| Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island | |
|---|---|
North American box art |
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| Developer(s) | Nintendo EAD |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Director(s) | Takashi Tezuka Toshihiko Nakago Shigefumi Hino Hideki Konno |
| Producer(s) | Shigeru Miyamoto |
| Composer(s) | Koji Kondo |
| Series | Mario |
| Platform(s) | Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy Advance, Virtual Console |
| Release date(s) | SNES Game Boy Advance
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| Genre(s) | Platforming |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | |
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, originally released as Super Mario: Yoshi Island (スーパーマリオ ヨッシーアイランド Sūpā Mario: Yosshī Airando) in Japan,[2] is a platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the SNES console. Despite its title, this game serves as a prequel to all other games within the established Mario Bros timeline. While featuring Nintendo's trademark Mario character, the game's graphics and gameplay differed from all previous Mario games in that players control various Yoshi dinosaurs rather than Mario himself, who appears as a helpless infant.
Yoshi's Island was released on August 5, 1995 in Japan, October 4, 1995 in North America and October 6, 1995 in Europe. A port was made for the Game Boy Advance as Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3. The original version has yet to be announced to be ported for the Virtual Console. A sequel for the Nintendo DS, Yoshi's Island DS, was released in 2006.
Contents |
The main goal for each level of Yoshi's Island is to reach that level's end with Baby Mario safely on Yoshi's back. Baby Mario is then transferred to the back of a differently-colored Yoshi, who will carry him through the next level. Between levels, players are presented with the map screen, which allows them to select the next level, or replay previous ones for a better score. There are enemies and obstacles that endanger Yoshi and Baby Mario on each stage. If Yoshi is struck by an enemy, Baby Mario will be sprung from Yoshi's back and float around in a bubble crying while a timer counts down; if Yoshi does not reunite with Baby Mario before the timer reaches 0, Baby Bowser's minions will fly on screen and kidnap him, ending the level and reducing the player's chances to retry by one.
The gameplay of Yoshi's Island bears some superficial similarities to other games in the Mario series, such as the ability to defeat (some) enemies by jumping on them, keys required to open doors in castle levels, and a generally linear level structure. However, aside from these and a few other minor similarities, its gameplay is considerably different. Yoshi's main mode of attack is using his tongue to pull his foes into his mouth, either to spit them out or swallow them to create eggs, which can be used as projectile weapons. The game also has more of a focus on puzzle solving; for example, one level might require a player to enter a cave from a different opening in order to find the right path. The game's levels do not have a countdown timer, as previous Mario games had, allowing players to take as much time as is needed to solve a puzzle without penalty.
Power-ups are not commonplace in Yoshi's Island, and are only occasionally found in specific places in certain levels. One power-up, similar to the Starman from previous Mario games, turns Baby Mario into "Super Baby Mario", making him invincible and fast enough on his own two feet to run directly up walls, all while protecting Yoshi inside of a large egg. Like the Starman power, the effects are temporary and wear off relatively quickly. Yoshi also has the ability, at various points in the game, to transform into different vehicles, such as a car or helicopter. The vehicle transformations are temporary as well. At the end of each level, the player is scored on a scale of 1-100, with 100 being a perfect score.
Unlike other games in the Mario series that allow a player to "warp" ahead to higher levels, Yoshi's Island is the first game in the series that requires the player to complete all 48 regular stages linearly to finish the game. In addition to these, there are six bonus levels—one for each world, which are unlocked by achieving perfect scores on all eight of that world's levels.
While a stork carries two babies across the sea, the evil Magikoopa Kamek emerges, and attemps to steal both of the babies. Kamek manages to grab Baby Luigi, but Baby Mario falls onto an island in the middle of the sea, called Yoshi's Island, home to all Yoshis. He lands on a green Yoshi, who was apparently taking a walk. The Yoshi clan, accompanying Baby Mario, must journey through the game's six worlds to rescue Baby Luigi and free the stork from Baby Bowser and Kamek. Throughout the game, Kamek tries to stop Yoshi by dispatching his minions all across the island and by using magic spells to transform normal enemies into more powerful creatures that further impede Yoshi's progess.
When Yoshi finally reaches Bowser's Castle, Kamek demands that Yoshi gives back Baby Mario. Suddenly, Baby Bowser wakes up and attempts to ride Yoshi, but Yoshi fights Baby Bowser until the latter becomes unconscious. Kamek then uses his magic to enlarge Baby Bowser to a gigantic size, destroying most of the castle in the process. After being defeated by Yoshi, Baby Bowser is reverted to his normal size and faints. Kamek is horrified and vows to return before flying off with Baby Bowser towards the moon.
