Yoshi the ultimate baby sitter.

Author's Rating:

Pros: great game.

Cons: a bit short.

The Bottom Line: 
Yoshi's Island is a good GBA port.

Author's Review
I got Super Mario Advance 3 lately for a very cheap price; you could say free, you could say I was an ambassador when I got this game. I was kind of curious to see the differences between this game and the original, Nintendo GBA ports are nefarious for changing things that didn’t need to be changed and throwing in terrible audio samples of modern day voices when the classic sound effects were better. Yoshi’s Island is a bit more subdue but the audio is the games major weakness.

Story.
Kamek the magic koopa has had a vision of a pair of portly plumbers stomping his master Bowser flat. However these two problems haven’t even been born yet, his plan ambush the stork and do away with the hero’s before there even born. However he is only able to capture one of the twins, Baby Mario manages to fall down to Yoshi’s Island where the Yoshi’s find him. Sensing the child’s predicament the Yoshi’s decide to use a pony express system to reunite Mario with Luigi and rescue the stork.

Graphics.
Yoshi’s Island on the SNES was competing against Rare’s Donkey Kong Country however unlike DK which was going for a more 3d realistic approach Yoshi’s Island goes for a lighter color more cartoony approach and it works pretty good. The child’s play room back rounds and the crayon esc color palette bring a lot of personality to the game. The games morphing animation whenever Yoshi grabs a special power up that makes him morph into helicopters still looks great even on a small screen.

Sound.
The GBA sound system isn’t has good has the SNES Sony made sound chip and it shows the music isn’t has great but it still sounds good for a portable. As many people are having a hay day about the little Zelda jingle in Mario 3d land really should check out the background music of Yoshi’s Island. There are a lot of remixes from a link to the past in the sound track, like for example the music that plays during the open tutorial level, and the final credits music our remixes taken right out of a link to the past.

On the changes a lot of the old fashion Yoshi sound effects have been replaced with post Yoshi’s Story sound effects. So expect baby Yoshi sound effects and grunts. On the good news though the new baby Mario cry is slightly less obnoxious.

Gameplay.
Yoshi’s Island is a 2d platformer the idea is to get to the end of the stage with Baby Mario on your back. Yoshi has a few tricks up his sleeves though that will make for some interesting puzzles. First holding the jump button will have him struggle and float in the air. 2ndeating enemies will allow him to make eggs and throw them at enemies. Throwing eggs though does more than just hit enemies you will need them to solve problems certain obstacles can be destroyed by eggs and there are several puzzles that go around both timing and angle of your egg throws. So eating enemies and carrying eggs will be an important focus in this game.

Yoshi is invincible with the exception of spikes and lava, however getting hit will knock Mario off Yoshi’s back and you will hear what could rank up to one of the most annoying sounds in the history of video games, Baby Mario’s cry. If Yoshi does not pop his bubble before time runs out Baby Mario will be taken by Kamek Toadies and you will lose a life. Yoshi can recover time up to 10 seconds but after that you will need to collect stars in order to increase the time limit.

Next to completing the game though there is trying to get 100% in each level this increases the replayablity a whole lot. In each stage there our 20 red coins, and 5 flowers, you also need to cross the line with 30 stars you will get 100 points for the stage. Getting 100 on all stages unlock new stages. However the GBA game makes it a little easier, in the SNES version you had to collect 100 points on all stages in a world to unlock the bonus. In this one getting an average of about 85 is all that is needed to unlock these special stages. Meaning getting extra lives and more importantly items like the handy magnifying glass (lets you see red coins and hidden clouds inside a stages) is now easier then ever. Don’t get me wrong getting 100 will still take a while but the challenge has been curbed by just a bit.

Like all GBA Mario Advance games this comes with a supped up port of the original Mario Brothers. It’s the same has in other games you hit enemies from the bottom and then kick them off the screen to finish them off when they are on their backs. A new things like ice blocks freezing the area come into play but it’s still the classic Mario Brothers.

Final Recommendation.
Yoshi’s Island is still a fun game but it’s far from being the best Mario Game. Mario Advance 3 Yoshi’s Island is a competent port throwing in a few new stages without taking out anything from the old. My only complaint is that the Yoshi sound effects our annoying and would have preferred the classic SNES sound effects but this game overall is still a great game.