bite sized tl;dl: yoshis island

Hey loggers. Welcome back to another bite sized episode of the Backlog breakdown. And when I say bite sized, what I mean by that is it's not a full episode. You are getting some smaller version of some of what we do here on the backlog breakdown where we seek to equip and encourage the church to play video games wisely and well. My name is Josh. I'm your host for today. It's just me here and this content is going to be bite sized. This is just a short episode. However, in the future, and even maybe this episode as well, it's going to be branded a little bit differently because although it is still bite sized content, we're gonna do something a little different. And when I say we, I mean me because it's just me here today. But something we've done in the past is we, we try to compile our reviews into again, just a little nugget, little bite sized little nugget for you that'll show you or tell you what we think about certain games. And that's what I want to do today. We call those too long. Listen. Because our episodes tend to run upwards of an hour or two or sometimes three. This is not going to be that. This is just going to be a short form version of a review. And where better to start than with my personal top 10 list of all time, my favorite games. Why not go ahead and take a look at my top 10 games and give you a review of each of the games. So that would be, that would be a whole episode in and of itself if I were to do that for every single game on my list. But we can start from the bottom and that's what I'm doing today. I would like to provide a too long didn't listen version of a personal review for Yoshi's island on Super Nintendo. That's my number 10. Top 10, number 10 video game of all time. My favorite video games of all time, Yoshi's island is right there at number 10. So Yoshi's island was a game released for the Super Nintendo in 1995. That's right, 31 years ago. That is crazy to me that it was 31 years ago that Yoshi's island was released. Man oh man. Little Josh was just a little youngin when this game was released. Of course I didn't pick up games on release date back then. So I got it when I was quite a bit older. But you know that middle school, high school age is when I first played it on the cartridge on Super Nintendo this game in America is known as Super Mario World 2 Yoshi's Island. However, fun fact, in Japan it is not Super Mario World 2. Okay? This game was not originally created as a sequel to Super Mario World 2. They wanted to go in a different direction which they did with this game. It is very different than the original Super Mario World. However, when it came to America, they wanted to sell those copies of the game and. And Super Mario World sold a lot of copies. And you know what? There's a Mario in this game. So let's make it Super Mario World 2 Yoshi's Island. So I'm going to refer to it as Yoshi's island as Miyamoto himself intended it to be Yoshi's island for the rest of this episode. Anyways, Yoshi's island it is in the Mario franchise. It has that connection there because you play as a Yoshi or actually as a band of Yoshis. Each level is a different Yoshi. There's a cute little animation at the end of every level where he chucks little baby Mario and the eggs that he has accumulated over the level to the next colored Yoshi who's ready to. To grab little baby Mario and head off to the next level to get baby Mario home back to his parents. So obviously I love this game. It's one of my favorite games of all time. There are a number of reasons of which I will go into in a little bit more depth here. But I do think that it is one of the most creative platformers. I think it's timeless as well, largely due to its art style. I mean any Mario game is going to be largely timeless because of its solid mechanics. And this one certainly has solid mechanics as well. But I think the art style that it has, that it uses for the entire game, which is a hand drawn art style, it looks like it's made with crayons and paint. It looks drawn and interesting. Another interesting fact is that what at least my understanding is that the creators of this game saw where video games were going into the third dimension. They saw the Donkey Kong countries, they saw the that. That 3D effect that you could do and they decided they wanted to do the opposite of that because they knew that video games were moving in that direction and that it would be very unique for them to go the opposite direction. So let's make it look as if it were hand drawn. As if. Let's. Let's make it more. Not necessarily child friendly, but let's aim it towards children by the whimsy and the creativity and this hand drawn art style which I love so much and I think it holds up so very well. It did come late in the Super Nintendo life cycle as well. So they definitely take advantage of. I believe it's the Super FX chip 2 that is in the cartridge to make this game one of the, if not the absolute best looking Super Nintendo games that has ever been released. Okay, so even though this is sort of in the Mario franchise, not really, but Mario's in it. You're not necessarily playing as Mario, although you do play as Mario for a little bit throughout this game. But we'll get to that in a second. The core mechanics of this game consists of obviously controlling Yoshi. And Yoshi has a number of different abilities. Yoshi. Yoshi himself is largely impervious to damage throughout this game. He can fall into pits, he can fall on spikes, he can fall into lava, and in those cases he dies. Okay. But when he gets hit by an enemy, what happens is that the baby Mario that's on his back gets whisked