Yoshi Touch & Go Review

[Mendez]

[img]http://www.all-shop.ru/photos/yo****ouch.jpg[/img]

People commonly seem to make out that Yoshi Touch & Go is supposed to be an adventure game, that’s packed with tons of levels, and then they complain about it being too short. It’s more like a puzzle game really; it’s about the replay value, not the amount of time it takes to see everything. After all, you wouldn’t complain about Tetris having just one level would you?

The game is split into 2 main styles of play, one controlling Mario, and the other controlling Yoshi. Each section of gameplay consists of 1,000m, which usually takes the player a couple of minutes to complete.

The Mario stages scroll vertically downwards. They work quite well, but aren’t anywhere near as entertaining as the Yoshi stages. Mario is suspended in the air by 3 balloons, one of which he loses each time he comes into contact with an enemy, as he slowly descends down towards the ground where he’ll meet Yoshi for the side scrolling stages. The main aim of the Mario stages is to get as many points as possible. Points are obtained by collecting coins, by either circling them, which will seal them in bubbles which you then flick over to Mario, drifting into them, or circling enemy’s which will bubble them and turn them into coins. The amount of points you get in this section will determine what colour Yoshi will be waiting for you at the bottom. The colour Yoshi you have determines it’s speed, and the maximum amount of eggs it can store.



The gameplay through the Yoshi stages is very straightforward, and works surprisingly well. Yoshi walks through the levels, from left to right collecting points in a similar way to Mario. The points will differ in importance depending on which mode you’re playing. The basic controls: Obviously you draw the clouds in the same way as in the Mario levels. Blow into the microphone to clear them away if you get caught in a dead end or something similar. You simply tap the screen somewhere in front of Yoshi to fire an egg. The only problem with this is while working quickly, you might accidently just draw a small line which will then leave you open to enemies If you tap Yoshi himself, he will perform the classic Flutter Jump move.



The game is split into 4 main modes: Score Attack, Marathon, Time Attack and Challenge.

Score Attack is the simplest mode in the game. You play through the Mario stage as usual, and then you play through the Yoshi stage just once. The main objective through the 2000m you play through here is to just rack up as many points as you possibly can.

Marathon is personally my favourite mode. After you’ve finished the Mario stage, you just keep playing and playing for as long as you can. It’s a lot of fun but be careful, if you get hit once, then you have to go back to the start of the Mario stages which is very tedious. Once you complete every 1000m you’ll hop onto the next Yoshi before continuing. This breaks up the action nicely and offers the player a 5 second break from the action. The points aren’t essential in this mode, but if you collect 100 of them you’ll become super Mario for a short amount of time. In this time you can’t be touched by enemies but you’re still liable to falling down cliffs so you still need to be careful. This is probably where you’ll spend most of your time while playing.

In Time Attack the Mario stage is slightly different to usual. This one has Mario collecting power stars which give him a speed boost for a couple of seconds, and make him invincible so you don’t have to worry about enemies. Though even when you are invincible, you still have to watch out, as the sky is littered with bumpers which slow you down a lot. Once you reach the bottom of the level, Mario will land on Yoshi as usual, then you will see Baby Luigi being carried off by a bunch of goons.
The Mario stage is extended to 1500m, and you now have to rush through it as fast as possible. As soon as you see the goons that have kidnapped Luigi you have to defeat them before it’s too late. The clouds that you draw will now increase Yoshi’s speed, but there are a lot of physical disadvantages like mountains that rise above the 2 screens where you are unable to assist Yoshi. This is probably the least good mode in the game, it’s very frustrating when you lose due to rushing to catch up with the goons, and once you do manage to save Luigi, you probably won’t really want to do it again.

Last but not least, there’s the Challenge mode, which is named very well as it’s the most challenging mode in the game. The Mario stage is one again littered with stars, and this time there are no coins to collect. Stars must be collected to get the main of the points, as now there are just rows of enemy’s to smash into to get your points instead. Once you reach the bottom, you will see Kamek fly overhead in a similar way you saw the goons carrying Luigi. You’re now timed with 100 fast moving seconds for this stage. When you defeat enemies or collect coins, instead of being awarded with points, you are now given extra time. After a short amount of time, your only concern isn’t just the lack of time. You’ll also find yourself running out of eggs, and once that happens, it’s impossible to protect yourself from the huge bunches of spike enemies that block the paths.



Once you’ve unlocked all of the modes and achieved all of the set scores, your efforts are rewarded with a balloon popping minigame. This is good, because it adds about 3 minutes worth of gameplay onto the game. After those 3 minutes are up however, you’ll probably never want to play it again. They could have done a lot more to create a wider variety of unlockable features to add replay value to the game, but you can’t have everything, can you?

Summary
+ Makes great use of the DS's unique features
+ Great Yoshi themed soundtrack
- Awful balloon minigame, and lack of extra unlockable features
- The backgrounds are a bit bland compared to the Yoshi’s Island games

Graphics= 8
Sound= 9
Controls= 8
Longevity= 7
Gameplay= 8
Overall= 84%

Overall, this is a great game with the essential one more go factor, and will have you coming back again and again to beat your high scores.

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As usual, all comments are welcome good and bad. =]

I know it's a pretty old game but I'm new to writing reviews and it didn't want to take on something too difficult for now.

*wonders if someone will actually be bothered to read it* :P

[Sektor]

hehe i have wanted to try and write reviews but ain't gt round to it:P

Nice review tho...keep at it

[Mendez]

Originally Posted by jonathan.harris---

hehe i have wanted to try and write reviews but ain't gt round to it:P

Nice review tho...keep at it

I wanted to write them for over a year now, but never got round to it lol
I just did my first one as a spur of the moment thing. I've written a few now, but only submitted 2 of them; this and Picross.

[Kevin]

That was a fun game. Lots of fun and pretty challenging.

[Mendez]

Ahem, the picture won't work because it has Yoshi Touch in 1 word and now has censors instead.

Oh, and kudo's to the censors finally becoming asterix's

[SegaFan]

Good review. An overlooked and underrated game, but if there are any complaints it's a bit frustrating. I agree it has a great soundtrack.

[Mendez]

Originally Posted by SegaFan

Good review. An overlooked and underrated game, but if there are any complaints it's a bit frustrating. I agree it has a great soundtrack.

Thanks
I was going to make more reviews, (I've only completed 3 + 3 half finished ones) but I don't feel good enough at it. Practice makes perfect I suppose..

[The shoemaker]

I find it really fun and a great use of the touch screen. I think you can play multilayer though through the ds wireless downloading thing. But sadly I'm selling it, I dont want to but i want metriod prime 3