Yoshi's Island/YMMV


 * Animation Age Ghetto: The games have a hard time catching up to the main Mario series due to their very childish artstyle, abundance of baby characters, and cutesy protagonist - even after the adult Bowser was introduced as a Big Bad. Yoshi's Story, Yoshi's Island DS and Yoshi's New Island in particular suffer from this: the former is specifically designed for young children, while the latter two have a more childish soundtrack than previous installments (largely played on toy xylophones [in the case of DS], kazoos [in the case of New] and other toy-like instruments).
 * Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Upon clearing World 2 in Yoshi's Island DS, you're treated to a Cutscene where Yoshi attempts to carry all three (at the time) babies at once. Unlike the other cinematics, this does not move the plot one inch. It is also Captain Obvious and Department of Redundancy Department, since it's already been said that Yoshi can only carry one baby at a time.
 * Breather Boss: Salvo the Slime in the original cannot directly harm Yoshi, Cloud N. Candy in Yoshi's Story heals Yoshi when eaten and Gilbert the Gooey in Yoshi's Island DS has very avoidable attacks. Funnily, two of the three mentioned examples are the first world's end boss, and usually come after a somewhat more difficult first boss in said world. Marching Milde is also one of these, considering his only "attack" is walking back and forth.
 * Contested Sequel: Every "Yoshi" game that attempts to follow up on the original, though Yoshi's Island DS was the most well-liked of them.
 * Critical Research Failure: When you are inside Prince Froggy, you are supposed to Attack Its Weak Point, which turns out to be its uvula. The problem? Only humans have uvulas (granted, he's not exactly your everyday frog)!
 * Designated Villain: Baby Bowser in the original can come across as this. He doesn't even seem aware of Kamek's actions at all, instead merely acting on instinct (curiosity, irritability, etc.) just like any other baby.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Raphael the Raven, the fifth world boss of the original Yoshi's Island, proved popular enough to reappear in Paper Mario 64 doing a Heel–Face Turn.
 * First Installment Wins: The original Yoshi's Island is much more well-regarded than any of its platforming sequels. In fact, after mixed reception to DS, Yoshi's New Island had been presented like a successor to the original, only to still be not as well-liked.
 * Game-Breaker: Collectible items like those Bullet Watermelons. It's very easy to use them to just blast spike pits to pieces, since the seeds can destroy thorns on contact and you get an absolute ton of them from just one melon. Naturally, they were removed in the DS sequel.
 * Genius Bonus: Do the stars and moon from the second scene of 6-7 look familiar? They're from Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: Yoshi's Island is not the first time we've seen baby versions of the cast. Mario, Luigi and King Koopa (Bowser's animated counterpart) turned into babies in an episode of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 five years before the game was released.
 * It's the Same, Now It Sucks: Yoshi's New Island for reusing level ideas and feeling like an expansion for the original Yoshi's Island. Funny since it was in response to Yoshi's Island DS's They Changed It, Now It Sucks, though fans who criticize both tend to just dislike Artoon/Arzest in general.
 * The Jimmy Hart Version: The opening music box tune that plays during the prologue takes its main melody from the Soviet National Anthem of all things.
 * Most Annoying Sound:
 * Baby Mario's crying when he falls off of Yoshi gets very annoying, very fast. In this case, it was a deliberate tactic. When you lose Baby Mario, you'll want to get him back fast.
 * To say nothing of the other babies. Baby DK's cry isn't that bad, but Baby Peach is even worse than Mario, Wario's scratchy whine is worse still, and then you get to Baby Bowser's cry, which is absolutely ungodly.
 * Most Wonderful Sound: The sound of getting all the red coins. Try getting that last red coin when you're also one away from a 1-Up.
 * Older Than They Think:
 * Many gameplay mechanics commonly assumed to have debuted in Super Mario 64 — such as the ground pound and red coins — actually first appeared in the SNES Yoshi's Island.
 * Yoshi's Island is also the first game to feature a certain remix of the Starman theme.
 * The series itself is Older Than They Think. Although the main platformers started with Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, the first game starring Yoshi was in fact Yoshi's Egg (a.k.a. simply Yoshi), predating the Yoshi's Island by four years. Even then, three other Yoshi games were released between Yoshi's Egg and Yoshi's Island.
 * So Okay, It's Average:
 * To the people who don't dislike Yoshi's New Island, this seems to be a somewhat general consensus. A good amount of critics agree it's certainly *not* a "bad game", but because it's still seen as not living up to the SNES original it's generally regarded with opinions of "it's okay, but not great."
 * Island DS is considered this by some fans of the first game. It has a host of good ideas such as multiple babies and interesting bosses, but is brought down by what some consider to be unfair design in many areas.
 * Surprise Difficulty: Particularly Yoshi's Island DS, but the original was no cakewalk either, especially if you were going for 100% in every level.
 * Tough Act to Follow: The original, inevitably leading to Contested Sequels. It doesn't help that every Yoshi game afterwards wasn't developed by Nintendo EAD, with the exception of Yoshi's Story, which actually has been Vindicated by History a long time after its release.
 * Vindicated by History: Yoshi's Story and Yoshi's Island DS are getting some sympathy after the release of Yoshi's New Island. The SNES Yoshi's Island was at first, overlooked by (at the time) the more hyped Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. Come a few years later, it started being considered one of the best platformers that was on the SNES.