away by these shy guys that are trying to take him back so that Baby Bowser can steal him away. And so you don't take traditional damage. Yoshi isn't actually hurt. He's actually just slowed down and stunned, stopped by other enemies for the most part throughout the game. Which is an interesting fact because you think about games nowadays. When you play as Yoshi, again, you're largely impervious to damage. That's just how this character has kind of progressed. And you see that in its infancy here in this game, no pun intended with baby Mario here. But so this is a platformer. It's part of the Mario series, but it plays very differently than a Mario game. I would, I would reckon, I would say that this game is actually, it's more of a plodding game than it is say, say you're Sonic the Hedgehog, which is all about speed and going fast and getting to the end of the level. Yoshi's island is more about exploration and going a little slower because the things that you have at your disposal are that you can swallow enemies and turn them into eggs, and then you use those eggs to throw them at other enemies at other obstacles, to solve puzzles, to open up secret areas and things along those nature. Along, along that nature. Another ability that Yoshi has is he's got a sort of a double jump. It's called a flutter jump. So while you're in the air, you can, you can flutter, you can try your hardest, and you hear little Yoshi making his noises to try and just gain a while while he's jumping. And so it, it makes the game a little easier than your typical platformer because you have a few more abilities, but also it's a little slower. It's a little bit more about exploration. Also, because there's so many hidden secrets throughout this game, the levels really encourage you to kind of dig in and search, search out those secrets and find all those different things. So it plays very differently than your standard mar. And as I've. As I've said before, you're largely controlling Yoshi throughout this game while Baby Mario is on your back. And so the whole. The whole idea behind this game is that there's a stork that is trying to carry Baby Mario and baby Luigi to their. To deliver them to their parents. But on the way, I believe the baby. I believe it's Kamek, who is the magic Koopa, who stops the stork. If I'm. If I'm incorrect in that, I apologize. Anyways, the stork gets stopped and drops little baby Mario. He continues to take little baby Luigi to his parents. But Baby Mario was dropped, and wouldn't you know it, he was dropped onto Yoshi's island. And so the Yoshis see this Baby Mario and they decide, oh, we need to get this baby to his parents. And off you go on your adventure. While the forces of the Magikoopa comic are after you, come to find out at the end of the game, Baby Bowser is actually the one who's been directing them to capture a little baby Mario. But you're on your quest as one of the Yoshis is dozens of Yoshis together. Actually, I think there's eight Yoshis, if I remember correct, because there's eight levels in each world. And depending on the level that you play, like, the first level is always the green Yoshi. The second level is a different colored Yoshi. If I remember, that's actually how this goes. So I believe it's eight different Yoshis that you play throughout the course of the game, throughout the worlds. So that is your basic idea of what you're playing for, what you're trying to do. I talked about the creativity in this game. One of the standout things about this game, and one that is hard to appreciate when you're younger, if you haven't compared it to a lot of different things. But the creativity throughout this game is fantastic in that it feels like every level has something new, something exciting, some hidden secrets, but also Just something innovative and again, creative. If you have played this game before, I'm sure if I say the words touch, fuzzy, get dizzy, you will remember. You will have vivid memories of this level in which when a Yoshi touches this little floating, fluffy thing, the entire level goes wonky and crazy. Almost as if Yoshi were drunk or under the influence. And the music gets all crazy and it gets really hard to control and Yoshi's kind of stumbling around and it's. It's fantastic because it's also hilarious just looking at it. So as a kid you think it's absolutely just funny, but it also is able. You're able to, to change on the Super Nintendo. You're able to warp the, the way that the level actually works in the way that the controls work and, and it becomes a lot more difficult to, to control where you want to go. There are future levels that also employ that same idea, but make it even more difficult. So they introduce this idea in one level and then continue to, to iterate upon it throughout the rest of the game. This game is a platformer, but in a lot of ways it's also a puzzle platformer because it enc. Adventuring and so much looking behind the scenes and, and performing little, little puzzles and things like that. There. There are tons of transformations that Yoshi can undergo, which I'll be honest, are a bit half baked to me. They. They aren't a standout throughout the game. It's not something you're going to see a lot of one particular transformation, but it's fun for a level. You get through it and you try and do your best and, and it's, it's just fun the fact that that can happen. There are some levels where you can get a Power Star and then you become Baby Mario running around in his little diaper and he can destroy enemies and that's a lot of fun. And then there's a huge egg that follows you because Yoshi's in that egg until the Power Star