Conquering Yoshi’s Island
Mario’s second adventure on the Super Nintendo, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, has busted its way into the market. It’s by far the strangest and most incredible game in the series of Mario adventures. Instead of being a sequel to the many other Mario games, Yoshi’s Island has been deemed a “prequel.”
The cheesy story begins with Mario and Luigi being taken to their parents by the stork. On the way, they are attacked by Kamek, the Magikoopa from the other Mario World game. Magikoopa manages to grab Luigi and the stork. In his desperate kidnapping, though, Kamek misses Mario, who is plummeting toward the earth.
When he lands, Mario falls onto the back of Yoshi, who feels he has to help. Yoshi takes Mario to the other yoshis, who in turn feel the need to help. They plan to get Luigi back and, with Mario’s sixth sense, they think they can find him.
Off they go. The yoshis set up a relay team, where eight different-colored yoshis take turns with Mario on their backs.
They encounter six worlds with eight levels along the way, fewer than other games. But almost every level is larger than all the other levels in previous Mario games.
In each world, there are castles at levels four and eight, with a boss at the end of each castle. The objective of every level, other than to actually get past it, is to get all 100 points available.
To get all the points, Yoshi and Mario have to collect 20 red coins and 30 stars, both one point each, and five flowers, worth 10 points each.
Once all the points are collected in all the levels of a world, Yoshi and Mario get to play a bonus level, all of which are difficult, but possible, to beat.
The difficult part of getting all of the points is that stars are also energy. When Yoshi gets touched by an enemy, Mario flies off in a bubble and Yoshi has to catch him before the stars run out.
This is an extremely difficult game to master - though it may not take long because it’s easy to get hooked on this game until it is beaten and perfected. Even if you have turned away from Mario games up to this point, you can get all of the best enemies and ideas from previous Mario games in this winner.
This game deserves the hype.
Grade: A+
xxxx Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island Super Nintendo $59.99