i played this when i was younger, but never finished it.

for the most part, its a fine game, because it plays just like yoshi's island (a fun game i like a lot). the addition of the new babies is a neat idea and is sometimes cool, but other times you get to a new area and the only practical choice (or only required choice) is a specific baby so you switch to it and thats that. fine, i guess, but just not very interesting.

level design is fine and not very memorable until you get near the end of world 4 (out of 5) when the game starts throwing incredibly stupid levels at you. theres stupidly slow autoscrollers where nothing is happening so you just wait for like 30 seconds for the screen to move for anything interesting to come up (spoiler: nothing interesting does come up) and if you accidentally mess up then you can feel free to restart and take like a minute to get back there in the most painfully slow way possible. one level has bouncy enemies that bounce off you and walls fall from the sky while you move on incredibly precarious platforms, which just feels unfun. all the late game levels are memorable just because of how frustrating they are, and i was super happy to just at least finally be done with the game.

i'd rather just be playing the first game on the snes.
also why does bowser kinda look like he was ripped from a flash game?? lmao?

I remember loving this game as a kid, and I was shocked to see over the years how many people despised it and called it one of the worst experiences on the DS.

As an experience this is pretty much a continuation of the Yoshi Island formula: a full sequel with familiar mechanics and levels, but with new features to spice things up.
More specifically the implementation of the various babies makes for an interesting concept, leading to different takes on the level design that results mostly fun (exception is baby wario that has some slower and more tedious puzzles with the magnet): while switching between babies can be kinda tedious because of the Stork stop signs, I never found it that much annoying. The levels, while nothing creative as kinda too reminiscent to SMW2, they are still fun to traverse and Yoshi is fun to control as always.

The worst thing about Yosho DS is the use of the dual screen tho showcase two different parts of the map, more specifically the part yoshi is in and the sky above him: on paper it is a cool idea: you see an enemy on the top screen and you know it will come closer/ be able to be hit with the eggs.... the issue is that the level design doesn't take in consideration the literal gap that distances the two screens, leading to levels that feels cramped, and where any interaction with the upper screen never feels accurate.
The more zoomed camera compared to other platformers also means that you will see less of the levels, meaning that faster obstacles, bottomless pits, and any type of obstacle can beinfurating to traverse (I remember the ski level specificall that always pissed me off)

But aside from that, I don't see why this game is so hated: it's doesn't do something that impressive, but it is still a decent sequel to Yoshi's baby-sitting shenanigans

Genuine contender as one of the worst Nintendo sequels ever made.

I had this game as a kid, hated it day one. As an adult, I decided to finally replay it in full after a decade and stream it to some friends, not only to see if my opinion would change on it, but if there's anything I can appreciate from it today.

The backgrounds are nice. That's a new thing I can say. Everything I didn't like about the game then, I still don't like now: The music sucks (2-3 good tracks), the baby swapping mechanic was a good idea in concept but in execution it just bogged the pacing down to a halt whilst also being situational, visually the game is a mix between looking good and looking pretty bad with stylistically clashing sprites, bosses weren't fun either. Oh and the game just loved slamming auto-scrollers at you, a LOT.

As a game on its own it's very mediocre and could keep a kid busy, but as a sequel to arguably one of Nintendo's best games, it falls so short and face flat on the ground.

It plays and controls fine but the pace breaking moments are all too severe. Not worth your time.

With the exception of the entirety of the Lost levels, World 5 of this game has some of the most obnoxious level design I've ever seen in a 2D platformer. The rest of the game has decent level design but oh my god World 5 SUCKS. That, and while the baby switching mechanic is a really cool idea, it honestly feels half baked. Hell, Baby Wario and Baby Bowser are only available for a grand total of 5 levels each in the main story. Other than those two gaping holes, it's still more of Yoshi's island, which is why I can't call it an outright bad game. Yoshi's Island DS is still a fun-ish game at its core

First things first this game is so cute, the art style is lovely and I think it looks great. Playing as Yoshi is always fun and I enjoy the basic mechanics and the way he controls but that's kind of where the positives stop. The baby switching mechanic is cool in theory but it's really underused and when it is used the implementation isn't great, the actual switching itself feeling a bit clunky. The original Yoshi's Island is great and full of creative level design whereas there's not much memorable here, and the ones that stand out in my mind stand out for having needlessly frustrating segments. This especially goes for the auto-scroll levels which are way too common and add nothing of value, the auto-scroll just slows the pace and adds to frustration, my main example was on one level where you have to descend in a cave but the screen moves at such a slow pace I ended up dying from going off the screen way too many times when I knew a platform was just underneath me.

I wish the gameplay was more fun in this because I think it's such a cute game and love Yoshi but I don't know this just isn't something I enjoyed playing.