Yzz
Like Like
- Pronouns
- She/Her
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?
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?
Last edited: