Yoshi’s Island DS is the sequel to the game of the same name on the Super NES, without the DS of course, which was an amazing game. It had great platforming, a terrific art style, and was one of the best games the SNES had to offer. But how good is the sequel to it? How does it compare to the original? Although I haven’t played the original enough to compare how “good” it is comparing it, I do know some differences.


   Well, the game is still the same basic idea. Yoshi can flutter to get higher, and eating enemies can get you eggs to throw at other enemies, or other places that can unlock hidden areas. Although, there are also some new features added into this game. You start off with Baby Mario again, but this time, as you go along your journey, you can find more babies you can use throughout the game. All of the babies have different special ways to play.


   First, Baby Mario can go faster, and has a good flutter. And his eggs can bounce a few times before breaking. Baby Peach also has a high flutter, but her eggs crash as soon as they hit a wall, and are slower as well. Her umbrella also allows her to fly up if there is wind. There are some others, and they are all fun to play with, and each has different areas that are designed for them. It’s nice to see the change of gameplay, and keeps it fresh.


   The other babies are Baby DK, Baby Bowser, and Baby Wario. They are all fun to play with, although unfortunately, Wario is only used in a few levels, and the difficulty never picks up with him. Besides him, the rest can usually be used in old levels before you get them, which was cool, because you could maybe find a secret that wasn’t available before.



   Gameplay: 9 – The gameplay, like the SNES one, is a 2d platformer, and a great one at that. You can defeat enemies in a few different ways. From eating them, to stomping on them, or even spitting other guys back at them. But of course, the most gratifying is throwing eggs at them. It is fun using all the different kinds of attacks.


   Yoshi’s Island DS has the same play style as the last one as well. Tight controls, a flutter jump that can be used as an extra jump, but if you continually flutter, you can cross big parts of the level that might be tough otherwise. Although, this is really tough to do, and is even rage inducing sometimes. Failing to complete a successful chain could cause in deaths often, and it sometimes seems to not function properly.


   But now we come to what is probably the biggest flaw of the game. This game took advantage of the dual screens of the DS, and did it as good as it could have been. But as you probably know, there is a border between the screens. This is a problem, because the screens are both used as the game area. Most places, it won’t be a problem not being able to see where the borders are, but in some cases, especially in the harder levels, you might find yourself unable to see an enemy or unable to attack or time your jump right. Although it does work for much of the rest of the game, there is nothing more irritating than getting hit by something you could never see.


   Although, there are some errors, they are usually minimal, and the great platforming, puzzles, and other elements of gameplay are all really good. The areas where you transform into a helicopter or drill return, and are fun, but unfortunately, they only show up a few times. Other kinds of gameplay show up as well, such as areas where you are skiing, and areas where you can fly in rockets, although the rocket areas are usually pretty repetitive, and pretty bland, and nearly impossible to predict.


   The last thing I want to talk about here is the lives system a bit. Instead of having a set life bar, your life depends on how many flower points you have. At the beginning of the level, you start with 10, and you can get up to 30 by collecting little flower things throughout the level. If you get hit, the star point you have will go down after about a second, it’s pretty much how many seconds you have until your baby gets kidnapped. But if you have less than 10, and recover your baby, the counter will start going back up to 10 automatically, but if it’s higher than that, it won’t count back up.


   This is a pretty interesting system, and works perfectly for this game. You have a split second where you can save the baby right after getting hit, so with some skill and luck, it’s like you never took damage. Although, the one problem that comes up with this is that it is pretty rare to come to a place where you will actually die because of this. However, it does serve another purpose, which I’ll go over later.



   Graphics: 8 – All the sprites are well designed and the animations are all very smooth. Although it isn’t exactly pushing the limits of the DS, the art style makes it look better than most other DS titles. It’s also really colorful. All the backgrounds are bright, but never get in the way of the game. The characters all seem to come to life. Even the Piranha Plants appear to be more like living creatures. Really, the only time that the character design was bad was with Bowser. He looks a little awkward, and just strange. However, since he only appears a few times, it isn’t all that bad.


   There are some really good enemy designs, such as the different versions as Shy Guy, to the Sherbets, and also the bulls. They all scream personality, and seeing even the most annoying enemies, is slightly better, because of the terrific appeal of the graphics in general.



   Story: 6.5 – It takes place sometime after the first Yoshi’s Island. Kamek and his Toadies have kidnapped all the babies of the island, and brought them to Bowser’s Castle. Luckily, a stork, cleverly named Stork, swings in, and was able to defeat the Toadies that have kidnapped Baby Mario, Baby Peach, and Baby Donkey Kong. However, the one with Baby Luigi escapes. The Yoshis find Baby Mario, and decide to help him, and Stork comes along too, and carries the babies not being currently used.


   Up next will contain the further plot. It’s not much, but if you really don’t want to spoil it, you can skip this part, and go onto the next category.


