Yoshi's Island superb level design, presentation and unique gameplay make it worth its title of Super Mario World 2

User Rating: 9.5 | Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi Island + Mario Brothers GBA
When Super Mario World was released with the SNES back in 1991, people were excited with the new adventure. It was just epic, with everything you wanted in a Mario game and more. A few years latter, Super Mario World 2 was released, and focused on Mario's buddy Yoshi. How does it fares? Let's see.

GRAPHICS:
Looking at this game, you can see the differences between the first and second Mario World games. The grahpics here are very detailed, the animation is incredibly fluent and the backgrounds are pretty and varied. 5/5

SOUND:
The music from this game is, like the previous games in the franchise, fantastic. Some tunes, like Athelic, just are some of the happiest things you will ever listen is a video game, and all of them just seem very fitting for their moments.

However, one thing has to be mentioned, and that is the ear-rape that is Baby Mario's cry when you lose him, which is just painful to listen to, since it is so loud and high pitched. Still, it is better to play this game with the volume on to listen to the awesome music. 4.5/5

GAMEPLAY:
The game is a 2D plataformer. You play as Yoshi, trying to get Baby Mario back to his parents, avoiding Kamek's traps, and trying to save Baby Luigi in the meantime. The plot is really just there and has little to no bearing in this game.

If you have played any Mario game before, it is not going to help in this game, since it has totaly different mechanics. As Yoshi, you have to go through the levels eating enemies, turning them into eggs so you can use them to battle other enemies and solve puzzles and find out secrets. Not only are the mechanics in this game unique, but they settled a legacy of their own, as games staring Yoshi would follow this formula latter on.

There are 8 world with 6 levels in each of them, totaling 32 levels, which is the same as the first game in the series. If you liked World's open world structure and finding secret endings at levels, you will be rather disapointed, because this game scraps that formula to a menu with al the levels and you choose there. Some may see that as a bummer, but it really is the way of the game, and it works out very well. Besides that, there are also two secret levels in each world (only one on the SNES version).

Like with the other Super Mario Advanced game, the controls had to be suited to the GBA, and they were mapped very well. You use B to jump, A to use your tongue to get enemies, press down to swallow them and in mid air down does a ground pound, and the R trigger to lauch the eggs. It works out perfectly and you never miss the two extra buttons the SNES controler had.

Games on the series where you controled Mario had a hit system based on the power ups you had. In this game your life bar is determined at the amount of stars you have. If you lose them all, you lose Baby Mario and lose a life. But really, getting stars is easy, since you will always have at least 10 and middle mosts in this game give you more 10. So the challenge in that term is low, but the level design make up for that, gradualy increasing the difficulty level. Some of the latter levels can be very tricky to master, speacialy the bonus levels.

Besides the stars, there are also red coins and flowers to get in the game, and getting them will determine your score for the level, and you need a certain one to get the bonus levels. Besides the level design, we also have two bosses per world, and they are mostly easy, but are all unique in a way, and all very fun.

All in all, the gameplay feels complete, and the mechanics are just plain fun,
5/5

OVERALL:
Yoshi's Island is a rather different game, but one that every gamer should consider playing. It has some amazing level design, is really fun and has great music. Anyone with a GBA or SNES should pick this up.

The good:
-Incredible level design that amps the dificulty level gradually
-Some of the best video game music ever
-Pretty visuals
-Unique gameplay that is just a lot of fun
-Quite a few levels, each different from the last

The bad:
-Baby Mario's cry will haunt your sleep