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Retro Excluding Yoshi's Island, what is your favorite Yoshi game?

What game is Yoshi's Island true successor?

  • Yoshi's Story

    Votes: 8 18.6%
  • Yoshi Topsy Turvy / Yoshi's Universal Gravitation

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Yoshi Touch & Go

    Votes: 1 2.3%
  • Yoshi's Island DS

    Votes: 7 16.3%
  • Yoshi's New Island

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Yoshi's Woolly World

    Votes: 26 60.5%
  • Yoshi's Crafted World

    Votes: 1 2.3%

  • Total voters
    43

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Across its 30+ years of existence, the Yoshi series has been quite a ride to say the least. As all of you know, the green dinosaur originated as a power-up in Super Mario World and got a couple of small games like Yoshi and Yoshi's Cookie. Then out of nowhere Nintendo released a platformer starring Yoshi which just happened to be an absolute masterpiece which is worshipped even to this day. Ok, so Yoshi's Island being amazing didn't exactly came out of nowhere, because Nintendo put a lot of resources and their best talent behind this project, as the game was the sequel to SMW, the best-selling game of the SNES. Unlike future Yoshi games, the original Yoshi's Island was a pretty big project and one of the premier video games of its generation.

In the end Yoshi's Island didn't become as big as the first Super Mario World or Donkey Country despite how awesome it was, however the Yoshi series still had a very bright future as the dinosaur's first attempt at a platformer was so beloved and close to perfection, so it can only go up from here, right?

Yoshi's Story
If you ask anywhere in the Internet "What was the first game that disappointed you?" you will get plenty of responses saying Yoshi's Story, often comparing the N64 title unfavorably to its SNES predecessor.
A lot of the talent that worked on Yoshi's Island went to develop Yoshi's Story, and although Story has a lot of shared DNA with the first game (the horror elements and difficulty come to mind), the game changed a lot of things. Perhaps the aspect of Yoshi's Story that is cited as the most disappointing is its length and arcade-like structure. Yoshi's Island had 48 main story levels, plus 6 extra levels, all of which were lengthy and varied, so yeah that's a lot of content. Yoshi's Story, on the other hand, can be finished in one sitting with only 6 levels required to reach the credits, and 24 levels in total.
Keep in mind that short games like Starfox 64 were very liked back then, and Sonic proved that arcade-like platformers were a great idea. I personally believe that the problem was that Yoshi's Story didn't had the high skill ceiling and replay value that games like Sonic or Starfox offered.

After Yoshi's Story, Nintendo worked on just two other Yoshi games: the GBA port of Yoshi's Island and Yoshi Touch & Go for the DS. The torch was passed to Artoon who developed Yoshi Topsy Turvy (known as Yoshi's Universal Gravitation in Europe and Japan) and Yoshi's Island DS, however the franchise went into a hiatus after the latter was released in 2006. Artoon shut down in 2010, which was sad because some consider Yoshi's Island DS kind of a worthy successor to the SNES original.

8 years after Yoshi's Island DS, Nintendo decided to release yet another game set in Yoshi island, this time developed by the somewhat infamous Arzest. Yoshi's New Island, just like any other Yoshi game post-1995, didn't exactly set the world in fire. The good thing was that shortly after New Island released, Nintendo finally released a worthy rival for the original Yoshi's Island: Yoshi's Woolly World. I believe that Good-Feel (which is fortunately alive today) taking charge of Yoshi is the end of the 'dark age' of this franchise as it seems that Yoshi platformers are in good hands right now.

So, what is your favorite Yoshi game that released between 1997 and 2015? Do you think any of them is better than the original Yoshi's Island? How would you rank the Yoshi series?
 
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Wooly World is almost as good as Yoshi's Island but also I will never stop laughing at YOSHI'S UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION
 
Seeing as how I've only beaten Crafted World, I'd say that one. But I've heard Woolly World is really good.
 
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Genuine side eye at anyone voting for something besides Woolly or Crafted World. Every Yoshi game touched by Artoon is dire.
 
