• Be sure to join the discussion on our discord at: Discord.gg/serebii
  • If you're still waiting for the e-mail, be sure to check your junk/spam e-mail folders

Yoshi's Island DS Discussion *Potential SPOILERS*

S.Suikun

S.Suikun

Thank you, SPPf! :)
It's almost here. That's right, the long-awaited sequel to Yoshi's Island, which was first released over 11 years ago, will ship tomorrow and arrive in stores on Tuesday November 14.

The game is being brought to you by Artoon, the mastermind team behind such "masterpieces" as Yoshi Topsy Turvy and Blinx: the Time Sweeper. can they redeem themselves? The game received a realtively lukewarm review from EGM (who hates everything, BTW), who mainly complained about three things: 1) Annoyingly difficult and resorts to "cheap" deaths, 2) the "Dead Zone" between screens that makes objects easy to miss, and 3) An awful soundtrack. Personally, I'll find the high difficulty pleasant, as New Super Mario Bros. was practically an insult to my gaming mastery. From what I've heard of the music, though, most of the tracks are either obnoxious or incredibly bland, particularly the castle theme. Koji Kondo, who worked on the original's soundtrack, did not work on this, likely due to a preoccupation with Twilight Princess.

The official site was launched over two weeks ago, but it's now undergone an overhaul and is now fully interactive. It contains new screens, some sounds and music, and some wallpapers you can get from playing around with the site's features. Here's the link:

http://yoshisisland.nintendods.com/

The flash cart was leaked a few days ago, so if you have seen anyone on other sites already talking about in-game discussion, note that their copies are illegal. However, from them, we have gotten some key information about the game:
- Poochy has been replaced with a kangaroo.
- Items are gone, so only lives are available in Bonus Challenges. yes, that includes melons, sadly.
- Five worlds with 10 stages each, including secret stages. Total of 50 stages for those mathematically-impaired.
- All transformations except the train and car return.
- Many old enemies returning, including Bandits, the Baseball Boys, and even Burt the Bashful!

Again, it'll be shipping Monday and released on Tuesday. Will this do the original justice and succeed where Yoshi's Story, Topsy Turvy, and Touch & Go failed? Go ahead and post last-minute speculation plus first impressions here.
 
W

Wandering Rhythmical Phoenix

rEvolutionary INC.
Transformations FTW<3, But I LIKED Car and Train, Hell, The train parts remain some of my favoret parts of YI.
I've been looking forward to this game scince E3.
However, No Poochy = Instafail. Pooocy is the Icon of the Yoshi Adventure series, next you Yoshi, of course.
I wont be hopping out on Launch day to get it though, I have 2 tests and just wanna sleep after, and the next big game I'm getting Is Final Fantasy 3 DS.

I just wanna know if you can switch freely between the other babies, or its forced on you.
 
S.Suikun

S.Suikun

Thank you, SPPf! :)
Sorry Kojiro, I don't have a boss list on me. The first two bosses are the Burt Bros. and Gilbert the Gooey, but that's all I know. (And honestly, I'd like the rest to be a suprise)

I'll definitely miss the Car, though I thought the Train was obnoxious.

From the vids I've seen, you can switch between babies at stork signs which are scattered about each stage. Only certain babies can help you access certain areas, though.
 
W

Wes

Iblis Wings
Oh man this game is going to be sweet. The fact that Baby Bowser (Yes I got that Nintendo Power issue which confirms it) is playable through a Yoshi obviously even makes it sweeter. Poor Luigi though... always getting the shaft. Meh. Baby Wario FTW as well though.
 
Last edited:
P

PokeMaster Justin

Lets Do It.
I've heard this game REALLY sucks bad.

Nintendo should have developed it >: (

Ever hear of Super Mario's Wacky Worlds? Back in the nineties, when Phillips was creating games based on Nintendo characters for their ill-fated CD-i system, some of their designers ripped the sprites out of Super Mario World and started making a sequel to it on the CD-i. An early prototype of the game is out there among CD-i collectors, and while it looks quite similar to Mario World, it most definitely doesn't feel like it. Playing the early prototype makes you happy it didn't go any further.

Yoshi's Island DS is like Super Mario's Wacky Worlds, carried to completion.

Ultimately, it wouldn't have been possible for even Artoon to create a truly bad Yoshi's Island followup. The basic mechanics behind the game -- a platformer merged with a shooter, in which you can pick up eggs and toss them into enemies and other things -- are brilliant enough per se that just a new set of levels for the game equals something well above and beyond most other 2D platformers.

And yet, I've played the first dozen levels or so, and I'm just plain bored. I don't even know if I'll go back to the game, because there are so many other handheld entertainment options right now, giving me ten times the fun value for my time investment. So far I've seen no examples of game design that struck me as interesting, let alone genius, which the last had in spades.

The controls aren't nearly as tight as the original's. In the first game, when you held down the B button to run, Yoshi would stick his tongue out and slow up a little bit, but then immediately get up to running speed. In this version he sticks his tongue out, comes to a near-complete stop, walks a little bit, and THEN finally starts to run. It sounds like a minor thing, but there is a tangible difference.

Climbing on vines with baby Donkey Kong is floaty, as if neither he nor Yoshi weigh anything at all.