   Eventually, they realize that Bowser is behind this, and trying to find the seven star children. These kids all have magical stars in them, and if they are all owned by somebody, they can rule the word. Bowser even sends Kamek to kidnap Baby Bowser. After the two Bowsers get into a fight, Bowser causes his baby self to fall out of the castle. Luckily, Yoshi is there, and Baby Bowser joins the team.


   Eventually, Baby Bowser goes back with Kamek to the castle, for no real reason. But on the way back to the castle, he falls from Kamek’s broom. Back at Bowser’s castle, Bowser checks through a crystal ball to see if any babies they captured were a star child. Since Baby Luigi was hiding, he saw that none of the babies held one of the magical stars. This makes Bowser angry, and he sends more toadies to capture more babies.


   Later on, you eventually find Baby Bowser and Baby Wario fighting over treasure, and who gets to keep it. After they realize the Yoshi’s are there, they continue into Bowser’s castle together. When they get to the top, Baby Bowser tells Yoshi to leave, but after Yoshi refuses, Baby Bowser thinks that Yoshi is after the treasure, so you face off against Baby Bowser.



   After defeating him, Bowser comes in, and is angry at Yoshi for what he did to his younger self. He too gets defeated, but Kamek comes in and uses his magic to make Bowser giant. You face off against giant Bowser with all the babies at your side.

   After the final boss, Kamek commands the toadies to carry Bowser away, and Baby Bowser again grabs onto Kamek’s broom. A bunch of storks take all the babies home. Then, Baby Wario, who was homeless, gets taken in by Stork, and is living on a raft, with a bunch of treasure. Then, Baby Bowser falls off Kamek’s broom, and lands on the raft, and they continue arguing again.


In the end, it is revealed that the seven star babies are Baby Mario, Baby Peach, Baby DK, Baby Wario, Baby Luigi, and even Baby Bowser. The final star baby is a Baby Yoshi, who just hatched.


   Overall, the story ok, but the two different timelines seems a little confusing, and it is also hard to follow sometimes. But overall, I don’t really think it’s too bad, but it didn’t really capture me, and really didn’t seem to have a real point most of the time.


   Sound: 9 – The music is really good. All of the songs are really well done, and match the cute style that this game is going for. Even the tracks for the castles match the cutesy style, but still match the levels’ form.


   Then there are the sound effects. Some are great, but some aren’t. For instance, the jumps, eating, ground pounding, and egg throwing all sound great. They all work, never overdone, and really help the feeling of the game. And then the negatives can be summed up into one word: crying. After getting hit, and while the babies are trapped in bubbles, they will start to cry. At first, it’s annoying, but in the first few worlds, it might seem alright. But once the difficulty picks up, you will be yelling at the babies a lot to shut up. In the end, you will like the soundtrack, but dislike the babies by the end, especially in the special levels.



   Addictiveness: 8/ Depth: 7.5 – There are a pretty good amount of levels, and most feel different from others. Although there are some areas, especially where you will be floating with Peach’s parasol, where it feels like you are repeating sections over and over again, although, with about 60 levels, with each having some hidden areas hiding baby coins or flowers, it’s a pretty good amount of content to play through, although it definitely felt like it could have used an extra world.

   The addictiveness really depends on how much of the game you actually want to complete. You can beat the game fairly quickly if you don’t ever play again after the final boss. If you want to complete everything in the game 100%, it’s going to take a lot of practice. I’ve had the game for about 4 years, but still not all that close to getting everything needed. To beat everything, you need to get 20 red coins, which are mixed in with the normal coins, along with 5 flowers, and you also need 30 flower points at the end of the level. It’s usually pretty fun to do this, although it becomes more of a chore during the later levels, especially for the stages where the screen moves, and you only get one chance to get something.



   Difficulty: 8 – Don’t let the cute art style fool you. This game gets very difficult. There was even a level I lost over 100 lives to beat. There are some difficult enemies to avoid, as well as an occasional puzzle that might stump you for a minute. There are some tough running stages, or some places where you might have to throw an egg with perfect accuracy to find a hidden secret.

   The downside here is that the main area in the difficulty is when you are going for a 100% completion. Even the earlier stages are tough when you have to get through with all the requirements for a fully completed stage, they are tough. However, the harder stages are nearly impossible to do. This means that almost a single hit can ruin your chances, and considering the way the courses are designed, they aren’t exactly made for a perfect run, although if you are good enough, they can be possible, but it takes a lot of skill.



   Overall: 9 – Yoshi’s Island is a really good game. It has some really creative levels and character designs, and is one of the best looking games on the ds, even without having to push the boundaries of 3d polygons. The music is great, and goes perfectly with the style of the game, and overall, it an amazing platformer. If you like the original, I’m sure you will enjoy this one.

Great review! You beat me to it! I love this game, not as much as the first, but pretty close. The only thing I would change is turning the difficulty up to 9. Some of those levels...It's just brutal. lol Nice job.

A user of this : I almost gave it a 9 in difficulty because of that falling Chain Chomp level alone. Yeah, it's a really tough game, but it was beatable, at least, until you get to the bonus levels. Thanks for the reply by the way!