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The thread title and poll say different things but anyways

Yoshi’s Story easily, this is simply a very good game and I’m pretty tired of the massive mental gymnastics that say otherwise. The hate this game receives is a combination from insecure gamers that hate cute things and called the game childish and people that literally played the game wrong. By finishing it once, you barely scratch the surface in terms of levels that the game has to offer. By not going for all melons, you don’t even get to fully explore each of those levels. Don’t ever say that the game is 1 hour long when you never even got all hearts and unlocked all the levels. Now it’s easy to point out that the game doesn’t communicate this well enough, that it’s easy to just eat all fruit and miss out on most of the levels, as well as the scoring system. At the end of the day, the game itself is still good and the goal of the game makes for a different gameplay loop and level design than most other 2D platformers, it’s pretty tired when a lot of those settle for the same gameplay structure than Super Mario Bros 3. This wasn’t hot enough of a take so I’ll also add that it’s the best sidescrolling game of its gen (yeah it’s a better game than Symphony of the Night), the best sidescrolling game Nintendo has made since Yoshi’s Island (outside of maybe Metroid Fusion and Dread), and that it makes more sense as an “arcade platformer” than Sonic, I would much rather pick up and play Yoshi’s Story

Other than that I only played Woolly World to completion, it’s basically Yoshi’s Island but slower, good but not mindblowing. I didn’t like the Crafted demo, felt like a worse version of Woolly. I played the demo of Yoshi’s New Island at a Nintendo event, while I still use my keychain of that game I never bought it because it’s the definition of mid rehash. I remember Touch & Go having good reviews but I tried it at an amusement park and it felt like a DS tech demo that could have been a pack in game maybe, like I only remember the game being those three mini games that have you drawing clouds with the stylus
 
Oh my favorite is Woolly World but the poll asked about the "true successor" so I voted Island DS lol.

I've enjoyed Island DS, Woolly World, and Crafted World, but yeah Woolly World is my favorite. The only other one I've played on that list is Yoshi's Story and I didn't like it at all.
 
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Woolly World comes closest to Island but still pretty distant. If YI is in the S tier Woolly World is like B+. It's a very good game though and very charming.

Touch And Go was a rare time I felt instant buyer's remorse buying a game upon playing it. Returned it immediately lol.
 
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Yoshi’s Island > Wooly World > Crafted World > DS > Yoshi’s Story. Love Yoshi’s Island and Wooly World. Crafted World is pretty goodish, DS is fine, and I don’t care for Story much. This might be the year for better or worse I finally play New Island.
 
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Woolly World easily, the only game that ever came close to capturing the magic and quality of Island in its own way, only thing holding it back is the final boss not having that wow factor like Island.

In terms of ranking it would go Island>Woolly>>>>Touch and Go>>Story>>Crafted=DS=New

Still have to play Topsy Turvy.
 
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Woolly World, but that might be because it felt fresh in comparison to Crafted World, which felt like a rework of Woolly World with a different aesthetic. I enjoyed Crafted World when I Played it, but if you asked me to describe any of the levels or bosses I'd struggle. I'd need to replay Woolly World to properly judge which is the better game.
 
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What's up with the Yoshi / Yoshi's Cookie / Yoshi's Safari earasure? /s

It's got to be Yoshi's Wooly World for me. The only other game on the list I've played is Crafted World and that bored me to tears.

I legit liked Yoshi's Safari as a kid but probably only because I didn't have Battle Clash or its sequel
 
What's up with the Yoshi / Yoshi's Cookie / Yoshi's Safari earasure? /s
This but unironically. I played a lot of Yoshi on the Gameboy as a kid. A lot!

Out of what's in the poll I've only played Yoshi's Story. My pick is Yoshi's Story. Loved it as a kid - was hyped during the run-up to release and didn't feel disappointed at all.
 
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I know its really not that great but New Island has always been a guilty pleasure. It's just so charming.
 
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No one voted for Yoshi's Crafted World :'(
Out of topic but Yoshi's Universal Gravitation is such a scientific name, hits hard imo
 
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I know people love to shit on Artoon/Arzest, but I thought YIDS was a pretty great platformer and expanded on the original game in cool ways. It's not near as well refined as YI but it was certainly a better follow up than Story imo.

I think it's good enough that I wouldn't have minded if they went with the original title either (Yoshi's Island 2).
 
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I am alone in choosing Crafted World, I see.

It's got the best art direction, even better than Woolly World (which would be my second choice on this list). The music being built around a specific motif didn't work out as well as you'd hope, but it's so visually creative that I'm okay with that.

I also really enjoyed the post-game stuff! It's a bummer to me that so few people dug Crafted World.
 
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Wooley World. That game just felt more magical, really. Getting a new Yoshi design after every level was amazing.
 
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