Yoshi's New Island: Nintendo 3DS Review

Today's review is for a classic Nintendo title made new! Yoshi's Island has been around for a long time, but it lives again on the Nintendo 3DS! It's got all the things that made the original game great plus a few more fun surprises to keep you guessing.

If you're not familiar with the Yoshi's Island series it's a spin off of the original Mario games starring Mario's helpful side kick Yoshi! Baby Mario and Baby Luigi are lost on Egg Island, and it's up to the Yoshi to help them get home. It's your job to guide Yoshi through the island's obstacles with Baby Mario riding on his back. When you get to the end of the level you'll switch off with another color Yoshi who will continue into the next area.

Yoshi's main weapon throughout the game comes in the form of throwing eggs. When you happen upon an enemy in the game you can eat them, and then turn them into an egg which will follow you around in a small trail. You can then use these as a projectile to shoot hard to reach enemies or even use them to collect items that would otherwise be out of your reach! In fact, to get some of the collectible items in the level you will have no choice, but to collect them by bouncing eggs off of the walls.

That's not the only weapon at your disposal though! New Yoshi's Island has a bunch of other cool stuff you can utilize to help you through the levels. These include things like pushing boulders down on enemies, giant eggs, metal eggs, and more cool stuff!

Throwing a giant egg like this one will allow you to access areas you would normally not be able to. These weapons are used to break through pipes or walls that would otherwise block your path.

You'll also be able to access limited use weapons like breathing fire! For weapons like these you'll be limited to five uses before you have to find another one to re-up your supply. If an enemy seems otherwise invulnerable the fire will most likely dispose of them for you.

The map for the game uses the "world" set up just like Mario games do. You'll have to progress through each area in the world before you're admitted to the next one. These always include a series of levels ending in a fight with some type of boss that you'll need to learn how to defeat. Often times this comes from manipulating the environment and using it to your advantage.

(Beanie Meanie is not pleased with your intrusion.)

As you progress through the levels your objective is to do so without being hit by enemies. If you're hit by an enemy Baby Mario will start floating away in a bubble, and a timer will appear on the screen. If you don't retrieve him within that time frame you'll lose a life and go back to the check point. However, reaching a check point will increase your timer so if you lose Baby Mario, you'll have more time to get him back. Utilizing check points also keeps you from having to go all the way back to the start of the level if you die.

Some of the levels involve puzzles where you'll have to hunt around for how to get to the next area. These could involve secret passages that are not readily visible or using items like the bounce ball to get to a higher area. You may even have to knock these items down from up above or uncover them in other ways. The game typically has some signs or information blocks to help you figure it out if you're stuck.

The game utilizes doors to take you to new areas of the level. While most of these doors will be open, occasionally you'll happen upon a door with a lock on it. To get through this door you'll need a key. You get keys by doing something else in the level to be rewarded with it, so if you don't have it you'll have to return to the door once you've found it. There are also boarded up doors, and you can't get through these at all. Typically this is a no way back door you've already been through.

In addition to the locked doors you may also come across the whirly gate. This door leads to an area of the level where Yoshi will be transformed into some type of machine to make it through to the next area. You can take the form of a helicopter, submarine, mine cart, and several other things to progress through the area. All of these are timed, and you'll have to retrieve clocks to up your time limit to get through. This is honestly my least favorite part of the game as it uses the gyro for movement, and sometimes the controls for this portion of the level are downright painful. Fortunately, these areas don't typically last very long, and you don't need to spend a ton of time in them.

There's also a 2 Player mini-game function. Unfortunately, I can't play it since we only have one copy of the game in our house. You need two copies of the game, and two local 3ds to play the mini games at all which is kind of a bummer. I love mini games, and I'd have been happy to even play against the computer! That gives this game major points off from me.

Despite the sort of annoying gyro functionality, and the disappointing lack of mini games for single players it's still a pretty fun game. It's easy enough that younger kids can still play it, but if you're a completion-ist it can be a challenge to get all of the collectibles in the level. Many of these items will be "secret" meaning you'll have to hunt around for them in secret passage ways or bubbles that are invisible until you touch them. Sometimes the levels will be so easy you breeze through them, and other times you'll get stuck on a particular part of a level for some time wondering why you can't get it right. If you've enjoyed other titles in the series or you like platformers it's worth trying out though.

Most annoying enemy award goes to: Grim Leecher

This thing will latch on to you, and reverse your controls. Panic then ensues as Baby Mario floats away, and you can't figure out why your buttons aren't working properly! Urgh.