Ice the frosty cat
New Member
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Yoshi's island DS...It's received a lot of praise over the year it's been out. But is it deserving of it? Um, short answer. No.
See, it's not terrible, it has lovely graphics/animation, sound, ideas etc.
But the gameplay is extremely boring and tedious.
Right from start to finish (although I haven't finished it :| ) I don't have the patience to play for a long period of time. Early on in the game, the levels are just too easy and boring to play with uninspiring puzzles and level designs, boss fights etc. I ended up with 50+ lives because it was so easy and I hardly ever died. Then when you get closer to the end (near the end of world 4) the difficulty level just shoots up. Take the level before last in World four for example. You have to get through an area with slippery tiny platforms that are way too easy to slide off. If you do then recovering would be a miracle. To top that off, you have huge big pink bouncy things flying at you most of the time, moving platforms, bouncy penguins (that can only be killed by eggs, which makes them really awkward) and enemies you can't kill who throw eggs at you. I thought this game was aimed at everyone. It would take a hardcore gamer to get past these later levels! It's not very fun to be biffed and bashed around by these smiley pink bouncy things!
On top of that, some of the puzzles are easy, but really tedious. Like the one where you have to continously throw eggs at a wall of spiky balls to make the way safe for Yoshi and his pals. This takes forever and you could understand my frustration when I accidentally ran too far and died, having to start the whole thing again. It's things like this that made me give up on completing it. It's too hard, tedious and boring!
The game has some good ideas with the babies though. Mario can run fast and when he's on Yoshi's back, special blocks appear. Peach uses her umbrella to fly up updrafts. Donkey kong can climb vines. Wario has a magnet to pull down platforms and attract coins and Bowser can breath fire (stripping Yoshi of his swallow move)
The annoying thing is, that these powers aren't utilised nearly enough to keep things interesting. I actually started to feel entertained when Wario showed up because they were being inventive on the few levels with him. That's another thing. Wario and Bowser stay for about four to five levels and then you never see them again! Lame!
Instead of a health bar (like in Yoshi's story) if you get hit, your baby usually flies away in a bubble screaming their heads off. The annoying thing is, while the screams are cute at first, they get insanely annoying. Trust me, you'll be hearing them a lot. Later in the game, they have levels where you couldn't possibly avoid getting hurt the first time you play through and even when you know, it's still pretty difficult to avoid HUGE BIG-ASS CHAIN CHOMPS RAINING DOWN ON YOU!
As well as the screams, the bubbles seem to move randomly which really sucks when you get hit at the top of some tall vines leaving you able to do NOTHING while you pray your baby flies down to you. But no. It decides to hover out of reach until it gets stolen. Meh, the stupid baby deserves it ¬_¬
I didn't pay much attention to the story however. Something to do with Kamek and Bowser needing something from several specific babies, but then again, Mario games are never really about the story. The only real development I've seen up to half-way through the final world is Baby bowser having an argument with present day bowser...and that's just to give them a reason to throw Baby bowser on us...
As I mentioned earlier, the graphics and sounds are mostly lovely. Especially for sprites. Regardless of how annoying the chain chomps are, they're really well drawn and animated.
There's four control methods to choose from. Two if you're not counting the different egg shooting methods for the two types.
I prefer the second one, because it's easier to control and it feels more like a classic Mario game (A to jump, B to swallow)
R is used to shoot eggs, which Yoshi will aim automatically. This is where the variations come in. You can choose whether to have Yoshi fire the egg as soon as you let go of the button, or to continue aiming up and down until you press it again. It was a nice idea so I give props for that.
But even these aren't enough to save the game. If a game is dull and boring to play, it doesn't matter how nice it looks or how good the controls are.
A disappointment, especially when I loved the supposedly inferior Yoshi's Story
Overall, I give the game 76%
I would only reccommend this game to hardcore Mario fans...and people who love frustration
Yoshi's island DS...It's received a lot of praise over the year it's been out. But is it deserving of it? Um, short answer. No.
See, it's not terrible, it has lovely graphics/animation, sound, ideas etc.
But the gameplay is extremely boring and tedious.
Right from start to finish (although I haven't finished it :| ) I don't have the patience to play for a long period of time. Early on in the game, the levels are just too easy and boring to play with uninspiring puzzles and level designs, boss fights etc. I ended up with 50+ lives because it was so easy and I hardly ever died. Then when you get closer to the end (near the end of world 4) the difficulty level just shoots up. Take the level before last in World four for example. You have to get through an area with slippery tiny platforms that are way too easy to slide off. If you do then recovering would be a miracle. To top that off, you have huge big pink bouncy things flying at you most of the time, moving platforms, bouncy penguins (that can only be killed by eggs, which makes them really awkward) and enemies you can't kill who throw eggs at you. I thought this game was aimed at everyone. It would take a hardcore gamer to get past these later levels! It's not very fun to be biffed and bashed around by these smiley pink bouncy things!
On top of that, some of the puzzles are easy, but really tedious. Like the one where you have to continously throw eggs at a wall of spiky balls to make the way safe for Yoshi and his pals. This takes forever and you could understand my frustration when I accidentally ran too far and died, having to start the whole thing again. It's things like this that made me give up on completing it. It's too hard, tedious and boring!
The game has some good ideas with the babies though. Mario can run fast and when he's on Yoshi's back, special blocks appear. Peach uses her umbrella to fly up updrafts. Donkey kong can climb vines. Wario has a magnet to pull down platforms and attract coins and Bowser can breath fire (stripping Yoshi of his swallow move)
The annoying thing is, that these powers aren't utilised nearly enough to keep things interesting. I actually started to feel entertained when Wario showed up because they were being inventive on the few levels with him. That's another thing. Wario and Bowser stay for about four to five levels and then you never see them again! Lame!
Instead of a health bar (like in Yoshi's story) if you get hit, your baby usually flies away in a bubble screaming their heads off. The annoying thing is, while the screams are cute at first, they get insanely annoying. Trust me, you'll be hearing them a lot. Later in the game, they have levels where you couldn't possibly avoid getting hurt the first time you play through and even when you know, it's still pretty difficult to avoid HUGE BIG-ASS CHAIN CHOMPS RAINING DOWN ON YOU!
As well as the screams, the bubbles seem to move randomly which really sucks when you get hit at the top of some tall vines leaving you able to do NOTHING while you pray your baby flies down to you. But no. It decides to hover out of reach until it gets stolen. Meh, the stupid baby deserves it ¬_¬
I didn't pay much attention to the story however. Something to do with Kamek and Bowser needing something from several specific babies, but then again, Mario games are never really about the story. The only real development I've seen up to half-way through the final world is Baby bowser having an argument with present day bowser...and that's just to give them a reason to throw Baby bowser on us...
As I mentioned earlier, the graphics and sounds are mostly lovely. Especially for sprites. Regardless of how annoying the chain chomps are, they're really well drawn and animated.
There's four control methods to choose from. Two if you're not counting the different egg shooting methods for the two types.
I prefer the second one, because it's easier to control and it feels more like a classic Mario game (A to jump, B to swallow)
R is used to shoot eggs, which Yoshi will aim automatically. This is where the variations come in. You can choose whether to have Yoshi fire the egg as soon as you let go of the button, or to continue aiming up and down until you press it again. It was a nice idea so I give props for that.
But even these aren't enough to save the game. If a game is dull and boring to play, it doesn't matter how nice it looks or how good the controls are.
A disappointment, especially when I loved the supposedly inferior Yoshi's Story
Overall, I give the game 76%
I would only reccommend this game to hardcore Mario fans...and people who love frustration
