Yoshi has always been the trusty companion of Mario since the early days of his adventures with brother Luigi, and coming after Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island and Yoshi’s Island DS, the green dino wonder is set for a big return on 3DS this March.
After playing through a short demo of the title at a Nintendo preview event, Yoshi’s New Island quickly proved itself as another worthy entry in the 3DS canon, even from just the ten minutes or so of the level shown.
While the demo was from an early level in the very beginning of the game, Yoshi’s New Island showed off huge amounts of charm and creativity, even in such a short amount of time.
Following in the vein of previous Mario titles and from Yoshi’s previous solo adventures, like the ones mentioned before (and in particular like Yoshi’s Story), this one follows the platforming adventures of a collection of Yoshis trying to reunite the (baby) Mario Bros. with their rightful parents, coming across various challenges to face and enemies to fight: both menacing and adorably cute all at the same time.
Filled with decorative pastels and painterly watercolor art, New Island ropes you in with its lush visuals but keeps you going with its fun and surprisingly challenging gameplay. This game may be all smiles and sunshine, but underneath all the sweetness is a solid platformer with some challenges thrown in to make young 3DS gamers excited, and giving older gamers a welcome challenge.
With a mix of platforming and gobbling up enemies to turn into eggs for throwing, puzzle-solving, and discovering secrets, Yoshi brings plenty new to the table: just one giant egg tossed in, and it’ll be hard not to crack a big, goofy smile as Yoshi’s eggs lay waste to everything in their path.
Yoshi’s New Island releases for the Nintendo 3DS (along with 2DS and 3DS XL) on March 14th. In the meantime, you can also check out a preview of Disney Magical World from the same Nintendo Event by DualShockers’ Review Editor, Allisa James.