Yoshi's New Island is a fun, cute and a lot easier platformer than other recent Nintendo games. It's a perfect match for a platformer novice, but gives thrills to a veteran too, especially when used as a sedative between much harder games. [Apr 2014]
Yoshi’s New Island suffers from a few issues, mainly the lackluster soundtrack and some new features feeling flat and shallow, but at its core this is a fun title that takes the classic platforming formula from the SNES game before it and brings it to 3DS. A pleasing art style, fun enemy encounters, and solid controls make Yoshi’s New Island a good, but not great, experience that’s worth your time overall.
The game does not do anything wrong gameplay-wise, proposing a formula that has not aged and that takes us back in time. We are really happy to see Yoshi and Baby Mario again, but at the same time, we expected a little more.
There’s enough merit to the stage designs and standard controls that make this something worth playing, but not in that must-have day one way that tends to mark a quality Nintendo release.
It might look a little like Yoshi's Island, then, but it's a worse game in every regard. 19 years on from the original, its design has been denuded of almost everything that made it great: a series once fecund with ideas is now coasting on past glories.
SummaryYoshi's Island brings Yoshi and Baby Mario back with flutter jumps, ground pounds, egg throws, and a host of new actions that use the unique features of the Nintendo 3DS.