The Yoshis are back and their fixing a mix up from the stork. Having never played a Yoshi game before, the new 3DS version seemed like a good opportunity to jump into the franchise. The 3DS has done wonders for catching me up with the old school Nintendo platformers so I was pretty confident that Yoshi’s New Island wouldn’t be any different. And it also boasted of having 2 player local co-op via a wireless connection so it was a double bonus because it was going to give me another chance to play with Pea.
Let me start by saying that there was a bit of a learning curve for me because I wasn’t familiar with the grammar of Yoshi games (and reading manuals is outside of my realm of reasonability). Don’t get me wrong, there are little floating tutorial cubes along the way, but it took me a moment to realize what they were since there are also winged clouds with question marks floating around (for the uninitiated those function like the blocks in Mario games rather than as hints or clues as the iconography suggests). Once I figure out the cubes and how to access them (by jumping into them) progress was definitely more steady. N.B. the question clouds can only be accessed by hitting it with an egg. And you really aren’t missing it every time you jump into it (not that I thought that at all).
Fortunately, I make it a habit to go through and figure out all of the mechanics of a new game before I play it with Pea so that I can answer her questions and that the gameplay can go a little smoother. It is enough fun to figure out the puzzles during regular gameplay, but figuring out mechanics just feels like a frustrating stall. When we fired up the game for our first round of lap co-op in regular story mode there was a little frustration that we couldn’t choose which Yoshi we were playing, but rather that you cycle through them on each level. This frustration was quickly forgotten when she realized that we got to carry Baby Mario around on our backs.
Yoshi gameplay is straightforward. Clear each level to make progress toward finding Baby Luigi who is also somewhere on the island and to avoid the usual baddies along the way. Running into the baddies doesn’t kill you but rather makes you drop Baby Mario who floats above your head in a protective bubble. At that point you have mere seconds to retrieve the shrilly screaming plumber baby before he alerts Kamek’s henchmen who swoop in steal the baby and send you back to the last checkpoint to try again. Honestly, I could do without the crying because it only heightens the tension. So be prepared to have the 3DS tossed in your lap with screams of “Save Baby Mario before they come and steal him!!” on a regular basis….or not.
And if your 5 year old (like every kid of a similar age) is fascinated with scatological humor watching the Yoshi’s eat baddies of varying sizes and “poop out” eggs of similar sizes will bring peals of pure glee. The two button aiming and shooting process takes a little practice for little ones, but they tend to get it pretty quickly (with a little patience). And if you fail a level a few times it gives you a set of white wings that makes you float a little higher and makes the level easier to complete. If you fail again you earn the gold wings and , like the white tanooki suit, you are invincible and kind of sail through that level. It’s great for little ones and they get to complete the level without feeling that they have “failed”.
The single player game is great, but the 2 player mini games only held Pea’s attention for a few minutes at a time and while there are 6 mini games they have to be unlocked as you play through the single player campaign. The further you get, the more mini games unlock. That is a bit irritating for the kid who wants to play co-operatively with some someone early on. Overall, Yoshi’s New Island is a pretty solid game for the 3DS. And while Yoshi aficionados may find that it is not as good as the earlier games this Yoshi novice (and her kid) found it to be pretty fun with egg pooping, bad guy swallowing, and Yoshi-car driving via the accelerometer. Definitely at least worth a rental for a few hours of lap and local co-op fun.
