Athough most reviews have been positive, Yoshi Island DS has also caught an unfair amount of flack from a few unexpected places (Kohler I'm looking in your general direction).
The fact is the first few worlds are a little slow, but literally about halfway in (world 3, out of 5), the game rapidly escalates and becomes varied and more importantly CHALLENGING, and level design becomes much more complex, with some genuinely brain busting puzzles thrown in here and there, among the oldschool platforming skill sections.
Those comparing this game to Super Princess Peach are doing it a MAJOR disservice, and it's insulting to the package Artoon has put together, to be frank. Sure, the puzzles BEGIN with "see a vine? switch to DK. See a gust of wind? Switch to Peach." But later on, they get trickier. Obviously they never hit Mario Vs. DK levels of complexity, but they rise well above simple "puzzle by numbers."
The boss fights are another thing that stand out in my mind. Some of them literally stumped me, and some of them I died on a good 4-5 times before I figured it out. Not a huge number... but more than most Nintendo titles of late. Many of the later bosses take a good amount of expirimentation to sort out.
The final world is HARD. I mean like... hard hard. You'll die dozens of times getting through the last eight levels, I promise you. It won't matter because you'll have literally over 100 lives by that point (I have 141 at the moment), but still...
The bottem line is that I'm borderline tempted to call Yoshi Island DS the game New Super Mario Bros. SHOULD have been. Mario includes that pure EAD imagination, but Yoshi Island's levels are often LONG, with sometimes three or four unique paths to explore for flowers, red coins, etc. The game also packs many more secrets, and obviously replay value, as you attempt 100/100 on each level.
A fantastic package for anyone yearning for a genuine, SNES-style platformer. DO NOT write it off or pass it up because of the holidays. Especially if you want a DS release with some meat on it's bones.
The fact is the first few worlds are a little slow, but literally about halfway in (world 3, out of 5), the game rapidly escalates and becomes varied and more importantly CHALLENGING, and level design becomes much more complex, with some genuinely brain busting puzzles thrown in here and there, among the oldschool platforming skill sections.
Those comparing this game to Super Princess Peach are doing it a MAJOR disservice, and it's insulting to the package Artoon has put together, to be frank. Sure, the puzzles BEGIN with "see a vine? switch to DK. See a gust of wind? Switch to Peach." But later on, they get trickier. Obviously they never hit Mario Vs. DK levels of complexity, but they rise well above simple "puzzle by numbers."
The boss fights are another thing that stand out in my mind. Some of them literally stumped me, and some of them I died on a good 4-5 times before I figured it out. Not a huge number... but more than most Nintendo titles of late. Many of the later bosses take a good amount of expirimentation to sort out.
The final world is HARD. I mean like... hard hard. You'll die dozens of times getting through the last eight levels, I promise you. It won't matter because you'll have literally over 100 lives by that point (I have 141 at the moment), but still...
The bottem line is that I'm borderline tempted to call Yoshi Island DS the game New Super Mario Bros. SHOULD have been. Mario includes that pure EAD imagination, but Yoshi Island's levels are often LONG, with sometimes three or four unique paths to explore for flowers, red coins, etc. The game also packs many more secrets, and obviously replay value, as you attempt 100/100 on each level.
A fantastic package for anyone yearning for a genuine, SNES-style platformer. DO NOT write it off or pass it up because of the holidays. Especially if you want a DS release with some meat on it's bones.
