Yoshi's Island 2

[Solid Snake]

I wonder if it would ever beat the original?

[Saim]

Yoshi's Story was bad? I rather liked it. It was lots of fun, and pretty challenging (atleast when I was only starting out with gaming).

[kirbychu]

...I loved Yoshi's Story. I still do, in fact. Just got me a copy in July this year. And it's one of the games my friends asked to play the most, mostly trying to beat my scores in Trial Mode...

The controls seem more... unresponsive than I remember, though. I really have to push the stick hard to get Yoshi running, but maybe that's just my N64 rather than the game...

Anyway, is this game out in Europe yet? I think I remember seeing an unfamilar DS game with Yoshi's-Island-style Yoshi on the cover for a split second in a recent Argos ad, but... it's so vague in my memory that maybe it was just a dream...

[Fryguy64]

Coulda been Yoshi's Touch & Go or Yoshi's Universal Gravitation - but Argos also promotes games that aren't released yet. But it's out here on the 1st December. Woohoo!

Hey! And the Nintendo MP3 player out on the 8th. Swish.

[kirbychu]

It definately wasn't either of those, since I'm already familiar with them...

Anyway, this is my most-looked-forward-to (non-Pokémon) DS game at the moment. I just wish I had the money to get it at release.

...Which reminds me, I still need to pick up Mystery Dungeon.

[Sqrt2]

sario said:

I wonder if it would ever beat the original?

I seriously doubt it. Yoshi's Island was a corker of a game on par with, if not better than, SMB3 in my opinion.

[Dances in Undergarments]

Ripped straight from a post of mine on another forum...

I'm loving Yoshi's Island DS. Its got that same sense of charm and fun that the original has, and it looks like a nice challenging game, too (in terms of getting 100 points and the character coin). Even though I love the original (best game ever), I am genuinely surprised how much fun I'm having with this (I mean, its Artoon for f*** sake! Now thats a great turnaround for the company).

I'm only up to world 4, but if it keeps up this quality it will be one of my games of the year. This is what New SMB should of been.



Oh yeah, and Wario's cry is fantastically annoying.

[Fryguy64]

So, it turns out Yoshi's Island DS was released here in the UK last Friday, not this coming Friday. So I went out yesterday and purchased it (as well as putting down pre-orders for some Wii games and getting confirmation that mine will be ready for pickup on Friday at 7am. I should hope so... I went in every day for a couple weeks to find out if they were taking system pre-orders!)

Anyway, so I get home and sit down with the game. First things first, the new 3D-but-sketchy Yoshi's Island on the title screen is excellent. I sat there and watched it going round and round for some time. And the intro story is all very nicely done.

The game itself? So far it's not bad. I do actually like the designs of new enemies. They're very simple - almost Kirbyish some of them - but generally I like them.

However, I am not a huge fan of the designs of existing characters. In fact, there's something a little bit forced and unnatural about their appearances and movements - far too jilted and wooden. But it really doesn't matter all that much at this point.

I've just gotten around halfway through World 2, on the Donut Block level. When the sky suddenly turns into lots of flickering lines and the game crashes. Great. First night home and I have found a nasty bug in the game.

So far, so Artoon.

You can see Nintendo has really tried to guide Artoon's hand this time, as the puzzles are quality, and the classic formula has been closely adhered to.

Do you remember when everyone thought Retro wasn't fitting to reimagine the Metroid series in 3D? They had a formula to work from, they had guidance from Nintendo, but what wasn't evident until the game hit shelves was that they also had a deep understanding of what it was that made the series excellent. The result? One of the best 2D to 3D transitions since Mario and Zelda.

Artoon has been given the task of producing a 2D to 2D sequel to a game, surely something much easier. They had a winning formula (YI remains the best game ever), they clearly had guidance from Nintendo... but they lacked that final quality - an understanding of what made the original great.

The result, this time, is that the original control scheme seems broken, the charm that returning characters exuded has been dulled by poor design decisions and craptacular animation, the original's amazing boss battles have been killed, and the 100 point challenge has been transformed from a worthwhile challenge into something a lot more cruel.

