Yoshi's Island DS is a worthy sequel to the original, but it's still not quite as good.
User Rating: 7.9 | Yoshi's Island DS DS
Yoshi's Island was a great game no matter what system it was played on. Yoshi's unique abilities and the charming graphics and sound effects, along with large and interesting levels, were enough to propel the game over all other recent platformers. Now Yoshi's Island DS has come along, and while some of the magic of the original game is less prevalent, it's still a charming and at times, very fun adventure. With recent platformers such as New Super Mario Bros. raising the bar substantially for platformers, I can see why Nintendo felt the need to include multiple babies in YIDS. Like the different types of mushrooms in NSMB, the different babies each give Yoshi new abilities and are used in both platforming and puzzle solving. While switching up the babies gives certain portions of the game a new lease on life, it can also be a bit frustrating at times if you find out later on in a level that you need a certain baby to get to a secret area and you need to backtrack for a while to get to a baby exchange point. The gameplay is pretty average. Yoshi can run and jump, as well as perform a hover jump and a butt slam. What makes Yoshi's platforming games unique is the fact that he can eat enemies and turn them into eggs, which can then be thrown at enemies or switches. This, along with the variety of babies, keeps the gameplay from feeling stale. The graphics are typical Yoshi's Island. They look like they were taken right out of a children's picture book. While the graphics are warm and inviting, they also don't push the DS at all. The sound is generally good, with catchy beats playing in the background at all times. When you lose track of your baby is a different story. When hit, all of the babies (especially Peach) emit an ear-shattering shreik that is honestly quite annoying. Despite the annoying baby shrieks, Yoshi's Island will keep many playing for hours and hours. There are tons of things hidden in every level. There are five flowers in each level, as well as stars and coins to collect, and minigames to unlock (some of the minigames are pretty fun, and some can get old pretty fast.) Yoshi's Island should please many fans of the original, and indeed it is a very charming adventure, but while playing it I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing... 
