argue that there’s more to their games than meets the eye, and even though Ohshima only worked as a producer on Universal Gravitation, you can see some of his fingerprints on the final product. Or maybe I’m just projecting. Only one way to find out! Let’s dive in.

Universal Gravitation begins by telling the player tales of a mysterious artifact known as the Forbidden Pop-Up Book, controlled by a spirit known as Hongo. Hongo has decided to put an end to Bowser’s wicked schemes by trapping him forever in the book but – oopsie doodle – Bowser happened to be on Yoshi’s Island at the time meaning the entire Island has been trapped inside the cursed tome for the rest of time. A purple jester (who bears no similarities to any other purple jesters created by Naoto Oshima, let’s not be silly) known as “The Spirit Who Loves Surprises” explains this all to the now-trapped Yoshi. 

The Spirit Who Loves Surprises tells Yoshi that his best bet for freedom is to win the favor of the other gods/spirits who rule over this realm. By getting chummy with them, Hongo will see that he’s actually a stand-up dinosaur and set the island free. As an added bonus the Spirit Who Loves Surprises also gives Yoshi the ability to tilt the entire world, and now you’re off!

So that’s… definitely a plot. What this means for gameplay is that rather than themed worlds, the game is broken up into 6 pages of the pop-up book (with a boss fight at the middle and another at the end). Each page is ruled over by a different spirit who gives Yoshi a specific condition to complete the level under. Complete the task and you get a silver happiness medal. Excel at the task and you get a gold (this is trickier than it sounds, especially as you get further in the game). Fail and you get nothing, but you can move onto the next level. You need a certain number of medals to move onto the next page and if you don’t have them once you reach the tally screen you just replay levels until you do.

How about the spirits themselves? Well let’s go through a roll call. 

Firstly you’ve got the Spirit of Cuteness who tasks you with finding hidden apples throughout the levels. See the Apples are actually Egglings who have been transformed into apples by Bowser, and eating them turns them back into their former animal-print egg selves. They also say “thank you” with a cute little soundbite. The egglings that you collect are then stored in a collection so you can try to “find them all” as you explore the various cuteness spirit levels. They all have little names too.

Next up is the Spirit of Money. He likes money. Collect as many coins as possible. Probably the most straightforward of them honestly.

After that is the SECOND most straightforward. This is the Spirit of Power. He wants you to prove that you’re not a weakling by going full Undertale Genocide Route on as many of a certain enemy type as you can. Typically those enemies are the only ones in the level which helps avoid confusion. On the whole enemies are your standard Yoshi fare, Shy Guys, Gustys, Goonies, Ravens, Wild Piranhas, etc. Although the game’s graphical style is clearly riffing off of Yoshi’s Story, with visible cardboard seams adorning platforms all over the place, hand colored trees, and textured wood blocks supporting platforms, most of the original enemies from that game are nowhere to be found. The spirits are a fun addition to the Yoshi mythos but otherwise the game really only adds two new enemies of its own: a spiked ball with a frazzled face that either rolls around or is on a track, and Daruma Otoshi-kun. 

I have little to say about Daruma Otoshi-kun. It appears four times in the game in the last chapter and is never seen again.

Coming up next is the Spirit of Speed. Her deal is, you guessed it, finishing levels as quickly as possible. Something notable about these types of levels is that once you actually have a timer you start realizing just how SHORT they are. Most levels in the first half of the game can be easily completed in less than a minute and those in the second half still tend to remain under two. The constant quick levels and changing goals keep the adventure moving at a solid clip. The environments change constantly through each section of a level, but don’t really evolve world-to-world so the constant gameplay variety helps things from becoming stale (even if it does drag a bit in the final world). I will also point out that this spirit has spiky hair and an association with the color blue. Anyways.

After a boss fight that’s really more of a platforming challenge, you encounter the Spirit of Kindness. This was one of the hardest ones for me to wrap my head around as a kid as her UI doesn’t make your goal immediately apparent and her opening line of “Defeat X enemies or more and you’re out!” didn’t click with me for some reason. Her thing is that she wants you to make it through the level WITHOUT defeating enemies. You get a set number of whoopsies (usually 4) and after that you’ve got to try again. 

Finally we close things off with The Spirit of Fright who puts something spoooooooooky on screen… which is to say all of his levels are autoscrollers where you run from a constantly moving grinder. The Spirit of Fright is also notable in that he’s the only spirit who never appears by himself. See, once you get a feel for the game it starts combining spirits for levels. Maybe you’ll have to be fast AND collect egglings. Maybe you’ll have to kill enemies AND collect coins. It’s a fine way to further keep things interesting and give the player more to think about. 

