Nintendo 64: | |
Yoshi's Story |
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Nintendo Action (also known as Platform game)  |
For those of you who detest cuteness in games, especially in N64 games, do not, I repeat, DO NOT play this game. Hell, don't even continue reading this review if you do! No game has ever been as kiddie and cute as this one (hopefully no game ever will!). In Yoshi's Story you control one of the 5 baby yoshi's and help them in their quest to retrieve the stolen Super-Happy Tree. The tree has been stolen by no other than the ever-so-friendly Bowser, who has turned the entire island into a storybook. Be prepared to jump a lot and eat tons of fruit as you guide the baby dinosaurs with incredibly huge tongues in their quest for the tree in their newest 64-bit adventure. KRAKARRAKKAKATUUUUU!!!! |
Visuals |
Yoshi's Story's graphics are gorgeously pre-rendered, and some of the backgrounds simply look awesome. Some of these offer the feature of the so-called 2-and-a-half-dimension, which consists of basically allowing the player to traverse different paths on the same screen, each path with its own enemies and obstacles. Like for example taking the left path in a fork on the road. The enemies are also pre-rendered and the programmers really tried their best in exploiting Mode 7 capabilities like scaling and rotating and such trademarks in other 2-D Mario games. Oh, yeah, and the bosses are REALLY big. |
Music and Sounds |
You've reached the part of the review I wish I didn't have to talk about..... Most sane people find the music in this game irritating and extremely annoying, and the worst part of it all is that they do it with a good reason. Well, it could be worse, it could all be in a 16-bit MIDI format... Yoshi's soundtrack is basically cute song after happy song after kiddie song. Something I didn't like about it, apart from the obvious, is that basically all the songs are remixes of the same score, with different instruments, different beat and different effects mixed in. And of course there's the most disturbing score of all: the music of the part after you clear a stage... Oh GGAAAAWWDDD ITS ON MY HEAD AND I CANT GET IT AWAY!!! I AM NOT GOING TO SING IT... I AM NOT GOING TO SING IT... I AM NOT GOING TO SING IT... phew. Let's move on to Merits please. |
Merits |
Like most other 2-D Mario platform games, Yoshi succeeds in rewarding the player for exploration. This game does this by giving you extra stages to play as you collect hearts. The more hearts you find the more stages available to select from (you get one additional stage for every heart you find). And when you pass a stage you get that "sticker" on your storybook, so you can go back and play it anytime from the Trial Mode. In the Trial Mode there is a score ranking which you could use to perfect your skills or to gloat at your friends... or not. There are 24 stages in Yoshi's Story, divided into six Chapters and four difficulty levels. Also, there are two hidden Yoshi's, the white Yoshi and the black Yoshi. After you rescue them, you must finish the Story Mode with them surviving (so basically be very careful when you use them, or simply reset the game if one gets killed), and after you do this they become permanently selectable right from the beginning! |
Flaws |
Apart from the sick amount of cute factor in this game, there are a few things which could have made it a better game. First of all, the game is incredibly EASY! You can finish it in 2 hours or less. Of course getting all the stages could take you a couple of days, though... Second, the Super-Happy mode, which you get by eating the heart fruit, which appears after you eat six fruits of the same kind in a row, could have been better. It should've been something like in the first Yoshi game when you touch fuzzy and get dizzy, and the entire screen starts waving around as if you were suddenly high on something... Third and worst flaw in the game: I would have liked it if each Yoshi had a special ability like in Super Mario World, where a red Yoshi could spit fire, a blue Yoshi could fly, etc. Instead, in Yoshi's Story every Yoshi likes different fruit and get more points from Shy Guys... and that's it. Well, that's it for this review. Why did I buy this game? I don't know... because I could. There. |
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