Yoshi's Island
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is a 1995 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The player controls Yoshi dinosaurs on their quest to reunite baby Mario with his brother Luigi, who has been kidnapped by the wizard Kamek. Yoshi runs and jumps to reach the end of the level while solving puzzles and collecting items with Mario's help.
Having introduced the character in the previous Super Mario game, Super Mario World, Nintendo decided to develop a game starring Yoshi, with the aim of making it more accessible. Yoshi's Island introduced his signature flutter jump and egg-spawning abilities. The marker-drawn art style was created by scanning hand-drawn pictures and approximating them pixel-by-pixel. Some special effects were powered by a new Super FX2 microchip.
After four years of development, Yoshi's Island was released in Japan in August 1995 and worldwide two months later. It sold more than four million copies. Critics described it as one of the greatest video games of all time, praising the art, sound, level design and gameplay. The art style and Yoshi's signature characteristics established the Yoshi series of spin-offs and sequels.
Yoshi's Island was the last Super Mario platformer before the series' transition to 3D gameplay, with no further 2D entries for over a decade. It was ported to the Game Boy Advance as Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 in 2002; this version was rereleased for the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U's Virtual Console. The original version was also released for the Super NES Classic Edition, and both versions for the Nintendo Classics service.
Plot
A long time ago, Kamek, a Magikoopa, attacks a stork delivering baby brothers Mario and Luigi. He succeeds in kidnapping Baby Luigi, but Baby Mario falls out of the sky and onto the back of Yoshi, the friendly dinosaur, on Yoshi's Island. Yoshi and his friends relay Mario across the island to reach Luigi and rescue him from Kamek, who is in the service of the young Bowser. Bowser wanted to abduct the brothers when Kamek foresaw that they would foil his plans in the future. Yoshi defeats Bowser, saves Luigi, and the stork successfully delivers the brothers to their parents in the Mushroom Kingdom.Gameplay
Yoshi's Island is a 2D side-scrolling platform game. In the Super Mario series platform game tradition, the player controls Yoshi in run-and-jump gameplay. The player navigates between platforms and atop some foes en route to the end of the increasingly difficult levels. The player characters are Yoshis who take turns traveling through 48 levels across six worlds to rescue Baby Luigi and reunite the brothers. Yoshi also collects coins to earn extra lives and retains his long tongue from Super Mario World. The game centers more on "puzzle-solving and item-collecting" than other platformers, with hidden flowers and red coins to find. Levels include mines, ski jumps, and "the requisite fiery dungeons". Every fourth level is a boss fight against a large version of a previous foe.In a style new to the series, the game has a coloring book aesthetic with "scribbled crayon" backgrounds. Expanding on his "trademark tongue" ability to swallow enemies, Yoshi, as the focus of the game, is given a new move set: the ability to "flutter jump", throw eggs, and transform. The flutter jump gives Yoshi a secondary boost when the player holds the jump button. It became his new "trademark move", similar to that of Luigi in Super Mario Bros. 2. Yoshi can also pound the ground from mid-air to bury objects or break through soft earth, and use his long tongue to grab enemies at a distance. Swallowed enemies can be spat as projectiles immediately or stored for later use as an egg. The player individually aims and fires the eggs at obstacles via a new targeting system. The eggs also bounce off of surfaces in the environment. Up to six eggs can be stored this way, and will trail behind the character. Yoshi can also eat certain items for power-up abilities. For instance, watermelons let Yoshi shoot seeds from his mouth like a machine gun, and fire enemies turn his mouth into a flamethrower. Other power-ups transform Yoshi into vehicles including cars, drills, helicopters, and submarines. A star power-up makes Baby Mario invulnerable and extra fast.
While Yoshi is "virtually invincible", if hit by an enemy, Baby Mario will float off his back in a bubble while a timer counts down to zero. When the timer expires, Koopas arrive to take Baby Mario and Yoshi loses a life. The player can replenish the timer by collecting small stars and power-ups. However, Yoshi can also lose a life instantly if he comes into contact with obstacles such as pits, spikes, lava, and thorns. Similar to Super Mario World, the player can hold a power-up in reserve, such as a "+10 star" or a "magnifying glass". These power-ups are acquired in several minigames. At the end of each level, the Yoshi relays Baby Mario to the successive Yoshi. If the player perfects all eight levels in each world by finishing with all flowers, red coins, and full 30 seconds on the timer, two hidden levels will unlock. There are three save slots on the cartridge.
