Yoshi's New Island
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 This game is a disgrace! - Yoshi, probably.
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Yoshi's New Island is a platform game developed by Arzest and published by Nintendo in 2014 for the Nintendo 3DS. It is the first Yoshi game to be based on the classic era.
Gameplay
The gameplay is similar to previous Yoshi's Island games, involving Yoshi needing to reach the goal at the end of each stage while protecting Baby Mario from enemies by throwing eggs as a weapon, and sometimes transforming into a vehicle. There are six vehicle forms in the game: Hot Air Balloon, Helicopter, Jackhammer, Mine Cart, Bobsled, and Submarine. They are controlled using the console's gyroscope. A new feature to this game are Mega Eggdozers, larger than usual Yoshi eggs, which are able to hit and destroy some obstacles in the way, as well as Metal Eggdozers, which are slightly smaller and roll across terrain. Yoshi obtains these by eating Giant Metal Shy Guys, respectively. In Underwater stages, where Yoshi must walk on the seafloor, is another new addition. If the player is having difficulty completing a stage, Yoshi can obtain Flutter Wings, which allows for indefinite hovering, and Golden Flutter Wings, which give Yoshi invincibility as well.
Not a New Island Qualities
- The beginning of the game is a huge insult to the original game's ending because it's revealed that the parents in the ending are the wrong ones, meaning that the ending in the game was utterly pointless now.
- Horrid soundtrack which is considered to be the worst soundtrack in a Mario game. This is in general very surprising since the Mario games are notable for having a really great soundtrack that can be fun to listen to, or be just outright catchy. Yoshi's New Island however, did not follow this, and instead has a soundtrack that looks like it belongs to a random other obscure game instead of Mario or Yoshi's Island. The most infamous piece of the soundtrack is "The Yoshi Clan", which sounds like the Libyan orchestra or the Portsmouth Sinfonia trying to perform "God Save the Queen".
- The graphics look rather ugly for a 3DS game, and would've been better if it was in the Nintendo DS. Yoshi's model looks abysmal and it feels it was made by a underdone monkey from Walmart, and Baby Mario's model looks like he belongs in a Nintendo 64 game.
- In fact, the actual DS Yoshi Island game, which was released in 2006, look better than this, with much nicer art style and that game was also more faithful to the art style of the original.
- The level design looks muddy which looks like a college student designed it in 2 weeks but without encouragement.
- The final battles against Baby Bowser and Bowser are bad. Baby Bowser's fight is just an obvious copy and paste of the final boss from previous Yoshi's Island games, while the Bowser battle is just a copy of the Baby Bowser battle, which is just laziness. Even Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story gave the bosses in the Gauntlet new additions instead of just being complete copies of the regular battles.
- The plot twist with Bowser traveling in time to defeat Yoshi is just generic and feel like it was made at the last minute because not any time travel did happen previously, even worse, it is just there so that the game last longer, which is again very lazy because the final boss with Bowser is just Baby Bowser but slightly harder.
- Now true, in Yoshi's Island DS, the adult Bowser was also present but at least it was justified and that game had some time traveling elements, but this game howewer does not had any of those elements.
- The ending cutscene after you defeat both Baby Bowser and Bowser is just copied from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, which is just unoriginal. It also has the same problem as the beginning of the game (as mentioned before).
- Mediocre controls, with Yoshi feeling too slow and heavy.
- The game basically tries to remake Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, but it just crappily copies it. Not to mention the textboxes are pretty similar to the ones from Yoshi's Island.
- This game gives players a bad moral where a worker does a job poorly they would get surprised or get worried, which would get fired for being incompetent. This is evident when the stork accidentally gives the family the wrong babies (Mario and Luigi) (even before going back to the real parents until Kamek beats him up) in the intro.
- It almost killed the original Yoshi's Island franchise, as no new games set in that continuity have been made ever since; the only Yoshi games that got released are Yoshi's Woolly World and Yoshi's Crafted World (both of which are much better-received than this one).
Qualities That Are a New Island
- Unlike Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash, another game from Nintendo, the game at least tries to be faithful to it's source material and tries retains the original charm of the game, but it fails at trying to have the original charm.
- The box art is very nicely detailed.
- Some of the songs are decent, like Bandit Valley or the special stages theme.
- This game can be nostalgic to some people, especially to fans who played Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island as a kid.
Reception
The game received mixed reviews by critics with a score of 64/100 on Metacritic, which is the lowest rated Yoshi game on the website.
Howewer, the reception with Yoshi fans were extremely negative and is even considered to be the worst Yoshi game ever made, and this game even ruined Arzest's reputation.
The game was mostly criticized for being a rehash from the first Yoshi Island but the most criticized part was the soundtrack, which was said to be the worst soundtrack from a Yoshi game, and was criticized for being ear bleeding for the most parts.