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You would figure after the lukewarm reaction to Yoshi's Story that Nintendo would have just pretended it never existed and just continue with the Yoshi series as if Yoshi's Island was the most recent game.  It's the only "bad" game Nintendo made during a time period when they were making GOTY contenders every time out.  Instead it actually seems to have had the most influence on Yoshi, so much you would figure that Story was the legendary game instead of Island.  You figure there has to be some workplace politics stuff in place.  That's somebody at Nintendo's favourite game and they don't want to admit it sucks.  So they'll shove Yoshi's Story down our throats until we "admit" we're wrong.  The Urban Champion guy is doing the same thing.

I have long ago given up on Yoshi and Star Fox (and probably Metroid now, unfortunately) so I don't really care what Good Feel does with this.  It isn't like I'm expecting some great modern take on Yoshi's Island.  What I don't like is the resuing of the yarn look.  This just reaks of a company not getting it.  Everyone liked the style of Epic Yarn because it looked so unique and original.  Their response to that "so we'll make MORE yarn games"?  Any points you earned for creativity are taken away when you decide to take your interesting visual gimmick and apply it to everything.  First Kirby, now Yoshi, is Wario or Donkey Kong next?  Is this going to be Good Feel's thing; taking a Nintendo IP and putting it in yarn graphics?

It was never the yarn graphics.  If that's what Good Feel thinks then they're idiots that fluked out and if Nintendo thinks that they're fuddy-duddies that are missing the point.  It was that Epic Yarn had a creative and different look that mattered.  The uniqueness was the selling factor not the specifics of yarn graphics.  I don't trust the game will be all that great simply because "we should make ALL our games look like yarn" is such a DUMB and misguided conclusion to come to.  Good videogame minds would never come to such a conclusion so those that came to that conclusion would likely not be capable of delivering anything truly interesting.

Tezuka being involved is my main counter to the arguments made here. This isn't just Good Feel; they've got one of Nintendo's best guys working on it with them, a guy who was involved in the original Yoshi's Island.

Yoshi's Island was released in 1995.  Yoshi games have been few and far between, and besides the DS remake of Yoshi's Island, haven't the games been varied in their playstyle? 

Yoshi games have always seemed to been open to a lot of experimentation and varying play styles.  I'd temper your anger and disappointment and wait for more details before declaring it DOA to you just because it follows a similar art style to Kirby's Epic Yarn.


Edit: Within 2 minutes of posting this, I get smited.  Someone's touchy.  The fact is there are a lot of logical leaps being taken in this article with very little information to go off of.  Kirby's Epic Yarn isn't the only game Good-Feel has made, and I don't see any reason to believe why everyone should assume they are a one-trick pony.

I'm inclined to agree with you.

This is one of the games I'm most looking forward to playing at E3. I probably care more about EAD Tokyo's Mario game, but I don't have nearly as many questions about that.

I'm not entirely convinced this will just be Epic Yarn with Yoshi characters. Epic yarn for the most part was very flat with so much of the world being an outline. Judging by that other screen shot this looks to have more depth. Still with the little bit we know about it, it does seem its just epic yarn again with the beads.

I'm going claim that this game is extremely early and not intended to be shown yet but because of the leak they did anyway. In the actual video footage it looks like they took epic yarn and just added 2 characters, Yoshi and Shy guy. I'm betting the final game look more like Yoshis story and that pic that looks like Nintendo Lands Zelda.

At worst, it's the best Little Big Planet game ever. /damning with faint praise

Still, as someone who tried to ace most of the Epic Yarn levels he tried, they can shut up and take my money for Yoshi Yarn.

<3 Epic Yarn.

Am I the only one who doesn't like Yoshi's Island?

Yes

In spite of the fact that I own virtually every version of it, I've never been a huge fan of it.  I wouldn't say I don't like it, but it's never managed to keep my attention for a full repeat playthrough.

Tezuka was also listed as producer on Yoshi's Island DS, Yoshi Topsy Turvy, and tons of other games good and bad, so it will depend exactly what kind of involvement he has.

Ditto. It was a good game, but I don't think it deserves the praise it gets from a gameplay perspective.

