In general, to bring a classic franchise into 3D takes an awful lot of work. Many developers have not been able to figure the process out, and we have seen mixed results over the years. Nintendo has usually been very successful in their endeavors, but it is still no easy task, and takes a large commitment and dedicated resources.

However, the original Yoshi's Island was based off of the Yoshi portions in Super Mario World. There were some control tweaks and other mechanics added, but Nintendo already had a core to work with, so it was a significantly easier create to create the Yoshi game than it would have been creating a game from scratch. This is now true in 3D as well. Yoshi moves like silk in Super Mario Galaxy 2. The controls are there, the camera is there, the player/enemy interactions are there. Sure, some tweaks would have to be made to make a Yoshi's Island 3D, but with the basics already in place, more time could be spent on the more important aspects of the game such as level design and the likes. Major portions of the Super Mario Galaxy 2 engine could be reworked into a Yoshi's Island 3D, and developers love this kind of time and effort saving re-usability.

Yoshi made his debut in Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo, which was, of course, one of the most popular games of its time. He later starred in the much praised, if a bit late to pick up the sales to match the praise, Yoshi's Island; also on the Super Nintendo. And what has he been up to since then? Yoshi's Story wasn't very well received on the Nintendo 64. The Yoshi portions in Super Mario Sunshine were, as stated above, a bit tepid. Yoshi Touch and Go and Yoshi's Island 2 on Nintendo DS have their fans, but didn't make any real waves. Sure he has been a playable character in plenty of excellent multiplayer-focused series such as Mario Kart, Mario Party, Smash Brothers, etc., but Yoshi hasn't really been utilized well in a platformer since the Super Nintendo.

Hadn't, rather. It's my opinion that New Super Mario Brothers Wii, when it debuted, was the best usage of Yoshi since the Super Nintendo. Yes, it was a bit minimal, but it was implemented well and was a lot of fun. And now we have Super Mario Galaxy 2. Frankly, I think the implementation of Yoshi in Super Mario Galaxy 2 even beats out the original implementation in Super Mario World. Whereas in Super Mario World Yoshi was mostly a bonus, in Super Mario Galaxy 2 Yoshi is intrinsic to the design of several stages, and his power-ups server a higher function as well. I can honestly say that the Yoshi stages were some of my favorite stages in the game.

Agree with my specific evaluation or not, the fact remains. Yoshi is being used very well lately, and the time is prime to bring him back for his own game in a major way.


I don't care what anyone says, Yoshi is friggen' awesome.

As anyone who has been playing Mario games over the years can tell you, the 3D Mario games have been a changin'. Both Super Mario Galaxy and now, even moreso, Super Mario Galaxy 2, have moved from the more open-ended, explorable worlds of Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine to more linear, point to point challenges. Whether or not this is totally a great thing is debatable, but most gamers have been ok with, if not supportive of, the change. Miyamoto himself has stated in past interviews that he had always wanted to capture the feel of the 2D games in 3D, and it appears that he is finally realizing his vision. Excellent.

And yet... I can't help but miss some exploration in my Mario platformers. I can accept and embrace the new path of Mario, but I can't totally give up desiring some of the exploration found in the older 3D Mario games. There is room for both paths. What is the solution? Use Yoshi's Island to fill in that gap!

You see, even in 2D, the Yoshi games have always had more exploration than your average platformer, especially if you wanted to “100%” the stages. There were stages with multiple paths, stages where you had to collect keys and backtrack to doors, stages where you had to travel through various pipe mazes, etc. Heck, the entirety of Yoshi's Story was based on the notion of not having a true “end” to the stages, but instead an amount of fruit to collect within the stages. The series is in a prime position to pick up where Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine left off!

Ok sure, there are plenty of other projects they could work on, but this seems like the perfect time for them to delve into Yoshi. If you don't know of their history, let me give you a quick lesson. EAD Tokyo is a branch of the Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development department, and was founded in the Gamecube era. Their first major game was the super creative (though often overlooked) Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. Their second major game was the super creative and never overlooked Super Mario Galaxy. They then worked on Flipnote Studio on DS before their third major game, Super Mario Galaxy 2.

They already have experience with re-envisioning Donkey Kong and Mario, who better to take on Yoshi?

Now, let's be honest with ourselves for a second and make an admittance we rarely like to make out loud. Outside of the Wii *insert something here* line-up, Nintendo hasn't exactly been pushing many new major IPs lately. A studio like EAD Tokyo is most likely going to be put to work on another Nintendo staple. The most logical answer would be getting a new 3D Mario game primed for the Wii 2, but is it really necessary to have 3D Mario right away when we have had two 3D Mario games this generation? After all, 2D Mario is selling better anyway, so it might make more sense to put 3D Mario on hold for a bit and launch the Wii 2 with a 2D Mario game, leaving 3D Mario to appear later in the life-cycle.

Which gives EAD Tokyo just enough time to squeeze in a Yoshi's Island 3D on the Wii. And hey, if it hits right at the end of the Wii era, it could be highly praised while somewhat ignored, just like it's Super Nintendo forebearer!

Fine, I'm going off-topic a bit here, but damn. If you haven't played this game yet you are seriously missing out. Get your hands on a Super Nintendo and an original copy, or pick up the very solid Gameboy Advance port (it even has bonus content!) No self-respecting gamer has any excuse to not have played this game. DO IT!

