Game Design Mastery
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island was released in 1995 by Nintendo for the SNES. This game is a prequel to all other Mario games regardless of its title. Instead of Mario being the conqueror, it is Yoshi that is in charge. Mario is just a helpless infant, which is waaay different compared to what we are used to with Mario games.
This game is littered with awesomeness. Each level is very creative and different from the next. The game play is quite deep as well. There are things to collect, puzzles to solve, strategies to figure out, and lots of egg shooting that is essential for knocking out enemies, catching coins and flowers, and activating switches… There are just several (too many to mention) small things that make this game so clever. There are even times when Yoshi will evolve into different types of vehicles to accomplish a necessary task. On rare occasions, Baby Mario will take over for a short amount of time.
As mentioned before, there is a lot of egg shooting. This is one way that Yoshi attacks. He swallows up an enemy, digests him, and the poops out an egg that will bounce along behind Yoshi until it is needed. Yoshi will then grab the egg and aim at whatever the target may be that you are wanting to hit. You can also simply grab an enemy and spit him back out. If you get hit by an enemy, Baby Mario will be lifted from Yoshi's back into a bubble and he will cry desperately for help until you jump up and save him by busting open the bubble. While Baby Mario is floating, there is a timer on the side of the screen. If you don't have Yoshi catch him in time, Kamek's forces will come and steal him away which causes you to lose a life. There are tiny jumping stars that can be collected to add a few more seconds to the timer in order to gain a little more leeway while Baby Mario is floating around.
This game is very replayable because not only are the levels fun, but even if you beat a level you can always go back and replay it to attempt at getting all the points. If you get every point possible by collecting all flowers and coins throughout the level, a bonus level will be unlocked. So, this game could last a while if unlocking everything is a determination of yours. This is the hardest part of the game because some of the flowers and coins are really tricky to find. It takes some patients and skill to unlock each level 100%.
There are multiple opportunities for bonuses, which is so much fun! Every single time you beat a level you jump though a hoop and depending on how many smiling flowers you collected, you have the potential to get a bonus challenge and earn rewards.
Yoshi's Island is a pretty forgiving platformer because dying doesn't happen too terribly often. Yoshi is basically invincible except for falling into lava or spikes. You just have to watch out for Baby Mario. It is also nice that there isn't a time limit on the levels, so you can spend as much time as you need to complete your goal.
The boss fights are absolutely incredible. Every single one is a blast and they are all very creative and different from one another.
There is just so much detail that they put into Yoshi's Island that there would be too much to even mention. You are simply going to have to experience this game for yourself. I really see no faults nor do I have anything negative to say about this game. I think I could easily, and without regrets, label it a perfect game.
Yoshi's Island shows the Super Nintendo at its best. The background visuals are amazing for the 16-bit era. The settings for each level are very unique as well as the sound effects being topnotch and the music being fantastic and very memorable (The music is composed by Koji Kondo. Basically every game that he has composed music for has been incredible). And because it possesses replayability, this game climbs even higher on the ratings scale.
I am recommending this game to anybody wanting to play an extraordinarily well made and beautiful side-scoller with lots of intelligence behind it, complete with addictive game play and an extreme lack of redundancy.