Haven’t been here in a while, I’ve had other things on. My brother’s wedding, and I was reading comics instead of playing games (they were game-related comics, though—I’ll post about that later), and yesterday I marathonned the first half of Dark Harvest. The “big 3” Slendervlogs, which I follow, are kind of in a lull so I decided to expand my horizons. Plus the Marble Operator discussion podcast is starting to cover the series so I watched it. Had to figure out the order things came out in from the two or three Youtube channels, two blogs, two Twitter feeds. Par for the course in a SlendARG, really, and most of them are active for only a short time anyway. Unfortunately, unlike EverymanHYBRID, there isn’t a well-maintained wiki with a handy timeline. And I’m kinda off Unfiction at the moment, so i did the legwork myself. Anyway, how about some games!

Yoshi’s Island was a huge game of my childhood, very high in my estimation of gaming joy. I have a lot to say about the series consequently, but I’m aware of post length getting ridiculous so I will save some content for two extra posts later: words about redesigns and character interpretations, and an overview of the Yoshi series as a whole. For now, let’s talk about YIDS!

Since I found out about this game, naturally I’ve been interested. Similar to how Jungle Climber interested me, it was another developer making a latter-day sequel to a series I love on a handheld. But unlike Jungle Climber, a lot of what I read about YIDS was quite negative. Words like “romhack” and “awful soundtrack” got tossed around, which quite put me off. In the end I decided screw it, I’m going to play this game and love it anyway, it’s the only unambiguous sequel to the great original. And I did!

The original game was made by Nintendo EAD, the main first-party studio with many sub-divisions. I guess they were too busy with NintenFerrets or New Super Mario Bros 15 or something,(NOTE I wasn’t too far off, the team that previously made Touch&Go on the DS now make NSMB and the only director for YI not now a General-type Manager is Hideki Konno, who heads the Nintendogs & Mario Kart team) so it was outsourced to Artoon, who have previously been caretakers of Yoshi with a tilt-based thing on the GBA. I’ve played Universal Gravitation (or Topsy-Turvy as you might know it), and since I was expecting a spinoff and not the second coming of Island, I though it was ok. It’s a bit odd but I just like any little thing in a great series.

The Yoshi series is one of those B-list series that gets shipped around to lots of different developers. Fans of series like DK, Wario, Star Fox, Metroid, F-Zero, etc can be very bitter and resentful towards Mario and Zelda who get rampant sex parties thrown for them by Nintendo every other week, while they get shared between teams or developers and shifted around like a semi-popular show on a commercial network. Artoon (who also made the pretty bad Blinx the Time Sweeper) are competent enough I suppose, but I feel their games lack polish. They put a fair bit of fanservice in YIDS, but also added their own things that are weird or jarring. Some say they mishandled the development of this game. I think it could have been done better, but I’m just happy it exists really. I guess I’m just a few steps away from abandoning real games and only playing fangames and truly good romhacks. :-p

So the main difference between the original and this sequel is the baby-swapping mechanic. This is a cool idea, which allows the Mario continuity to become even more twisted and impossible, especially when you add that adult Bowser travels back in time, and Kamek may or may not have. But it also allows each baby to give different abilities to Yoshi. It’s cool and you use each one often, but like many things here it could have used some work. Some of the abilities are underused, like DK’s shoulder-barge. Peach only has one advantage that is context-dependent, and her eggs are worse, so she seems nerfed compared to the others. Wario is also very situational, but his specific sections are interesting, puzzly bits. Baby Bowser is just bad. His fire breath is annoying to use and is made redundant by placing fire pots in a level you can eat. The three heavier babies also make your jump worse, so there is a trade-off for their advantages and often Mario is just the go-to pick for many levels (but DK’s mixture of abilities make him very useful too). But switching can’t be done in a map screen and if you’re in a harder level where there is no stork drop-off for a while, or they are few and far between, it can get very frustrating. You have to go back to World 1, play through an easy level and finish with the baby you want.