I doubt they'd make a big deal about his involvement in the Nintendo Direct if he weren't hands-on to at least some extent.

I've gone back and forth on how much I like Epic Yarn. For a while I was trolling message boards trying to argue in favor or Return to Dreamland. Ultimately, I do think that the creativity of Epic Yarn is great enough to carry some rather bland levels. And in truth, I did NOT have that easy of a time completing all three treasures and gold medals per level, plus the apartment challenges. So now I'm back in the Epic Yarn camp, a fan of how Nintendo was able to inject some fun in the levels and a fan of the incredible music and extremely strong visual design (Looksley's Lineup hinted at this, too). (Also, call me crazy, but the mechanic of Epic Yarn where you go under a layer to move to a hidden / not-so-hidden area seemed fresh to me. Maybe it's been done before but I couldn't remember.)


With that said, I was HUGELY disappointed to see that the new Yoshi game is... Yoshi's Epic Yarn. The ONLY way this could be saved is if each of the worlds feature a completely unique set of textiles so that you move from foam world to felt world, etc (maybe branch out and include construction paper world, fur world, who knows). But if Yoshi remains a yarn ball throughout, that seems less likely. And what was with them showing almost identical gameplay and animation of Yoshi's tongue vs KEY's whip? And what was with the gemstone beads in the opening sequence directly ripped from KEY? That looked so incredibly cheap. If we're lucky this was Nintendo being uncharacteristically desperate and showing pre-alpha concept footage far too rough to be seen by even the entire dev team let alone all the world.

Epic Yarn was charming to see for the first time and the cloth gimmick looked so original for the first time. And i really enjoyed it's music (hurr durr elevator jingles shut up).

This time around -- yarn isn't new and there is no music.

And what little they showed it looks like they're incredibly early in development. Like, they "didn't even chose the artstyle" early.

I really really hope we get a great game though.

Out of all new direct announcement it seems only Wii Party U and maybe X (Xenoblade was done more than two years ago, plenty of time) are arriving this year.

It will have been three years since Kirby's Epic Yarn later this year, and according to their Wikipedia page the only thing Good-Feel has done in the meantime is a couple minigames in Wii Play Motion. They've had plenty of time, and I'd be pretty shocked if this game weren't out by the end of the year.

Or it could be that there were things Good Feel wanted to do with Kirby's Epic Yarn but couldn't because the Wii wasn't powerful enough, so they want to do another game like it on the Wii U since it's powerful enough to do everything Good Feel originally envisioned.  Then they'll move on to something different for the next game, similar to how Tokyo EAD made Galaxy 2 because they still had a lot of idea's left over from Galaxy 1 but then made something completely new with 3D Land after.

Here's a thought, why don't you wait til you know more about a game before declaring it an unoriginal rehash based on 10 seconds of early footage.

I loved Yoshi's Island back in the day and I spent years trying to get my own copy (I borrowed my neighbor's). When I finally did with the Ambassador Program, I couldn't bring myself to play through it again. However, I think it's more a combination of not-quite-super-classic-status and my evolving gaming preferences. It will always be good, but it will never be as-good-as-the-memories-I-have-of-it good.

Anyway, based on what I know of Kirby's Epic Yarn, what I think can "save" Yarn Yoshi is if Good Feel subverts people's expectations of it. Everyone thinks it'll be super easy; it should be really difficult. Everyone thinks the graphics are a rehash of Epic Yarn; Good Feel should make the levels progressively more experimental and abstract. They can do a lot with yarn art (google it). Unfortunately, the game looks just as basic as Epic Yarn. Boo/hiss

I remember seeing screenshots of Yoshi's Island and thinking that I wouldn't like it because the graphics looked like a kindergartener's scribbles (oh, to be 11 again) which is exactly what Nintendo wanted and it worked. The game used its art style to its advantage. That said, I don't think reusing the art style is inherently a problem. I don't think anyone would be complaining if Good Feel made a 2D Mario game with the look of Wario Land Shake It! so that's a double standard. Rather, the problem is I don't think Epic Yarn quite reached its potential in using the yarn art style (though it certainly used it in creative ways). Yarn Yoshi could however. Good Feel just has to really commit to it

Start by making it feel like a Yoshi game that has that art style. Epic Yarn axed Kirby's copy ability. It wasn't Kirby anymore. There has to be some fidelity and keeping Yoshi's main abilities is important. After that, all bets are off. Good Feel could make a game that really challenges people's thinking. I don't think it's going to happen, but it sure would be cool if it did.

