The Gamer's Quarter

[kirkjerk]

Couldn't find dessgeega's praise for Yoshi's Island so I'm starting a new thread.

Picked this up for GBA. It's funny how much better it feels than playing it in an emulator with a keyboard.

I love Yoshi's Story but its been a while.

I made it through the first world.

I do love how bosses are expanded versions of normal enemies.

There's a bit too much of a collectathon element, but gradually I'm getting the feeling that the game is generous enough w/ lives that it doesn't have to be too big of a deal for me. (I'm not a completist with this kind of thing, I just want to see all the interesting bits in an effecient kind of way)

I don't like bonus games that are pretty much just chance.

The other thing I don't like, though its only been one level so far, is the way there's some "interior" passageways that become visible when you walk up to 'em.... for some reason I find that stretching the "rules" of the 2D representation, and works to remind me that I'm playing in some kind of weird "Milton's Ant Farm" of a flattened space.

[macdonaldez]

Meh- the thing i always find hard to get around in 2D games is the fact that you can jump directly upward through a platform, and stand on top of it, with no visible movement either in or outward in the Z-axis.
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"You spoony bard!"

[DonMarco]

See, Kirkjerk, I could never get in to the GBA port, much like the other SNES and NES games, the screen size and character sprites are off, which somehow result in me not being able to make two sucessful jumps in a row. Which isn't as bad in Yoshi's Island, unlike Mario 1-3 which deems every jump to be over a pit or on a enemy. If you're one block off, as I always am, BOOM HEADSHOT. I die.

Back on track, have you ever played this game non-emulated? Have you beaten it? Finally: without looking this up, Is it Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island or Yoshi's Island: Super Mario World 2?

[OtakupunkX]

[B coma]

Yoshi's Island on the GBA is kind of funny because of the 1UP multiplier they added based on your score. By the time I hit world 2, I had something like 40 lives, though I should mention I've played the game on SNES more than a couple of times prior to that.

Anyway:



After thumbing through this for hours upon end I was totally ready for this game. Really, a frothing worthy of the Internet, before such things happened on the Internet in 1995. Since I didn't get to buy games at the time (and actually, the magazine was a loan from a friend too) I ended up renting it when it came out, which meant I had about 2-3 days to finish it or GTFO. And, what an amazing memory that was. It was so good I kinda regret playing the game again since.

Yoshi's Island, while not being a difficult game in my current perspective, probably falls somewhere on the tougher end of the list in the grand scheme of 2D Mario games, and back then I still couldn't stumble my way through SMB 3. So my determination to see everything pretty much carried me through, and I can't say I've had too many gaming experiences that were similiar to that since.

Yoshi's Island has soul. I've heard people make the analogy that SMW 2 is to SMW what SMB 2 is to SMB, and I think that's pretty accurate given all the parallels. It married the solid design of previous 2D platformers with a lot of really cool set-pieces, and they only get bigger and better until the game's climax. To take one example, though, there's this one ice-coated level in particular that I recall being particularly unforgiving the first time through. I might have lost something embarrasing like twenty lives on it at the time, sliding into the enemies and pits that pretty much composed most of the level. But then, when you get to that last door, when you think "this can't get any longer!" the level just becomes a relaxing downhill ski.

Where most games of the era would run the gimmick into the ground by making the entire level some kind of frustrating mine-cart nightmare, YI knew exactly when to play it's cards. Looking back, the game can probably be tightened up with some slightly shorter segments, but given the drought of good platformers in the last few years I really couldn't complain much more.

[helicopterp]

[kirkjerk]

[B coma]

or as I like to refer to it,

Super Mario Advance 3: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

[Shapermc]

[OtakupunkX]

[purplechair]

Why does Yoshi's Island 2 look almost identical to Yoshi's Island, despite coming about 10 years later?

And how are we supposed to relate it to SMW? Is it SMW3?

[kirkjerk]

Yeah I have a few Gravis USB pads but haven't used 'em all that much.

