Trying to improve on the original
Oct 07, 2015 WOOAAHH, I bet you guys didn't see this one coming! Took plenty of freedom to play with different sounds and improvisations this time, had tons of. Dec 11, 2006 The graphics in the original Yoshi's Island were great and they could have easily ripped many of the Yoshi or enemy sprites from them and no one would complain, but instead they decided to remodel Yoshi, the babies, and pretty much everything else. You'll eat bad guys, make eggs, throw eggs, lose babies in bubbles, hover, and ground pound.
Yoshi's Island is, in some ways, a fool's errand. When the original game came out in 1995, it both redefined what a Mario game could be and set a new definition for inventive, original, and entertaining platform games. Some might be more partial to Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World, but for my money, Yoshi's Island is the pinnacle of the 2D Mario games (and I have spent a fair bit of time thinking and writing about Mario games to reach that conclusion).Nintendo has tried to follow up on the perfection of Yoshi's Island a few times in the past. I had high hopes for Yoshi's Story on the Nintendo 64, but that spiritual sequel took a hard turn toward overly simplistic level designs, sloppy controls, and a presentation that turned the cuteness dial well past cloying (oh god, that level-ending music). Yoshi's Island DS was a bit better at capturing the essence of the original, but it felt a bit gimmicky in its use of new character powers and just a bit off in the control department. The best follow-up so far may actually be Super Mario Advance 3, a Game Boy Advance port which added six excellent new secret levels on top of those already hidden in the original game.
Yoshi's New Island is Nintendo's latest attempt to recapture lightning in a bottle, and it does a solid if imperfect job of doing just that. Familiar without being overly familiar and faithful without being a mere carbon copy, Yoshi's New Island doesn't quite live up to its namesake, but it doesn't really mess too much with what isn't broken, either.
A remixed expansion pack
This means, of course, that those looking for something completely new won't find much of what they're looking for in Yoshi's New Island. The game does nearly the opposite of reinventing the wheel, instead seeming to take familiar pieces of the first game and reassembling them into new patterns, to the point where an attentive player can start picking out the tropes and design elements they expect to resurface.
Oh look, here's a few levels with those annoying monkeys jumping among the trees, just like in Yoshi's Island. And here's one with those floating penguins that Yoshi can bounce off harmlessly. Here are those overly flappy goonie birds that you can ride like a floating platform. Here's a level where a giant chain chomp chases Yoshi down a series of floating platforms. Here's another extremely long and slow auto-scrolling level in a lava-filled cave (thankfully there's only one of these, and it's not nearly as annoying as in the first game).
Just because the overall design and the individual set pieces are familiar, though, doesn't mean the game is just directly copying levels from the title that inspired it. Much like New Super Mario Bros. before it, the levels in Yoshi's New Island feel like modern remixes of familiar patterns and arrangements that were proven timeless decades ago. Platforms and enemies are placed with a certain care and deliberation, and nothing feels thrown together haphazardly just to fill space. There's a natural flow to each level, and the game never dwells too long on any one type of enemy or design theme.
In short, it feels like the expansion pack that Yoshi's Island never got, full of new levels that iterate on the same great old themes established in the original game. It might feel a bit too familiar to some, but there are much worse games to evoke the memory of.
Yoshi Island Flash
Like the original Yoshi's Island, the challenge in Yoshi's New Island isn't simply in getting to the end of the levels. There wasn't a single area in the game that cost me more than three or four lives to get through, in stark contrast to a game like Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze, where I could lose four lives on a single jump.
Instead, the challenge is in finding the 20 red coins and five giant flowers hidden within each level (not to mention finishing the stage with a perfect health meter of 30 stars). Some of these items practically smack you in the face with obvious placement, but plenty are squirreled away in out-of-the-way or hidden areas. Collecting these items constantly requires going outside the run-left-to-right comfort zone in terms of both platforming and puzzle solving.
In the greatest Mario tradition, it always feels like there's something just beyond the surface waiting to be discovered if you look hard enough. I wasn't scouring levels with a fine-toothed comb or anything, but despite looking in the most obvious likely hiding spots, I still finished my first playthrough missing a few items in almost every level. Finding the rest will be an enjoyable reason to go back and really explore the well-designed levels once more.
Nitpicks and changes
That's not to say nothing has changed since 1995. Nintendo has thrown some new game mechanics into the mix, seemingly out of a sense of duty to satisfy an 'innovation' checkbox. The most notable new feature is the gargantuan, screen-filling eggs that can take out solid concrete blocks as they fly. It's a promising idea, but it's used exclusively in extremely contrived situations, where the game gives you as many giant eggs as you need to easily clear a roadblock and move on.
Yoshi's New Island also makes a slight modification to the sections where Yoshi transforms into a number of different machines (a submarine, a jackhammer, a bobsled etc.) These sections are now somewhat annoyingly controlled by tilting the entire 3DS to change Yoshi's direction, with occasional button taps to slow or advance his progress. Overall, these sections aren't integrated very well into the rest of the game, and they feel like distractions from the platforming and puzzle solving it does best.
Most of the things I didn't like about Yoshi's New Island were primarily disappointments when compared to the near perfection of the original game. (Have I mentioned how much I liked the original Yoshi's Island recently? In case it was unclear, I liked it a lot). The new game's bosses, for instance, alternate between battles with the Magikoopa Kamek and fights against giant-sized versions of familiar enemies from recent levels.
