A surprisingly good game, possibly even better than the original Yoshi's Island.

User Rating: 9 | Yoshi's Island DS DS
When I first got Yoshi's Island DS I was afraid that it would be completely different from the original, that it would be a complete flop. After just a few minutes playing almost all my worries where crushed. Almost.

- Gameplay -
The game plays just like the first Yoshi's Island, with your basic flutter jumps and egg tossing, fooling you into thinking that it's just going to be completely the same, but early on in the game it throws its selling point at you: baby switching. By going up to one of the many sign posts in the levels, you can call on your pal the stork, and he'll fly up to you letting you choose which baby you want to play as. Each baby has its own advantages and disadvantages, like baby Mario making you run faster at the press of a button, or baby Peach allowing you to float on gusts of wind with her umbrella, letting you reach previously un-accessable areas. This adds a small sense of strategy, picking the right baby to get through the path in front of you the fastest, easiest or most score increasing way. This is all fun but it's a shame that there is no real use of the DS's capabilities, using just the dual screens instead of any egg throwing touch-screen action, but it's a small point.

//- 8/10 -\\

- Sound -
The sounds of the game are mostly recycled from previous Mario and Yoshi titles, which isn't a bad thing, since the 'bading' of collecting a coin is still as satisfying as ever, but the music and baby noises are the low point. The music, while not terrible, isn't anything memorable like the songs in YI and you'll probably be paying any notice to them by the end of the game. But it's the babies that are the worst bit of the game. Losing a baby is twice as annoying as before, not only because you'll probably be scrambling after with just seconds away from them being snatched away, fighting your way through sometimes extremely annoying enemies, but because of their high-pitched shreiks ( with the worst, in my opinion, being baby Peach's ) that will make you run to get them just to shut them up.

//- 6/10 -\\

- Graphics -
Yoshi's Island DS has the same cartoony style as it's predecessor, but it has had its cuteness upped. The stages are as beautiful and memorable as ever, and almost all the characters have been remodeled for the better, most of the time, and because of the DS's superior technology, there are now 3D bits scattered all over the place, the most significant being the rotating island at the press start screen. Everything as also been smoothed out significantly, making it look much smoother than the pixel-fest that was Yoshi's Island, and the animations are also smoother.

//- 8.5/10 -\\

- Replayability -
Just like Yoshi's Island before it, the game will have you coming back all the time trying to get that last 100%, getting all the minigames, getting the high score and going through all the possible paths in the levels using different babies. It is, like almost all Nintendo games, very addictive.

//- 9.5 -\\

- Conclusion -
Most of the time sequels completely fail, but surprisingly this game is very good. While the sound and music isn't all that great, the gameplay, graphics and replayability make this game instantly reccomendable.

//- 9/10 -\\