Collection essentials #268: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (SNES)

As previously mentioned, Super Mario World at the launch of the SNES introduced Mario’s dinosaur-like friend Yoshi and his species of the same name. Yoshi instantly proved to be a popular character, spawning spinoff games right away such as the puzzle games “Yoshi” and “Yoshi’s Cookie”. Eventually Nintendo decided it was time for a full-fledged Yoshi adventure. Thus, Yoshi’s Island was born.

Yoshi’s Island is caught in kind of an awkward ambiguous space. The title starts with “Super Mario World 2”, but the game plays very differently from the Mario games despite also being a platformer. And after this game, Yoshi would go on to star in games that Mario didn’t even appear in, and this game is seen as sort of the first “true” Yoshi game. So which series does it belong to? Super Mario? Yoshi? Both? There’s no definitive answer. 

Anyways, Yoshi’s Island is a prequel to the Mario series. The story starts out with a stork carrying baby Mario and baby Luigi en route to their parents. But the evil Magikoopa wizard Kamek intercepts the stork and steals baby Luigi! What he doesn’t realize right away is that the other baby plummeted to the earth below. The baby lands on Yoshi’s head, and instead of killing them both, instead the two of them are just fine, and the rest of the Yoshies decide to help return little Mario to where he belongs, while an angry Kamek sends his cronies out to try and capture it.

In Super Mario World, when Mario rode Yoshi, it seemed apparent that he was the one in control. But in this game, Yoshi is clearly framed as the main character acting on his own will, with baby Mario along for the ride. Yoshi actually can’t die from regular enemy attacks in this game; instead, when Yoshi is hit, baby Mario floats away in a bubble yelling out “HEY! HEY!” and a countdown timer ticks down, with Yoshi needing to pop the bubble before time runs out, or else Kamek’s goonies will take Mario away. When Mario is recovered, the timer will increase back up to 10. Yoshi can also collect starts to increase the count up to 30 for a given level (though it will not automatically go back up unless it is below 10). 

There are other gameplay features that very much set this apart from a Mario game. The physics feel completely different, for starters. Yoshi also has the ability to hover in mid-air, which at first gets him up a little higher mid-jump, and then after that he can use it to greatly slow his descent. This greatly affects the game’s platforming, of course. Yoshi has a "ground pound" move which lets him stop wherever he is in midair and dive straight down with great force, and this move became a staple in both Yoshi and Mario games after its debut here. Another defining feature of Yoshi’s Island is egg throwing. Yoshi can stock up to six eggs at a given time, by eating small enemies or just by finding them. With the press of a button, a crosshair appears as Yoshi prepares to throw an egg. Much of the game is designed around this, and you can sometimes jump on enemies Super Mario style, but often eggs are the only way to go. Eggs will also ricochet when they bounce off of most surfaces, so you can do some pretty crazy stuff with them!

This is one of those games that encourages the player to go for “100% completion”. Scattered across every level are five flowers (which float in midair and have a smiley face) and 20 red coins disguised as regular coins. If you finish a level with all of these found plus the max of 30 stars, then you score 100 points for a level. There’s no time limit like there is in Mario games, so that helps players explore at a comfortable pace. With the flowers collected, you have a better chance of competing in a mini game after a level to earn extra lives. If you score 100 points in every level of a given world, you unlock a challenging secret bonus level as well as the privilege of playing one of the games as often as you like! It is plenty of fun to simply go through the game without worrying about collecting everything, and I would suggest that for someone’s first playthrough. But finding everything there is adds a whole lot more to do in this game for those who enjoy the hunt.

Yoshi’s Island was a late SNES game, and back then developers tended to grow more skilled at programming games for old hardware, as is the case here. There even was a new chip designed for this game to add more graphical effects. The result is a colorful, beautiful, very stylish-looking game with a distinct look. And catchy music from Koji Kondo, as usual, puts the finishing touch on making this game very pleasing to the senses.

Yoshi’s Island easily comes off as a very well-made game, and especially so when compared to most of its contemporaries in the 16-bit era. Not only was it given much more polish than most games, but the sheer amount of content in this game is extremely impressive. The main game, not counting secrets, has 64 unique levels, which is way more content than you’d get in the average SNES platformer. And none of those levels feel lazy or recycled. The level design boasts an absolute ton of creativity, with many gameplay elements utilized to provide a unique and varied experience. 

To this day, Yoshi’s Island is considered by many to be the best Yoshi game despite a good number of sequels. And that is absolutely not nostalgia talking, as the quality of this game and the amount of content it offers makes it practically timeless. In fact, I don’t think any other Yoshi game even comes particularly close to this one. It’s one of the best platformers ever made.

Now, as for my personal history, Yoshi’s Island was one of my biggest childhood games. It came out at the perfect time, when I was 5 ½ years old and already into video games. I remember being in the store with my dad when we bought it. I think it was some kind of department store like a Target or Best Buy (not sure), and we were looking to pick out a SNES game to buy. I pointed to Yoshi’s Island, and my dad informed me, “You don’t play Mario, you know, you play Yoshi”, but I was okay with that. And it soon turned into a favorite of ours. We loved the game’s music, and my dad even invented lyrics to one of the songs which he often sang during our Sunday morning routine. And there’s a home video of me playing around with one of my younger sisters where I “sing” the game’s victory theme. The cartridge and manual shown in the photo are my original childhood copies, though the box shown was acquired later in adulthood. So obviously this game has a lot of nostalgia for me, but looking back with much more perspective, I realize even more just how good this game really was. I’ve actually never completed it 100% or came very close, and that’s something that I definitely plan on doing sometime in the future. With lots of nostalgia and quality alike, this is obviously a true quintessential essential.