Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

1995

platform
adventure
action
fantasy
kids
single player
multiplayer

The story

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is a platform video game acting as a prequel to 1990's Super Mario World. The game casts players as Yoshi as he escorts Baby Mario through 48 levels in order to reunite him with his brother Luigi, who had been kidnapped by Baby Bowser's minions. As a Super Mario series platformer, Yoshi runs and jumps to reach the end of the level while solving puzzles and collecting items. In a style new to the series, the game has a hand-drawn aesthetic and is the first to have Yoshi as its main character. The game introduces his signature abilities to flutter jump, produce eggs from swallowed enemies, and transform into vehicles.

What it’s like

Crayon-bright and hand-drawn, with soft pastel backdrops that look like colored pencil on paper: rolling hills in mint and butter yellow, storybook skies, and wobbly, sketched outlines on every creature and cloud. The palette shifts with each themed world, from misty forests and icy caves to castle interiors lit in warm torchlight, and the parallax layers give the screen a gentle, pop-up depth. The soundtrack is bouncy and folksy, with chirpy woodwind melodies, plucked strings, and a few lullaby-soft interludes that pause the action. Pacing is unhurried and playful: each stage is a short, self-contained puzzle-platformer with a little reward at the end, so it's easy to pick up for twenty minutes at a time. The tone is whimsical and warm, with some wistful moments as Baby Mario cries for his brother, and the danger stays cartoonish, with enemies that bounce off and no real gore or violence. It suits a lazy weekend afternoon, a comfort replay, or a quiet evening with a controller, and it's for people who want a bright, forgiving, endlessly charming adventure.

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