Yoshi’s Island on the Super Nintendo isn’t just one of my favorite games of all time, it IS my favourite game of all time. So when a sequel was announced for DS, I was very excited, but cautiously optimistic. The original game balanced art, level design, music, and brilliant gameplay mechanics to create the greatest 2D platformer of all time. How could a game possibly be made to even match it, let alone better it? Especially from such an inexperienced developer as Artoon?

The story is typical Mario fare. A giant floating island appears over Yoshi’s Island and kidnaps all the children from the school. Save, of course, for Baby Mario. Baby Mario then hops onto Yoshi’s back to venture across the land and save the kidnapped kiddies. Along the way they’ll rescue Mario’s friends: Baby Peach, Baby DK, and Baby Wario. This introduces the game’s main new gameplay element; each character can ride on Yoshi, and each gives him a different ability. Peach can help Yoshi to ride on air currents, while DK will allow him to climb on vines. While it sounds like a great element to add to the basic “make eggs, throw eggs design”, the character’s abilities are severely underused. It’s also far too obvious when each character will need to be used, due to the obvious ‘Change Character’ signs, which when stood in front of allow you to swap between characters. I don’t know why Artoon didn’t just add the ability to switch characters on the fly. It would’ve created some wonderfully challenging puzzle designs. Instead we’re left with very generic and easy brain ticklers that will leave you wanting for more. Of course, the game retains what made the original so unique, Yoshi’s egg throwing abilities. When Yoshi eats an enemy, you can press down on the D-Pad to turn it into an egg. Upon pressing the R-button, a scrolling bullseye cursor will beging arcing up and down in whatever direction Yoshi is facing. Hitting R again will launch an egg at whatever the cursor is pointed at. It’s a very clever design that lends itself to some very interesting gameplay choices. Control and gameplay wise, Yoshi’s Island DS retains a lot of what made the original such a great game. Unfortunately, it forgets the rest of what made that game a classic.

Let’s not sugar coat this: the graphics are completely uninspired. Something is off about the animation – it just doesn’t have that magic, cartoony feel of the first title. Instead it looks like… just another game. The artwork is definitely nothing to write home about either. There are a lot of very generic pieces that are used over and over again, making it boring and repetitive. A lot of the levels are designed poorly as well, requiring you to traverse back and forth through several similar looking areas without knowing exactly where you are. Some of the levels, especially the early ones, feel great. However, as the developers introduced more baby abilities it becomes more and more needlessly complex. Music wise it’s forgettable as well. One of the great achievements of Yoshi’s Island music tracks was that there were very few of them, but they never managed to become annoying or repetitive. Yoshi’s Island DS is quite the opposite, with the tracks beginning to grate on your nerves after the first few worlds. Oh, and the new boss music sucks. It just sucks.

It’s not to say that this game has zero redeeming value. Many people will enjoy it quite a bit, and if you do get into it, there is a ton of content. You get a score at the end of each level based on how many stars, flowers, and hidden red coins you collected. Only perfect scores of 100 on every level will unlock everything there is to see, a feat which is very challenging. The game also opens up it’s mini-games for a multiplayer mode. There is a lot of content here.

Yoshi’s Island DS is by no means a bad game. It’s just unfortunate that it has to be a follow-up to a game that I (and many others) hold in such a high regard. It does a lot of things okay, but nothing great. My best reccommendation is to go and pick up Yoshi’s Island on the Game Boy Advance. It’s a far superior title that does a lot of the same things. If you’re still going to pick this up, just be aware that it isn’t the same awesome experience as the original game… it’s merely a decent one.

SCORE: 7.8/10