Though Yoshi's Island presents the peak aesthetics possible on the Super Nintendo, it doesn't resonate with me gameplay-wise like its predecessors. The lack of standard powerups and platforming challenges instead of puzzles and tossing eggs can only take the experience so far. My time with Yoshi's Island was undeniably pleasant, but I had difficulty staying invested in the moment-to-moment gameplay after I progressed into World 5.

There are only enough mixtures of platforming challenges, puzzles, and egg-throwing before it begins to run a bit dry; the lack of Mario-like powerups hampers the experience, as the only powerups we do receive - in the form of transformations - are few and far between aside from secrets and hardly stay long enough to make a real impact on the experience.

If we graded Yoshi's Island solely off of its vibes and aesthetic, it would be a 10/10 experience, but there's an eight-ish hour game here that needs to remain fresh in some way to stick the landing. By the time I'm six hours into hearing the same four songs across all stages doing largely the same repetitive challenges, I'm begging for some sort of change in gameplay aside from the occasional boss.

Now having played Yoshi's Island, I can see where its reputation comes from, but I feel a lot of the hype around the game since its release nearly thirty years ago led to higher expectations going into it. I don't believe Yoshi's Island is anything close to a masterpiece, but it's an undeniably fun time. I recommend doing what I did and playing a level or two before bed on the Switch or your chosen emulation device.

You know, I actually didn't have as bad of a time 100%ing this game as I thought I would. It was kind of a mixed bag actually. Certain levels were fun to go through, others absolutely were not. But all in all I still managed to enjoy this game quite a bit! I enjoy the unique gameplay style that's set apart from your traditional 2D Mario games, as well as its exploration. It's just a shame that it requires tedium to get the most out of its level design, because you have to get absolutely everything in a level at once for it to count as 100%.

Something I absolutely adore about this game is its presentation. Flawless spritework and a flawless soundtrack. I'm dead serious this has to be one of my favorite presentations in any video game ever. This game is such a beautiful work of art.