I like Yoshi's Island, but I don't think it deserves to be up there with SMB3/SMW or some of the other games that I would consider to be the best 2D platformers ever.  So I've never understood that type of praise for the game. 

For me, my big problem with this game is that it looks like the exact same game that Kirby's Epic Yarn was, just swapping in Yoshi for Kirby.  Kirby's Epic Yarn isn't a traditional Kirby game in any sense, and almost everything Kirby can do in that game has a Yoshi analog (i.e. using his tongue to swing on buttons or gobble enemies instead of Kirby's yarn whip).  Kirby's limited flying ability? Now it's Yoshi's flutter jump.  I thought Kirby's Epic Yarn was an OK game, but it's really not something I want to play again.

I'm torn. I'll reserve judgment until I get to play the game but... I don't know. On one hand, I really want them to pull out something crazy and surprising. On the other, I really wouldn't mind another Epic Yarn with Yoshi in it. Maybe not so much for me personally, but for my kids who(with my help) have probably squeezed a thousand hours out of Kirby.

Alex, I disagree with everything you say here.
But I shall defend to the death your right to say it, sir!
Excelsior!

I just remember thinking that there were some substantial missed opportunities in that trailer.  It felt like a Kirby/Yoshi hybrid, not a Yoshi.  Why weren't the crystals changed to fruits or at least coins?  I'd think fruits would be a better way to fill Yoshi out than eating Shy Guys.  And why no egg projectiles?  But maybe I'm too traditional.  Maybe when they show more of the game I'll feel less indifferent.

@VickiL

Maybe the beads are both your currency/score and also your projectiles. Perhaps instead of throwing eggs Yoshi can throw the beads you've collected. That would bring a certain balance to it, because by over using your projectile attack you would be minimising your potential score.

Just a thought.

Wow. Just wow. It was like, 3 seconds of footage...

Is Yoshi's Island DS really a remake? I thought it was a direct sequel in the same style, but I haven't really played enough to figure that out.

It's a sequel, not a remake.

As someone who wrote the antithesis to his article above, I concur. You might call it linkbait, but Alex really hates the shit out of this game.

For me, Kirby's Epic Yarn was one of my favorite games the year it came out, and when pushes come to shove, probably one of my personal favorite Wii games. It might be easy, but it's freaking magical. It was a constant shot of happiness and joy for the 8-10 hours I spent with it.

I am eagerly anticipating Yarn Yoshi or whatever it will be called. In Good-Feel I trust.

Man I really got to finish that game.

"its difficulty was insanely low and static "

So it was just like every Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Star Fox, etc...

That's how Nintendo works. They only release super easy games for morons.

If you're going to troll the forums, at least have the common decency to use the formatting properly.

I'm shocked about all the "well Yoshi's Island wasn't that good" talk in this thread.  Really?  That's one of my favourite games PERIOD, not just of its era.  It's rightfully considered a SNES classic and I never heard anything negative about it (aside from dislike of Baby Mario's cry) until today.

Of course this is the forum where I found someone who dislikes Super Mario World, so nothing is universally liked.

Heh. Well, don't forget, you also disagree or dislike many games other people like also.

I will say that I think some of the charm of that game has worn off. When it came out, it was an amazing game full of all sorts of new wonders. Bosses were common enemies grown to gigantic proportions, Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy was amazing, being chased by a giant Chain Chomp devouring the level behind you. Even seeing Baby Bowser wanting to ride the Donkey was charming and fun. But for me that charm has worn off now.

When I received another copy of this game via the Ambassador program, I played it through and beat it 100% for maybe the 4th or 5th time and I felt to myself, that's it. I don't need to play this game again. It has sadly become a bit of a bore. I think it's a masterpeice of its time and if you haven't played it before, it's definitely worth a go around but over time a lot of what was original and new has been thrown into other games and nowadays, it just feels like I'm playing through some long/unending levels.

