HD Plays Games: Yoshi's Island, A Sequel-Prequel (Update 2!)

[HD_]

So yeah I've been bored lately and I was like "Why not, I'll play a game." So I decided on this game. Because it's a good game. And it contains Yoshis. And I'm going to shut up with this horrible exposition now.

SO LET'S BEGIN

(Warning you now, the intro is fairly long and the largest plot dump in the game.)

Update 1: Welcome to Yoshi's Island!

(click to show/hide)

If it hadn't been made obvious to you from the title or having common sense, this game is a Nintendo game.



In a galaxy far, far, awa- whoops, wrong series!



Yeah, this game is some sort of weird...prequel...thing to Super Mario World, despite clearly being labeled a sequel. Oh well.

Unless...Mario ages backwards?!



Pretty.



Well, gee, I wonder who those two twins are.



Um...I don't see a shadow. And there are a lot of gaps between clouds.

On a different note, the art style for this game is really pretty.



See that speck in the distance? No? Let's have a closer look.



WHOA HOLY SHIT



What kind of reaction to a butt ugly flying...thing stealing the only cargo you're carrying is this?

This intro gets stupider, just you wait.




Remember that he only stole one baby, it's fairly important.

I accidentally missed a screen, but:

"The second baby falls undetected towards



This is important too. Remember both a) He fell undetected, and b) He fell into the open sea.



DRAMA



Never would have guessed. Thanks game!



Um...which Yoshi? There's probably like 100+ of them around here!



IT'S RAINING BABIES



Wow, you're a fucking steed even when I'm an infant.



Okay, level with me for a second. This baby just fell 500 feet from the stork's mouth AND straight into the open sea--yet somehow lands on an island that appeared out of fucking nowhere and onto a Yoshi, and neither of them get killed from the impact? What?



That paper on our left? It fell on our head too. But we're still perfectly fine!



Naturally, Yoshi is quite curious.




Um...what? This is the actual world map that we'll see later in more detail, and considering how the game works...I have no clue as to how it's possible that Yoshi doesn't comprehend the thing.



Maybe there's a smarter Yoshi that helps him decipher it?



Oh hell it's you again.



Yes, it's the Wicked Witch of the West. Next thing you know, the Yoshis all burst out into song about following the Yellow Brick Road.



Clever double meaning there.



Excuse me, what?

How did you not notice before that you were only holding 1 baby? Better yet, how did you not notice a baby hurtling towards the fucking ocean, most likely crying most of the way down?





So yeah this is basically the plot. Kamek kidnaps babies for a hobby, and for some godforsaken reason needs to have Baby Mario in particular. I don't think anyone ever explains why Mario in particular, but oh well.



WHOA MARIO HAS PARENTS

Of course, due to the power of game design, we never actually see them. Nor do I understand how the Yoshis plan to get Mario off the island to his parents, but whatever.

Speaking of, how does he have his red cap if he's never met his parents in order for them to give it to him?

NINTENDO LOGIC AHOY!



Yep, there's another intro when you actually start a new file. But this one's unskippable.

And yet again, Nintendo gives us some extremely useful information.



Yeah, there'd definitely be some commotion if a baby fell from a sky in my town.

Of course, it'd also probably be dead when it hit the ground, but that's besides the point, because this is a Nintendo game.



What?



...when did I stumble into a cliché fairy tale? >.>



First of all, what? What's the point of this? If the Yoshis can travel fast enough to set up a relay system to find Baby Mario's brother, why don't they just fucking carry him there directly?

Secondly, we were told Yoshi can't comprehend the map. Don't you need to be able to comprehend such a map to assemble this relay system?

AGAIN, NINTENDO LOGIC!



Also, shouldn't "Yoshies" be spelled "Yoshis"? Maybe I'm just crazy, I dunno, but I'll be spelling it as "Yoshis" personally.



So let's leap...



...into the dark, endless void...

Nah, not really, this is the tutorial level.







This is basically the game's health system. Basically, you start each level with 10 Stars. If you get hit by an enemy or a hazard, Baby Mario will get knocked off your back and start flying away from you in a bubble. (Don't ask me where this bubble was when he was dropping from the stork though) During this time, you'll lose Stars at a swift pace. If you ever reach 0 Stars, Kamek's Toadies will come and kidnap Baby Mario, probably finding him from his incessant wailing.

In order to stop the countdown, you just need to pop the bubble with your body or tongue and Baby Mario will hop right back on your back. If you have less than 10 Stars at this point, you'll slowly gain Stars until you reach 10. You can never go above 30 Stars at any particular point.