So far, the DS has given us New Super Mario Bros. and Super Princess Peach. Yoshi's Island DS is not as good as either of these games. They both exude their own unique charms - solid control schemes built around wonderful worlds and top-quality character designs.

If you turned around to me and said you wanted to play a sequel to the original Yoshi's Island, I would still first point you to its spiritual sequel, Super Princess Peach. Yoshi's Island DS is not a terrible game, like Artoon's previous attempt (Yoshi's Universal Gravitation), but it's a step backwards from the original Yoshi's Island. It did not make an immediate impression on me like the other two 2D Mario platformers on DS.

On the plus side - it's not quite as disappointing as Yoshi's Story was!

[Smashchu]

admin said:

Yoshi's Island DS is not a terrible game, like Artoon's previous attempt (Yoshi's Universal Gravitation), but it's a step backwards from the original Yoshi's Island. It did not make an immediate impression on me like the other two 2D Mario platformers on DS.

Sadly, the sequal is never better then the original. I never expected it to surpass YI. Im more about Gameplay though.

My question is what to mean that the characters have lost some charm?

[Dances in Undergarments]

admin said:

So far, the DS has given us New Super Mario Bros. and Super Princess Peach. Yoshi's Island DS is not as good as either of these games. They both exude their own unique charms - solid control schemes built around wonderful worlds and top-quality character designs.

You and I often have very similar opinions, Fryguy (and generally, we're both correct, too - Yoshi's Island for the god damn super duper win), but I'm going to have to get into a good old fashioned debate with your comment that YI DS is not as good as NSMB (haven't played Peach, so I can't speak for it).

I'll start with a bit of a review / discussion of YIDS, having finished the storyline levels a week or so ago and having spent some time (though not a huge amount) going for 100 scores + character coins and completely the Extra and Secret levels.

First thing is, gameplay wise, I really dig YIDS, though basically, thats because its YI all over again, and, while I would have loved a smattering of new elements, the fact is YI's gameplay is brilliant enough to go through again anyways. Its worth noting, though, that while there are new elements, it seems that for every new(ish) element (ie. the babies abilities), a good element from the original (ie. most of the transformations) is lost. Also, some of the new side elements lack the charm of the original - the Kangaroo that apparently replaced Poochy is not only butt-ugly but is pretty useless, and I'm baffled why Yoshi rides in a Rocket rather than just TRANSFORMING INTO ONE. Really, why? However, the story of the game is super charming - much more so than the original (yes, the orginal never had a story, but this is vague enough that it doesn't bog down the game in any way)

I will also add that, in the cleaning up of the graphics, alot of the old enemies seemed to quite a bit of their charm (eg. something looks wrong the Shy Guys and Pirahna Plants, Blarg looks terrible, etc, etc), and Artoon's strange decision to keep some elements with their exact orignal look stands out against the new look (why, oh why, are the flowers exactly the same as YI?).

In terms of new enemies, its still rather hit and miss - there are some nice designs (those giant pink things you bounce off, for instance), but some don't seem right. This goes double for the bosses - the 1-8 boss with all the coloured dots is atrocious (and a dumb boss battle to boot), however the Mirror Boo and the Dropping Pirahana Plant both do seem to have personality, and are rather fun to battle, too. The final boss also isn't too bad, however I am somewhat annoyed that they didn't make use of the 4 babies element in the final battle (well they did, but they didn't, really).

I also need to bring up that YIDS is hard. Like, really hard. Particularly with no item reserves (I got a 99 on one level because I only had 29 stars - in the orignal that wouldn't have been a problem, as I would have just used a Star +10 item near the end of the level, but you can't do that here).

Really, YIDS plays like an expansion pack to YI, and, to be perfectly honest, thats completely fine with me, because that makes it an expansion pack to the best. game. ever.


Now, on to NSMB. I'm sorry (don't know who to...), but I just don't feel NSMB was as good as people make it out to be. It just felt to much like Mario Bros. Lite, to be honest. I completely understand that the game was purposely made to be like the original SMB, mostly to draw non-gamers who had previously only been loving the DS Nintendoggy Style, but, really, as a gamer, who in their right mind honestly thinks the original SMB is the game that future Mario games should be directly based on?