Yoshi then frees the captured stork and Baby Luigi. The stork flies the reunited twins far away to the Mushroom Kingdom where their parents live. At dawn, the couple emerges from their mushroom-shaped home to see the pair of infants on their porch.
The game uses the Super FX 2 microchip to create sprite scaling, polygon effects, and pre-32-bit computer effects called "Morphmation" (in American commercials) that are relatively advanced for an SNES game (a preliminary version of the boxart featured the Super FX 2 logo). The game's unique graphical style is said to have resulted from a conflict with Nintendo's internal evaluation committee; impressed by the recently released Donkey Kong Country, which sported pre-rendered graphics, they ordered the game's producer, Shigeru Miyamoto, to move the visuals in this direction.[3] Miyamoto altered the graphics to look as if they had been drawn with crayons and felt-pens, making them more cartoonish, and resubmitted it to the evaluation committee, who passed the game.[4] At one point the game even draws inspiration from Vincent van Gogh's painting The Starry Night. Some of the cut scenes do, however, show pre-rendered graphics, done in a rather different form that looks more like the gameplay graphics. Eventually the sequel, Yoshi's Story made full use of digitized 2D graphics of high resolution 3D models like Donkey Kong Country did.
| Reception | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Aggregator | Score |
| GameRankings | 95% (SNES)[5]
89.52% (GBA)[6] |
| Metacritic | 91/100 (GBA)[7] |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| Allgame | (SNES)[8]
(GBA)[9] |
| Eurogamer | 9/10 (GBA)[10] |
| GamePro | 4.5/5 (SNES)[5]
5/5 (GBA)[6] |
| GameSpot | 9.2/10 (GBA)[11] |
| GameSpy | (GBA)[12] |
| IGN | 9.4/10 (GBA)[13] |
The game received overwhelming praise from critics. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave Yoshi's Island its award for Best Action Game of 1995.[14] GamePro gave the game a 4.5/5 rating.[5] GameRankings.com gives Yoshi's Island a composite review score of 95%, based on five reviews.[5] Yoshi's Island sold about four million copies.[15] The game placed 22nd in Official Nintendo Magazine's 100 greatest Nintendo games of all time.[16] Next Generation Magazine called it the "high-water mark in 2D gaming." The game has garnered a huge cult following since its release. Yoshi's Island has often appeared on lists of "greatest games of all time."
Yoshi's Island also proved to be a critical and commercial hit in its Game Boy Advance version, Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3, which was released in 2002.[17]
The semi-sequel Yoshi's Story was released for the Nintendo 64 and featured similar gameplay, but is generally considered to be of a lower quality.[18] The series has seen two spin-offs: Yoshi Touch & Go for the Nintendo DS and Yoshi's Topsy-Turvy for the Game Boy Advance. While unrelated in basic gameplay, the characters and graphical style are heavily based on those of Yoshi's Island.
Yoshi's Island DS, released on November 13, 2006 for the Nintendo DS, is the most direct sequel and incorporates many of the same gameplay aspects. Unlike Yoshi's Island, it now also features Princess Peach, Donkey Kong, Bowser, and Wario joining Mario as babies.
Yoshi's Island, the location of Super Mario World 2's action, is also used as the backdrop for the SNES and Game Boy puzzle game Tetris Attack.
Several of Yoshi's moves that debuted in Super Mario World 2 appeared again in later games. These include the Egg Throw, which has been used by Yoshi in the Super Smash Bros. series, the Flutter Kick, which has been used by him in later Mario games, and most notably, the Ground Pound, which has been used not only by Yoshi but also by almost every playable character since then, from games such as the Mario Party series to Super Mario 64. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a stage heavily based on the version of Yoshi's Island portrayed in Super Mario World 2 was revealed.
At E3 2010 A tech demo titled Classic Games was unveiled showing multiple Nintendo games being played on the Nintendo 3DS with enhanced 3D features. It was revealed by Reggie Fils Aime that these titles, specifically mentioning Yoshi's Island, Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., Mega Man 2, and The Legend of Zelda will appear on the 3DS. "Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said not to think of them as remakes." Shigeru Miyamoto said that these classics might be "using new features in the games that would take advantage of the 3DS’ capabilities."[19]
On July 28, 2011, Nintendo announced that the Game Boy Advance remake of Yoshi's Island (i.e. Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3) --- as well as nine other Game Boy Advance games and 10 NES games --- would be available to Nintendo 3DS owners via Virtual Console as part of an Ambassador program starting on August 16, 2011. But the only way to get the games was by accessing the Nintendo eShop before the date of a price-cut. Nintendo currently has no plans to release this game, or any other Game Boy Advance game, to the general public in paid form.[20]
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