Yoshi at his best

User Rating: 9.5 | Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi Island + Mario Brothers GBA
Yoshi is one of those characters where he's not only cute and adorable and sweet, he can also be pretty badass and does all of these cool and wacky things to defeat his enemies, and that is his charm. One of the examples that show off Yoshi's abilities is Yoshi's Island. While I was never able to play the original game for the SNES, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to be able to play the GBA port and I was not in the least disappointed. This goes to show that not all cute and cuddly characters are weak.

The story is that a stork is carrying two baby boys, who are both coincidentally the Mario Bros. However, the evil wizard koopa Kamek crashes attacks the stork and manages to capture Luigi, but misses Mario as he begins to fall from the sky. Luckily though Mario manages to land safely onto the back of a dinosaur creature named Yoshi. The dinosaur takes the baby back to his fellow yoshi brethren and decide to help the child by taking him back home. They manage to do this thanks to map Mario had with him which belonged to the stork. So begins your great journey to reunite the Mario Bros.

PROS:
-Very vibrant, beautiful, and colorful storybook-like graphics that are just absolutely wonderful to look at
-Really creative level designs. You hardly see the same levels twice
-Smooth, near perfect controls
-Sounds and music that shine with that Yoshi atmosphere
-While some levels have a little challenge to it, the game is pretty forgiving, but not so forgiving as to make it too easy
-You gotta love all of Yoshi's signature moves
-Story is simple, yet creative
-Nice use of vehicle morphing
-Bosses are creative

CONS:
-With all these enemies and obstacles bombarding you, it's hard to keep track of baby Mario
-Unfortunately most of the bosses are pretty easy to beat

Overall, Nintendo did an excellent job of making a great port to an already great game starring an already great character. They really ought to make more Yoshi-based games, as he really is a great character to play as.