Unfortuantely, in order to appeal to everyone, I feel that us, the gamers, were completely short changed, given a game that lacks the great Mario that have come around since SMB - ie. Yoshi, exciting (crazy?) powerups, and crazy level design (I still can't finish that damn fort in the final world of SMB3 - thats crazy level design). And its not challenging at all, either, which is a complete shame - even the original SMB had the unlockable more difificult version.

The other thing worth noting (because I discussed it a fair bit when talking about YIDS), is that NSMB has barely any charm. The bosses are mostly lame (a giant Goomba which you jump on - whoop de freaking doo), and alot of the levels are completely vanilla flavoured (loved the giant Wiggler, though, but those types of experiences were way too few and far between). And why, oh why, did we battle Bowser Jr like 10 times? WHERE ARE THE KOOPALINGS? Totally dropped the ball there, Ninty.

NSMB is a fun game, but I feel that too many people just went "zOMG! New Mario!" and that, in 5 or 10 years time, if we have new 2d Mario games (proper ones), nobody will give two s***s about NSMB. YIDS, I believe, will not suffer the same fate, and while it wont be praised as highly as its older borther, I beleive will still hold up to it in years to come.

So yeah, lets debate, baby.

[Fryguy64]

No problem DiU, the debate is ON! ;D

If you think of New Super Mario Bros. as a sequel then you're entirely right - it's not progressive enough to stand up against other members of the series. But it wasn't meant to be a sequel - and the clue is in the name.

Nintendo stripped Mario down to its very basics and then started building on them from scratch. There were areas of the game where I felt like I had started playing SMB, SMB3 or SMW. Some areas even felt a bit YI or DKC (too many abbreviations? Tough).

Some bits were disappointing, sure. The Bowser Jr. battles were akin to the Boom-Boom battles from SMB3 (which I imagine was intentional), but got tired very quickly. The challenge requires a quick adjustment - time travel if you will. SMB, SMB3 and SMW were excellent in their day, and challenging for the time without being cruel (SMB2j is cruel, and SMB2u doesn't really count). NSMB is relatively easy for us, but only because we've been through all of the others so many times over that controlling Mario is like a second nature.

Actually, aside from one or two sticking points in SMB3 and SMW, it is overall harder than all of the classic Mario platformers. It is only because we have - as the kids say - Mad Skillz, that NSMB is easy for fans of the series. But even then, going back and collecting every coin required some lateral thinking that I really didn't expect.

SMB3 had its moments - what Mario fan doesn't panic a little when Boss Bass is hunting you down and you have no fireballs? Or that fast W8 airship level when you have no Raccoon Mario? And of course, SMW veterans still shiver at the word "Tubular".

I wish it was longer, but I don't think it could ever have been long enough. It could have been harder, but once you know how to move Mario then it's actually quite difficult to die. Some of the boss battles were excellent and unexpected, and the desire to go back and experiment is hard to resist - anyone gone back and fought the final Bowser with a Mega Mushroom? Hahaha... easy!

Super Princess Peach is even easier - it's actually impossible to die. But not being able to die does not make it a baby game or a girls game. In a way it's almost like the Wario Land games, treasure hunting in big stages using special powers.

Both of the above games have considered and solid control schemes that - for any Mario fan - are easy to pick up and play. They also both have an abundance and consistency of personality that makes the whole game feel like a complete package.

Yoshi's Island DS has conflicted personality. It has borrowed a lot from YI, but it's dulled the designs down - even further than the designs in Yoshi's Touch & Go. And the animation of the characters is atrocious. The controls are awkward, and certain things that I did in YI with complete confidence now lead to unavoidable death. For example, the rotating 4-platforms that move along a rail as they spin. They make a return, but their movement is jilted rather than smooth as before - meaning that I make an intuitive leap for the platform I should be on, miss it and plummet to my death.

This is my main problem with it. They haven't built on the solid bedrock that was Yoshi's Island. Instead they have made a dodgy copy of it that looks much the same, but just doesn't work quite as well as the original.

Small gripes - and I'm not decrying it as a bad game. It's not - I'm still playing it after all (unlike Universal Gravitation). And while I'm still fairly early in the game, I've heard it gets buggery hard later on. Which is good. I hope I start enjoying it more as the challenge intensifies.

