Retro Review – Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island(SNES)
To kick off the retro reviews for this site, I believe I have picked a not-only amazing game, but one that can truly appeal to most gamers out there. In my opinion, Nintendo blew us all away with the release of Super Mario World for Super Nintendo, but when SMW2: Yoshi’s Island was released, they took the amazing side-scrolling game-play to the next level. The game was taken to a far more superior one, if you ask me.
Yoshi’s Island throws you into an entirely different type of game than the previous Mario titles had to offer. In this game, you are in control of Yoshi (or rather a family of multi-colored Yoshi’s), who have stumbled across the never before introduced, baby Mario. The wicked little wizard Kamek (who is getting his first big enemy role in this game.) is looking for a play buddy for baby Bowser, and sets off on his quest to capture Mario from the Yoshi family, and carry him off to baby Bowser’s keep. This side scrolling game allows you to use Yoshi’s abilities to protect baby Mario, and keep Kamek at bay. These abilities include swallowing enemies and turning them into eggs, throwing eggs, stomping, flying, and several others. 
The game takes place in six separate worlds ranging from fighting watermelon seed-spitting monkeys in the jungle, to evil skiing snowmen in the snowy mountains. There are two castles to each world, and each castle contains an interesting and entertaining boss fight (usually a normal baddie that has been magically mutated by Kamek’s powder). The new (for the time) aiming system for firing the eggs at enemies is smooth and very easy to control. Most of the bosses have weaknesses that are pretty obvious to see, even for the non-gamer. Some of the bosses are more difficult as the game goes on, but there is good balance of both.
After each level you get the chance to get a bonus challenge, allowing possible extra lives and power-ups to use during in-game play. These bonus challenges are based on the number of flowers you collect over the course of a level. There are 100 possible points in each stage. These points are derived from obtaining flowers (50 points), red coins (20 points), and stars (30 points) that basically stand for the amount of time baby Mario can be detached from Yoshi’s back without being hauled off by Kamek’s goonies. A collection of all the flowers gives you a higher chance of getting a bonus challenge after every level.
What We Loved
- Amazingly smooth and fun, just like any other Mario side scrolling game.
- Original story, original enemies, easy control schemes, and well balanced difficulty.
- Great opportunities to obtain extra lives and other power-ups to help you through the game.
- The introduction of the baby versions of some of our favorite Nintendo characters.
What We Didn’t Love
- When Yoshi is hit, Mario lets out an loud, ear-splitting cry for up to 30 seconds as he is floating away from Yoshi in a bubble. This can get quite annoying.
- The game limits you to seven eggs, and sometimes that isn’t enough to throw at enemies and unlock all the secrets in the stage, this can be frustrating if there are no enemies around to swallow.
- There is no multi-player!
- Everything is just too damn cute in this game! Everything is smiling! It becomes too hard to stomp the hell out of a little fluffy penguin, or swallow a big ball of fuzz that happens to be smiling at you with rosie cheeks. Even the backgrounds are smiling at you!
Over-all this is truly an amazing game. It is a must-have for any Super Nintendo collection and remains on of my favorites of all time. It is perfect for anyone, gamer or non-gamer. It is easy to learn, and satisfying to play. I recommend this to everyone and anyone that doesn’t already have it, and I’ve seen it sold at retail stores for as cheap as eight dollars. The game is totally worth that, so pick it up to add one of the best SNES games to your collection.
Over-all Score – 5/5
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