| What
be it dudes???? I got Yoshi’s Island, Super Mario World 2, Super
Mario Advance 3 recently. That’s got to be one of the longest titles
for a game in history. I’ll just say Mario advance fro simplicity
from now on though
What
is it?
Super Mario
Advance 3 is Yoshi’s Island off of the old Super Nintendo. This is
one of the games that came at the end of the systems life, and it shows
in many of it’s affects. Unlike most “Mario” games, this one actually
is more about Yoshi helping Mario than anything else. If you played
the original on SNES, then, you know what this game is. This is an
exact port of the original. Only some music has been changed up for
the GBA’s slightly weaker processor.
For those
that don’t know what this is, then I’ll tell you here. Yoshi’s Island
is a prequel to all the Mario games (yes, even the Mario Bros games from
Atari to Nintendo’s own GBA Mario Advance games) Mario and Luigi
are babies being delivered by the stork. Kemek (I think that’s how
it’s spelled) goes out to snatch the babies. But he only grabbed
one baby. The other one was left falling to the ocean below, and
lands safely on a Yoshi on Yoshi’s island. Along with a map that
Yoshi can’t read. This is where your adventure begins, you have to
get Yoshi to take Mario to Luigi, Apparently, Mario knows where he wants
to go. Yoshi must protect Mario, if Mario gets knocked off Yoshi’s
back for to long, Kemek’s goonies will come and get him. Many old
enemies return (or should I say, make their debut) in this game, as well
as a few never before seen friends and enemies.
Control
The controls
are excellent this time around as they were in the original. Walking
is done with the D button (natch) A is to jump, and B is to use Yoshi’s
tongue. If you grab an enemy, you can push down to make an egg usually,
except with Koopas and some other enemies that you may swallow instantly
or not at all. Eggs you can throw using the R button.. And L will
lock the aiming cursor to help shoot more accurately. You can push
down to put the egg back if you don’t want to throw it. Start pauses,
where you can opt to quit, continue, or put your GBA to sleep. Select
will pull up the item screen telling you how many red coins, flowers, and
stars you have in each level, and let you use an item if you have any.
All controls are very precise, you don’t have to worry about being killed
due to lag or anything.
I know
commercials said some stuff about “new targeting system” Many people
who saw those commercials may be mislead into thinking that was in reference
to the original Yoshi’s Island. It’s not, I will say that is in reference
to all other Mario games. It’s exactly the same as in the original
Yoshi’s Island.
Graphics
The graphics
are much improved over Super Mario Advance 2’s Super Mario World.
But it should be, considering the original Yoshi’s Island came out four
years after Super Mario World. All the enemies are well animated,
as is Yoshi himself. Even Baby Mario has many frames of animation
that correspond with what Yoshi does. The foreground is drawn with
heavy black outlines for what you can walk on, like a comic book.
And the background is nicely drawn to look like it was in crayon.
The background has quiet a bit of animations as well as the foreground
this time around. There’s birds, and chomps, as well as enemies that
are shown moving around in the background. Some enemies such as the
Chomp will occasionally jump from the background to the foreground to try
to get you, so keep your eye on it. This game has some of the biggest
sprites on the screen, especially on bosses which can take up more than
half of the screen at one time. There’s even some cool effects on
here, like on some levels there’s these fuzzies that will make you dizzy
if you touch or eat one. It will take the screen and break it into
8 pixel strips and move them up and down for a really neat wave effect,
also, control is off when this is going on.
The Scene
at the first and last of the game are FMVish, but done with sprites rather
than an actual FMV. It’s still an awesome effect that rules either
way, and adds a movie quality that was neat back before every game started
doing it, and still nice even to this day.
One thing
that I actually found disappointing on this is, some of the higher levels,
there will be enough enemies on the screen at one time, that if you hit
a block or cloud and stars jump out, the action will seriously slow down.
I don’t remember if the original game did this or not, I’ll have to unpack
my SNES to find out. But it is kind of a disappointment to see that
happen on a side scroller for GBA. It’s not that often, and there’s
only like 3 places in the 60 levels that this happens, but it is very noticeable
when it does happen..
Sound
FX/Music
The Music
is all there on this, even the things like the wind up music box during
the entro screen. The music warps with the back/foreground when you
touch the fuzzies, which is a nice effect. The music actually sounds
much closer to original on this game than it did on Super Mario World MA2.
It’s not as noticeably different on this. Even though most of the
music is far more complex than it was in Mario World. I think this
is due to Nintendo having more time to play with GBA and figuring out how
to squeeze the processor more. And the closing credits have a really
nice orchestrated piece that’s very close to the originals.
All the
sound effects are here too. Mario’s crying is just as annoying as
it always was, but it’s supposed to be. There’s all the sounds enemies
make and Yoshi makes all the proper sounds. This time around, the
voice of Yoshi is actually <I> not</I> added extras.
They were in the original game to begin with, so it sounds like it did
in the original.
Note,
wear headphones (though that’s probably one of my more repeated statements
with GBA) The single speaker doesn’t handle the sounds to good.
How's
it rate?
This is
one of the better Mario games IMHO, even though you rarely actually play
as Mario.
Graphics
5 Stars, they’re bright and colorful, without being cluttered.
Sound
4 Stars, it won’t compete to the best sounding games on GBA, but it is
quiet good.
Control
5 Stars, It’s amazing how simple the controls are to use, compared to how
complex they look in the book.
Replay
Value 5 Stars, If you want a good platformer, there’s enough to be
worth playing, even if you’re not into perfecting the scores.
Over
All 4.5 Stars, Only slightly shy of absolute perfection, but a great
game none the less.
Final
Thoughts
GBA is an
absolutely great system. And these ports are done justice on it.
But they’re still just ports. This one actually has nothing new to
add to the game to make you want to buy it, other than being a great handheld
platform game. I still want to see a new Mario game that’s GBA exclusive,
though I’m betting Super Mario Advance 4 will feature Super Mario Bros
3 from the original NES.
-- |