But so far the only lives I've lost are to those rotating platforms that just don't work, and I keep dropping the babies because sometimes jumping on an enemy registers as walking into the side of it. Then the glitch that crashed my game - that was fun too.

My argument is that YIDS lacks the personality and solidity of gameplay that made me enjoy NSMB and SPP so much. Gameplay is everything, but part of gameplay is a solid foundation of control and level design - I can't fault the latter, but the former is problematic.

AND THAT GODDAMN ANIMATION! BLEURGH!!

[kirbychu]

dancesinunderwear said:

Now, on to NSMB. I'm sorry (don't know who to...), but I just don't feel NSMB was as good as people make it out to be. It just felt to much like Mario Bros. Lite, to be honest. I completely understand that the game was purposely made to be like the original SMB, mostly to draw non-gamers who had previously only been loving the DS Nintendoggy Style, but, really, as a gamer, who in their right mind honestly thinks the original SMB is the game that future Mario games should be directly based on?

I haven't played YI DS yet, but I feel the need to stand up for NSMB.

NSMB isn't just based on SMB. It's supposed to be a simple platformer like it, but it also contains many elements from SMB3, SMW and even SM64. They took the features of those games that worked the best and put them all together for what should've been the ultimate Mario experience. Sure, the bosses were pretty bland, but the level designs, for the most part, were good.

And you really should try Super Princess Peach. I wasn't particularly interested in it at first, but it plays like a mix of the Wario Land series and the original Yoshi's Island. That's a great combination.

[Dances in Undergarments]

First, wasn't aware you had not finished it, Fry, so sorry for the purposely-vague-but-still-spoilers-nonetheless spoilers that were peppered through the post. Secondly, I haven't encountered any glitches (maybe thats what Europeans get for getting a game almost on time ). Third, I would have liked to have a quick run through of NSMB before starting this debate, but my cousins have it, and have had it for a couple of months, so I'm going by my vague memory of it. Fourth, I'll acknowledge that maybe I went into the game expecting the wrong things, and with too high expectations, that ulitmately made the thing seem alot worse than it was.

Now that they are out of the way...

Nintendo stripped Mario down to its very basics and then started building on them from scratch. There were areas of the game where I felt like I had started playing SMB, SMB3 or SMW. Some areas even felt a bit YI or DKC (too many abbreviations? Tough).

Not meaning to be a pain, but, which situations would these be? As I've said, my NSMB is off in some dark corner crying its eyes out and rocking itself to sleep, but I can't really think of many situations were the game felt like it wasn't just SMB+.

The challenge requires a quick adjustment - time travel if you will. SMB, SMB3 and SMW were excellent in their day, and challenging for the time without being cruel (SMB2j is cruel, and SMB2u doesn't really count). NSMB is relatively easy for us, but only because we've been through all of the others so many times over that controlling Mario is like a second nature.

Actually, aside from one or two sticking points in SMB3 and SMW, it is overall harder than all of the classic Mario platformers. It is only because we have - as the kids say - Mad Skillz, that NSMB is easy for fans of the series. But even then, going back and collecting every coin required some lateral thinking that I really didn't expect.

This is also very much true, and something which, I'll admit I did not consider (rather selfishly, I guess). However, on the other hand, Nintendo would know that there are a ton of gamers like us (with our mad skillz) that wanted the game, too, and I felt they could have at least thrown in a super challenging extra world or hard version or something - I mean, classic arcade games are pretty pick-up-and-playable, but they can be haaaaard, too, and theres no reason a modern game can't emulate that in some way (3 big coins don't count - they were relatively easy, too).

Some of the boss battles were excellent and unexpected, and the desire to go back and experiment is hard to resist - anyone gone back and fought the final Bowser with a Mega Mushroom? Hahaha... easy!

Its funny, I was about to say "I completely disagree with you about the bosses, they were all the same", however, thinking about that, I'm not really sure. Less, they were all the same (basically), but, really, with the game set up how it is (hell, with Mario games in general set up how they are) theres not a huge amount of wiggle room - its basically either jump on their head to kill them or find a switch to kill them, and NSMB did have both. But still, something felt lacking. Maybe it was the fact every single boss level was set in an identical room. I don't know, really.

