@Jargon The star items certainly help a bunch if you are trying to 100% the game, but otherwise I barely ever used items in this game.

I don't think I ever used items either outside of curiosity at what they do. I don't think I know what all of them do, either. Also, just like with lives, you can't save items, though I s'pose with an emulator then you can use save states to keep your lives and items.

I found that the annoyance of Baby Mario just made me be really careful to not get hit. Perhaps that was their intention? Encourage better play by being annoying if you get hit? I never lost a life from Baby Mario's timer running out, it was always either a hole or spikes for me.

I love how Bowser's kids come back as bosses and they portray Mario with the Super Scope 6 in the story portions. But watch out! Play with your sibling and get in a fight means someone is going to shoot Yoshi to force their turn!...OH you aren't talking about Yoshi's Safari!

Yoshi's Island was one of the last SNES games I played. This, Mario RPG and Donkey Kong Country 3 really saw the SNES out with a bang.

The awesomeness of this game led to my disappointment of Yoshi's Story.

this game is great when it doesn't try to force you at a certain pace,

Sadly it seems to do that a bit too often.