Stars have another purpose I'll explain in the next update when we enter our first actual level, but this is enough of an info and plot dump already.



Coins are just like they are in any other Mario game; collect 100, get a 1-Up. Again, they'll be of more importance later.

We also run into our first enemy here! This is a Shy Guy, and they are fucking everywhere on this island. They're basically a Yoshified version of Goombas. They don't do much, but if you touch them they'll knock Mario off.



Of course, Yoshi has ways to take care of them.

For starters, he can jump on them, just like any Mario game. Next, he has a tongue attack (shown) which allows him to store enemies in his mouth. He can then to proceed to spit them out at enemies as a projectile or store them in an egg to use later. He can hold up to 6 eggs at a time (I have 2, as you can see), and let me tell you, they'll quickly become the most important aspect of this game. Yoshi's tongue can also be aimed up and be used to pop the bubble when Baby Mario gets knocked off.





This is an Expansion Block. If you hit it from the bottom, it'll expand and rise a little, allowing you to access higher areas using it.



This is a Hint Block. As the name might suggest, it gives you hints and tips about playing the game.




This one teaches us about what most of us probably know as the Flutter Jump, although in this game it's called the Hovering Jump. Basically, you can hold the jump button to get a little bit more height and distance out of your jumps.

For some reason though, in this game, it feels like less height/distance than other games in the series. Just me?



Having successfully fluttere- HOVERED across the gap, we come across this thing.

This is a Spring Ball, which as the name suggests, will allow us to access greater heights by jumping on it. If you press the jump button with good timing, you'll jump fairly high.



Big Spring Balls, of course, do the same thing, but propel you even higher.



And we come to the end of this tutorial level. As a minor note, unless you're playing the Advance version, you can never come back to this level again.



And this is the world map! And as you can see, there's our relay system, completely in place already.

And that's all for this update! Next time, we'll enter the first level and learn about more of what this game has to offer!

Any constructive comments would be appreciated!
Flattery is optional, but recommended.

[Beed28]

Good read. I remember first playing Yoshi's Island on a SNES emulator a long time ago, and then I got it for real on the GBA. I'm surprised you're not doing it as a video series and adding annotations to it.

[Kapus]

I did screenshot Let's Play like this on another forum, where I spoke in character as all the Yoshis.

Be careful doing screenshot LPs of Platformer games. They tend to be more focused on action and actual gameplay, rather than story and characters. Most people do screenshot LPs of RPGs.

[HD_]

Good read. I remember first playing Yoshi's Island on a SNES emulator a long time ago, and then I got it for real on the GBA. I'm surprised you're not doing it as a video series and adding annotations to it.

Glad you liked it!

I don't trust myself to be good enough to record a video live, plus videos take more effort.

I did screenshot Let's Play like this on another forum, where I spoke in character as all the Yoshis.

Be careful doing screenshot LPs of Platformer games. They tend to be more focused on action and actual gameplay, rather than story and characters. Most people do screenshot LPs of RPGs.

Heh, that sounds interesting.

And yeah, I know that most screenshot LPs are for RPGs, but I wanted to try this, and I have screenshot bound to a convenient key for that purpose. Also Yoshi's Island has a really nice art style and is just a great game overall so that all contributed to why I chose it.

Update 2: Eggs Over-Easy (World 1-1)

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I like how I got Yoshi during his blink animation in this shot.



This is the first thing I want to show off in this update: the Pause Menu. Why? Cause it has information we want to look at.

For each level, you'll get a point tally. This is based on the number of collectibles you get in the form of Stars, Red Coins, and Flowers. I'll go over each of them as they come up.



Over here's another Hint Block.





Tutorial on how to make Eggs, which I already went over.



And a new enemy! This is a Crazee Dayzee. They come in white and yellow versions, which are exactly the same. The only difference from Shy Guys is that if you spit out a Dayzee, it won't die unless it hits another enemy. It's a nice little touch I guess.





And this is our first Flower! There are 5 of these in each level. You get 10 points on your completion score for each one you collect for a total of 50 points!

If you collect all 5 in a level, you also get an extra life and have an increased chance to enter a Bonus Game at the end of the level. (I'll go over that when I actually get the Bonus Game)



And yet another new enemy, the Piranha Plant! From far away, these guys are just little sprouts, but when you get close, they expand to their full size and gnash their teeth at you. Instead of simply trying to bite you, they will eat you and spit you out, causing you to lose Baby Mario and your Eggs.

This is a real pain in the ass if you're going for max completion since you lose Stars during this, so don't get eaten! You can kill them by spitting an enemy at them or by throwing an Egg at them.






