Victim of Culture

The Great Games: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

In The Great Games column we look back at titles that have defined video games over the years and earned a special place in the history of the medium.

Yoshi’s Island sadly often gets labeled as one of the ugly step-children of the Mario series along with Super Mario Bros. 2 (also known as Super Mario Bros. USA in Japan). The truth is that neither game deserves such mistreatment, but then again neither game is exactly a traditional Mario plaformer. That’s the genius of them.

Yoshi’s Island was the follow-up to Super Mario World, the game originally packed in with every Super Nintendo sold. While Super Mario World was an evolution of the Mario 1 and 3 with better graphics and sound, Yoshi’s Island was complete turning on its head of the series’ formula. It took chances where Mario World did not. It dared to be different, and it did so in spades.

The first major shift was not making Mario the controller character. Instead, you controlled a variety of Yoshis as they handed Mario off as they tried to reunite him with his brother Luigi. The second major change was in the gameplay. You could still bomb enemies on the head, but you could also launch eggs at angles to knock out enemies. It wasn’t revolutionary for most games, but it was for Mario. Along with not controlling Mario came the shift to an invulnerable main character. Essentially, Yoshi could not die, short of falling into spikes or off a cliff. Instead, getting hit sent the baby Mario floating around the stage. If you touched him in time he landed safely on your back. If not, you didn’t die, but you did fail.

While all of this was welcomed by gamers, it was the graphics that truly turned heads. Many were annoyed that the game had such a kid-like pastel look to it and not the more next-generation look of titles such as Donkey Kong Country. There was some irony in such thoughts since, according to legend; the graphical design was changed in response to Donkey Kong Country. Upon seeing it, the designers knew they had to up the ante to make their game standout. While some were turned off, most remember its graphics as a large part of its winning charm. It also marked the beginning of Nintendo’s shift in graphics philosophy to style over technology.

While few would argue with the greatness of the original Mario platforming trilogy (1, 3 and World), it was in the slight detours that Mario established himself as a renaissance man. Yoshi’s Island may not get the fanfare of some of his other adventures, but it certainly contributed in many gamers’ minds to making him the icon he is today.

Critical Reception

GameSpot
Its beautiful, inspired visuals and consistently fun and inventive gameplay make a landmark achievement in one of gaming’s most beloved genres, and even though its star isn’t Nintendo’s famous plumber, the game itself is every bit as good if not better than any other Mario title to date.

IGN
The variety in what Yoshi can do and the diversity in level designs, not to mention the wonderful use of scaling and rotation for the level structures and the incorporation of a half-dozen clever mini-games makes Yoshi’s Island the best damn platformer ever.

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