Yoshi’s Island had some unique gameplay elements and the game is full of Nintendo charm as you’d expect from a game carrying the Super Mario name. You are tasked with carrying baby Mario across each level to get him closer to his younger sibling. Platforming it tight, with plenty of room for correction due to Yoshi’s ability to flutter jump, which has since become a staple of the character. Yoshi can eat enemies and turn them into eggs, these can then be fired at enemies or blocks which means the pace is slowed down a little from your typical Mario game and adds a slight puzzle element to the gameplay.
Level design is top-notch and you get rated on three different factors after each level; How many of each levels 5 Sunflowers you have collected, How many of the level’s 20 hidden red coins you have found and how many stars out of 30 you manage to keep in each level. This will be tallied up at the end of each level and you’ll be scored out 100. As a 10-year-old, 100 percenting each level became somewhat of an obsession to me and it makes Yoshi’s Island one of the first instances I can remember that nagging feeling to attain all the collectables, something which has sadly stuck with me to this day, for better or for worse. You are rewarded for completing each level with a score of 100 in each of Yoshi’s Island’s six worlds which unlocks a secret challenge level and bonus mini-game that can be played from the world’s map screen.
The End of world Bosses are a lot of fun and make good use of the scaling abilities and extra power provided by Yoshi’s Island Super-FX chip. It’s also worth mentioning the fantastic soundtrack composed by Koji Kondo, I still regularly find myself humming certain tracks from this game 25 years later!