Yoshi's Island has a simple enough story. It takes place soon after Mario & Luigi were just born, with the latter having been kidnapped by a young Bowser and his carekeeper Kamek. You play as a clan of Yoshis (the iconic green dinosaur) swapping out between levels as they try to return Baby Mario to his parents along with saving his brother. Yoshi's Island is built around a fun core gameplay loop: Yoshi can swallow up enemies with his tongue, turn them into eggs, and spit them out. You can use these eggs to pretty much interact with everything in the game, from defeating certain enemies, to collecting coins and flowers, to ricocheting them off walls to reach hidden areas. You can also jump, ground pound, and flutter above gaps. Yoshi is a joy to play as, with his movement being incredibly fluid. It's fun to run through levels, juggling eggs and enemies as you make your way to the end. There are even alternate items such as transformations that can turn Yoshi into vehicles, watermelons that let Yoshi spit out seeds and breath fire or ice, and a star that lets you take control of an invincible Baby Mario as he rushes through enemies.
Speaking of which, Baby Mario rides on Yoshi's back throughout the game, and if you run into an enemy, Baby Mario starts to float away in a bubble, forcing you to try and retrieve him. You have a countdown timer that decreases the longer you're without Baby Mario. This is the one part of the game I am not very fond off, as Baby Mario's screaming can be annoying and getting hit can halt the pacing of a level. Even worse, each level demands your countdown timer be at its maximum of 30 seconds to get a perfect rating, pretty much requiring you to beat every level without taking damage. There are also 5 flowers and 20 red coins in every level, that you have to collect all in one go to get a perfect score. Searching for these many collectibles is actually a lot of fun, and each level is stuffed to the brim with hidden areas and secrets that demand replaying. Beating every level in a world with a perfect score gets you a bonus level in said world, along with a minigame to get items and lives. These bonus levels are short but difficult, and are actually a very fun challenge.
Yoshi's Island's level design and enemy variety is also pretty excellent. Each level introduces at least one new gimmick, whether it's skipping eggs across water, platforms that disappear after a certain amount of steps, or 2.5D segments that are especially impressive for an SNES game. There are also a ton of enemies in the game, with many levels introducing at least one or two new creatures. Each enemy has a unique attack pattern and a different way to defeat them, and it's always a joy to try and figure out how to attack each bad guy I come across. The high point of Yoshi's Island, however, is definitely the boss fights. Each boss not only utilizes the SNES hardware to its absolute fullest, but they are all imposing threats with unique ways of defeating them. To this day, Yoshi's Island's boss fights are some of the most inventive in video game history, from a potted ghost that you have to push into a pit, to a frog that you have to fight from the inside, to a raven that you fight on the moon using anti-gravity mechanics.
And of course, I'd be remiss not to mention the artstyle, which aged pretty much timelessly. The whole game is sprited to look like a hand-drawn sketch, with tons of pastel colors and bold outlines. Despite its distinctive look, there's far more than the surface level appeal. The characters are insanely expressive, especially Yoshi himself. The levels implement three-dimensional objects and obstacles that utilize the level's background, something that seems nearly impossible for an SNES. The bosses are large and use sprite-warping while still look great today. Even more, the soundtrack by Koji Kondo is one of his absolute best. There aren't too many songs in Yoshi's Island, but all of them are catchy and memorable, and the boss themes are surprisingly dark and intense compared to the rest of the game.
Overall, I adore Yoshi's Island. Its gameplay loop is fun, its levels are inventive, and its presentation is immaculate. It's one of my favorite platformers of all time, and I highly recommend playing it if you haven't already.
5/5 Stars
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