Of course, the whole “appeasing the gods” angle is only half of what makes Universal Gravitation tick – the other half is right there in the name. Yoshi has the power to tilt the world and it’s… certainly something. The tech for Universal Gravitation is right there in the cart, and the game actually lets you identify whether the cart is on the top or bottom of your screen (helpful for OG models vs clamshell models and DS’s). 

The tilting… how can I best explain it? So Yoshi himself is always standing straight up no matter what happens. Tilting the console tilts the WORLD, and Yoshi will respond to the world as if he is still standing up straight. You can run on walls, unravel patches of grass, make balls roll, nail sick half pipes, control platforms on tracks, all sorts of things. It takes a moment to wrap your head around but it works fine enough.

The entire game is built around tilting, and the first few worlds are dedicated to exploring all the ways that shifting gravity can impact gameplay, once you hit the halfway point and know what you’re doing the focus is placed on increasing the difficulty.

Levels aren’t continuous but are instead made up of a bunch of smaller rooms linked together by little star rings. Oftentimes the star rings are the goal, but sometimes a room will use them as an obstacle to be avoided so you can spend more time collecting coins, egglings or enemy kills.

The constant rhythm of assessing a room, executing, and moving onto the next one almost feels like a hybrid of Yoshi and Warioware at times. It makes for frantic fun but the longer you go on it starts to get a bit exhausting as the same ideas start to repeat. Yes they’re more challenging, but it all starts to feel familiar before long. The game isn’t particularly long so you should breeze through it without trouble, but even still it starts to overstay its welcome by the final world.

Honestly, that might be the best way to describe Universal Gravitation in a nutshell: packed with ideas it wants to show off but in its mad dash from one thing to the next it gets a bit clumsy. The tilting mechanics are nifty enough but take a bit to wrap your head around and you can feel the controls fighting against them (flutter jumps in particular feel AWFUL whenever you’re trying to platform while tilted). It’s no wonder that egg throwing was removed entirely, can you imagine trying to navigate aiming AND tilting at the same time? It sounds like chaos, and not in a good way.

The tilt mechanics also contribute to a problem that would be a lot harder to see coming at the time of its development: this game is hell to emulate. Luckily I have a functioning cartridge, but because the tech is built right into the cartridge most emulators don’t know how to handle it. Furthermore because the entire tilt gimmick is built around the player’s ability to use Yoshi as a centering point on the physical screen, I don’t even know if this COULD be ported officially to future consoles without dramatically altering the experience. Yoshi’s Universal Gravitation is, in a way, doomed to fade into the ether as it becomes harder and harder to access. On one hand, there are people who will argue that it’s not a huge deal if a mediocre 2D platformer gets lost in the shuffle of time and… okay fair enough. 

But consider: doesn’t the fact that it’s in this position make it kind of unique?

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from this it’s that Yoshi’s Universal Gravitation is a game that took some real swings. It expanded Yoshi’s world with a pantheon of gods, it built experimental tech into its cartridge and its unique approach to level structure made it stick in my head for over a decade after I first played it. In fact, as a kid I enjoyed this one quite a lot! I remember getting it on a whim used at Gamestop because the uniquely shaped cartridge caught my attention. I brought it home and had a blast with it, even going so far as to try and score golds on the first couple of worlds after finishing it. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Universal Gravitation is a forgotten masterpiece. If I had to assign it a rating nowadays I would say it was “perfectly fine” and move on. But for fans of weird experiments in gaming I think Universal Gravitation is absolutely worth checking out while you still can. If you find that your interest has been piqued by this write up, I recommend tracking down a copy for yourself. There is truly nothing like this game. 

I want to repeat that because I truly do believe it: Whether you love it, hate it, or think it’s mid as hell there is truly nothing like Yoshi’s Universal Gravitation. I think that’s important to stress because, again, this game was made by FUCKING ARZEST. So much of the narrative around Arzest makes it sound like they exist solely to phone games in, but I would argue that isn’t true. This game exhibits a spark of creativity on par with NiGHTS or Sonic CD, even if the execution isn’t as strong.

However ambition is only as good as the results that come from it and Universal Gravitation didn’t exactly set the world on fire. That said, the Artoon team proved their mettle with the series… Perhaps if they combined their creativity with something a bit more traditional they could craft a path forward for our little green dinosaur friend.

But before we can get there, we’ve got one more game to cover: The last Yoshi game internally developed by Nintendo. Surely this would be a swan song for the Yoshi series from the devs that initially made it… Or maybe it’s one more weird experiment before the PROPER series reboot. Join us next time but brace yourselves, it sounds like it’s gonna be Touch and Go for a bit.

OVERALL YOSHI SERIES RANKING SO FAR

Yoshi's Island

Yoshi's Story

Yoshi's Universal Gravitation

(Forgot to do this last time, lol.)