Yoshi's Island DS

warelander

warelander

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Surprised that we seemingly haven't had a thread for it yet, but yeah, Yoshi's Island DS, Wario's in it, let's talk about it.

I'm sort of in a weird position when it comes to YIDS, I enjoy it, but as a fan of the original I feel like I should be much harsher on it, because let's be real: the soundtrack is pants, switching between the babys is clumsy, not being able to use Baby Wario/Bowser outside of select levels is lame, the whole ''star children'' thing and how many important Marioverse characters fit in there reeks of fanfiction and the level design is extremely sloppy when it comes to playing for 100%, among other things.

At the same time I guess I just have a certain appreciation for the fact that, unlike New Island, which feels like a souless wannabe copy of the original, DS at least tries to be a sequel, with it's own mechanics and trying to give more to the baby mechanic, so it actually has an identity.

There is also a certain novelty to having Mario, Yoshi, Wario and DK all in a plattformer for once and as I mentioned before, even with it's problems I do enjoy playing it. It's leagues below the original, but as far as I'm concerned it's easily the best Artoon/Arzest made Yoshi offering by a looooongshot.
 
I'm in exactly the same boat with Yoshi's Island DS. I enjoy the game and think it's fun to play, but at the same time consider it perhaps one of the 'objectively' worst made Nintendo games in the company's history. Everything about it feels like a poorly done fan game. The level design is atrocious, the graphics are lazy palette swaps of graphics from past games or originals that don't fit the style at all, the music is bad... if this was on SMW Central or Mario Fan Games Galaxy it'd probably be torn to shreds. And well, someone like Mark Brown or Snoman Gaming would crucify it if they were asked to make a game design video about the title.

Yet I still enjoy it, and I think it comes down to one thing really:

At its core, Yoshi's Island DS is trying to be as close to the original as it can get. It nails the basic physics of said game, it tries to mirror the level design of said game and some of the things it does here are interesting.

As a result, I suspect the reason it's fun is because the original was fun and the sequel is literally a carbon copy of its gameplay minus the professional aspects. Kind of like how even the worst designed SMW ROM hack is fun because the core engine is enjoyable to play with. It'd certainly explain why Artoon's other Yoshi's Island esque games (like Topsy Turvy/Universal Gravitation and New Island) are less enjoyable. They lose the core of what made Yoshi's Island so fun to play.

But that's just my take on it.
 
It's not a bad game (Definitely superior to New Island) it definitely had some interesting ideas, and it does exactly what a sequel should do.

Though the ideas it did have were pretty clumsily executed and it did suffer from some very questionable choices regarding the soundtrack and level design.

But overall it's still a solid game overall and I would consider it a worthy sequel to the original despite it's flawed nature. (Unlike New Island.)
 
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How negative.

It makes me wonder, if this game was reviewed again today would it be as negatively received as you guys say? Has time just made it look worse? Are you guys all just spouting opinions you guys have heard? When it was released, while not blowing anyone away most seem to have considered it a solid sequel. Take a look.

Personally, I enjoyed the game and while I haven't played it in a while would probably still enjoy it today. Seeing it on its own instead of a sequel to Yoshi's Island, the only real knock I can give it is pretty poor level design at times.

I'm not trying to sway anyone's opinions but I am curious as this seems to happen a lot on the internet.
 
I'm sure it would still get away pretty alright now, especially with New Island being a thing and a direct comparison between the games making a lot of the smaller things YIDS got right, much more appearent.
 
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Well, it didn't exactly get bad reviews in its day either. So it'd probably do okay with many of the review sites out there.

However, I do feel it'd get a bit more criticism from other sites and YouTube channels. Remember, game design has kinda gone mainstream in the last few years, to the point normal people actually discuss it on social media now. According, video game critiques have developed from 'do the graphics look nice and the game seem like it was made by a human being' to 'does this game seem well made on an artistic and design level'.

Hence while I feel it'd do decent with the IGNs and Polygons of the world, I think people on social media would probably be way harsher on it, and YouTube game design channels would probably rip it to shreds.
 
I love everything about it on paper. If you're going to have a sequel to Yoshi's Island it makes sense to up the stakes and add more babies.

The original game had a plot about two babies of destiny, (which is why Kamek went after them) so I never saw adding more babies of destiny as much of a stretch.

But besides that. That game is... Okay I guess. People only act like its really terrible because the original is so good. On its own, DS isn't terrible.
 


This was always the one song in the game that I really liked and listening to it again for the first time in years I gotta say it's actually even better then I remembered.
 
