Calling Yoshi's Island DS a sequel to Yoshi's Island on the SNES is a bit of a stretch. Sure, the actual levels are different, and there's the whole baby-swapping mechanic, but every other aspect of the game is virtually identical to the original Yoshi's Island. Luckily the formula still holds up, so there's at least a good foundation to work with here. But does this DS "expansion pack" stack up in the execution?
Well, it's a mixed bag. For everything that's well done, there's something else that's markedly sub-par. I'm tempted to lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of the primary development force behind the game: Artoon. Their previous Yoshi-related endeavor, Yoshi Topsy-Turvy on the GBA, was universally panned in its reviews. One could imagine that nailing Yoshi's Island DS so tightly to the original game's formula would leave little margin for error, and that's largely the case. It's still a solid game overall. That said, you really can sense the lack of inspiration. It almost feels like Artoon was reading from a "How to Make Yoshi's Island" manual.
To be fair, there is one significant change from the original formula: the baby-swapping. While the original Yoshi's Island featured Baby Mario as Yoshi's sole burden, the DS iteration lets you cycle between up to five different shrieking infants. Your default crew is Mario, Peach, and Donkey Kong, and a couple of worlds let you utilize Wario and Bowser as well. The assortment is hardly just cosmetic; each baby comes with their own set of abilities. Running, floating, climbing, magnetizing, and flame-blowing are among their repertoire. The babies will also affect Yoshi's base abilities, as the heavier ones limit his floating ability, and his egg-throwing abilities vary between breaking on impact, bouncing off walls, and creating explosions. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the variety—particularly by the fact that each baby would affect Yoshi in multiple ways.
While the babies let you tackle obstacles in different fashions, they serve mainly as "keys" to let you access the places that require their abilities. There are swapping stations peppered throughout the levels where you can exchange one baby for another in order to proceed. Some interesting situations require you to use a number of babies in one big room in order to adequately explore, and those are usually pretty fun. Unfortunately, uneducated baby-choice can often lead to disaster. Taking the wrong infant with you into an environment suited to another can result not only in the missing of key items, but certain death. The most dreadful thing is that these situations are largely unavoidable. There are numerous instances where you have to choose the correct baby, but you are given absolutely no indication which choice is the correct one. Sure, you'll know which one to use the next time, but "required failure" is a gameplay construct that I simply can't abide.
This actually happens during other points of the game as well. You may be in a room with two doors: one leads to the exit, the other to a room full of the last few items you need for a perfect score. As with certain instances of baby-choosing, you are given no indication which door is which, and backtracking is very often disallowed. I don't remember things like that happening in the original Yoshi's Island, and I can only chalk it up to the fact that Nintendo wasn't the sole force behind the game's development. You don't just forget how to design a game intelligently.
The difficulty is something else that I was initially concerned about. After the second level, I had 45 lives. As the game went on, I felt comfortable wagering 99% of my massive stock of lives in games of chance, and felt no remorse when they were lost entirely. This is a problem that was also prevalent in New Super Mario Bros. If lives are going to be such a meaningless commodity, why is such emphasis placed on acquiring them?
Much later in the game, though, things flip drastically. I found myself easily dropping 20 lives in a matter of minutes while trying to get through one part of a level. I suppose it's fair to say that the difficulty really doesn't increase gradually, but instead spikes during the last couple of worlds. There's no real trouble if all you want to do is beat the levels, but if you're trying to get all of the score-based items you'll find yourself in for a world of hurt. The "secret" levels you get after beating the game are especially challenging, actually. I appreciate that, as these platformers have been getting way too soft nowadays.
Another thing I thought was neat was the dual-screen usage. You can actually manually switch screens at any time, scrolling the level upwards or downwards in the process and allowing you a significant degree of freedom in examining your surroundings. You'll often notice something on the fringe of a screen, leading you to explore off in that direction. It really makes for some interesting level-design possibilities. Areas where you can freely switch screens also require three full screens of content in order to accommodate for the scrolling, so it's sometimes neat to scroll up or down just to see the assets that were created for the off-chance that you'd scroll down into the earth where there's nothing to actually do.
So the game definitely has some good points, and I'll gladly admit that I enjoyed playing a lot of it. That doesn't mean it wasn't a total rip-off of the original Yoshi's Island, though, with almost no ingenuity in its design. Even the new sprite designs and musical compositions are uninspired and occasionally amateur. So was the game pretty okay? Yeah, sure. Could it have been a lot better? Definitely.
Forgive me if I use this as a pedestal for a more general point, but it really must be said: Nintendo needs to start making their own games again. Their backlog of titles isn't as acclaimed as it is because of the characters, it's because of the content. Farming out lucrative properties to third-party developers defeats the entire point. Sure, F-Zero GX ended up being outstanding, but I think it's fair to say that it's one of the only success stories. Star Fox has been butchered almost beyond repair, and Donkey Kong is only barely hanging on due to the brilliance of the in-house Jungle Beat.
