Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island Game Boy Advance Nintendo Review

As the third in the Super Mario Advance series, Yoshi's Island was originally the SNES title Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, a game released near the end of the 16-bit period. The story is that a stork is interrupted on its quest to bring two brothers to their parents by a strange creature. One of the babies is captured, but the other falls through the dark clouds to the sea, seemingly to its death. However, (by amazing chance, I'm sure) he actually lands on the peaceful Yoshi's Island, right on Yoshi's back. From here your adventure starts. Yoshi must travel through the perilous lands on the island, faced with drops, spikes, moving platforms and a whole host of evil forces, in an attempt to finally re-unite the two brothers.

The difference between this and other Mario titles is that you play as Yoshi, as Mario is still a baby sitting on your back. The gimmick with this is that you can no longer die by hitting an enemy. If this happens baby Mario will float off your back, and you'll then have a certain number of seconds during which you must retrieve him. If you fail, then you lose a life. Of course, Yoshi also moves a lot differently to Mario. After you jump, if you hold the button down Yoshi will find some extra height by furiously pushing at the air with his legs.

Yoshi's eggs also play an important role in the game. By hitting the B button Yoshi will lash out his tongue, and if any enemy is in the way they'll be pulled into his mouth. You then have the option of spitting them out, or devouring them and making an egg from them. Eggs automatically trail behind you as you move, and can be aimed and thrown at enemies or switches by use of the shoulder buttons. This idea has been taken a long way, and how well you use eggs will be critical in whether or not you succeed.

If you're a total fanatic when it comes to Mario games, you'll no doubt spend hours trying to get a perfect score on every single level. The emphasis is on exploring every nook and cranny, every hole and every platform at every height. You see, hidden within the levels are twenty red coins, five flowers and thirty little stars that also increase the amount of time you have to recover Mario should you lose him. If you get good enough scores over each world you can unlock some bonus levels, and the more flowers you collect the more chance you have of being able to enter a mini game at the end of a level. This system of rewarding the player is all well and good, but in honesty, we'd explore the levels thoroughly even if there was nothing else that could be unlocked anyway. As it is, Yoshi's Island takes the exploration side of Mario platformers a step further, and this GBA version rewards dedicated players with extra bonus levels not found in the SNES classic.

All in all then this is a lovely game that is well worth a purchase. Well, what else did you expect us to say? After all, don't forget that Yoshi's Island is one of the best Mario games ever, so it makes perfect sense that it works so well on the Game Boy Advance. If you've never played the SNES version, it's essential, if you have, make your own descision. It's great to bring back those memories, and when you wear it out you can always have fun with the original Mario Bros. game, which also comes as standard in the package.