There are only 5 worlds compared to the original’s 6, but there are 2 extra levels per world. The original had a sceret level in each world, and the Advance remake also added an extra level per world, so this is a slightly shorter game. But I didn’t mind about that really. What I minded was the removal of all inventory power-ups. They were cool, and they were an extra help if levels got tough, especially for some quick stars before the end. YIDS is overall a much easier game, I blazed through with tons of lives. However, near the end the difficulty spikes in a few stages, and the extra levels are especially brutal, made more so by the lack of items to use. Getting 100% on all levels is also very tricky, but I think that is no different to the original. I enjoy the challenge of the secret levels though, and they are optional, but I don’t know if I will 100% them. There are also extra collectibles in the form of big coins for specific babies to find, one per stage, which was good. I also liked the museum feature where you can run through and view all the baddies you’ve egged in their natural habitat.

Let’s say something about the graphics & sound. I’ve looked at spritesheets for this game so I believe when people say that Artoon blatantly ripped many sprites from other (Yoshi) games. Koopas and others from YI, Yoshi’s sprites are from Touch&Go, adult Bowser is from their Universal Gravitation. And their new enemies and elements for this game look out of place often, with different styles and even differently done outlines! It adds up to make for a quite inconsistent presentation. After a while you get over it though, you just have to accept it and try not to dream too much about what could have been. Say what you like about Yoshi’s Story (I will play it soon), but its visual style was internally consistent. The sound design for this game was also just, just bad. At first I minded the new “hup” “yow”, etc sound effects of Yoshi’s voice. But that’s just because he didn’t have that in the first YI, and he’s consistently used them since YS, so that’s fine. But the music is the truly awful part. Boring tunes, short loops, massively overused main musical riff. Have some variety! The main theme is ok, they used it in Brawl and it’s not too bad, but it gets old real fast. I would have preferred if this game just ripped the whole soundtrack from the original. I normally play handheld games with the sound turned off anyway, so I guess I didn’t have to endure it.

Ok, stream of consciousness time. Bosses were pretty good, a lot of gimmicks were underused, interesting level archetypes and combinations, some very cool twists on level design and some pretty boring or confusing levels. I liked the cutscenes and the fact that certain babies joined and left, so you don’t have to play all levels with Baby Bowser on rotation. General gameplay was just like the original, big plus for my nostalgic bones. Many returning enemies, new ones were kinda weird, but the return of those Klaptrap-type guys from DK Jr that aren’t Klaptraps. Museum was cool but not well explained (need to throw egg at enemy for them to appear there). Each baby had their time to shine, and were made to feel useful, except maybe Bowser. But Peach should have had at least one more thing to recommend her. General plot a bit off and confusing, but an interesting addition to Mario canon with the concept of the Star Children. Yoshi series should get away from Bowser as the bad guy so much. Nice length and good replayability. End-of-level bonus games not as interesting with only lives on the line, no items. Also in-level minigames not as good as original and nothing at stake there as far as I can tell. Two-screen mechanic interesting and cool, levels were generally designed around it too so that’s a plus.

All in all though, I liked YIDS. If nothing else it reminds you why the Yoshi series is so great and makes you want to play the original again. But it has its own charms and benefits too, which in some ways make it unique to the original and worth playing, such as the babies and the dual-screen. Unfortunately I haven’t gotten to Yoshi’s Story yet so I can’t compare it. But I had a lot of fun, and I’m still going improving my scores and unlocking extra levels so I’d recommend it for anyone who’s played the original. If not, play that one (SOMEHOW—it’s not available on any download service so you have my permission to emulate either version for now). In fact, you could emulate this one too as (aside from no touchscreen or microphone use) there is zero chance of reprints, there is no DS download service and Nintendo (and Artoon) makes no money from second-hand sales. I am still not entirely convinced that anyone gets data from second-hand sales either. I bought this second-hand because it’s a complex game, which is easier to play on the proper hardware, and I enjoy things better on the real console, especially for handhelds. But anyway I shouldn’t talk about this so much. Fun game, but hey I say that about pretty much all the games I play. Also I’m a Yoshi fan.

Wife’s comments: My paragraphs are too long, it makes my reviews hard to read. Erm.