wears off. So there's so many different imaginative things that, that affect you as the player, but also just different types of puzzles, different things that go on throughout the game that make it. Every level is a new adventure and it's vibrant and it's beautiful. And then of course there's the music that goes along with it that is upbeat for the most part. Okay. Some of the dungeon tracks are, are a little more spooky and things like that, but your average kind of jungle level is gonna have just nice upbeat music with, with synthesized Harmonica in it. That man. Anytime I hear these tracks, it may not be a very large soundtrack to this game, but the music is just so good. Check it out on Nintendo Music. You can listen to it. There again, a smaller soundtrack, but I. I just love it and it brings me back. Okay, I have some immense nostalgia whenever I hear some of these tracks from Yoshi's Island. Let's talk a moment about the difficulty of this game and the challenge that it presents. And I think this is another standout about Yoshi's Island. It's that the game eases you in. And because of its a little bit slower nature, it's one of those games that teaches you how to play by easing you in, by giving you hints on what you can do even at the beginning of the first few levels, how to use and aim your egg. And oh, there's a, there's a cloud up there that you can use. You can hit that with an egg and it falls down and it takes you to a new area. You know, really trying to get you to look around and explore the level and rewarding you for exploration as well. I would say overall, because of the nature, the slower paced nature of this game, that it is generally pretty easy. The difficulty does ramp up towards the end of the game and the last few levels can definitely be a challenge. Hey, there's a whole like Snoop snowy ice world and that can. That certainly presents a challenge as well. Although it's fun to be a Yoshi with skis, but I don't want to get kind of bogged down in everything. I would say overall, this is not an overly challenging game within the Mario series. It's. It's probably one of the easier games to. However, because of the nature of the exploration within these games, if you 100% each level by finding all of the flowers, the special flowers throughout the level, by having full life when you finish a level, which is the seconds that you have to catch baby Mario. So not getting hit and then finding all the red coins in a level. If you get 100% on a level and you do that for an entire world, you actually open up a special level. And I can't remember off the top of my head. It might be one level, it might be two levels per world, but these are the levels that really test your ability and, and test your skills in this game. I remember unlocking all these levels. I actually haven't finished all the special levels, but I do remember unlocking, if not every single one, most of them because I remember beating the Very last boss of this game and finally being able to do that while with a hundred percent without getting hit. And I was really excited, you know, because then I get these, these extra levels as well that challenge you hardcore. So the challenge is there if you want to go through the. The difficulty of actually unlocking these special levels similar to like a Super Mario World where you have your tubular and radical levels in the special star world. Yoshi's island unlocks these special levels that are far more difficult than the main game itself. So I think it has a fantastic difficulty curve while starting off easy and just fun and easing you into it and then as you progress, getting more challenging until finally if you want the ultimate challenge, then you can, you can go for that as well. So we've talked about, you know, story. We've talked about the presentation of the game, the music, kind of what you're doing as well. The game is immensely charming throughout everything. It's goofy, it's. It's kind of laid back, but it's just. It's just wonderful. I mean, I love this game so much. Love the music, love the art style of the tone and the charm throughout it. The bosses in this game are fantastic as well. That. That Magikoopa comic. He comes in and he turns regular enemies into giant enemies. You get a nice scene where uses his magic powers and they just balloon up into something huge. And you have to fight them in very specific ways in order to beat them, which is just so much fun. The bosses in this game are wonderful. There's one where you're rotating on a world like on this small planet. You're running around it and the entire world moves and that's how you're running around. You're not running around the world. The little planet, the planet. The rest of the game is rotating as you move left and right, which is again just so much fun, so charming. I love it. These similar characters. If you've ever played Tetris Attack, it uses a lot of characters from Yoshi's island because that one takes place on Yoshi's island as well. So I love the bosses. I love the enemy design in terms of kind of legacy for this game. I don't think any other game in its series is as good as the original Yoshi's island, clearly, because it's on my top 10. They. They made a direct sequel, I believe on Game Boy Advance. I've not heard good things about it. I've played through New Yoshi's island on 3Ds and it just did not have the same charm. It didn't look as good, it didn't sound as good and. And so it just didn't match up for me. I will say I played through Yoshi's. I believe it's Yoshi's Crafted World on Wii U and that is a very good game. That one's a little more similar to Kirby's Epic Yarn because