When the Wii was first announced, the potential for some super experimental games seemed very high. And we have seen a few. However, for the most part, a lot of Nintendo's games have been surprisingly predictable. I have always been a firm believer that introducing the gravity mechanics into the Super Mario Galaxy games was more than just a “gimmick”, and was a truely creative revolution in the platformer genre. But they had little to do with the Wii remote itself, and Super Mario Galaxy remained a game that, for the most part, could have been done with a Gamecube controller (although not, I believe, feeling quite as slick.) Yoshi in Super Mario Galaxy 2, on the other hand, started to tap into some of the Wii remote features a bit more. I think he is one of the few examples of brilliant Wii controls in a major Nintendo franchise.

And he doesn't even throw eggs with the pointer... yet.

Where am I going with this? Well, again, it is a case of potential. Yoshi's Island on the Super Nintendo was a fairly experimental title. It played around with a lot of different mechanics. For instance, Super Mario Galaxy didn't actually introduce running around on mini-planetoids with their own gravity into the Mario world, it was done first in Yoshi's Island in the Raphael the Raven boss fight. Yoshi also turned into a digging machine and a helicopter at times. And of course, Yoshi touched fuzzy and got dizzy. This is a franchise that has a lot of potential to truly take the Wii remote and run with it, introducing all kinds of experimental gameplay into the mix.


Hmm, something feels oddly familiar here...

Actually, Nintendo doesn't need to do anything besides laugh their way to the bank. So maybe this is wishful thinking on my part. But I know I'm not the only one who, after the initial excitement of the announcement of two new Mario games and one new Metroid game last E3 wore off a bit, thought “ok, but we have already had Mario and Metroid on the Wii, where are Starfox and Pilotwings and F-Zero?” Don't get me wrong, I loved New Super Mario Brothers Wii, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 is probably one of my favorite games ever made, and I'm definitely looking forward to Metroid: Other M, but it does seem like Nintendo is relying on their major IPs a bit too much, and a lot of what used to be their mid-level (popularity-wise) IPs have all but disappeared this generation.

Alright, I admit that I wasn't thinking about Yoshi having his own Wii game until Super Mario Galaxy 2 released, as I was more worried about when the next Pikmin was coming or if Nintendo will ever bring another Earthbound to the North American territories. But now I can't get the thought out of my mind. Nintendo does have a large base of “core” (ug!) gamers and many of us want to see them go beyond Wii *insert something here* titles and Mario / Metroid / Zelda.

Yet Nintendo seems a bit hesitant to do this. And in some ways it is understandable. They have several franchises that are almost guaranteed to be multi-million sellers, so putting a lot of time and effort into something like Starfox, which may or may not put up numbers, almost seems like a waste of resources on their part. Which leads to my next point...

Yes, this may seem like a weak point, as in some ways it is the reverse of my last point. But if Nintendo is hesitant to move outside of its major IPs, a new Yoshi's Island game would be a great compromise. It could ride the wave of Mario hype. It could present itself as some combination of New Super Mario Brothers Wii and Super Mario Galaxy. It could feature Mario prominently on the case. It could even go as far as the original Yoshi's Island did and brand itself as a Mario game in the North American territories (Yoshi's Island 3D: New Super Mario World 3?)

But it wouldn't be a Mario game. Not completely.

And thus it would be well received by both sides; those who barely know that games without “Wii” or “Mario” in their titles exist on the Wii, and those who love Nintendo but want to see more support for their not-so-popular IPs. And it gives Nintendo the freedom to even more fully explore “Mario” without looking like they are getting caught up in sequelitis. All while moving forward with the innovations made in the original Yoshi's Island, as well as that sense of experimentalism that existed to such a high degree in that title.

And in case we need recent precedence, the fact that a Mario platformer already exists on a platform doesn't preclude Yoshi from getting his own similar platformer. New Super Mario Brothers and Yoshi's Island 2 were both released on the Nintendo DS, after all.

There are plenty of excellent 2D games, and more specifically plenty of excellent 2D platformers, and even more specifically, plenty of excellent 2D Mario platformers. Yet to put Yoshi's Island near the top is not at all a stretch. When this game came along, it blew me out of the water. Never was I expecting such a full and polished package. The gameplay was familiar yet, as stated above, experimental. The pacing was different than a typical Mario game. The egg throwing made it into an almost bizarre combination of platformer and shooter. And I believe to this day it has one of the best graphical styles seen in the video game industry, as well as one of the best original soundtracks.

Furthermore, I honestly believe that Yoshi's Island was the last big bang before the death of 2D. Sure, plenty of other excellent 2D games have come along since then, but Yoshi's Island was the last 2D game to get the full attention and devotion of one of the best development houses in the world. Ever since then, 3D games have been the priority of the industry, and 2D is usually set aside for handhelds or downloadables. The rare 2D console game almost never gets the resources that its 3D brethren does.

This may seem more like an argument for a full-blown console 2D Yoshi's Island from EAD Tokyo. And yes, I'd die for that. But I'm also realistic; that's not going to happen. However, I don't play favorites between 2D and 3D. If Nintendo can bring Yoshi's Island into 3D with the same brilliance of Super Mario Galaxy, would I complain? Heck no. And they could even throw in some 2D parts, as Galaxy does, making it the best of both worlds.

And frankly, it is about damn time that Yoshi gets another balls to the wall full-blown amazing game. He deserves it, and we deserve it.


THIS... GAME... FREAKING... OWNS... ME.

Ok, maybe not.

But we do need more Yoshi's Island. Make it happen, Nintendo!