The SNES version includes hidden 2-player minigames that can be accessed via a button combination. The Game Boy Advance version adds an exclusive bonus level for each world with 100% level completion. It also includes four-player support via link cable, but only to play Mario Bros., a pack-in feature also included on the other Super Mario Advance games.
Development
Following his introduction in Super Mario World, the character of Yoshi gained popularity and starred in puzzle game spin-offs such as Yoshi and Yoshi's Cookie. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto asked Yoshi's designer, Shigefumi Hino, to develop an original project. Hino felt that the Mario team had already explored every possible avenue with 2D Mario platformers. After brainstorming, he landed on the idea of using Yoshi as the main character of a platform game, with the goal of being more accessible than previous Mario games. According to Hino, the developers then decided that Yoshi's goal in the game should be to carry Mario across the world map. The team originally chose to feature infant Mario as a justification for him not being able to walk independently. The conception of Yoshi's Island began in late 1990, shortly after the release of Super Mario World in Japan.To give the gameplay a more "gentle and relaxed pacing", the levels lack time limits and feature more exploration elements than previous games; Yoshi's flutter jump also makes him easier to control in the air than Mario. Yoshi's ability to lay and throw eggs was added to distinguish Yoshi's Island further from previous Mario games, none of which had prominently featured a throwing mechanic. Progression between levels was made linear so that players would improve their skills by replaying levels, as opposed to letting players avoid difficult levels on a world map.
In 2020, a prototype for a platform game with similar graphics to Yoshi's Island was discovered, featuring a new protagonist wearing a pilot suit. The name, Super Donkey, suggests it may have been considered as a new Donkey Kong game before being repurposed for Yoshi.
Yoshi's Island was developed by Nintendo EAD and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as part of the core Super Mario series. Production of Yoshi's Island began on February 1, 1992, and concluded on June 29, 1995. Development was spearheaded by Hino, Takashi Tezuka, Hideki Konno and Toshihiko Nakago. It was Nakago's only directing role after an 11-year apprenticeship, with Miyamoto as producer. Newly hired artist Hisashi Nogami created the unique marker-drawn style. The graphics were achieved by drawing them by hand, digitally scanning them, and then approximating them pixel-by-pixel. Yoshiaki Koizumi animated the opening and ending, while series composer Koji Kondo wrote the game's music.
Partway into the development of Yoshi's Island, Donkey Kong Country was released, which resulted in its computer-generated graphics becoming the norm for contemporary SNES games. It was too late for the graphic designers to incorporate such a style into Yoshi's Island; instead, they pushed the hand-drawn style further as a way to "fight back". As a compromise, the introductory and ending cutscenes feature a pre-rendered style, contrasting with the rest of the game. According to Miyamoto, Yoshi's Island was in development for four years, which let the team add "lots of magic tricks". The game cartridge used an extra microchip to support the game's rotation, scaling and other sprite-changing special effects. Yoshi's Island was designed to use the Super FX chip, but when Nintendo stopped supporting the chip, the game became the first to use Argonaut Games's Super FX2 microchip. Examples of chip-powered effects include 3D walls falling into the background, objects that are able to dynamically rotate and change size, and a psychedelic undulating effect when Yoshi touches floating fungi.
Release
Yoshi's Island was released in Japan in August 1995, and two months later in North America and Europe. In advertising, Nintendo referred to some of the visual effects made possible by the Super FX2 chip as "Morphmation". At the time of release, the SNES was at the end of its lifecycle, with Nintendo's next console, the Nintendo 64, due the following year.Yoshi's Island was ported to the Game Boy Advance as Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 in North America on September 23, 2002. When it was previewed at E3 2002, IGN named Yoshi's Island "Best Platformer" on a handheld console. The GBA version adds Kazumi Totaka's voice as Yoshi and six new levels. The visible area was also reduced to fit the handheld's lower resolution. The new cartridge did not need an extra microchip to support the special effects.
At E3 2010, Nintendo demonstrated "classic" 2D games, including Yoshi's Island, on Nintendo 3DS as remastered 3D games with a "pop-up book feel".
The GBA version was released for 3DS on December 16, 2011 as an exclusive reward for early adopters and for Wii U on April 24, 2014, with the multiplayer modes inaccessible in these rereleases. The SNES version was included as a part of the Super NES Classic Edition micro-console in 2017. The SNES and GBA versions were released on the Nintendo Classics service on September 5, 2019 and May 25, 2023, with the multiplayer modes supported locally and online.