![]() ![]() The tantalising sight of a door you can't reach or a flower that's beyond your grasp is the closest thing the platform genre has to Zelda's perpetual hook, and Artoon's new concepts are used to help amplify the effect - with certain collectibles plainly within reach of a particular baby (Mario, for example, whose presence turns useless outlines into solid "M" blocks). Principally it's all about getting to the end and leaping through the flowery goal to pass your current baby to the next Yoshi in line, but of course that's barely half of it - with the real challenge coming from scouring the level for coins, flowers and mini-game doorways. There are pressure-switch platforms that you can stand on as long as you want, but which will only bear your weight a certain number of times there are competing wind currents to ride there are circular moving platforms with arrows on them that continually spin and follow the direction they're pointing whenever you're standing on them there are Yoshi's traditional vehicle morphs like the mole and helicopter, and a new bouncing kangaroo there are swinging bits and flapping bits and swollen others, and really every flavour of platform imaginable. No one can claim Yoshi's Island DS isn't varied. Individually the levels are much bigger, with greater complexity brought about through the addition of new types of collectible (like the Big Golden Coin, and red coins hidden among all the regular ones), and the constituent parts of each are certainly diverse enough to sustain their girth. The game is still split into eight stages set across five different worlds, with a pair of boss castles for each, unlockable extra levels and mini-games to find too. I don't want to spoil everything, but let's say Bowser and Wario also have a sort of fiery magnetism to them. Peach can hold out her umbrella to help you float upward on gusts of wind, while DK's explosive eggs are only part of his appeal - unlocking as he does the ability to clamber along vines and chains, swing from hanging ropes and shoulder-charge through walls. Mario allows Yoshi to dash (useful on disintegrating platforms), while egg projectiles fired while he's onboard will bounce off walls, allowing you to tag far off collectible flowers and cloud-blocks to help reach new areas. The benefit of swapping babies is that each augments Yoshi's basic skills with one or two of their own. As though you're listening to a CD of an album you had on tape when you were five. Graphically similar, you can't help feel it's too clean now. ![]() There are now five babies, with Yoshi carrying one at any given time, and able to swap it over for another at special "stork points", where his beaky companion offers him a choice of baby Peach, Donkey Kong, Bowser and Wario depending on how far you've gone. Yoshi retains his usual abilities (running, jumping, hovering with well-timed B-button flutters, converting enemies into eggs and firing them using an aiming cursor, and of course bouncing on heads), but this time it's not just Mario and Luigi he and the rest of the Yoshi clan are worried about. That's not to say Artoon hasn't worked hard to fill out the DS game, mind you. This is like a distended version of Yoshi, and its appeal is ultimately a bit limited. For that, you're better off looking to New Super Mario Bros., which comes closer even if it doesn't get there either. You're looking in the wrong place if you're after a DS platformer that has the SNES Yoshi's determination to use the technology - without being brash about it - to create brilliant new scenarios, and new experiences that turn convention on its head (or rather, get it drunk, pull its trousers down, and generally fart all over it). Of course, back in 1995 they were doing this on two fronts, with Super Mario 64's development running parallel.Īrtoon's attempt to rework Yoshi as a DS title doesn't do this. The first one was, in effect, Super Mario World 2, and it was made at a time when Nintendo still understood that to truly improve on something of that game's incredible significance meant ripping it up completely, and proceeding with only the most fundamental elements intact: in Yoshi's case, the controls, and the collectibles. I expect the standard thing to do here is to remark that Yoshi's Island was the most astounding, mesmerising, stunningly inventive 2D platform game of its generation, and then go on to talk about how Yoshi's Island DS does the same things with a few more additions and is therefore also excellent.īut I don't really feel that way, and I suppose it's because a sequel to Yoshi's Island is self-defeating. ![]()
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