Yoshi’s Story has an intriguing enough game progression. Levels are unlocked through Story Mode - quite literally a story book retelling of events.
Gone are the start to finish level progression, Yoshi is free to roam around through branching paths with levels reaching finality when 30 pieces of fruit are collected.
Additional levels become available when Hearts are collected in each stage - so while you can finish the game once without exploration you’d only be playing through a quarter of the game. Explore levels and collect hearts to unlock the whole game. Levels are numbered 1 to 4, this is dependent on how many hearts you find, find 2 and you will have access to Level 3 of the next Stage.
Once you’ve unlocked all levels the game is reliant on pulling you back for completing high scores for individual level in Trials or Story Mode for a combined score across the 6 Stages.
It’s an interesting approach to accessibility, beginners may do the bare essentials to finish the game whereas more advanced gamers may take the time to collect all Hearts and 30 Melons to attain a high score.
I actually really enjoy Yoshi’s Story and think it gets unfairly compared to Yoshi’s Island, it probably ranks just below Mischief Makers in terms of 2-2.5D platformers on N64
Gone are the start to finish level progression, Yoshi is free to roam around through branching paths with levels reaching finality when 30 pieces of fruit are collected.
Additional levels become available when Hearts are collected in each stage - so while you can finish the game once without exploration you’d only be playing through a quarter of the game. Explore levels and collect hearts to unlock the whole game. Levels are numbered 1 to 4, this is dependent on how many hearts you find, find 2 and you will have access to Level 3 of the next Stage.
Once you’ve unlocked all levels the game is reliant on pulling you back for completing high scores for individual level in Trials or Story Mode for a combined score across the 6 Stages.
It’s an interesting approach to accessibility, beginners may do the bare essentials to finish the game whereas more advanced gamers may take the time to collect all Hearts and 30 Melons to attain a high score.
I actually really enjoy Yoshi’s Story and think it gets unfairly compared to Yoshi’s Island, it probably ranks just below Mischief Makers in terms of 2-2.5D platformers on N64