YMMV / Yoshi's Island

Beware of unmarked spoilers!

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Some fans easily reimagined Kamek's motivation and mission to kidnap the babies for the young Bowser, because his Koopa Prince was lonely and needed a playmate.
• Animation Age Ghetto: The games have a hard time catching up to the main Mario series due to their very childish artstyle, abundance of baby characters, and cutesy protagonist - even after the adult Bowser was introduced as a Big Bad. Yoshi's Story, Yoshi's Island DS and Yoshi's New Island in particular suffer from this: the former is specifically designed for young children, while the latter two have a more childish soundtrack than previous installments (largely played on toy xylophones [in the case of DS], kazoos [in the case of New] and other toy-like instruments).
• Breather Boss: Salvo the Slime in the original cannot directly harm Yoshi, Cloud N. Candy in Yoshi's Story heals Yoshi when eaten and Gilbert the Gooey in Yoshi's Island DS has very avoidable attacks. Funnily, two of the three mentioned examples are the first world's end boss, and usually come after a somewhat more difficult first boss in said world. Marching Milde is also one of these, considering his only "attack" is walking back and forth.
• Broken Base:
  • Yoshi's New Island on 3DS gets a bit of this for the graphics. Instead of reusing the "coloring book" look of the previous two games, the developers have chosen a style that resembles Yoshi's Island's artstyle mixed with Yoshi's Story pre-rendered 3D visuals, with backgrounds looking more painted and characters looking like claymation. Some love the style and think it fits in well with the usual Yoshi's Island aesthetic while still giving the game its own identity, while others think it looks bland and lacks the charm of the previous games' coloring book style.
  • Not to the same extent, but some feel the name "Yoshi's New Island" is bland and unoriginal because Nintendo already used the "New" naming for their New Super Mario Bros. series of 2D platformers, and that Nintendo in general needs to stop adding the word "New" to games that act as revivals of older gameplay styles. Not helping is that it was confirmed that Nintendo once considered calling The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds "New Legend of Zelda" due to the game being a throwback to Zelda's early years. Others think it's okay because there's actually a "New" Yoshi's Island in the form of Egg Island.
  • The fact that Yoshi's New Island's opening cancels out the original's ending by including a twist that the parents who were brought the Mario Bros. are actually not their parents at all also has the fanbase split between the people who don't mind it & find it hilarious and the people who think that this is very disrespectful of the original Yoshi's Island's ending, which was considered a Heartwarming Moment.
  • Yoshi's New Island in general. Some think It's the Same, Now It Sucks!, some think it's So Okay, It's Average, and still others like it because it's a love letter to the original and didn't make changes like DS.
  • The fact that this series gave the Mario Bros. an origin story by having them be born and raised in the Mushroom Kingdom instead of the old "Mario & Luigi are plumbers from Brooklyn, New York who took a Magic Pipe into the Mushroom Kingdom" from the movie and the cartoons. Certain fans (particularly older ones) were against this idea and thought that the Brooklyn origin made more realistic sense and that the Mushroom Kingdom origin had way too much Fridge Logic in it. Other fans think it's really no big deal and are perfectly okay with the Mushroom Kingdom origin (and often point out that the Brooklyn origin was made up by Nintendo of America to begin with and now of course we have New Donk City featuring in Mario Odyssey too).
  • The GBA version of the original game. As with the other Super Mario Advance titles, it's either a Polished Port with creative exclusive levels, or a Porting Disaster plagued with screen crunch, washed out colors, missing graphical effects, low quality music, and voice acting.
• Contested Sequel: Every Yoshi game that attempted to follow up on the original was met with this reaction for different reasons, generally with their detractors disliking their changes and their supporters liking them: Story for being too short and easy, DS for significantly changing the gameplay with the addition of its babies with different abilities and very difficult level design, and New Island for hewing too closely to the original and its bland level design. Yoshi's Woolly World and Yoshi's Crafted World aren't as contested, other than their various significant differences compared to the Yoshi's Island trilogy, but aren't seen as on par to the original either.
• Designated Villain: Baby Bowser in the original can come across as this. He doesn't even seem aware of Kamek's actions at all, instead merely acting on instinct (curiosity, irritability, etc.) just like any other baby.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Despite being just bonus/secret characters, the Black and White Yoshis are very popular and frequently show up alongside the regular Yoshi colors in fan works.
