Yoshi's Island

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
File:Yisland box.jpg North American box art
Developer(s)	Nintendo EAD
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Director(s)	Toshihiko Nakago Hideki Konno Shigefumi Hino
Designer(s)	Takashi Tezuka (director)
Artist(s)	Hisashi Nogami Yoshiaki Koizumi
Composer(s)	Kōji Kondō
Series	Mario
Platform(s)	Super NES, Game Boy Advance
Release	Super Nintendo Version JP: August 5, 1995 NA: October 4, 1995 EU: October 6, 1995 Game Boy Advance Version
Genre(s)	Platform game
Mode(s)	Single-player

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island–originally released as Super Mario: Yossy Island (スーパーマリオ　ヨッシーアイランド) in Japan–is a platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the SNES console. While featuring Nintendo's trademark Mario character, the game's innovative graphics and gameplay differed from all previous Mario games in that players control various Yoshi dinosaurs rather than Mario himself, who appears as a helpless infant. This game is a prequel to Super Mario World and the entire Mario series.

Yoshi's Island was released on August 5, 1995 in Japan, October 4, 1995 in North America and October 6, 1995 in Europe. A port was made for the Game Boy Advance as Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3. A sequel for the Nintendo DS, Yoshi's Island DS, was released in 2006.

Gameplay

Yoshi's Island has a unique gameplay compared to other Mario games in that Yoshi is the main playable character. Yoshi has a range of moves, such as swallowing enemies, converting them into eggs and throwing them. If the player holds down the jump button, Yoshi will wave his feet crazily through the air; this allows him to stay airborne for a couple of seconds and gain a little extra height. This floating manuver, known as a flutter jump, can help the player reach higher platforms, or when used multiple times, will slow falling.

Yoshi can collect eggs during his travels. These eggs follow Yoshi along until they are thrown. Many of the game's puzzles involve bouncing eggs around the levels or skimming them over water to hit distant enemies or objects. In addition to eggs, Yoshi may also collect keys to open locked doors. Special eggs can be acquired: yellow eggs, which create a coin when they hit an enemy, red eggs, which create two stars, and special flashing eggs, which produce a red coin upon hitting an enemy. Eggs, which begin green, will turn yellow, then red, after bouncing off walls. The third time an egg hits a wall, however, it is destroyed. Fat Shyguys, when digested, also create giant green eggs, which are lobbed instead of thrown. These eggs create a quake when they hit the ground, turning all enemies on the screen into stars. On a few levels, duck-like creatures (called Huffin' Puffins) can be acquired; these travel a short distance before returning to Yoshi. Generators exist for green eggs, which create an egg for each time you bump into it. Similar boxes, only yellow and red, transform into a single egg of their color, rather than generate infinite numbers. Up to six objects can follow Yoshi at a time, whether they are eggs, keys or Puffins.

Unlike other platform games in the Mario series, the player's character can be attacked an unlimited number of times by most enemies without harm. Whenever Yoshi is hit by an enemy, Baby Mario flies off his back, floating around the level in a bubble and wailing loudly as a countdown timer begins. If the countdown reaches zero before Yoshi tags the bubble, Kamek's toadies capture Baby Mario and the player loses a life. The timer will slowly regenerate to the original ten seconds and can be extended for up to 30 seconds by collecting stars or passing through the Middle Ring (which grants a bonus of ten stars, a checkpoint, and turns nearby enemies into stars that can be collected). Some traps, however, such as pits, spikes, and lava, and falling rocks, can kill Yoshi instantly.

File:Yoshi's Island screenshot.jpg

A screenshot of level 4-1 in Yoshi's Island

Yoshi also has the ability, at various points in the game, to transform into different vehicles. At these points, a bubble containing a graphical representation of the vehicle floats and upon bursting it, Yoshi becomes that vehicle. Vehicles include a helicopter, which enables him to fly; a racing car which has stilts for suspension (allowing for avoidance of the enemies up ahead in those sections); a submarine, which can fire homing torpedoes at the aquatic enemies; a train, which has to be navigated along tracks on the wall whilst avoiding the enemies who can move while the train is active; and a 'Mole-Tank', which allows the player to dig through dirt and climb up walls. While in these forms Yoshi has limited time to reach a block with a picture of a Yoshi on it at the end of the section, and leaves baby Mario behind. If he runs out of time before getting where he needs to, he will be transported back to where he started. If he reaches the block at the end of the section, Baby Mario is transported to Yoshi, who transforms back and the game carries on.

A limitedly-appearing alternative form is that of Super Baby Mario. At certain points in the game, Yoshi grabs a "Super Star" and withdraws into a large egg while the player controls Baby Mario, who dons a cape. Super Baby Mario is gifted with abilities like fast running speed, which can be used to climb walls, and flight, but the transformation only lasts for a short period before reverting to Baby Mario riding on Yoshi's back once more.

At the end of each level, the player is scored. The player earns points based on three criteria:

• Every star remaining on the countdown timer is worth one point. Up to thirty stars can be collected.
• Scattered among the coins in each level are twenty special red coins; each one collected is worth one point.
• Hidden throughout each stage are five flowers; each one collected is worth ten points, and for every flower collected there is a chance for a mini-game at the end of the level.

