Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
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| Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island | |
|---|---|
 North American boxart |
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| Developer(s) | Nintendo EAD |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Designer(s) | Takashi Tezuka (director) |
| Series | Yoshi, Mario |
| Platform(s) | Super NES |
| Release date | JP August 5, 1995 NA October 4, 1995 EU October 6, 1995 |
| Genre(s) | Platform game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: K-A (Kids to Adults) |
| Media | 16-megabit cartridge |
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, released in Japan as Super Mario: Yosshī Island (スーパーマリオ ヨッシーアイランド Sūpā Mario Yosshī Airando?)[1] is a platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System console. It was released on August 5, 1995 in Japan, October 4, 1995 in North America and October 6, 1995 in Europe. While featuring Nintendo's trademark Mario character, the game's innovative graphics and gameplay differed from all previous Mario games in that players control various Yoshi dinosaurs rather than Mario himself, who appears as a helpless infant. As Yoshi's Island is the prequel to Super Mario Bros., it is chronologically the first game where Mario, Luigi, Bowser and Yoshi appear. It itself has a sequel on the Nintendo DS called Yoshi's Island DS.
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[edit] Gameplay
Yoshi's Island made Yoshi the main playable character for the first time in a Mario game. At the end of each level, Baby Mario is passed between different-colored Yoshies. All the Yoshies have the same range of moves, such as stomps and tongue-licks. If the player holds down the jump button the Yoshis pedal their feet furiously in the air to achieve a floating effect; this allows them to stay airborne for a couple of seconds and gain a little extra height. This floating maneuver may be performed multiple times if necessary.
Yoshi can collect eggs during their travels. These eggs follow Yoshi along until they are thrown. Many of the game's puzzles involve bouncing eggs around the levels or skimming them over water to hit distant enemies or objects. In addition to eggs, Yoshi may also collect keys to open locked doors. Finally, duck-like creatures (called Huffin' Puffins) exist in a few levels; these travel a short distance before returning to Yoshi. Up to six objects can follow Yoshi at a time, whether they are eggs, keys, or Puffins.
Unlike other platform games in the Mario series, the player's character can be attacked an unlimited number of times by most enemies without harm. Whenever Yoshi is hit by an enemy, Baby Mario flies off his back, floating around the level in a bubble and wailing loudly as a countdown timer begins. If the countdown reaches zero before Yoshi tags the bubble, Kamek's servants capture Mario and the player loses a life. At the beginning of each level, the countdown timer begins at ten; the player can add time to the countdown to a maximum of thirty by collecting stars in each stage. If Yoshi rescues Baby Mario by touching the bubble when the countdown is less than ten, the timer is slowly replenished back to ten as long as Mario remains on Yoshi's back. Some traps, however, can kill Yoshi instantly, such as pits, spikes, and lava.
Yoshi also has the ability, at various points in the game, to transform into different vehicles. At these points, a bubble containing a graphical representation of the vehicle floats and upon bursting it, Yoshi becomes that vehicle. Vehicles include a helicopter, which enables him to fly; a racing car which has stilts for suspension (allowing for avoidance of the enemies up ahead in those sections); a submarine, which can fire homing torpedoes at the aquatic enemies; a train, which has to be navigated along tracks on the wall whilst avoiding the enemies who can move while the train is active; and finally, a 'Mole-Tank', which allows the player to dig through dirt. Whilst in these forms Yoshi has limited time to reach a block at the end of the section, and leaves baby Mario behind. If he runs out of time before getting where he needs to, he will be transported back and the bubble with the vehicle reappears. If he reaches the block at the end of the section, baby Mario is the one transported, Yoshi transforms back and the game carries on.
Another form is extremely limited and only appears a few times in the game: that of Super Baby Mario. At certain points in the game, Yoshi grabs a "Super Star" and withdraws into a large egg while the player controls Baby Mario, who dons what appears to be the Cape/Feather item from Super Mario World. Super Baby Mario is gifted with abilities like fast running speed and flight, but the transformation only lasts for a short period before reverting to Baby Mario riding on Yoshi's back once more.
