The Eggdozer’s true use lies in tearing apart existing structures of the level and opening up new possibilities, and typically these opportunities are positioned in a way where its use is plainly obvious. Once the egg has been digested and formed, the existing trail of eggs is knocked away, Yoshi can barely jump, and his aim is quite limited. Yoshi’s New Island retains the original gameplay exactly and adds in the ability for Yoshi to create and launch “Mega Eggdozers.” Eggdozers can be formed by “eating” giant and sometimes stone enemies. The seconds tick down, and if Yoshi doesn’t reestablish physical contact before the clock runs down, Kamek’s Toadies whisk our baby hero away. No life bar or powerups here instead, if Yoshi is hit, Baby Mario starts floating around and crying. Most amazingly, he can’t exactly be killed. Yoshi is a pretty tough character for Mario standards: his boots can crush enemies, he can eat enemies, he can turn most enemies into eggs, aim and throw said eggs, and he’s got that nice little flutter kick jump. More precisely, the player takes on the role of a number of “Yoshis” from stage to stage, trying to keep Baby Mario safe from Kamek and his minions. For those unfamiliar with the earlier game, the player assumes the role of Yoshi, the dinosaur, who carries Baby Mario on his back.
Yoshi’s Islanddidn’t exactly end on a cliffhanger, but I digress. In a spectacular dismissal of the past 19 years, New Island picks up right where Yoshi’s Islandleft off. I love Nintendo, arguably more than any of my colleagues here at The Bacon, but even I begin to grow weary of Nintendo’s recent-ish approach to their own celebrated classics. We probably ought to be thankful that they actually gave us a new game instead instead of a Super Mario World 2 HD 3D ABC remake-remaster. From a certain (and I think valid) perspective, Nintendo is simply updating a concept that worked very well back in 1995 to 2014 standards. To be fair, most of the gamers who pick up New Island will probably be too young to know what the hell the original Yoshi’s Islandis, or at the very least too young to care.
Yoshi’s New Island is bound to polarize fans on the one hand we have an extremely faithful followup to the gameplay found in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, but on the other hand there isn’t much new or original going on here. And yet again, instead of giving us with the Wii U a chance to drool over something Mario-esque, Nintendo treats the 3DS like the major console keeping the Wii U on the periphery. It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper adventure with “the babies” and their guardian dinosaur, so this was pretty high up on my list of “must plays” ever since I’d heard about it. At one point we’d been told that Yoshi’s New Island would be released as early as the first few days of January, though like everything else Nintendo has promised lately the date was pushed back significantly.