I know these are all "second-tier" franchises, but they still deserve more respect than this. "Nintendo-published" and "Nintendo-made" are two very different things. Yoshi's Island DS, despite its high points, is yet another checkmark on the growing list of games that could have been much, much more.
Well, it's a mixed bag. For everything that's well done, there's something else that's markedly sub-par. I'm tempted to lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of the primary development force behind the game: Artoon. Their previous Yoshi-related endeavor, Yoshi Topsy-Turvy on the GBA, was universally panned in its reviews. One could imagine that nailing Yoshi's Island DS so tightly to the original game's formula would leave little margin for error, and that's largely the case. It's still a solid game overall. That said, you really can sense the lack of inspiration. It almost feels like Artoon was reading from a "How to Make Yoshi's Island" manual.
To be fair, there is one significant change from the original formula: the baby-swapping. While the original Yoshi's Island featured Baby Mario as Yoshi's sole burden, the DS iteration lets you cycle between up to five different shrieking infants. Your default crew is Mario, Peach, and Donkey Kong, and a couple of worlds let you utilize Wario and Bowser as well. The assortment is hardly just cosmetic; each baby comes with their own set of abilities. Running, floating, climbing, magnetizing, and flame-blowing are among their repertoire. The babies will also affect Yoshi's base abilities, as the heavier ones limit his floating ability, and his egg-throwing abilities vary between breaking on impact, bouncing off walls, and creating explosions. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the variety—particularly by the fact that each baby would affect Yoshi in multiple ways.
While the babies let you tackle obstacles in different fashions, they serve mainly as "keys" to let you access the places that require their abilities. There are swapping stations peppered throughout the levels where you can exchange one baby for another in order to proceed. Some interesting situations require you to use a number of babies in one big room in order to adequately explore, and those are usually pretty fun. Unfortunately, uneducated baby-choice can often lead to disaster. Taking the wrong infant with you into an environment suited to another can result not only in the missing of key items, but certain death. The most dreadful thing is that these situations are largely unavoidable. There are numerous instances where you have to choose the correct baby, but you are given absolutely no indication which choice is the correct one. Sure, you'll know which one to use the next time, but "required failure" is a gameplay construct that I simply can't abide.
This actually happens during other points of the game as well. You may be in a room with two doors: one leads to the exit, the other to a room full of the last few items you need for a perfect score. As with certain instances of baby-choosing, you are given no indication which door is which, and backtracking is very often disallowed. I don't remember things like that happening in the original Yoshi's Island, and I can only chalk it up to the fact that Nintendo wasn't the sole force behind the game's development. You don't just forget how to design a game intelligently.
The difficulty is something else that I was initially concerned about. After the second level, I had 45 lives. As the game went on, I felt comfortable wagering 99% of my massive stock of lives in games of chance, and felt no remorse when they were lost entirely. This is a problem that was also prevalent in New Super Mario Bros. If lives are going to be such a meaningless commodity, why is such emphasis placed on acquiring them?
Much later in the game, though, things flip drastically. I found myself easily dropping 20 lives in a matter of minutes while trying to get through one part of a level. I suppose it's fair to say that the difficulty really doesn't increase gradually, but instead spikes during the last couple of worlds. There's no real trouble if all you want to do is beat the levels, but if you're trying to get all of the score-based items you'll find yourself in for a world of hurt. The "secret" levels you get after beating the game are especially challenging, actually. I appreciate that, as these platformers have been getting way too soft nowadays.
Another thing I thought was neat was the dual-screen usage. You can actually manually switch screens at any time, scrolling the level upwards or downwards in the process and allowing you a significant degree of freedom in examining your surroundings. You'll often notice something on the fringe of a screen, leading you to explore off in that direction. It really makes for some interesting level-design possibilities. Areas where you can freely switch screens also require three full screens of content in order to accommodate for the scrolling, so it's sometimes neat to scroll up or down just to see the assets that were created for the off-chance that you'd scroll down into the earth where there's nothing to actually do.
So the game definitely has some good points, and I'll gladly admit that I enjoyed playing a lot of it. That doesn't mean it wasn't a total rip-off of the original Yoshi's Island, though, with almost no ingenuity in its design. Even the new sprite designs and musical compositions are uninspired and occasionally amateur. So was the game pretty okay? Yeah, sure. Could it have been a lot better? Definitely.
Forgive me if I use this as a pedestal for a more general point, but it really must be said: Nintendo needs to start making their own games again. Their backlog of titles isn't as acclaimed as it is because of the characters, it's because of the content. Farming out lucrative properties to third-party developers defeats the entire point. Sure, F-Zero GX ended up being outstanding, but I think it's fair to say that it's one of the only success stories. Star Fox has been butchered almost beyond repair, and Donkey Kong is only barely hanging on due to the brilliance of the in-house Jungle Beat.
I know these are all "second-tier" franchises, but they still deserve more respect than this. "Nintendo-published" and "Nintendo-made" are two very different things. Yoshi's Island DS, despite its high points, is yet another checkmark on the growing list of games that could have been much, much more.