Super Mario World 2 - Yoshi's Island (N64)

A sequel that's a prequel? Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is of the classic Nintendo role-playing scroller variety. The player takes charage of a Yoshi (a cute, colourful dinosaur) and directs him from one end of each level to the other. Yoshi's quest in this game is to reunite Baby Mario with his borther, Baby Luigi - and fight Baby Bowser of course. The game is, clearly then, set before any of the other Mario games - with Mario howling like a... well, baby whenever he is "hit". The most unusual thing about the game is that when the player is hit (by a flying enemy, fireball, mutated plant etc.) you do not "die" (as you ...  Read the complete review

y the time this worthy title was released, interest for SNES was slacking. Because of this, many have never played Yoshi's Island. But everyone should! Any cynic who believes that they have got to the point where no platformer is capable of surprising them also must play this. YI, more than any other Nintendo release I've seen, attempts to make as many surprises as humanly possible. This endevour is helped no end by the use of a Super FX 2 chip, previously used in Vortex and Wildtrax. Unlike the aformentioned titles, however, YI does not use the chip for polygons much. YI is a 2D platformer in the Mario World tradition, but with knobs on. The Super FX 2 chip is ...  Read the complete review