You know, after all my griping about how PCs were so limited controller wise, now that USB should allow for a great number of controllers a once, I should do something about it...

[OtakupunkX]

I'm liking what I've seen so far of Yoshi's Island 2. I'm kind of glad it looks almost exactly like the first one.

[Shapermc]

[Shapermc]

[Lockeownzj00]

[kirkjerk]

But Miyamoto wrote Doki Doki Panic, right? I was kind of surprised and maybe even a little relieved to find that out.

Visually, SMB2 is much finely drawn and more cartoonish than SMB..... it makes SMB look more like a bridge between the 2600-era and the rest of later NES library.

[Shapermc]

[kirkjerk]

[Shapermc]

[B coma]

Yeah, the only other things I would add to that comparison would be the shift in mechanics (throwing things at enemies) and perhaps a more direct reference in the reappearance of Shy Guys. Also, I think Tezuka directed Yoshi's Island, and Miyamoto was busy with Mario 64 at the time.

Actually, who really directed SMB 2 JP? Wikipedia seems to have it wrong.

[TOLLMASTER]

I remember this game. Everyone thought I was crazy for liking it so much! I don't really remember what people were playing at the time, which kind of speaks volumes.

I've always felt kind of ambivalent on the mechanics of how Yoshi moves, though. Not having the run button there in a Mario game doesn't feel right. To me, the Mario games were always about the usage of the run button, speeding up and slowing down to end up exactly where you wanted to be after a jump. Here, though, it was a necessity to get rid of it because of how Yoshi's tongue and eggs work, it was scrapped so that the player wasn't overwhelmed. The floaty jump does allow more slippage to balance this lack of accuracy off, though, which I have always thought was genius.

I was really afraid that if we were to get another Yoshi game, it would be different, somehow--maybe more Metroidvaniaish? I was worried it would be. As much of a fan I am of Metroidvanias, I think Yoshi's Island would have suffered from it even more than Kirby and the Amazing Mirror did. Yoshi's Island is fun because each level has some element of its design exagerated, or maybe into a gimmick, and you have to find out how to adjust to the challenge. It takes the Super Mario World idea of having plain stages, but adding in secrets, and takes it to the next logical plateau.

[purplechair]

I've played a lot of Yoshi's Island, but I've never really got past world 3. I just run out of steam.

That and the fact I get obsessed with trying to find the last 2 coins on Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy. It's the only stage on world 1 that I just can't get 100% on.

[kirkjerk]

[purplechair]

It just drives me crazy, like having a lash in my eye. It's intensely irritating to get a 100% run through world 1 straight off the bat, except for those elusive 2 red coins on Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy.

It doesn't help that it's one of my favourate levels of any game, ever. In the sense that I'd like to be able to move on and do the rest of the game, I mean.

[helicopterp]

[B coma]

[SuperWes]

This isn't a highjack. This is a question for those of you that have played Yoshi's Island and either Yoshi's Story or Yoshi's Topsy Turvy. Despite having pretty close to the same control scheme, Yoshi's Story is pretty bland and Yoshi's Topsy-Turvy is just plain garbage.what exactly is it that makes these derivative games so much less compelling?

-Wes
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[B coma]

Way back when I played Yoshi's Story and though it was okay. then warpzone at the ic forums posted a pretty interesting defense of it and made me want to try it out again:

[TOLLMASTER]

As the above poster's quote pointed out: yes! A lot of people never found out how to play the game. It doesn't specifically tell you how you should play it, and most people walk into it with their previous gaming knowledge and play it that way. And then, they don't have any fun.

When I first got it, I would just eat whatever fruit was in my path, get to the next stage, and beat the game in about half an hour. It was very vanilla. But once I started playing to get all melons, or the like, did I start to understand the stages and thus, the game. Yoshi's Story isn't nearly as clever as was Yoshi's Island, but I really feel that the developers did a good job on taking the Yoshi gameplay somewhere else. It's a worthy sequel--but only if you're playing it right.