• First Installment Wins: The original Yoshi's Island is much more well-regarded than any of its platforming sequels. In fact, after mixed reception from certain fans of the original to DS's additions (while other fans consider it a worthy successor), Yoshi's New Island had been presented like a successor to the original, only to still be not as well-liked by those fans.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Collectible items like those Bullet Watermelons. It's very easy to use them to just blast thorns to pieces, since the seeds can destroy thorns on contact and you get an absolute ton of them from just one melon. Even Extra 6, one of the most brutal levels, becomes a cakewalk with just 2 or 3 in stock. Naturally, they were removed in the DS sequel.
  • The 10 and 20 point Stars trivialize the 30 health requirement for 100% Completion, because all you need to do is pop one of those at the end of the level to max your health regardless of how much you lost beforehand. The only problem is that you can't use them in boss rooms, but there's another trick to offset that. When eggs ricochet off the walls, they change color from green to yellow and then red, the latter which give 2 Stars. By bouncing them off adjacent walls and grabbing them with Yoshi's tongue, you can change any egg into a red egg, making it easy to maintain max health even in boss rooms. Even without items, the red egg trick remains in the sequels, which is especially useful in DS's Extra 1, since there are exactly 20 Stars in the level and without red eggs, you cannot lose even a single health or miss a single Star cloud.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Bandits can easily be these, as they run away with Baby Mario quickly and can jump onto small platforms through hordes of enemies with no problem. Solo Toadies are similar examples, except they can fly. God forbid one gets caught behind some death spikes with the baby...
  • The literal bats found in cave levels. Especially in Yoshi's Island DS when the bats just keep re-spawning.
  • The large fish that squirts a barrier of water, forcing you to wait until he ducks down.
  • Green Gloves, for their ability to catch eggs and throw them at you. Getting hit by an egg doesn't hurt you, but it does knock you back. It's mostly a nuisance, but it can be a serious threat if there is a Bottomless Pit or Spikes of Doom nearby. It's especially noticeable in Kamek's Revenge, the Nintendo Hard extra level of World 5 in the original game.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Yoshi's Island is not the first time we've seen baby versions of the cast. Mario, Luigi and King Koopa (Bowser's animated counterpart) turned into babies in an episode of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 five years before the game was released.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Yoshi's New Island for reusing level ideas and feeling like an expansion for the original Yoshi's Island. Funny since it was in response to Yoshi's Island DS's They Changed It, Now It Sucks!, though fans who criticize both tend to just dislike Artoon/Arzest in general.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: The later games get hit with this, but Yoshi's New Island has it the worst. Going for 100% is still quite the challenge though, especially because of the invisible clouds, the game no longer saving your stars after you die, and the secret levels, as well as getting to face adult Bowser.
• Jerkass Woobie: Kamek has it rough. He's been saddled with the responsibility of taking care of Baby Bowser, who repays his love by constantly belittling him and throwing tantrums, and all of his plans (which are done to protect the little brat) go up in smoke thanks to the Yoshis' interference. He may be evil, but he's so clearly stressed out and desperate that you just wanna give the poor guy a hug.
• Memetic Mutation: Yoshi committing tax fraud.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The sound of getting all the red coins. Try getting that last red coin when you're also one away from a 1-Up.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Many gameplay mechanics commonly assumed to have debuted in Super Mario 64 — such as the ground pound and red coins — actually first appeared in the SNES Yoshi's Island, although Super Mario 64 is the first time they appeared in a Mario (not Yoshi sub-series) game.
  • Yoshi's Island is also the first game to feature a certain remix of the Starman theme.
  • The Yoshi sub-series itself is technically Older Than They Think. Although the main platformers started with Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, the first game starring Yoshi was in fact Yoshi's Egg (aka simply Yoshi), predating Yoshi's Island by four years. Even then, three other Yoshi games were released between Yoshi's Egg and Yoshi's Island.
• Opinion Myopia: While some Yoshi fans tend to claim Woolly World is the return to form to the series, its critical reception wasn't that great, getting a 78 on Wii U and 77 on 3DS, just above average, and those fans tend to completely forget about Yoshi's Island DS, which was already well received overall and got a higher score than Woolly World, 81. The user scores weren't that different either, with DS getting a 83 Metascore and Woolly World 84 on Wii U, 77 on 3DS.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The series has a penchant for untelegraphed points of no return which, while common in platformers, make getting 100% Completion much more annoying. It is very common to go through a door that turns out to be one way, forcing you to either intentionally die to be set back to a checkpoint, or flat out restart the level if you passed a middle ring. Even worse is that some levels have this occur at the end of a level, with nothing to harm yourself with.