At the end of each level, the player jumps through a 'roulette' ring and the level is scored. The player earns points based on three criteria:
- Every star, remaining on the countdown timer is worth one point. Up to thirty stars can be collected.
- Scattered among the coins in each level are twenty special red coins; each one collected is worth one point.
- Hidden throughout each stage are five flowers; each one collected is worth ten points, and for every flower collected there is another flower displayed on the roulette ring.
100 points is a perfect score in each level.
There are 10 places on the roulette wheel. If the roulette stops on a flower, the player plays a "Bonus Challenge" game to earn lives or items. Six different games are available, ranging from a scratch-card-type game to a memory-matching-type game.
There are 6 worlds in Yoshi's Island. World 1 is a field theme, World 2 is a forest theme, World 3 has a jungle theme, World 4 has many mixed themes, World 5 has a snow/sky theme, and World 6 has a wasteland theme.
Unlike other games in the Super Mario Bros. series (that allows a player to "warp" ahead to higher levels), Yoshi's Island was the first game in the series that requires the player to play and complete all 48 regular stages in order to finish the game. While the six special stages are unlockable by getting a perfect score on all eight stages in a world, it is not required to complete the six secret stages to finish the game. The secret stages are more difficult than the normal ones, with many instant-death obstacles.
In the SNES version, there are nine stages in every world: eight regular stages and one unlockable extra stage, accessed by scoring a perfect 100 points in each of the world's regular stages. Also, upon getting a perfect score on each of the 8 levels, one of the "Bonus Challenge" games becomes available to play indefinitely. In the Game Boy Advance version, however, a new "secret" stage was added to each of the six worlds for a total of ten stages per world and 61 stages in the entire game.
This game marks the debut of Poochy, a happy dog-like character who will let Yoshi ride him. Poochy shows up in later games, such as this game's sequel Yoshi's Story, as well.
[edit] Plot
A stork carries two babies across the sea, but the evil Magikoopa Kamek emerges, and steals Baby Luigi, and baby Mario falls onto an island in the middle of the sea, called Yoshi's Island, home to all Yoshis. He lands on a green Yoshi, and Mario and the rest of the Yoshi gang successfully rescue Baby Luigi and the stork back from Baby Bowser and Kamek.
[edit] Presentation
The game uses the Super FX 2 microchip to create sprite scaling, polygon effects, and pre-32-bit computer effects called "Morphmation" (in American commercials) that are relatively advanced for a SNES game (a preliminary version of the boxart featured the Super FX 2 logo). The game also used the SNES' capability of parallax scrolling. The game's unique graphical style is said to have resulted from a conflict with Nintendo's internal evaluation committee; impressed by the recently released Donkey Kong Country, which sported pre-rendered graphics, they ordered the game's producer, Shigeru Miyamoto, to move the visuals in this direction.[2] Miyamoto, who did not particularly like Donkey Kong Country, instead altered the graphics to look as if they had been drawn with crayons and felt-pens and more cartoon like and resubmitted it to the evaluation committee, who passed the game.[3] Some of the cut scenes do, however, show pre-rendered graphics, done in a rather different form that looks more like the gameplay graphics.
The game's American commercial seemed to be a remade Monty Python gag; a rather rotund man in a restaurant eating voraciously and getting fatter by the second as the voice-over narrator explains all the details of the game, until he claims that he's "full", to which the narrator asks if he had "enough room for one more bonus level?" The man eats some frosting off his finger, to which a dripping sound is heard. He looks down, uttering "uh oh...", and promptly explodes all over the other patrons of the restaurant, with the SNES' then motto "PLAY IT LOUD" written in semi-digested food. A few months later, an edited version appeared, with the spontaneous explosion taken out (the sound effect is still heard, with the patrons looking off-camera in curiosity) and "PLAY IT LOUD" written in what looks like green slime.