Super Princess Peach is even easier - it's actually impossible to die. But not being able to die does not make it a baby game or a girls game. In a way it's almost like the Wario Land games, treasure hunting in big stages using special powers.

I reaaaaaally need to get Peach. Why wont it ever go on special? I'm a cheap bastard.

Both of the above games have considered and solid control schemes that - for any Mario fan - are easy to pick up and play. They also both have an abundance and consistency of personality that makes the whole game feel like a complete package.

See, I honestly don't feel that NSMB has much personality. Infact, I'll bring up your next comment, because...

Yoshi's Island DS has conflicted personality. It has borrowed a lot from YI, but it's dulled the designs down - even further than the designs in Yoshi's Touch & Go.

This is what I feel happened with NSMB - it feels like, for the most part, someone looked at a Mario game and went "yeah, I can do something like that". As I've mentioned, there is some Miyamoto brilliance in there, for sure, but I feel its hidden too well. I will agree that similar did indeed happen with YIDS, too - there are many elements that appear to be just there so that they can say they are there - the transformation (there's like, two of them), the egg-rebounding (theres only a couple of spots for that, too), and even the egg-eating tulip - just feel like Artoon went "hey look, remember me? Hell, most likely they did. And if they are going to do that, then WHERE THE F*** IS THE FUZZY LEVEL? Yeah, don't think I didn't notice that, Artoon. Thats just a terrible omission. I don't care if they just shoved the Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy level back into this game - Fuzzy NEEDED to appear.

And the animation of the characters is atrocious. The controls are awkward, and certain things that I did in YI with complete confidence now lead to unavoidable death. For example, the rotating 4-platforms that move along a rail as they spin. They make a return, but their movement is jilted rather than smooth as before - meaning that I make an intuitive leap for the platform I should be on, miss it and plummet to my death.

Haven't really noticed any of that, too be honest. And I noticed nothing wrong with the controls - I've been playing the GBA version for ages (haven't got my SNES any more), so I set the controls to ABLR on Patient, and its just like the GBA version.

This is my main problem with it. They haven't built on the solid bedrock that was Yoshi's Island. Instead they have made a dodgy copy of it that looks much the same, but just doesn't work quite as well as the original.

Yeah, I'll agree. However - its Artoon. And while it shouldn't be an excuse for a bad game, its quite clear that Artoon could have gone two ways - released YI 1.1 (as they did, basically), or changed everything and end up with Yoshi's Universal Gravitation Island. So really, I guess I'm just releaved that they didn't just royally cock the whole thing up.


My argument is that YIDS lacks the personality and solidity of gameplay that made me enjoy NSMB and SPP so much. Gameplay is everything, but part of gameplay is a solid foundation of control and level design - I can't fault the latter, but the former is problematic.

Yep, fair enough, though, as I've said, I think YIDS has both the personality (wait until you are first introduced until baby Wario and baby Bowser. If these, particularly the latter, don't at least make you smile, then you've got a sound base for the personality argument, but I think they will at least make you feel a little warm and fuzzy (oh Fuzzy, where art thou?) inside) and the gameplay (because, at is core, its YI vs. SMB with a couple of extra features), and, overall, is the better experience of the two.

Thats all for me for now. Mah fingers hurt.

[Fryguy64]

First, wasn't aware you had not finished it, Fry, so sorry for the purposely-vague-but-still-spoilers-nonetheless spoilers that were peppered through the post.

Meh, most of them were well known anyway. I've only had it for 2 days, but don't be concerned about spoilers.

This was a first-impression post, designed to say it's good, but it's not great. Although I was fully anticipating greatness when I saw that 3D Yoshi's Island. It's so cool!

Not meaning to be a pain, but, which situations would these be? As I've said, my NSMB is off in some dark corner crying its eyes out and rocking itself to sleep, but I can't really think of many situations were the game felt like it wasn't just SMB+.