  • Sections where you ride Poochy are widely despised, as he's very difficult to control. He moves really fast in the direction Yoshi is facing, so keeping him in place requires turning left and right rapidly which can easily get you to fall off, which is very bad since most of his sections are using him to cross instant kill hazards.
  • Should Yoshi's feet touch solid ground within the first one or two seconds of getting hit and dropping Baby Mario, Yoshi will stop moving for a second to shake his head. Even worse, if Yoshi gets hit again while Baby Mario is in the air (or if he gets hit at any time by a Gusty), he'll be sent spinning backwards before doing the same. This can get aggravating when going for 100% Completion as it makes easy mistakes waste precious stars.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: Yoshi's New Island. Indeed, some of the carryovers from the classic game have been simplified. Take the final boss fight, where the arena is much more forgiving, for starters, as you aren't threatened by bottomless pits.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike:
  • Advance 3 added a handful of Secret levels that are pure Platform Hell.
  • Yoshi's Island DS is widely considered to be a much tougher game (unto even Platform Hell levels) than the original and a tough game overall, with many dangerous traps that will execute you simply for the crime of not expecting them.
• So Okay, It's Average:
  • To the people who don't dislike Yoshi's New Island, this seems to be a somewhat general consensus. A good amount of critics agree it's certainly not a "bad game", but because it's still seen as not living up to the SNES original it's generally regarded with opinions of "it's okay, but not great."
  • Island DS is considered this by some fans of the first game, while other fans consider it a worthy successor to the original (and though not as great, still great). It has a host of good ideas such as multiple babies with different abilities and interesting bosses, but is brought down by what some consider to be unfair design in many areas.
• Surprise Difficulty: Particularly Yoshi's Island DS's massive Sequel Difficulty Spike, but the original was no cakewalk either, especially if you were going for 100% in every level.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The opening music box tune that plays during the prologue has main melody that sounds like the Soviet National Anthem of all things, though that's because both songs use the very common "Pachelbel's Canon" Progression.
• Tear Jerker: The credits music is soft, somber and peaceful. It's been known to make the toughest gamers tear up.
• That One Level: See here.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Yoshi's Island DS got this reaction from some fans of the first game for significantly changing the gameplay by adding babies with different abilities and massive Sequel Difficulty Spike (while the old one was only difficult when you were going for 100%) and lack of inventory items. Arzest listened to this when making Yoshi's New Island, which those fans complained now was too much of the same, fans who criticize both tend to just dislike Artoon/Arzest in general.
  • Even Yoshi's New Island gets this in a couple of places, particularly the redesigned vehicle sections and the fact that checkpoints no longer record how many stars the player had.
  • Yoshi's New Island also catches flak for its soundtrack, being vastly considered a major step down from prior games. For example, changing the theme just before the proper start of the game from this to this (which is now associated with the phrase "The ass band will play a song of farts to celebrate your failure.") or this to whatever is this.
• Tough Act to Follow: The original, inevitably leading to Contested Sequels. It doesn't help that every Yoshi game afterwards wasn't developed by Nintendo EAD, with the exception of Yoshi's Story, which actually has been Vindicated by History a long time after its release. In particular, Yoshi's Island DS is generally regarded as a great game in its own right due to its additions (even with the whole Sequel Difficulty Spike), just being considered controversial by some fans of the original game due to not matching the original even if it's still great in its own right.
• Vindicated by History: Yoshi's Story and Yoshi's Island DS (already well regarded from the get go), are getting some sympathy from certain fans of the original after the release of Yoshi's New Island. The SNES Yoshi's Island was at first, overlooked by (at the time) the more hyped Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (but always regarded as an excellent game by those who played it). Come a few years later, it started being considered one of the best platformers that was on the SNES.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Thanks to the powerful Super FX 2 chip,^note The Super FX 1 was famously used for the original Super NES Star Fox many effects were employed here that were thought to be impossible on the SNES.^note Including scaling and rotation with sprites, which could otherwise only be done with backgrounds (hence why some characters in the original Super Mario World were programmed as backgrounds).
• Woolseyism: The Make My Monster Grow bosses' Japanese names literally translate to Big <enemy>. The localized versions give them all unique titles. The same happened to Prince Froggy, who shared his name with his species (Gerogēro, localized as Frog Pirate) in the Japanese version.

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