Also, I found this thread's title funny.

I'll also chime in as pretty nonplussed about the original Yoshi's Island. I only played it years after its original release, with some pretty high expectations based on the hard nut of love that many Nintendo enthusiasts carry for it.

The actual game I found weirdly unfulfilling. A straight playthrough would be super easy, but I am OCD about collecting stuff (or used to be), and completing the levels 100% was a major chore, given how easily you can blow it by losing the stars. Playing the game the "right" way felt like there was way too much juggling/chance.

I actually prefer Yoshi's Story, based on the art/weirdness of that game. There's no reward for doing so, which is a major flaw, but getting straight melons in that game for all levels is extremely hard.

You fools! Yoshi's Island is thy lord and savior! Of SNES games anyway. I have nothing but love for all aspects of the game.

I will say this though, replaying the game with a new file is a little difficult when all you want to do is run through every stage as fast as you can. The urge to collect in that game is hard to resist and if you do you end up with that yucky 30%.

Besides that though its just a joy to play through. Bouncing eggs off of walls, shooting enemies out the sky, tongue lashing horizontal and vertical, hovering and an amazing asortment of Shyguys and other enemies.

I guess I just want the collecting toned down a bit, exploding eggs and ricocheting eggs, the helecopter replaced with SMW/SSBB style wings, koopa shells that add abilities, and what ever other new and fresh things they want to do.

Oh yeah, this needs to be co-op as well.

It's why I am stuck on world 2 of the GBA version (on my 3DS). I refuse to move past a level til I get 100%, LOL. I THINK I did it on the original SNES version (albeit with a strategy guide), but I am having trouble with the GBA version. I know they did tweak it, which is throwing me off.

I stand corrected.  Thanks for the clarification. 

Regardless, I don't think there's enough information to go off of this game to just simply assume the gameplay will be painfully easy.

My memory of Yoshi's Island was borrowing the game from my Uncle Jon (he always had the best games) and not really liking it that much. I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it enough to finish it. I think my problem was wanting to collect everything there was... but I just wasn't good enough to do it? Or maybe it was legitimately challenging to do? I forgot it was an Ambassador game, so I'll have to give it another go.

Given that I brought it up, I should say that I don't hate Yoshi's Island. I just don't really rate it that highly. It seems to focus more on collecting things and moving around an open level rather than challenging platforming. The levels, therefore, are much more open, but that's not really what I'm looking for in a platformer.

Also, I've never really enjoyed playing as Yoshi (even in SMW). The trade off was never worth it for me. I'd much rather be more nimble, and Yoshi always felt like a weight around my ankles.

I do appreciate Yoshi's Island's approach to art design, which I feel holds up to this day, but I just don't get why it's so beloved by some people. I thought, in gameplay terms, it was a step backward from SMB3 and SMW.

I'm the same way. When I'm playing I try to get the 100% the first time or if I'm close replay a level again to finish it off. However, I won't hold myself up on it forever either. If there were a bunch of items I couldn't find the first time, I'll come back and explore it more after beating the game.

Fortunately, a big help is the cards/items you can win including +10 or +20 stars in which case you don't have to worry about avoiding damage and just need to get the flowers and red coins. Then before hopping through the flower ring, use one of those cards and max out your stars getting you the 100%. And from the playing the game before, I know that if you can unlock the Match Game minigame, then all you have to do is play it and watch for the star cards and make sure to match them and bulk up on that either making the task easier.

I never really played Yoshi's Island while being so preoccupied with getting 100% on each level.  My first time playing it, my sole goal was to complete it and only afterwards did I go back to try to 100% it.  I never have and, yeah, I'll admit the game is quite unrelenting in that regard.

But I think of stuff like that as an optional bonus and it really only bugs me when it's mandatory.  It all depends on how you feel about getting 100% in games.

You never played the secret stages or the vs mode? Ian you gotta try those secret levels, they are super hard! Then the gba version added 8 more and they were just as relentless.