Each battle requires a unique strategy, and some show off especially clever design, like a battlefield littered with arrow-clouds that redirect both your projectile eggs and the incoming blasts of the boss in hard-to-follow patterns. Still, the bad guys seem a little less animated than those in the first Yoshi's Island, and they don't show the same level of inventiveness in the strategies needed for their defeat (throwing an egg at the right place/time is pretty much always the way to go).
It also feels like the developers are trying a little too hard to emulate the unique, hand-drawn art style and animation that made Yoshi's Island so distinctive. It's as if the artists took basic 3D models of all the characters and layered a crude 'paintbrush stroke effect' filter on top to imbue them with a slightly uncanny facsimile of a human touch. Everything animates a bit too perfectly as well, like the morphing shapes and stiff movements of the early days of Flash animation. It doesn't look bad, exactly, just a little overdone and lifeless compared to the effortless verve and charm of the original game, or even Yoshi's Island DS.
Since we're still in nitpicking territory, I feel I have to mention the slight changes to the tight, pitch-perfect controls found in the original Yoshi's Island. When Yoshi starts aiming an egg, for instance, there's now a half-second or so of animation before the targeting reticle is fully extended and ready to fire. It's not the end of the world, but it's a distracting alteration that messes with any muscle memory left over from the original game. The same goes for Yoshi's now-familiar mid-air flutter, which is now just a little harder to execute multiple times on a single jump.
These are minor issues, though, compared to the relative failure of the game's music. Compared to the vibrant, catchy tunes of the original, the new background songs are overproduced, meandering ditties, often featuring a sort of high-pitched kazoo effect that comes across like nails on a chalkboard to my ears. At least the sound effects are comfortingly familiar.
If it feels like I'm being hard on a game I enjoyed, it's only because it shares most of its name with a game that I feel sets the standard for its genre. Even judged on that lofty scale, Yoshi's New Island holds its own quite well, serving as a solid alteration and extension of a true classic, with a minimal amount of changes to screw things up.
The Good
- Largely captures everything that made Yoshi's Island brilliant
- Level design that shows care and deliberation
- Plenty of well-hidden items that encourage exploration and discovery
The Bad
- General design and set pieces may be too familiar for some players
- New game mechanics seem thrown together and unecessary
- Controls are off ever so slightly from Yoshi's Island's perfection
The Ugly
- The background music—load up the original game's soundtrack on your phone instead
Verdict: Buy it, but don't expect another flawless masterpiece like its predecessor (which I loved).
Fat Guys[1] (also known as Big Guys[2]) are corpulent Shy Guys that debuted in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.
History[edit]Yoshi franchise[edit]Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island / Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3[edit]Fat Guys make their first appearances in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island level Lakitu's Wall, and are uncommon enemies throughout the rest of the game. They come in two colors: red (which initially walk but will run if Yoshi stands on them) and green (which are always running). Fat Guys simply walk or run back and forth continuously, changing direction when they encounter a wall or a margin, unlike regular Shy-Guys which walk around and may stop and turn back on their own will. They are able to damage Yoshi if they bump into him, but Yoshi can attack them by eating and ingesting them. If spat back, they will resume their behavior. Upon ingesting a Fat Guy, Yoshi receives a Giant Egg. Fat Guys can also be used as platforms to cross obstacles such as spikes, as they are not damaged by jumping and Yoshi can safely stand on them. When Yoshi has three Giant Eggs at his disposal, all of the Fat Guys will disappear until Yoshi uses at least one of the Giant Eggs. Yoshi Topsy-Turvy[edit]Fat Guys reappear in Yoshi Topsy-Turvy, where they appear distinctly larger, being now roughly three times the size of Shy Guys instead of two. Unlike previously, they do not run after being jumped on. Yoshi's Island DS[edit]Fat Guys return in Yoshi's Island DS, where they behave similarly to their first appearance. Yoshi's Crafted World[edit]A parachuting Fat Guy In Yoshi's Crafted World, red Fat Guys appear in Poochy's Sweet Run and Poochy's Magma Run and can be seen with different behaviors. Some simply walk back and forth on the ground and will start running after being jumped on, much like in their original appearance. They can be defeated by throwing an egg at them, charging into them with Poochy, or by eating and turning them into eggs. Ingesting a Fat Guy will fill Yoshi's egg stash instead of granting one Giant Egg like in past games. Other Fat Guys stand on the sides, pushing rectangular cutouts in Yoshi's way and rising them back up after a short time. Yoshi can hop on these objects while they are down and use them as platforms, and even ride them upward as the Fat Guys pull them back upright, much like Whomps can be used in New Super Mario Bros. and New Super Mario Bros. 2. In some cases, Fat Guys push these objects onto thin stilts and create a platform over a dangerous pit. In Altitude Adjustment, pilot-themed, orange-robed Fat Guys make an appearance. Most drop down using parachutes to hinder Yoshi, but one pilots an airship at the end of the stage. Paper Mario[edit]
In Paper Mario, an individual Fat Guy named Gourmet Guy makes an appearance as a gatekeeping NPC during the events of the fourth chapter. Names in other languages[edit]
References[edit]
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