Very few levels reminded me of SMB. The first couple did, but after that, as they became more involved in vertical exploration, there were certainly bits that felt more like SMB3. As for examples....
SMB3 Anything that required using items to uncover secret passages. And that goddamn fish! The desert levels, too, were similar to the deserts in SMB3. Plus the Bowser Jr. battles.
SMW All of the dungeons, and any stage with crazy vertical scope. Through and through.
DKC The underwater levels in particular felt very much like the underwater levels in the DKC series, more than the underwater levels in the SMB games.
YI Some of the ingenious hiding places for those coins... only YI had that kind of level design

Nintendo would know that there are a ton of gamers like us (with our mad skillz) that wanted the game, too, and I felt they could have at least thrown in a super challenging extra world or hard version or something

Hence why I'm looking forward to NSMB2 I expect there will be a lot more of a challenge now that Nintendo has created a new generation of Mario fans.

See, I honestly don't feel that NSMB has much personality.

This is what I feel happened with NSMB - it feels like, for the most part, someone looked at a Mario game and went "yeah, I can do something like that".

At first I felt that the game was samey, and I really hoped to see something new. And sure enough, some way into the game it grew from a derivative Mario game into something with a personality of its own. The Wiggler level, as an example, was great, but there were levels throughout the game with new ideas that set it aside. Just like SMB3 had levels like SMB, and SMW had levels like SMB and SMB3.

Hence why I'm convinced there will be a sequel soon. They broke Mario games down to the basics for a few levels, then introduced elements from SMB3 and SMW, and towards the end they liberally sprinkled it with some new ideas. These ideas will then go on to appear in later games, no doubt about it.

the egg-rebounding (theres only a couple of spots for that, too)

And that was one of the best things from YI. Most of the hardest puzzles involved egg rebounding. But seeing as so far DK and Peach's eggs don't rebound at all, I guess it would be a little frustrating.

Haven't really noticed any of that, too be honest. And I noticed nothing wrong with the controls - I've been playing the GBA version for ages (haven't got my SNES any more), so I set the controls to ABLR on Patient, and its just like the GBA version.

Ahh, I haven't been using the shoulder buttons. I've just been using the face buttons. But they really should have tried to mimic the SNES controls somewhat, now that they actually can. Seeing as they were perfect, and the GBA version was not.

its quite clear that Artoon could have gone two ways - released YI 1.1 (as they did, basically), or changed everything and end up with Yoshi's Universal Gravitation Island. So really, I guess I'm just releaved that they didn't just royally cock the whole thing up.

Here here!

Yep, fair enough, though, as I've said, I think YIDS has both the personality (wait until you are first introduced until baby Wario and baby Bowser. If these, particularly the latter, don't at least make you smile, then you've got a sound base for the personality argument, but I think they will at least make you feel a little warm and fuzzy

Well, I will get there sooner or later. Baby DK has already made me smile. But it's not a lack of personality I'm concerned about, but a consistency of personality. You can almost point to various areas and say "someone at Nintendo did that one" and "someone at Artoon did that one".

I'd better get back to work!

[Dances in Undergarments]

I wasn't going to reply again today... but hey, look, its 12:15, so its okay. No big ranty posts now, though - partly because I'm sick of typing, but, mostly because, well, theres nothing to argue about - we're on the same page.

You can almost point to various areas and say "someone at Nintendo did that one" and "someone at Artoon did that one".
Yeah, you really can, unfortunately. And alot of it just doesn't gel all that well - I've mentioned it before, but I'm baffled at my Yoshi rides a rocket, for instance. Why?


I'm certainly hoping Ninty do build on NSMB and release a NSMB2 (that is, a sequel to NSMB, not a 'New' version of our SMB2 - though I wouldn't necessarily mind that for another project, though), and, I don't see why the wouldn't, and really, I think it does have the potential to be something brilliant. Just put a bit more of that infectious Mario charm into it, 'kay Ninty? And no more giant Goomba bosses kthnx.

Aw, god damn it, I can't stay mad at a Mario game. Hell, not even Mario Party. ...okay, sometimes Mario Party.

(oh, as a side note, what were the SNES controls? I honestly can't remember controlling it any way other than the GBA way, though it could be because I was like, 7 when I got YI for the SNES).