Yoshi’s New Island has been a long time coming. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, the first game in the series, was originally released in 1995. It was well-liked by gamers and critics and was even included in Nintendo’s 3DS Ambassadors program as a gift for the handheld’s early adopters. But where that one took me weeks to complete – replete with dozens of “Game Over” screens and more Mario tears than anyone could handle – Yoshi’s New Island took me just six hours. It was a fun six hours (spread out over four days), but the original had me dying more times than I knew I even could die in a platformer. While in the new game, I rarely died more than once per world. It was a breeze, and while I’m not surprised, I am just a tiny bit disappointed.
Platforms: 3DS
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Azrest
Genre: Side-Scrolling Babysitter Simulation
Release Date: March 14, 2014
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Yoshi’s New Island starts where the credits of Yoshi’s Island ended: it turns out the stork delivered the babies to the wrong place. He quickly bundles them back up and gets back to the sky, only to be attacked by Kamek once again. Mario ends up on another island full of Yoshis, and they help him to once again find his brother, Luigi. But now, you can see this bright, colorful world in 3D – it’s the same whimsical look as the original, but much more stylized. Though it no longer looks like a coloring book, which is kind of a bummer, because that was one of my favorite parts of the first game.
While the game looks and feels very similar, there are a few fun things that have been added or changed to make it just different enough. For starters, like with so many of the newer Mario games, there’s an aspect that has been made much, much bigger: giant eggs! Yoshi can eat a giant Shy Guy from a giant pipe, and then get a giant egg from him, which wreaks giant destruction. Everything about this is fun, although the destruction meter that builds up and gives you an extra life seems superfluous. I had almost 100 lives by the time I beat the game, and I felt like that might be too many. The game was much easier than the first, and adding in all those lives just added to the lack of challenge.
The extra lives and ease of play are just another way the game is similar to the newer Mario games, though. If you die a certain number of times in a row, you’re given an extra boost (a Yoshi P-Wing) that lets you glide through the level, taking away what little challenge there is. Having just finished the original game a few days before, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed at this change. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the first game had me pulling my hair out at certain times, and there were times I just let Kamek take Mario because I couldn’t take all the crying. But I enjoy challenging platformers, and seeing this one turned into another super easy coin-fest made me lament the 90s all over again. (And who ever wants to do that?)
There’s a lot that’s fun in the game, though. Yoshi still turns into random vehicles, which ended up being one of my favorite parts of Yoshi’s New Island. Instead of navigating with the directional pad, now you use the 3DS itself, tilting it right and left to change directions. The drill can also destroy blocks, the submarine shoots missles, and the bobsled – well, it’s a super fast bobsled that can take on the ice levels much better than Yoshi can. You’ll look like a crazy person if you’re doing this on public transportation, but it’s worth it.
There are also a few points in the game where you can look through binoculars, just like the other Mario 3DS games, and you tilt the 3DS to look around the level. I was hoping this would come up more often in the game, but it only happens a handful of times, and seems completely random. Also random were the moments when you would have to deal with a “Fake Yoshi” – a monster who turns himself into a Yoshi and mirrors your movements. You have to figure out how to make him jump into a spike pit each time, which was a pretty neat puzzle, but again, only happened a few times and seemed completely random.
Points don’t accrue at the end of each level like they did in the original. You still build up stars, which are collected and added to a timer in the corner. This is a countdown for when Mario gets knocked off your back – you have that much time to recover him before he is taken away by the enemy. There’s a max of 30 of these as before, and 20 Red Coins (special coins mixed into the gold coins), as well as 5 flowers. But instead of adding up points for each one that you get, now every level has a picture of these three things below it on the main map. Whenever you get the max number of that collectible in a level, a little icon appears. This is a great way to keep challenging yourself to try to get all of the collectibles, and gives the game a lot of replayability.
But, as I mentioned, the game is so much easier that even the areas that are supposed to be hidden seem obvious. Maybe it’s because I just finished Yoshi’s Island, but the secret areas all seemed so obvious to me. Though I should also add that there weren’t many times I got all of the collectibles! More often than not, I would meander down a path that I thought was a side path but was actually the right one, and I’d finish the level quickly and without finding many secrets. But that made it easy to go back and figure out which way I needed to go to collect those last Red Coins.
One other change that I thought was really bizarre is that, instead of the star power-up giving you the chance to run around as Mario, now you just run around as Yoshi. While there’s nothing wrong with that – and the added destruction Yoshi can do when he grabs a red star is super fun – I enjoyed having those few moments where I could run around as a barefoot baby. At least he wasn’t crying!
As with most games in the Mario series, at the end of each level in Yoshi’s Island, if you hit the exit just right, you get a bonus. In the original game, the bonus was one of several different minigames; in Yoshi’s New Island, you rack up medals, which give you – you guessed it – more extra lives. But fear not, for there are still minigames that you can play, only now they’re for two players. These local multiplayer games are adorable and fun, much like the original minigames, except now instead of competing against AI, you’re fighting a friend! The competitive games are Enemy Eat-Off, Flutter Finish, Flutter Fortune, Ground-Pound Pop, and Tulip Toss, and the one cooperative game is Eggy Pop. Players will hone their fluttering skills, ground pound some balloons, throw Koopas into tulips, and see who can turn more enemies into eggs.
For all that I’ve said about the similarities and differences, Yoshi’s New Island feels like the original game – only less of a challenge, and not as fun. Where the first game took time, strategy, and sometimes cramped fingers, in this new game, there were times when the level was over before I had even gotten warmed up. The ease of play was only interrupted once or twice by a few challenging levels, which were, unsurprisingly, very similar to their counterparts in the earlier game. In fact, there were two levels in which the puzzles were taken directly from the original game, and my having beaten it so recently made it a really jarring experience.
I’ve vacillated all this time, going back and forth on whether or not I really liked the game, and I will admit that, while it was no Yoshi’s Island, it was still a fun experience. There were moments in the original game that had me so frustrated I had to walk away from my 3DS; this was never the case in Yoshi’s New Island. And while yes, that is a disappointment, sometimes what I want from a video game is just a little mindless fun in which I don’t have to grind my teeth. Both games had me playing them until my hands were cramped; both games gave me joy in different ways. What I will say is this: if you plan on spending some time with Yoshi and baby Mario looking for baby Luigi, play the original first, and give the series the credit it deserves. If you just want some fun and you aren’t looking for what might be one of the best platformers of the Mario series, skip it and pick up Yoshi’s New Island instead.
Review Disclosure: A review copy of Yoshi’s New Island was provided by Nintendo for the purposes of this review.
