Let's talk about Yoshi's New Island

I finished this game yesterday and I have a lot of feelings about it, I actually wanted to write this last night, but I figured it would be best for me to step away for a bit and let my thoughts simmer, so here we go, spoilers ahoy! This is your chance to jump ship if you don't want to hear about it. Yoshi's Island was one of my favorite games growing up, I have such fond memories of it and it's still probably in my top 10 favorite games of all time today. I didn't get the opportunity to play Yoshi's Story for the N64, or the one that came out on the DS in 2006 so I was really excited when they announced this one for the 3DS. Sadly it turns out that Yoshi's New Island is exactly the same as the original and worse at the same time. Allow me to elaborate.

There is nothing new about Yoshi's "New" Island

Only actually playing the game will allow you to understand how that statement makes any sense, but I will do my best to explain it with words. Now there is nothing wrong with sequels that stay true to previous works, you know the old saying, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. However, there is staying true, and then there is copy pasting an entire game, slapping a big egg on the cover and calling it a day. That is essentially what this game is. Down to the exact level that enemies and mechanics are introduced, don't believe me? Go look up random levels side by side on Youtube and see for your self. I say this without exaggeration, it feels like the game designers imported a copy of the game onto 3DS compatible software, changed the art style slightly, added the mega egg-dozers, and the metal egg-dozers and then messed around in a level editor for about two weeks. Speaking of which, for how heavily they were advertised they weren't used hardly at all in the game. And even in the moments that they did appear in the game, their required use to progress through level was 50/50 at best. I don't really know how else to say it, this game is verbatim the same as the original.

Playing the game is optional

In addition to a copy/ paste job that makes you go "who green-lit this" this game is actually substantially watered down from the original. The goal of most any platformer is to simply get to the end of the level and move on to the next, fair enough. What makes a game fun are challenging obstacles to overcome and interestingly designed levels. What made the original so charming was it's ability to constantly introduce new elements around every turn. If you have played the original, then that magic is completely gone and all you are left with is the challenge of the game itself. Even at this point the game could have been salvageable but sadly we run into yet another problem. The game is built in a manner that makes all of the challenge optional. By simply running right and performing a few jumps here and there, you can pretty much get to the end of each level in 1-2 minutes in most cases. The challenge comes from looking for all of the flower tokens, red coins and stars, around the beginning of the second world I couldn't really be bothered to care about these things as a) I had already experienced everything this level had to offer in the original, and b) they are not required in any way to advance in the game. Mario tends to find a good balance with this by locking off certain points in the game if you don't have enough of collectible "X". They never make you get all of them to progress, but enough to allow you to experience a good portion of what the designers feel you should experience. By making them completely optional, the player has no external motivation to play the game as it was intended to be experienced. Sure they offer you one extra level per world for finding everything there in, but then again with all of the levels being so copy/ paste, why should you care about those?

Fucking Gyroscope

A really neat aspect of previous titles was the different transformations Yoshi could undertake. It changed up the rhythm of the game while still offering a nice challenge and most importantly felt connected to progressing through the level. This section is underwater? Turn into a submarine! This section has no where to walk? Turn into a helicopter, you get the idea. In Yoshi's New Island all of the instances of transformations are, again, optional doors you can enter in the middle of a level that play more like a mini game. The only prize being red coins or flower tokens. This is bad enough, but what really sent me over the edge was the fact that they are all controlled by the gyroscope which functions terribly. My problem with gyroscope and to a lesser extent, motion controls in general are that they take you out of the flow of the experience you are having. There is something so jarring about physically moving your controller in a pronounced way that just really takes you out of the experience at hand regardless of how well it controls. When I play a game, I want to be sucked into that universe, I want to forget that I am actually playing a game, something this obtrusive counters this in every way possible.

Lame Bosses

In the original Yoshi's Island, most if not all of the bosses were really interesting and dynamic changes of pace. While they were based off of smaller enemies you found in the forts and castles in each world, the way they played in the actual fight was really creative and different from their smaller counter parts leading to, at least for me personally, some of the most memorable boss fights I've ever encountered. Here...not so much. For the most part, bosses are literally just bigger versions of smaller enemies with very little differences between them. Add to that the fact that Kamek is the boss of all 6 forts using the main mechanic of the fort as both a weapon against you and a way to defeat Kamek. While this was kind of interesting at first, it became stale quickly. The final boss fight's first stage is again, verbatim, the final boss fight of the original made easier. The second phases introduction was probably the most joy I received from this game as it's introduction was stupendously silly EVEN FOR NINTENDO'S STANDARDS. Allow that to sink in for a moment. I implore you to go look up a video of it. The actual final phase was alright, but nothing even remotely salvaging the remaining failings.

Aesthetics and Soundtrack 

A lot of people poo pooed the art direction of this game, but I honestly liked it, it captured that coloring book/ water painting feel of the original while offering a slightly new take on it. Nothing earth shattering, but it's still not a bad game to look at, especially if you take the time to gaze at the backgrounds every now and again. As for the sound track...I hope you like the hearing the same 3 songs remixed once or twice over and over and over and over and over and over again, that's all it is. Most of which use the kazoo...yeah. Not so good. I did actually find a track I genuinely liked in world 6, but it only played in one level, why? They used all of the others so many times, I'm surprised they didn't remix that one into oblivion as well.

Closing Thoughts

Again, just like its predecessor, the controls are great. Had it not been for all of the problems listed above, and probably some others that I missed, this game could have been a really solid new platformer. But all of the elements have to come together and it just didn't happen here. I love Nintendo, but I'm not an apologist because I will call them out when they pull stuff like this. Nintendo still makes great games, but I and many others have noticed a trend of releasing uninteresting bland titles with no innovation what so ever banking on nostalgia alone. As TSG forum member NicoCW pointed out "Gotta love how every Nintendo game with the word 'New' in it isn't actually new". You see it in the New Super Mario Bros. series, and regrettably we are starting to see it spill over into other major franchises. I really hope this "New" trend doesn't go any further, but at this point that seems like a rather bleak prospect. *Sighs* I'm just salty because I wanted this game to be good. Fingers crossed for Kirby Triple Deluxe in May.