[edit] Reception
Upon release, Electronic Gaming Monthly hailed the game to be one of the best games of that year and others considered the game to be an instant classic.[citation needed] GamePro gave the game a 4.5/5 rating.[citation needed] Yoshi's Island sold 4 million copies.[citation needed]
Yoshi's Island proved to be a critical and commercial hit in its Game Boy Advance version, Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3, which was released in 2002, at the peak of the handheld's success.[citation needed]
[edit] Spin-offs
Aside from the semi-sequel Yoshi's Story, the Yoshi's Island series did receive a proper sequel on the Nintendo DS entitled Yoshi's Island DS. The series has seen two other spin-offs: Yoshi Touch & Go for the Nintendo DS and Yoshi Topsy-Turvy for Game Boy Advance. While unrelated in basic gameplay, the characters and graphical style are heavily based on Yoshi's Island.
Yoshi's Island, the location of Super Mario World 2 's action, is also used as the backdrop for the popular Super NES and Game Boy puzzle game Tetris Attack.
Several of Yoshi's moves that debuted in Super Mario World 2, such as the Ground Pound and Egg Throw, have been used by him in the Super Smash Bros. series. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a stage heavily based on the version of Yoshi's Island portrayed in Super Mario World 2 was shown.
[edit] Game Boy Advance port
Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 was ported by Nintendo R&D2 to the Game Boy Advance with some added features.
The game featured no changes to its formula aside from voice samples from Yoshi's Story and the music was redone.[citation needed] and corresponding shoe colors from the Yoshies in the same game. There was one major addition, however: six new levels called "Secret levels" could be unlocked after beating the game.[4] If a player beats the game and gets 100 points on all 60 levels in the game, a secret ending will occur. [5]
The original version had 21 red coins in More Monkey Madness (Extra 3), but the remake only has 20. There was a red coin under a Tap-Tap - if the player performs a Butt stomp on the Tap-Tap's pillar once, the player collects it. This has been removed from the remake.
Like its two predecessors, Super Mario Advance 3 had generally positive reviews, with selling 1.6 million copies in the US, however most critics thought that Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 was a little better.[6]
[edit] Sequels
Yoshi's Island DS was released on November 13, 2006 for the Nintendo DS. Unlike Yoshi's Island, it now also features Princess Peach, Donkey Kong, Bowser, and Wario joining Mario as babies. Also, before Yoshi's Island DS, a sort of "pseudo-sequel" to Super Mario World 2 called Yoshi's Story was released on the Nintendo 64. Yoshi's Story featured similar gameplay, but 3D-rendered graphics. There's also an upcoming Wiigame based on Yoshi's Island called Yoshi's Island 2.
[edit] References
- ^ SNES Cover Art. MobyGames. Retrieved on 2008-05-18.
- ^ Kent, Steven. "The "Next" Generation (part 2)", The Ultimate History of Video Games: The Story Behind the Craze that Touched our Lives and Changed the World. Roseville, California: Prima Publishing, 518. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4. “When Shigeru Miyamoto first demonstrated the game to Nintendo's marketing department, it was rejected because it had Mario-related graphics rather than the waxy, pre-rendered graphics of Donkey Kong Country”
- ^ Kent, Steven. "The "Next" Generation (part 2)", The Ultimate History of Video Games: The Story Behind the Craze that Touched our Lives and Changed the World. Roseville, California: Prima Publishing, 518. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4. “Rather than change to an artistic style he did not like, Miyamoto made the game even more cartoon like, giving it a hand-drawn look. This second version was accepted.”
- ^ [1] Official Website - information is in the fifth paragraph
- ^ [2] Information in 16th (or second to last) paragraph.
- ^ [3]Same as above, but for Super Mario Advance 2
[edit] External links
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