Video Game Review: Yoshi's New Island

Dat giant egg tho.

Remember when this blog did reviews? Yeah, neither do I, so here's one! Yes, I know this isn't anime. But bear with me.




 I recently bought a new video game for the first time in a while, one I have had my eyes on for a while: Yoshi's New Island. I basically grew up playing Yoshi's Island on the GBA and DS, so I was quite excited to see a new entry in the series.  The gimmick for this one is Eggdozers, which are literally giant eggs that destroy everything in their path.  Frankly, I like it more than the super-obnoxious merry-go-round of babies that is Yoshi's Island DS.  I finally got a chance to sit down and give this game some solid playtime.


A couple things jumped out at me, namely the music and the controls.  The music is rather generic, though, to be fair, the Yoshi's Island series as a whole has somewhat generic music. That said, there aren't any memorable tunes in New Island, much unlike the SNES/GBA game. I found myself muting the game after about the 4th level. It's unfortunate, because music is often a big selling point for a game for me. However, unlike, say, the SNES game, I can just mute the game and continue playing, so no biggie.


 The controls were tight, but not too tight. If there's one thing that annoys me about a game, it's when the controls are extremely tight or extremely loose. I'm looking at you, Super Mario 64. Semi-tight controls maintain what is otherwise a regular Yoshi's Island game, with the same combination of egg-throwing and platforming we've come to expect from the series.


The art was intriguing, as it moved the crayon drawing style of the series to 2.5D.  Frankly, it made the move very smoothly. It still looked and felt like a Yoshi's Island game, but at the same time, it felt a bit like Yoshi's Story, thanks to Yoshi being a 3D model in a 2D environment.

Overall, Yoshi's New Island isn't groundbreaking by any means, but it's a fresh experience. The art is good, the gameplay and controls are what I've come to expect from the series.  Even though the music isn't up to par, it's easily dealt with but muting the 3DS. I didn't have a chance to play the game in 3D, so I don't know how that looked.


My rating:

Gameplay: 8/10
Controls: 7/10
Music: 3/10
Art: 9/10
Hardware usage: 6/10

Overall: 6.6/10