I believe I’ve written about Yoshi’s Island DS here, and you must know it’s been widely criticised. Lazy design, just awful soundtrack, and mediocre art are a few of the common complaints. So when information about the new 3DS Yoshi game was coming out and it had the same developers attached, some red flags started going up.

I did enjoy YIDS in the end, maybe nostalgia has a lot to do with it. So I was looking forward to this too. I even preordered to get a little Yoshi egg game case. I played through it over about a week and, as I was expecting, was not exactly blown away. The level design is uninspired, the soundtrack is again awful. The art style is not bad, but is more a matter of taste this time as it’s all 3D models that evoke the original art of YI, but also make it more Mario-y, and thus less distinctive.

It has a few touches that I appreciated. Collectibles now are counted by set (red coins, flowers, and stars) instead of all up, which basically means that to get more completion in the game you don’t have to get perfect runs anymore. Oh no I can’t think of any more here come the bad points…

Items are still gone, and the goal ring now has a confusing system that awards medals (lame). Shooting eggs now involves an initial animation, limiting your twitch response time and making the process a tad unwieldy—lame. Eggs can randomly be yellow or red, which is fine and all for giving you some extra stars in a pinch, but a red egg will not bounce off walls. Lame. Yoshi now seems to run more slowly, as he must gain momentum; again, lame. There were quite a few little tweaks to the formula, but they were obviously not thought through because they add up to making the game feel worse than the two previous ones it’s aping. Very lame.

Oh, I remember. Each fortress (mid-world boss stage) now has a battle with Kamek, which cuts down on the unique boss battles (a highlight of previous games), but which is actually kind of cool because he’s always been untouchable. The fights can also be inventive in concept, more puzzly affairs. Although their execution can be dull to play through. So a mixed bag there.

The all-new mechanics are pretty bad. There’s big eggs which are highly situational. They’re given to you when required, and then you pass that point. Very badly implemented. The transformations are gyro-controlled, and I don’t have to tell you that’s a bad idea. They’re also very segmented from the rest of the game, which feels gamey and annoying. They also have a couple of concessions to the New Mario, Super Guide stuff which is so patronising. However, there is an excellent payoff to the aspect of the noob-helper character that ties into the ending.

Speaking of which, the final boss is boring and predictably completely rips off the original Yoshi’s Island, but worse. They then surprise you by literally throwing adult Bowser at you out of nowhere through a time portal. It makes no sense and really undermines the whole concept of this being a separate game series from Mario that takes place in the past.

As I said in my Club Nintendo survey, the good parts of the game are where it sticks to the formula put down by much better game developers 15 years ago. Ironically you could say those are lazy parts, but then the new parts to this game are very lazily implemented. The result is relentlessly mediocre. Of course I managed to get some fun out of it, being a fan of Yoshi’s games. It looks nice and play fine, but because it’s trying to evoke the original it just shows all the more what a pale imitation it is. I think it’s time for Nintendo to take the franchise a little more seriously, take it away from these guys.

Gosh I’m pretty negative eh? I still finished and enjoyed it, but maybe it’s best to stick to Yoshi’s Island GBA, out now on the Wii U. That damnable small screen view aside, it’s a great game.