[Lockeownzj00]

I agree: Yoshi's Story got a lot of undeserved flak. Once again, Miyamoto, or game designers on the whole are ridiculed for trying to innovate (in terms of aesthetics). "It didn't look like Yoshi's Island at all!" Yet if he had made the game the same style, it would have been hackneyed and unoriginal, no?

I think it's the ultimate flaw of the platforming genre: The New Super Mario Bros. was "too short." Yoshi's Story is "too short." All of these games are too short...if you breeze through them.

Perhaps it is the lowish-learning curve for platformers. Us veteran gamers find the game's challenges laughably easy. However, whil, in a sense, the point of the game is to proceed to the next level, we are missing the point of playing the game and its universal appeal. We are concerned only with grokking it. Perhaps in this sense we are short-sighted. I know personally, while I still love Yoshi's Story, there is little incentive to get a high score other than to have it (for the prestige, yes, but it's no longer the incipient days of gaming, high scores for high scores sake aren't as worth it anymore). So I would try to satisfy my Yoshis, but I don't know to what extent I would care to.

[kirkjerk]

I great appreciate games that have this kind of "easy road" vs "deep road".

I love the easy...just show me the interesting bits, dont' make me get to deep into level design...

Even w/ that, Yoshi's Island isn't a total pushover.

[friedchicken]

Yoshi's Island might be my favorite all-time Mario game, and maybe even my favorite platformer period. It's for me what SMB3 is for many people. Back when it first came out, it renewed my faith in Nintendo, and in platformers generally. It's like the cartoon art almost makes everything seem more solid than in most Mario games. The character design is exquisite. The control is spot on and the game constantly gives you new things to do with your original skill set.

If I had to pick a flaw it's that the transformations aren't implemented all that well compared to the rest of the game. But turning into a train is still pretty fun.

Yeah, I can't wait for YI2. EB's website says 12/1/06 release, which essentially means some time in 2007 I'm thinking. Maybe the import will arrive sooner.

[Ketch]

I don't know, I can sort of appreciate why people like it (style, inventiveness, effects) but I don't enjoy it that much because I don't think it can hold a candle to Super Mario World, it just lacks the "flow" 1) because you need to stop and get eggs, 2 because you lose Mario if you get hit and have to go and get him. I think it woud have been better with a different health system.

p.s anyone think that it is one of the games that might have inspired Ico: baby Mario's being flown away is like Yorda being dragged away?

[kirkjerk]

[mechanoriINtransit]

[kirkjerk]

[Shapermc]

Ok, I just learned that if you get 100% in Yoshi's Island on every level that two more worlds open up. That is both scary and impressive. It is easily one of the cooler rewards in a mario game for getting 100% (ie: Mario 64 is one of the worst).

Also, I still have never beat this game, let alone thought about ever getting 100% on everything.

Also, because of this I put the cart back in and attempted to play/beat it again, but I still really suck at this game. I don't know why but I am really not very good. It is an anomoly in my gaming ability. I feel like less a man for it.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[B coma]

YI is renown for making people feel less masculine.

[helicopterp]

[kirkjerk]

[Dracko]

So, Shapes, beat this masterpiece yet?
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Shapermc]

[Dracko]

Tsk, tsk...
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[helicopterp]

I'm still working on those ridiculously hard and wonderful secret levels. And yes, I know I wasn't asked.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Dracko]

They're worth it.

Like, really worth it.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[helicopterp]

Preaching to the choir, Dracko.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[helicopterp]

I just scored a 100 on one of the secret levels. I am on such a rush that I'm gonna rustle me up some dinner. Yes!
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Harveyjames]

Is there really two extra worlds? I don't remember that, and I definitely 100%'d it.

I thought Yoshi's Island was the best game ever for a period. I still think those monkeys are incredible, the way they can switch tasks and react to the environment the way they do.

[Swimmy]

I 100'd every level, including the secrets, for absolutely no reason.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin