Yoshi’s New Island is a direct sequel to the classic platforming SNES title, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. The original title is full of charm and has perfect gameplay, beautiful aesthetics and is an overall masterpiece. Yoshi’s New Island is Yoshi’s long awaited debut on to the 3DS, but does Yoshi’s New Island hold true to its predecessor? Sadly, it doesn’t.
The Story
The story of Yoshi’s New Island is takes place immediately after the first game. After the events of the SNES title, the stork goes on to deliver the Mario Bros. to their respective parents. To the stork’s dismay, he delivered them to the incorrect home and now has to rush to bring them to the right house. Because the stork becomes hasty, Kamek, the magikoopa, intercepts the stork to try to steal the babies.
During all the ensuing commotion, Kamek successfully takes Baby Luigi, while Baby Mario slips and falls unto Egg Island, which is now terrorized by Baby Bowser. Without hesitation, Baby Mario starts crawling to go find his brother. The Yoshi clan decides that they will help and protect him, and so the adventure begins to Bowser’s Castle.
The Gameplay
Yoshi’s New Island borrows most, if not all, of its gameplay from its predecessor. The player controls many Yoshi, who take turns carrying little Mario at the end of every level. Like before, Yoshi can flutter jump, swallow enemies, and shoot eggs. Although it is the same formula, it is still as fun as it was in Yoshi’s Island. There are 6 worlds that Baby Mario and Yoshi need to traverse, with 8 levels in each world. Each level feels straightforward, though they don’t have complex level design that existed in the first one. There are various collectables hidden in each level that spice up the candid level design.
Boss fights in each world feel dull and repetitive. The bosses themselves seem uninspired and they all have the same formula of dodging out the way and then hitting the weak point when it appears. Compared to Yoshi’s Island, the number of unique bosses has been cut in half. Kamek is now the boss at every fourth level in each world, which is lazy and uninspiring.
There is a varying difficulty throughout the spanned worlds. It starts out slow and easy, and starts to pick up difficulty in later stages. Tougher enemies begin to appear with more perilous platforming sections. Precise timing and good judgment are required to be able to continue the more tricky areas.
There is no health bar in Yoshi’s New Island, but instead, there is sinister countdown. When Yoshi touches a hazard, the countdown commences and Baby Mario begins to wail while floating away. Yoshi needs to rush to him before a Koopa can kidnap him, which occurs when the counter reaches zero. Like most of the recent Nintendo platformers, when the player continues to fail a particular section, they are given an advantageous item at respawn. In Yoshi’s New Island, the player receives the Flutter Wings which allows Yoshi to fly indefinitely.
What’s “New”?
Yoshi’s New Island introduces new elements to spruce up the gameplay. A great example of this is the Mega Eggdozers. The Mega Eggdozers are produced when Yoshi eats a large enemy and swallows them. As the name implies, these eggs are used to destroy obstacles that Yoshi couldn’t otherwise break with regular eggs.
A metal variant of these special eggs exists named appropriately, Metal Mega Eggdozer. Its concept is similar, but these eggs allow Yoshi to sink in any body of water for deep underwater exploration. Whenever these mega eggs are obtained, their use is pretty obvious and there aren’t enough locations in which the player can use them freely.
Yoshi’s New Island reintroduces the vehicles that Yoshi turns into. Only this time, the player uses motion controls to maneuver Yoshi. Some vehicles, like the bobsled, control fluidly and responsively.
On the other hand, vehicles such as the helicopter and submarine had clunky controls and I found myself turning my 3DS upside-down just to move slightly up or down.
Yoshi’s New Island also ditches the minigame sequence found at the end of a level in the SNES title. Instead, there are cooperative minigames that are pretty bland and supply very little replay value.
Aesthetics and Music
At a glance, Yoshi’s New Island looks like a coloring book. It trades the hand drawn styled graphics of Yoshi’s Island with a more pastel looking design. Although the change seems like an overhaul, it fits the game well.
This is one of the few games that absolutely benefits from having the 3D effect turned on. The graphics pop-up beautifully along with the foreground to create a motley combination onscreen.
The soundtrack of Yoshi’s New Island feels lackluster. The music appears to be composed with child inspired objects to create a nostalgic mood, but it doesn’t come across that way. Some of the music in the game feels ill-fitted compared to the level design. The soundtrack is a huge turnaround from what the classic game left behind.
Wrap-Up
Ultimately, every subsequent Yoshi’s Island game has failed to live up to the standard that the original set. Yoshi’s New Island is no exception. There is fun gameplay and gorgeous visuals to experience throughout. Unfortunately, the new features aren’t exemplified enough and aren’t executed very well. At the end of the day, Yoshi’s New Island is a great platformer, but it’s weighed down by the drastic changes that were made to the core gameplay.
