Yoshi Touch n' Go

[Gadfly2317]

Anyone play this yet?

Haven't spent much time with it, but its another smallish game, small in scope, but original and fun. Gives me hope on the pricing, though, as it was only $29 (though I did see it one place for $34.) I'm not keen on paying $49+ for handheld games.

This is another colorful, fun diversion while waiting for games with substance, some strategy or RPG games. Hopefully I'll have more to say later. I'm actually smitten right now with Atari Arcade Classics.

[Gadfly2317]

Yoshi Touch N Go is actually a lot more fun and in-depth than I first perceived. Also, it is a really tough challenge.

Some of the "smallness" of the game comes from the fact that its very "arcade" in its roots. You have one life, you screw up, you die, you start back at the beginning or last check point. And its basically a sidescrolling platformer.

Game starts with you falling from the sky as baby mario, and you have to draw in clouds to guide his fall around various obstacles and enemies. You are floating down held by three balloons, and if all three get popped, you're toast. You can also encircle enemies, turning them into bubbles. Your score is based on distance measured in "yards" in marathon mode or in points in the point mode, which has a set end-point during which you rack up as many points as possible.

After you land (1000 yards) you ride Yoshi in a sidescrolling platformer with various checkpoints. You poke yoshi to hope. You poke at the sky to shoot at items and enemies on the second screen (very challenging) and you tap enemies ( or near them, they move of course) to fire Yoshi eggs at them. As if this weren't enough, all the while you are drawing in the platforms made out of clouds. You can build stare-step ones and get higher, or build cloud bridges. Also, anything you screw up, you can "blow" away by blowing at your system (it's picked up by the mic.")

So when I say the game lacked substance, I guess I"m still thirsting for a full blown adventure/tactics/RPG game, but this game does not lack gameplay. This is seriously original, fun and addictive gameplay. I know the sys war forums here at VGR contemptuously dismisses this one out of hand as "kiddy" and "nintendo pimping its characters." But seriously, anyone who enjoys at all what Nintendo does best should pick this up. It is probably the best game for the DS so far, along with Warioware, and really demonstrates just what kind of innovation you can do with this hardware setup.

Sound and music are suitablely catchy, and the graphics are simple but beatuiful 2-d pastels. Replay is the same as with any arcade style game; you'll get bored eventually, but its one you can always pop in again later because of the challenge. . . the challenge to get just a little further, a little higher score.

You control the game solely with the stylus, and it works extremely well. About the only criticism is if you are a little heavy handed, you might find yourself accidentally shooting a yoshi egg instead of drawing a cloud; it hasn't happened to me much, and its only really a problem if you are running low on Yoshi Eggs (which you replenish by eating fruit, which is harder and harder to get to as the game progresses.)

Speaking of score; I haven't read any reviews on this one yet, so I don't know what it's getting, but I'd give it an overall 8.5, which is a damned good score. . the only thing holding it back is its small scale. Broken down:

Sound: 8
Graphics: 8
Gameplay: 10
Originality: 9
Control: 9
Replayability: 8