Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island

About This Game

Gameplay

Yoshi's Island is a 2D side-scrolling platform game. In the Super Mario series platform game tradition, the player controls Yoshi in run-and-jump gameplay. The player navigates between platforms and atop some foes en route to the end of the increasingly difficult levels. The player characters are Yoshis who take turns traveling through 48 levels across six worlds to rescue Baby Luigi and reunite the brothers. Yoshi also collects coins to earn extra lives and retains his long tongue from Super Mario World. The game centers more on "puzzle-solving and item-collecting" than other platformers, with hidden flowers and red coins to find. Levels include mines, ski jumps, and "the requisite fiery dungeons". Every fourth level (two in each world) is a boss fight against a large version of a previous foe. In a style new to the series, the game has a coloring book aesthetic with "scribbled crayon" backgrounds. Expanding on his "trademark tongue" ability to swallow enemies, Yoshi, as the focus of the game, is given a new move set: the ability to "flutter jump", throw eggs, and transform. The flutter jump gives Yoshi a secondary boost when the player holds the jump button.

History

Following his introduction in Super Mario World (1990), the character of Yoshi gained popularity and starred in puzzle game spin-offs such as Yoshi and Yoshi's Cookie. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto asked Yoshi's designer, Shigefumi Hino, to develop an original project. Hino felt that the Mario team had already explored every possible avenue with 2D Mario platformers (Miyamoto would soon begin work on the 3D Super Mario 64). After brainstorming, he landed on the idea of using Yoshi as the main character of a platform game, with the goal of being more accessible than previous Mario games. According to Hino, the developers then decided that Yoshi's goal in the game should be to carry Mario across the world map.