When it was revealed earlier this year at that Artoon was developing the new Yoshi's Island, the news didn't exactly inspire confidence among gamers. Since its founding in 1999, Artoon has done nothing but create less-than-stellar platform games such as the Pinobee and Blinx series - not to mention its first foray into Nintendo franchises, the dull and gimmicky Yoshi Topsy Turvy. Given that the original 1995 Yoshi's Island is widely regarded as one of the best entries in the genre, the DS game had a lot to live up to.

Barely out of the nursery

Those expecting a spectacular sequel to the Super Nintendo game will likely be disappointed. It's a better follow-up than the 1997 Nintendo 64 game, Yoshi's Story, but I wouldn't exactly call that a great feat. Yoshi's Island DS closely resembles the look, sound, and feel of the SNES game while adding in a few new play mechanics; yet, a lot of little things add up to drag the overall package down below what I had hoped for.

The original Yoshi's Island is known for its unique "children's drawing" semblance, with backgrounds that look like they have been created by crayon. The DS game continues this style. This certainly isn't a bad thing as the designs are as pleasant as ever; however, in terms of animation, I think it could have been better. With this installment released so many years later and on more advanced hardware, the developers could have made everything move more fluidly. The backgrounds would have benefited from more layers of parallax and other special effects. Some enemies that used the Super FX chip in the SNES game for smoothness have been replaced with choppier sprites. Given that the DS's polygon capabilities far outdo the SNES's, this is a bit disappointing. Also, there are a few characters in the game that look out of place artistically in the Yoshi's Island universe (the kangaroo, for example), almost like they were transplanted from another game. I am glad that nothing sounds out of place, though. The music is still whimsical (although not as memorable as Koji Kondo's old tunes), and the sound effects are mostly sharper variations of the old ones, including the much-maligned baby screaming.

The greatest departure this game makes from the original is in its use of different babies that sit atop Yoshi. In the first game, there was only Baby Mario; he was mostly just along for the ride, only occasionally hopping off to run around. In Yoshi's Island DS, each baby has a different skill: Mario can hit special blocks that the others can't, Peach has an umbrella that can pull you up when there's wind, Donkey Kong can climb vines, Wario has a magnet for pulling metal objects, and Bowser spits fireballs. This gives the game a slightly more puzzle-like feel than the SNES game. While I appreciate how this multiple-babies aspect makes the game differ from the SNES game (and I like how the Donkey Kong parts are a nod to Donkey Kong Jr.), I think it often slows down the flow of the levels, and makes them more of a chore than they need to be.

Another way the design differs is that it uses two screens instead of one; this gives it a more vertically elongated area of vision. This wasn't just done for the sake of using up both screens on the system, though. Artoon did craft a few clever parts - for example: a boss fight where one screen is a mirror reflection of the other, with parts of it breaking as if made of glass. Unfortunately, the gap between the screens counts as gameplay space, and so it sometimes blocks your view of objects or makes aiming a little trickier. You can hold down the L button and use the D-pad to move the view up and down, but I found that was often disorienting, as you can't control how much it moves.

Besides the aforementioned design differences, the game's structure is set up just like the SNES game. Yoshi still swallows enemies and turns them into eggs, which can be aimed and used as projectiles. Worlds are divided into a set number of levels; extra levels get unlocked when all the red coins, flowers, and stars are collected in the main levels of each world; and bonus levels let you gamble for more lives. It doesn't have as quite as many levels as the SNES game, but they tend to be much more difficult on average.

Baby steps

Overall, Yoshi's Island DS is a competent and challenging platform game. Artoon stuck closely to the formula while adding in enough new ideas to keep it from being a rehash but, in terms of individual aspects, it tends to be weaker than the original. The more tedious level design, lack of evolution in terms of presentation, mostly forgettable soundtrack, and screen gap issues add up to bring down the experience. It's not the amazing sequel the series deserves. It is a quality game on its own terms, but Nintendo took the number "2" out of the title for a reason.

· · · Sean Wheatley