 SNESTER! Allow me to speak in the second person for a second. Now, you're Nintendo. You've got the biggest money-making franchise in gaming, it's a sure thing. Super Mario World sold approximately 80 gazillion copies, and to this day it remains one of the best games ever made on any system. So if you're Nintendo, you gotta make a sequel. Easy enough, right? Just more Mario World. More levels, more power-ups, more Yoshi stuff, more Mario stuff. You can practically print your own money with this formula. But, no. Scratch all that. Instead, let's take a proven successful formula and turn it straight on its ass. Let's all go into a room for a week and do nothing but smoke pod and trip on acid, and let's make Super Mario World 2 Yoshi's Island. Nintendo really outdid themselves with this game. The graphics and the gameplay elements are so incredibly imaginative. I have no idea how the developers even began to think of some of the crazy ass shit they came up with. Dude, let's have Yoshi be the hero, but like, have Mario have a baby? But then let's have like, Yoshi poop out his enemies into eggs? But then, use them to flaying at other enemies? Dude, then let's have Yoshi be able to turn into a bulldozer. No way, a race car. Or no way, a freaking helicopter, yeah. It's just, I don't even, I mean, just, wow. Wow. And the craziest thing of all is that it just works. Yoshi's Island is top quality. It even adds a couple new dimensions to the regular platformer that you'd be used to seeing on the Super Nintendo. You rely on Yoshi's unique abilities to make sure Baby Mario is protected. So there's no life bar, really. You just have to make sure you hold on to the baby, or else. Yes, that's right. The game's biggest flaw is no secret. It's that annoying, ear-splitting sound of a crying baby. I decided long ago I'm never having kids, and I'd like to think a tiny part of that decision came from getting fed up from the crying baby in this game. I'll give it this though, it's effective. You want to get him back if only for the sake of shutting him up. It's not that big of a deal though. The game maintains a good balance between being unique and keeping that Mario vibe overall. Despite how weird it looks and plays, it does still come across quite well as a sequel to Super Mario World. One tweak in particular that I like is the adjustment that they made to the difficulty. Extra lives are so easy to come by in Mario World, you can practically play that game blindfolded and somehow end up with like 20 extra lives somehow. The scoring system that Yoshi's Island implements makes it a little tougher to accumulate extra lives, and I appreciate that. However, one other minor flaw I want to point out is that the game relies a little too much on exploration. I like that the levels are a little longer than the first Mario World, but some maps are so big and so long that they slant away from intuitive and more towards deliberately confusing. In some levels there are literally arrows telling you where to go, but you know, only when the game feels like it should tell you. This game more than makes up for its flaws however, I'm going to sound like a total cliche written douche canoe reviewer for a second, but I have to say it. This game is an experience. There, I said it. I hate phrasing stuff like that, but in the case of this game, it's true. If I had to pick one game that had the best graphics on the Super Nintendo and the best overall visual presentation, it would be Yoshi's Island, and I wouldn't even think twice about it. It's not even close. If you've never played this game before, just wait until Yoshi accidentally eats one of those poppy cloud-looking things. It's just the best. I especially love how screwed up the music gets. It's like you're suddenly in the middle of a Looney Tunes cartoon. Look at this. Anyway, I passed on playing this game for a long time, because I wanted a quote unquote real sequel to Mario World, and I regret doing that because this game is such a trip. The creativity and sheer fearlessness in which this developers tackled this game has to be commended. So if you were like me, and you took forever to get around to playing Super Mario World 2, Yoshi's Island, or if you wrote it off because of the quote unquote kiddie style graphics, you're missing out big time. You won't find a game like Yoshi's Island anywhere else.