Repetitive motifs tend to bug me but I quite liked most of Yoshi's Island DS's music. The final boss theme isn't as good as the SNES game's but remove the comparison and I think it's fine (Japanese version and otherwise). The only themes from that game I really disliked are the mid boss theme, the star theme, the results theme, and the castle theme.
 
Magma said:
Repetitive motifs tend to bug me but I quite liked most of Yoshi's Island DS's music. The final boss theme isn't as good as the SNES game's but remove the comparison and I think it's fine (Japanese version and otherwise). The only themes from that game I really disliked are the mid boss theme, the star theme, the results theme, and the castle theme.
Click to expand...

It had damn better songs than New Island for sure. At least the worst were merely boring rather than... this:

 
CM30 said:
It had damn better songs than New Island for sure. At least the worst were merely boring rather than... this:

Click to expand...

Everyone always brings that one up, though to be fair I don't blame anyone for blocking ''gems'' like this:

out of their memories, because this one somehow manages to be even worse.

But yeah, at it's worst YIDS's soundtrack is just forgetable, boring and overly minimalistic, but it's at least servicable enough, as in it doesn't sound like someone is playing the kazoo while drowning.
 
Those are the two people always use tocharacterize the entire soundtrack for New Island. I listened to the whole soundtrack and the annoying kazoos are pretty much just in those songs. The rest of the soundtrack is pretty normal

 
I used to be pretty negative about YIDS.... but then YNI came out and made me appreciate the game much more.
It's still nowhere near the quality of the original, but at least it's not a raging dumpster fire.
It's more like a stinky trash can.
It had some sucky things, but also some cool things.
YNI has mostly sucky things.

But none of them have managed to recreate the fuzzies, which always feels like the programmers were too lazy or incompetent to recreate them.
In general, they have none of the cool graphical effects that the first game has, even though they are on much more powerful systems.
 
warelander said:
Everyone always brings that one up, though to be fair I don't blame anyone for blocking ''gems'' like this:

out of their memories, because this one somehow manages to be even worse.

But yeah, at it's worst YIDS's soundtrack is just forgetable, boring and overly minimalistic, but it's at least servicable enough, as in it doesn't sound like someone is playing the kazoo while drowning.
Click to expand...

Now, I would say Yoshi's Island DS's soundtrack as a whole might be serviceable but there are quite a few tracks that I think are quite nice. Mainly some variations of the Overworld theme.





New Island I'd say is completely forgettable aside from ironically the really awful tracks. At best the only way I could see the game's music leaving an impression on someone is if it was like one of the first games someone ever played.
 
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YI DS actually HAS different compositions and not just the same mediocre melody over and over.

If you want to base an entire soundtrack on ONE single melody, it better be a bloody good one.
Super Mario World made it work. Not only was that game's theme really great, but the "remixes" of it were often so different from the original, that you wouldn't even notice it's the same basic melody.
But YNI doesn't pull it off, so it just comes across as lazy and brainmeltingly repetitive.
 
Koopaul said:
its not that bad.
Click to expand...
Well yeah, the individual songs aren't that bad, but if you have to hear the same melody over and over and over (and it's not even a really good melody), your reaction isn't gonna be "Oh, this is nice." after hearing it the tenth time, it's gonna be "UGH THIS THEME AGAIN!? WHY CAN'T THEY DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT!?"
And then they DO do something different and it's this:

...or this:


The Fortress and Castle songs especially have no real focus or structure, no leading melody... they just sort of meander around aimlessly, trying to be silly and whimsical... It's almost as bad as the castle song from Yoshi's Island DS.

Compare that to the one from the SNES game. That one is actually a song, would you believe it?

It's like a sinister/melancholic waltz. It's slow enough that you wanna take your time exploring the level, but steady enough to keep you going.
And it's catchy as hell.

Having a meandering song isn't bad in itself, but you'd have to use it for a side room or something, not the main theme of the castle.

The Bowser's Castle theme in New Island is marginally better, but still not great.

Even the Boss battle themes are just remixes of their respective castle themes, and they're not that great. :/

Even the DS game had better Boss music.
The DS soundtrack overall is better (imo) but it's still very hit or miss.
DS Jungle? Hit.
DS Underground? Miss.
DS Wildlands? Big Hit.
DS Castle? Big Miss.

Sigh... why can't they just make another Yoshi's Island game that's not outsourced to a sucky third party, and SOMEONE COMPETENT make the soundtrack? D8<
What am I saying?
Yoshi's Woolly world was exactly that. :sgrin:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qySn2yDBKUg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZdf5I9LGvs
 
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