it's a. It's that yarn Yoshi aesthetic. And that one is also a great game. That one's. That one is very close to this one. But I think Yoshi's island beats it out and beats it out handily. But the. The Crafted World is. Is definitely a good one in that series. I believe there's a second one on Switch as well that is really good as well. So I'm excited for this mysterious book game that's going to be coming here on Switch 2 shortly as well. So anyways, in conclusion, I love this game. Clearly it's on my top games of all time. You can play it on the Nintendo Switch Online or on Super Nintendo if you have a cartridge which you know, you can play it on Switch Online. I believe one of the first ways that they that Nintendo kind of re released it made it available was on the Super Nintendo Classic Edition, which was surprising because this game is difficult to emulate because of the Super Effects Chip two that's within it. But nowadays it's a lot easier to play through and access because of Nintendo Switch Online. If there were any weaknesses to this game, people often cite the sound of baby Mario crying as a weakness. I don't. I don't find it to be that annoying. In fact, it's more of a sign that hey, you need to go. There's an urgency there. Go, go comfort that crying baby. So I don't find that to be a weakness. If anything, what I mentioned earlier, some of the transformations are half baked. They don't feel as though they really use it extensively nor would I really want them to because some of them are just not that great. They're fun for a few seconds, you know, for a few minutes and then you're on to the next thing and that's totally fine. So there are some ideas. They swung for the fences with this game and some of the ideas just didn't don't hit as hard as some of the other ones. But overall, I don't really find many actual weaknesses to this game. So before I let you go, one of the things that we want to do, we say that we want to encourage and equip the church to play video games wisely and well. And so as a Christian, is there anything about this game that stands out to me? Well, this game is a platformer and there's not really much here outside of just playing a really good video game. It is a very gamey game, you know, kind of arcadey. It's. It's about having fun. Although as I was thinking about it, you know, I. Here's, here's the deal. I don't want to stretch this too far. I don't want to over spiritualize things. Okay. So I'm wary of that. However, I do, I would be remiss if I wouldn't say that there is at least kind of that core idea of the hero's journey that's present within this game, that when the Yoshis find Baby Mario, they recognize we, we should band together and help this young child. So there's ideas of responsibility or of, of honor, right, of, of doing the right thing when it's presented to you. There's an element of, hey, there's, there's more than one Yoshi. It's not just one going on this trek alone, but it's kind of a band of brothers trying to help this young Baby Mario. And so I do think there is something admirable about kind of the backbone of the story. While it is goofy, while it is Saturday morning cartoon, I do think that it at least upholds virtue in that when there is good that needs to be done, the main characters of this game attempt to get it done no matter the cost. And I think that there is something Admiral Admirable about that, that this game does not have negative messages. It doesn't have a gray area. It is simply, oh, there is a child that needs our help. Let's help this child and get him to his parents. Yeah, I think there's something, I think there's something that needs to be said about that. While also I recognize, hey, that is a very, it is a very low bar. But there's not much, you're not going to find too much spiritual content in this game except kind of just the, the virtue that is displayed by the Yoshis. So, so I love this game. I love Yoshi's Island. I, I definitely think it's a must play. It's in my top games of all time. I do think it's a, it's a game for everyone because of its difficulty curve, because it starts off easier. I think casual players will enjoy it while also more hardcore players, you might. I don't think you're going to be bored in the beginning because I think all of the imaginative, creative elements of this game present themselves to you. So from casual to hardcore, I think this appeals to everyone. Sure, it's aimed at a more a younger audience, but it is absolutely in my mind it's classic. So in the same way that Super Mario Brothers 3 is aimed at a younger audience, but still, it's a fantastic game for all ages. I would highly recommend this game to anyone who plays video games. And even if you don't play video games, you might, you might. It might take you a while to get down the, the control scheme of this game. Between running and jumping and, and flutter jumping and aiming at your. And shooting your eggs and things like that. Yeah, it might take a little bit. But man, if you can get the controls down to this game, then you're gonna. I think you're gonna love it. So highly recommend this game. Absolutely a must play. I love it. I think you should love it too. And if you do love it or if you don't, if there's something you think that I've missed, I'd actually, I'd love to hear from you and your experience with this game as well. Reach out to us. We have a link tree where you can go to see all of our socials. That's linktree.com thebacklogbreakdown I'm Josh and I really enjoy Yoshi's Island. I hope you do too. Until next time, loggers keep beating down your backlogs and we'll keep breaking down the benefits. Sam.