Ah, Yoshi, one of Nintendo’s most memorable characters of all time. He really only had one true game on the Super Nintendo called Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. It was a smash success, and is known as one of the Super Nintendo’s best games. That quickly changed as in 1998 they came out with a sequel for the game for the Nintendo 64 called Yoshi’s Story. Now, I know a lot of people were turned off by its cute and cuddly nature, but I will have to say that they are just overreacting and shouldn’t go that deep into a game like Yoshi’s Story.
The whole story though is kind of soft hearted. It starts out with the Yoshis’ surrounding their super happy tree, which makes them, well…super happy. One day Baby Bowser takes their tree and turns their world into a storybook, causing the bigger Yoshis to become unhappy. Even though Baby Bowser has taken over Yoshi’ world, he forgot 6 different colored Yoshi eggs. Those 6 Yoshi eggs then hatch and it is up to them to get their Super Happy Tree back and become even happier and find a happy ending to this storybook.
The game play style is in the form of a 2.5D side-scrolling plat forming game. It’s basically like the first Super Mario Brothers game. You go through 6 chapters, which have 4 levels each. You go through this game in a linear style. Your main goal is to collect 30 fruit, meaning if you get to the end of the level and you don’t have 30 fruits, you can easily just return to the beginning and find the rest of the fruit you missed. Your basic form of attack is shooting your tongue out and grabbing enemies to turn them into eggs. You can also pound the ground for certain effects, like finding hidden fruit, to making enemies paralyzed and change the colors of the Shy Guys.
The graphics are pretty impressive for 2.5D graphics. If you have played games like certain levels of Earthworm Jim 2 and Mischief Makers, then you will understand what I mean. They are pretty simple, even though back then people wanted to play with games like Goldeneye and Super Mario 64. Even though that’s what they wanted to play back then, I still enjoy playing Yoshi’s Story more then some of the newer more shiny titles of today. The music is also quite enjoyable since it’s soft and soothing. They even came up with a soundtrack for this game. The cd itself looks awesome. Basically, every song is the same beat, but it’s done multiple different ways. I personally like this game because of the cuteness. It’s creative, artistic, wise, and it’s just a simple game - nothing serious or complex. The difficulty of the game is right in the middle. Some levels are easy, but some of the others are pretty tough. A lot of people have said this game is too easy, but I think it gives some challenge and replay value.
Okay, it’s time to shoot your eggs at the bad parts of the game. The worst part of this game is that it is short. Yes, there are 24 levels, but you can only play through one each through each chapter. The only way to play through them all is to simply play the game 4 times. The cuteness factor is just a little weakness that this game carries. It might turn off gamers when they see and play the game.
Okay, overall it isn’t a 5 star game like Super Mario Galaxy and Metal Gear Solid, but it is a pretty fun game. I bet gamers would want to play this game more than others. I would recommend buying it for your Nintendo 64 or just get it off the virtual console store on the Wii. Yoshi’s Story is still one of the best games for the Nintendo 64.
This game gets a 7 out of 10
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