For years I considered myself not a fan of Yoshi's Island, where was the fluid momentum driven platforming of Super Mario, why had it's taut level design (already beset by the tyranny of ghost houses) been replaced by this sprawl? But one of the things I value most about Super Mario is the way it gives you more tools than you need to succeed, in a genre where often feels that you are simply playing Simon Says with the game developer, the fluid physics, the clever level design and numerous power ups allow you to believe that you are beating your own path through the games many challenges, and in Yoshi's Island this feeling remains, the accident (in the Aristotelian sense) changed, but the substance remains. As such, the ineffable quality of Super Mario is wholly intact, that quality that leaves you asking your own game design questions every time; What if the whole game was a single big level? What if it were two player and you could pass eggs or even baby Mario between yourselves as a means of overcoming obstacles? What if Yoshi swallowed you and turned you into an egg, how would that feel? What if after eating a watermelon, Yoshi spit the seeds at me, and tender welts rose on my porcelain flesh? What if Yoshi became the mother-father to my own children, as he was the surrogate to Mario? Why does he wear shoes all the time, I would like to take them off, and give his aching feet a much needed massage after a day of adventuring around his island with our child, we would be so happy.