100 points is the perfect score in each level. If a perfect score of 100 is achieved in all 8 regular levels of a world, a secret level will appear, as well as a bonus level where the bonus games (from getting a flower at the goal of each level) can be played over and over for numerous items and extra lives.

Unlike other games in the Mario series that allow a player to "warp" ahead to higher levels, Yoshi's Island is the first game in the series that requires the player to complete all 48 regular stages linearly to finish the game. In addition to these, there are six bonus levels—one for each world, which are unlocked by achieving perfect scores on all of the world's levels.

Plot

A stork carries two babies across the sea, but the evil Magikoopa Kamek emerges, and steals Baby Luigi, and Baby Mario falls onto an island in the middle of the sea, called Yoshi's Island, home to all Yoshis. He lands on a green Yoshi, and Mario and the rest of the Yoshi gang must journey through the game's six worlds to rescue Baby Luigi and the stork back from Baby Bowser and Kamek. Throughout the quest, Kamek tries to stop Yoshi by transforming normal enemies with his magic, thus setting the stage for several boss fights.

When he finally reaches Bowser's Castle, Kamek demands that Yoshi gives back Baby Mario. Suddenly, Baby Bowser wakes up and tries to ride Yoshi, but Yoshi knocks him off. Kamek then enlarges Baby Bowser to a gigantic size, destroying most of the castle in the process. After fighting and defeating him, Bowser is reverted to his normal stage and is unconscious. Kamek is horrified and says that they will return before flying off with Baby Bowser into the night.

Yoshi then frees the stork and Baby Luigi. The stork then flies the reunited twins far away to the village where their parents live.

Development

The game uses the Super FX 2 microchip to create sprite scaling, polygon effects, and pre-32-bit computer effects called "Morphmation" (in American commercials) that are relatively advanced for a SNES game (a preliminary version of the boxart featured the Super FX 2 logo). The game's unique graphical style is said to have resulted from a conflict with Nintendo's internal evaluation committee; impressed by the recently released Donkey Kong Country, which sported pre-rendered graphics, they ordered the game's producer, Shigeru Miyamoto, to move the visuals in this direction. Miyamoto, who did not particularly like Donkey Kong Country, instead altered the "graphics" to look as if they had been drawn with crayons and felt-pens and more cartoon like and resubmitted it to the evaluation committee, who passed the game. At one point the game even draws inspiration from Vincent van Gogh's painting The Starry Night. Some of the cut scenes do, however, show pre-rendered graphics, done in a rather different form that looks more like the gameplay graphics. Eventually the sequel, Yoshi's Story made full use of digitized 2D graphics of high resolution 3D models like Donkey Kong Country did.

Reception

Electronic Gaming Monthly gave Yoshi's Island its award for Best Action Game of 1995. GamePro gave the game a 4.5/5 rating. GameRankings.com gives Yoshi's Island a composite review score of 94%, based on five reviews. Yoshi's Island sold about four million copies. The game placed 22nd in Official Nintendo Magazine's 100 greatest Nintendo games of all time. The game has garnered a huge cult following since its release.

Yoshi's Island also proved to be a critical and commercial hit in its Game Boy Advance version, Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3, which was released in 2002.

Sequels and spin-offs

The semi-sequel Yoshi's Story was released for the Nintendo 64 and featured similar gameplay, but is generally considered to be of a lower quality. The series has seen two spin-offs: Yoshi Touch & Go for the Nintendo DS and Yoshi's Universal Gravitation for the Game Boy Advance. While unrelated in basic gameplay, the characters and graphical style are heavily based on those of Yoshi's Island.

Yoshi's Island DS, released on November 13, 2006 for the Nintendo DS, is the most direct sequel and incorporates many of the same gameplay aspects. Unlike Yoshi's Island, it now also features Princess Peach, Donkey Kong, Bowser, and Wario joining Mario as babies.

Yoshi's Island, the location of Super Mario World 2's action, is also used as the backdrop for the SNES and Game Boy puzzle game Tetris Attack.

Several of Yoshi's moves that debuted in Super Mario World 2 appeared again in later games. These include the Egg Throw, which has been used by Yoshi in the Super Smash Bros. series, and most notably, the Ground Pound, which has been used not only by Yoshi but also by almost every playable character since then, from games such as the Mario Party series to Super Mario 64. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a stage heavily based on the version of Yoshi's Island portrayed in Super Mario World 2 was shown.

Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island was ported by Nintendo R&D2 to the Game Boy Advance as Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 with added features.

The game featured no changes to its basic formula besides that voice samples from Yoshi's Story were used. There was two major additions, however: six new levels called "Secret levels" could be unlocked after beating the game, and the Mario Bros. mini-game that appeared on all the Super Mario Advance series. If a player completes the game and gets 100 points on all 60 levels in the game, a secret ending will occur.

Like its two predecessors, Super Mario Advance 3 had generally positive reviews, and sold 1.6 million copies in the US; however, most critics thought Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 was better. Super Mario Advance 3 was re-released in 2006 as a Player's Choice title.

External links

• Official Nintendo Japan Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island site
• Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island Commercial