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.
Who likes Yoshi? If you’re like me, you’re looking forward to the release of Yoshi’s New Island next weekend. We don’t know whether Arzest’s work this time will be as flawed as Yoshi’s Island DS, but either way I’m getting excited for it. To celebrate the first new Yoshi game in 8 years, here’s a huge comic release from my scanlation division, the first English release of these previously German-only comics.
These two comics were published in 1995 and 1998, for the releases of Yoshi’s Island and Yoshi’s Story, in special edition supplements to the official German Nintendo magazine, Club Nintendo. The first, Yoshi’s Island, is a directly game-inspired primer for how the gameplay works, although obviously with a lot of chatter and humorous moments. If you’ve read my DKC2 translation, you should know what to expect (although there’s even more explanation of game mechanics in this one). The Island comic also includes a little preview page from the magazine before the main thing starts.
By the time of the Yoshi’s Story special, the comic supplement style had changed to include multiple short comics that, in this case, are pretty tangential to the game itself. More silly and surreal, closer to a lot of the comics printed in the magazine itself.
Story is the stronger package, because it’s more amusing and has new, wacky storylines. But Island is still good and focuses on the singular main Yoshi and his reactions to the various challenges that crop up on his journey. They’re an interesting contrast on how the style changed over the years.
This was a lot of work to put together. Both comics are quite long, and were done over a period of time (with a break in the middle). But I knew I wanted this done in time for the new Yoshi game. My old collaborator Caramelman started to help me translate Island, but got busy and I struggled through the rest. Later I got in touch with the coordinator of the awesome Supper Mario Broth, who is familiar with German. They translated Story very well for me, and even provided fresh, high-quality scans! They also provided some tips for improving Island. As always, my helpful wife did a spot of proofreading and drew the credits page art for Island. A part of Story also calls back to a previous Club Nintendo comic, which had been previously translated by Opentrain (now at opentrain.theyear199x.org). I pulled their translation pretty much verbatim for that part, so thanks very much to them.
Said part brings up some inconsistencies, like how the Yoshi in question was an adult but is now a child(?). Bet hey it’s just a comic, you should really just relax. You may also notice if you’ve ever played Island that the Chatterbox that plays the role of secondary character who advises Yoshi spouts some blatant lies about game mechanics. You can’t grab floating coins with your tongue, and coloured eggs won’t just break on a wall and release items! So don’t listen to him all the time.
If you’re playing the Holerö game at home, look out for a couple of examples here. It’s the secret word for these comics, essentially a kinda made-up greeting that is often said by various characters. If you haven’t noticed it before, look out for it.
Well that’s it, this is the biggest translation project I’ve released so far. A gift for Yoshi fans everywhere. If you like it, send me some appreciation here or at my twitter, twitter.com/Miloscat. Also check out www.suppermariobroth.com for some sweet Mario (and spin-offs) content. Thanks to them, and to Caramelman and Opentrain for making this possible. Share it around and enjoy!
UPDATE: I found new scans of the Yoshi’s Island comic. They’re not massively better quality so I’m leaving the originally translated pages, but there were also extra pages not present in the first scan. So now there’s 11 extra pages in the YI special!
Who likes Yoshi? If you’re like me, you’re looking forward to the release of Yoshi’s New Island next weekend. We don’t know whether Arzest’s work this time will be as flawed as Yoshi’s Island DS, but either way I’m getting excited for it. To celebrate the first new Yoshi game in 8 years, here’s a huge comic release from my scanlation division, the first English release of these previously German-only comics.
