They must have had help from Jesus.
User Rating: 9.7 | Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi Island + Mario Brothers GBA
I remember playing Yoshi's Island on the SNES and being pleased, but unimpressed by the fun music and hand-drawn art style. Now, ten years later, I'm blown away by the quality and playability of this classic Mario game. The story begins with a stork carrying two baby Mario bros. in sacks over the ocean. Kamek, King Bowser's wizard, attacks the stork and manages to grab only Luigi's sack, the other falling to Yoshi's Island. While the Yoshis plan to take Mario to Bowser's Keep to reunite the brothers, Kamek notices his error and sends his toadies to find the other baby. The gameplay is developed wonderfully and never gets dull. Aside from the running and jumping that make up any Mario adventure, Yoshi swallow some enemies to make eggs and throw them with lethal speed. The eggs will bounce off of any surface it can't destroy, making for some very interesting and challenging puzzles that occupy the whole screen, and then some. The most fun I had in the game was in levels that employed loads of a soft material that could be destroyed by the eggs, allowing Yoshi to sculpt steps and find secrets. The button configuration for Yoshi's Island on the GBA works a little bit better than it did on the SNES. Rather than aiming and firing eggs with a face button, it has been mapped to the R shoulder button, allowing more precision while jumping. This also makes it much easier to use the faster of two firing methods. By default you must press once to aim, and press again to fire. You can choose to press to aim and release to fire. I found this to be more intuitive and precise. Yoshi can also jump quite high, and by holding the jump button long enough, or pressing it again in midair, he will kick his feet and hover a little higher. This often makes the game much easier since you can drift slowly down by repeating the maneuver, comparable to Mario's raccoon/tanuki tail in SMB 3. However, just like SMB 3, hovering at the wrong place, or for too long, may set you back or take a life. Yoshi is practically invincible. When he is attacked he is briefly stunned and baby Mario is knocked into the air, floating in a bubble. If Yoshi doesn't grab Mario before an on-screen timer runs out, Kamek's toadies will snatch Mario out of the air and take him away. As long as Mario is on screen, Yoshi can still grab him back, but once he's out of sight, a short clip plays and Yoshi loses a life. Besides the technical perfection, this game is wrapped in gobs of superficial joy. The music is always enjoyable and carries the pace of the gameplay without encouraging hemorrhages and heart attacks. The soundtracks are consistent between levels, so that each on tells you what to expect. First is a casual outdoor tune; second is a more tropical melody that lets you know things are coming at you from all directions; third is a sort of ragtime, used for areas that require quick reflexes and no room for error; fourth is a plodding underground tune: keep a lookout for secret paths; and last is the castle melody, big and spacious, building up to the boss battles. The graphics are very easy on the eyes and communicate a level of interest beyond the basic motions of our heroes and their egg-fodder. For instance, when Yoshi walks into a horizontal pipe, baby Mario ducks and pulls his hat down over his face. By pressing up or down on the D-pad, Yoshi will look up or duck and cover, respectively. After a moment of holding either position, Mario will mimic Yoshi and the view will pan in that direction. As with every Mario game ported to the GBA, they had to toss in some voice where there was no voice before. Where this fact has hampered the experience in other games, I think it's done very well in Yoshi's Island. This is partly due to the fact that neither Yoshi or baby Mario can speak. On the SNES, Yoshi made some noise when hovering. Now he'll make some little Yoshi-ism when he ducks, jumps, throws, and pushes. I think that Mario's cry is also redone, but it's essentially the same. Yosih's grunts and sounds of exertion are low key enough that they blend into the experience of the game, rather than remind you that it's not a SNES in your hands, but the squawking GBA. Now you know enough to build the game yourself, eh? I thoroughly enjoyed this game, and am still enjoying it. Each level is scored, 0 to 100, and even a getting perfect 100 often leaves some secrets undiscovered. The game continues to grow after the story is finished; this is one title I'll still be playing on my DS, when that time comes. 
