Yoshi’s Island DS

Platform: Nintendo DS
Review: Comprehensive Analysis

Graphics: The lands of Yoshi’s Island seem to come to life with this stylized ‘drawn with a crayon’ approach. Much of it is a throwback to the SNES prequel, but the black lines are greatly reduced, making the look a lot cleaner. The dual screen approach opens the player’s eyes to much more of the level, but has several drawbacks. The deadspace between the two screens creates an annoying/helpful scenario in gameplay, described later in the review. 8/10

Sound: Music in the game matches perfectly with the setting created by the graphics. As noted by GameSpot, the soundtrack is similiar to the original’s tropical tunes, but changes things to create a more whimsical feel that fits the feeling of the game well. However, the game suffers from annoying sound effects. An example is when a baby is lost. As with the original, a crying sound on top of a high-pitched beeping noise is made. The awful sound effects detract from the golden soundtrack. 7/10

Gameplay: A unique twist is given with the Yoshi’s Island games. Instead of having an alotted amount of life, you have a baby riding on your back. It isn’t a worry to keep Yoshi alive, but it is a worry to keep the baby safe. Everytime you are hit by an enemy, the baby goes flying off in a bubble. A certain amount of seconds is alotted to catch up with the bundle of joy. This creates a fun little distraction while playing a solid side-scroller.

Enemies are inventive and colorful, making it rewarding to throw eggs at them or gobble them up. Boss battles are usually enlarged versions of standard enemies. Despite the similiarities, new angles are added to make the fight fun.

One major issue about the gameplay is the dead space between the two screens. The game was made to recognize the gap, creating a blatant blind spot. It is an annoyance to loose Yoshi, enemies, and objects in ‘wonderland,’ only to find them again before it is too late. An upside, however, is the ability to easily aim eggs. The screen layout makes egg-shooting a breeze. 9/10

Story: The story behind the game wasn’t the best. A brief, somewhat unbelieveable explaination is given at the beginning of the game to explain why the Yoshis are carrying around babies. However, the game fails to note why someone would want to be capturing babies and dropping them out of the sky. Although, the simplicity retains the feel of the game. 3/10

Replay: The scoring in the game is creative. Instead of getting points for simply stomping on enemies, the amount of stars, red coins, and flowers collected during the length of the level are tallied up, giving the player a score out of 100. This makes play competitive against yourself, making players want to go and replay through levels to earn a higher score. However, the levels may get tiresome after awhile. 9/10

Party: No multiplayer features exist in the game. The game would not attract many viewers due to the private view range on a portable device. 0/10

Overall: Yoshi’s Island DS is a great title well worth its value. Its colorful level and festive music create a great game that will keep players coming back for more.