Speaking of which, switching characters is also a pain in the neck. Sure, every character has special abilities, but for the most part they're just the ability to interact with certain environmental structures that are locked in place. DK can climb vines, so if you see a vine, you need to switch to him. Peach can use her umbrella to ride in updrafts. But it's not as if there's several ways to access areas; you just have to go and switch characters every time you see a new hazard. There's no joy in doing it.

The better way to have a character-switching mechanic is to give them special abilities that aren't necessarily related to just accessing specific objects in the environment. DK's crash-and-bash ability (hold down on the D-pad and press B to body slam through enemies) is a good example of this. His "ability" to interact with vines isn't.

Another big screwup was in the use of both screens. The game's levels take place on both the upper and lower screen. This itself isn't usually a problem, except the physical gap between the two screens of the DS actually obscures the action. That is, there exists at all times a broad strip of the playfield that you cannot see, "covered" by the plastic of the DS machine. Is this a problem? Why yes, it is.

I suppose they were attempting to make the in-game space feel more natural -- it might get a bit weird if we saw half of Yoshi's head on the top screen and the other half on the bottom. But you know what feels weirder? Freakin' dying because you can't see an enemy, or missing an item because it's in the blind spot.

Oh, and the music isn't nearly as awesome as the first game's. I miss the kickass banjo from the auto-scrolling "athletic" worlds of the last game, which has been replaced here by a totally soulless, slow, light number. That alone is worth a few demerits.

I'll probably keep playing and update if anything changes, like if World 3 turns out to be sheer brilliance. First two worlds, though? Pretty boring.
Click to expand...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=128018&page=2&highlight=Yoshi's+ISland+DS

neoGaf's most respectable posters when it comes in unbiased great impressions, if you read his blog others are sharing the same concerns.

Shame as YI'd one one of my fav games =\ oh well, i'll wait for it to get to 20 bucks.
 
Last edited:
P

PokeMaster Justin

Lets Do It.
read the impressions I just posted, that guy writes AMAZING impressions when he gets games. Everyone is claiming it's "boring".
 
S.Suikun

S.Suikun

Thank you, SPPf! :)
Well, constantly switching between characters just to hit a switch or something didn't bug me in DK64, so I suppose my main concern is the dead zone. I know while Metroid Pinball also had that problem, it was merely an inconvenience and wasn't the death of you.

While watching the video of the first castle, I have to wonder...whatever the hell happened to the Shy Guy sweatshop in the background from the E3 demo? I thought that was hysterical.
 
P

PokeMaster Justin

Lets Do It.
Who knows I'm thinking the probably deleted it because they wanted to play "safe" with this sequel, but in doing so it feels "more of the EXACT same".

man out of all their franchises Nintendo gave this one to artoon :(
 
W

Wandering Rhythmical Phoenix

rEvolutionary INC.
They should have given them POKEMON!

I'm still gonna get it, Blind spots never bother me, I eman, unless theres a bottemless Pit on the SIDE of the screen, I doubt I'm gonna worry much.
If only they could hjave done it like Lunar DS, its only redeming quality was that the battles were two screans and anything that went over one screen started at the bottem of the top screen.... if that made scence
 
S.Suikun

S.Suikun

Thank you, SPPf! :)
S.Suikun on Monday Night said:
The big reviewing kahunas' verdicts are in:
IGN - 8.0
Gamespot - 9.1

Kinda suprising, considering how not only did IGN hype it up infinitely more, but Gamespot is generally much harsher. IGN complains about it being too similar to the original, which I doubt will bug anybody reasonable.

I'll probably be picking this game up some time after school tomorrow. I didn't reserve it, but I doubt I'll have a problem, considering how I reserved New Super Mario Bros. which had a whole lot more hype, yet the stores had plenty of extra copies on launch date. Here's hoping my teachers don't assign me something incredibly evil. (Last week was actually pretty relaxed, but the week before was absolute murder.)
Click to expand...
Going to bump this up to say that I purchesed the game yesterday, and have played it for quite a bit. Excellent difficulty so far, and much more rewarding than New Super Mario Bros. was.

The blind spot has only caused me to die once or twice. A minor inconvenience, but doesn't wreck the experience.

Baby Wario only stays with you for like four stages, and I assume it will be the same for Baby Bowser. It's not like Wario's all that useful, but Baby Bowser's awesome to play with.

I can also answer any questions about the game so far.
 
Last edited:
B

BattleFranky~40

Immortal
Yoshi's Island is one of my favorite games of all time, so I'll have to check this out sometime.

Though I heard it lost some of the style of the original.

Also, Poochy's gone? I loved that giant dog.
 
B

blindskater

Well-Known Member
Seems like a fun game, might buy it but most likely won't. I am getting a wii so I won't get anything for Christmas(doesn't really matter since it's not about gifts).

Off Topic: How do yuo get the last Desktop Icon in the website?
 
M

MugenKeiji

THERE'S NO $50 HERE!
Wasn't Artoon founded by former Sonic Team members, including the character designer Naoto Oshima? Iiiiirony

I'm still getting it.

Anything's better than Yoshi's Story

It's more challenging than Super Princess Peach

That's all I need to compare it to.

Because if I compare it to the original, I'll have the level count in mind and dwell on why Nintendo didn't handle it in-house.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top