Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3

"One of the finest platformer from the SNES era!"

Yoshi's Island makes up the third installment of the Super Mario Advance series of classic remakes. This follow-up to Super Mario World allows you to take the role of dinosaur mascot Yoshi as he travels to Kamek's castle to try and rescue baby Luigi whilst he himself must babysit and take care of baby Mario on his back. So how does the game fare after many years since the original release on the SNES?

GAMEPLAY

As Yoshi, you encounter a total of six worlds, each split into a series of stages you must undergo before reaching your goal and destination. Controlling Yoshi is easy as you can suck in enemies and turn them into eggs to aim and throw at your disposal. For the perfectionist, in each stage, there are 5 flowers and 30 red coins you can collect as well as the perfect star rating to test your ability to playing through the stages without getting hit too much.

In addition, Yoshi can transform into various transportation in order to get through different and various obstacles that the game throws at you. This allows for some unique strategizing on your part to make the best of a temporary situation. With all this in mind, Yoshi's island adds many new elements whilst retaining the classic Mario platforming experience and seeing some very familiar faces from previous games in the long-running Mario series.

There are now a few new stages specifically made for the GBA version now present in the original version. This gives the older players even more of a reason to buy this game and it certainly serves a nice added bonus in my eyes.

MUSIC

There is a lovely variation of tunes that does their best to create the right mood for the settings in the game. Not as varied as those in Super Mario World but they fit the situation very well. There is also the baby Mario cry each time Yoshi gets hit - some people may be irritated by the cry but personally, it never bothered me and the cries definitely created a sense of urgency for Yoshi and yourself to get Mario back or risk losing him for good.

GRAPHICS

The port of the graphics from the SNES version onto the GBA version is more or less perfect. I don't think anything is really missed out and the colors and backgrounds are just right for a game focusing on a young Mario world.

OVERALL

This is a fantastic port of a fantastic game. It feels darn great to replay this game on the portable console. For many of the older players, this game would serve as a nostalgia trip and for new players, they can now experience one of the finest games in the Super Mario series!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/23/02, Updated 10/23/02