This shows you how to throw Eggs (using the Patient control style, there's a Hasty control style as well but I don't see any reason to go over that in detail.



This isn't the best screenshot, but up in the corner you can see a ? Cloud. I like these much more than ? Blocks from Mario games; instead of just giving you an item or coin, these can do so, so, SO many things.



This one creates a staircase that leads up to this platform in the sky.

See those red-tinted coins in the middle row? Guess what they are!



Yep! For some reason, Red Coins are hidden as off-color Gold Coins. I don't really know why they decided to do this, but okay. Red Coins are worth 1 point on your completion score and count as 1 Coin.

All the coins in the middle row up here are Red, by the way.



There's also Flower #2 at the end of this platform.



You can barely see his face behind the Stars (which are worth 1 point each as well as serving as your health meter, by the way), but there's another new enemy up here, Fly Guy! He doesn't really do much in the way of attacking you, but he usually holds items that he'll drop if you hit him with an Egg. This one drops some Stars.




So I drop back down, take out one of the Piranha Plant guards, and head down this pipe.



There's a Hint Block, an Egg Block, a weird-looking rock, and a row of coins and enemies in this cave.




This Hint Block tells us about Chomp Rocks, which are basically pushable environmental murder weapons of doom. They can also be used as platforms.



Yoshi begins to push the Chomp Rock, but thinks for a while and decides to go back and check the Egg Block out.



As you can probably tell, you can hit it to get more Eggs to a maximum of 6. (It'll just stop giving them out at 6)



I grab the Red Coin from the Fly Guy. This whole row of coins has Red Coins scattered throughout it, so use Eggs to get them or just jump into them using the Chomp Rock.



And another new creature! This is a Baron von Zeppelin. I don't want to say enemy because they won't hurt you directly. Yeah, even if you touch them, no harm will come to you. However, while sometimes they help you and carry helpful items, like this free 1-Up, others later on will carry bombs and even enemies.



MOAR COINS




This is a Tulip. Basically, if you throw an egg into the top of the open flower, it'll produce Stars. It's a great way to get some easy health!




I'm not actually sure how I got these, but I have Yellow and Red Eggs now! A Yellow Egg yields a coin when it hits an enemy, while a Red Egg yields 2 Stars when it hits an enemy. So yeah, they're pretty nice, especially Red Eggs.




And out we go.



We land right next to Flower #3, which is guarded by 2 Red Coins. No mercy!



Just showing off the Red Egg, even though this is a total waste.



Here's Flower #4. 2 Red Coins are also here, but I accidentally collected them before screenshotting. Oh well!



2 more Red Coins.



This pipe will continuously spawn Shy Guys until you have 6 Eggs. Yes, this is meant for the sole purpose of Egg farming.

You can also go down the pipe but there isn't actually anything down there.




Oh?



This ? Cloud makes a flower that you can use to climb up to the next area.




This one contains Flower #5! Also gives us a 1-Up, so that's nice.



The Baron von Zeppelin just has some regular Coins to take. There's also a hidden ? Cloud you can find if you touch the right edge of this ledge that contains Stars. The one right above the Shy Guy spawner also contains Stars.

There's also one I missed; if you touch the right side of the Shy Guy spawner pipe, you can find a hidden ? Cloud for a 1-Up.



And we're back here.



These are the last 2 Red Coins.




Erm...isn't it a little late to be telling us this?



I don't think this Shy Guy variant has an official name, but it flips forward instead of walking, making it slightly more dangerous.



This ? Cloud has Stars...



...but since I have a full Star count, it gives me some Coins instead. I always thought that was a nice touch.



That's the Goal Ring. As you can see, it acts as a sort of roulette. If it lands on a Flower, you'll play a Bonus Game! As you can probably tell, collecting an actual Flower will add a Flower to the Goal Ring and make a Bonus Game more likely.





Sadly, I have no such luck.

I think the probability of getting a Bonus Game with all 5 Flowers is 50%, and each Flower you miss decreases it by 10%, though someone can check me on that math.



I don't need math to know I got a perfect score though!  



That's all for this update! Next time, we'll see where Red Yoshi's going to take us next!

As usual, feedback/flattery are appreciated and encouraged.

[Geno]

I believe the reason you got red and yellow eggs is that you caught them as they were ricocheting (hope that's the right word) off the walls.

[Knux]

IIRC, you can cancel out ricochetting eggs with Yoshi's tongue. Also yeah, the probability for a bonus with all of the flowers is 50/50, considering how there are 5 blue dots, too.

Reading this playthrough makes me want to play that game again.