Yoshi's Island/YMMV

And The Ambassadors Rejoiced: sadly, this is exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS ambassadors, but still, out of the ten games they have access to, Yoshi's Island stands out for an exceptional framerate, making its graphics flow like they never did before.
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).
Ass Pull: In DS, Adult Bowser comes... completely out of nowhere.
- Not really especially when you realize that in the Mario Universe time travel isn't unheard of which is how Bowser winds up in the past in Yoshi's Island DS.
Awesome Art: The original Yoshi's Island looking authentically crayon-scribbled while also being a SNES game.
Boss Dissonance: As expected, Mario-type. Taken to an extreme with Marching Milde's Fort. The fort itself involves retrieving four keys, each at the end of four separate, incredibly challenging hallways. Marching Milde herself is painfully easy.
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, as mentioned in the Anticlimax Boss section, is also one of these, considering his only "attack" is walking back and forth.
Contested Sequel: Pretty much every "Yoshi" game that attempts to follow up on the original, though Yoshi's Island DS was the best-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)!
Crowning Moment of Awesome: The final boss fight with Baby Bowser in the original. C'mon you can't say it didn't get your adrenaline going as while you lobbed eggs at the advancing sucker.
Crowning Moment of Funny: If you ease your way into Naval Piranha Plant's room, you can hop up on the ledge before the cutscene starts and take it out in one shot. Kamek's reaction is priceless.
- After the boss fight with Prince Froggy (in which you get shrunk and eaten), it is heavily implied that you go out the rear. Yoshi's face once he gets out is priceless.
- Also this exchange in Yoshi's Island DS:

Bowser: I'll find the babies, and soon that power will be mine, ALL MINE! And so will the entire universe! GWAHAHAHAHA!
Baby Bowser: ...Wait a second! Are you saying that even when I'm an old geezer, I'll still be trying to take over the universe? Lame!
Bowser: Shut your trap, squirt!
Baby Bowser: You can't talk to me that way! You might be bigger than me, but--
Bowser: GRRRRRRRRRRR! (blows fire at Baby Bowser)
Baby Bowser: (falling off the castle) Don't think I'll ever forget this! I won't! Not for a million years! Not even when I'm an old geezer like YOU!
Lemony Narrator: Both Bowser and his knee-high counterpart seem to have forgotten which side they're on.

- - Not to mention, throughout that exchange, Kamek's staring directly at the player with an expression like he's thinking 'Why me?'
- Burt the Bashful. To defeat him, Yoshi pulls Burt's pants down until he dies of embarrassment.
- It's hard to not burst out laughing when Baby Bowser makes his entrance—either at just the sight of him, watching him ground pound Kamek flat and kick him off-screen, or him demanding a ride on Yoshi.
Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: The Ending Credits, makes my heart skip a few beats because of that Tear Jerker music.
Crowning Music of Awesome: Let's see, the final boss, the overworld theme, the underground... Really, the entire soundtrack.
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.
Disc One Nuke: in the original, getting One Hundred Percent Completion on any given level is quite the feat, considering that, other than five flowers and twenty red coins - both well hidden - the player must also have his or her stars reaching the Cap of thirty by the end of the level; that said, managing to do so in every level in the first world awards the player with the Flip Cards bonus minigame by making it accessible at will. This means that - especially when dissing the whole "avoid Kamek and you get 10 lives" thing - you can use the minigame purely as a source for items, including a whole pack of egg-ammo, the possibility to tell red and yellow coins apart, an "add 20 stars" item... you get the picture.
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.
Goddamned Bats: Bandits can easily be these, as they run away with Baby Mario quickly and can jump onto small platforms through hordes of enemies with no problem. God forbid one gets caught behind some death spikes with the baby....
- The literal bats found in cave levels. Especially in Yoshi's Island DS when the bats just keep re-spawning.
- Even more battish are the Shy Guys that fly away with red coins if you don't get to them fast enough. He got away, start the level over!
Good Bad Bugs: A programming oddity causes one of the introductions screens right when starting a level (that shows the level number and name) to stay on the screen longer than it usually does. Fittingly enough, it was The Very Loooooooong Cave. However, the GBA version fixed this, so it is only in the original version.
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.
Mondegreen: The end-of-level music in Yoshi's Story.
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.
Nightmare Fuel: A suprising amount.
- Aside from in-game fuel, there's a commercial for the SNES game where some guy in a restaurant tried to eat as much as Yoshi... and exploded. Yeah.
  - Could that have been a stealth Shout-Out to Mr. Creosote?
- The final boss of the first game.
- Two come to mind, the chalk drawings suddenly coming to life during the train sections of the game. Especially if you playing it for the first time as they look like harmless background scribbles. The second is the fake flowers, which if your not paying attention to them (the real ones smile, the fakes have a evil smirk on them) you'll run right into them as they suddenly drop down and roll after you.
Non Sequitur Scene: 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.
- But, it does explain why Yoshi simply can't take all the babies at the same time.
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.
Player Tic: Touch fuzzy, get dizzy? You know you've done that deliberately.
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.
Tear Jerker: The music box that plays in the original game as the story is told.
That One Level: Getting 100% on any of the levels in World 5 of the first game is quite the feat.
- Which is ironic considering it is incredibly easy to do so in the following world, World 6, which just happens to be the last level in the game.
- Absolutely any secret level in the DS game, for being Platform Hell. And Endless World of Yoshis/Crazy Maze Days for being extremely long, nearly Platform Hell and a maze to boot.
  - Not just the secret levels in the DS game—certain levels in Worlds 4 and 5 can reach Platform Hell levels (looking at YOU, Teeth-Chattering Chill Zone).
    - Hey, Spear Guys' Village Found? Fuck you. Seriously.
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.
The Scrappy: Actually, Poochie somehow crosses the borders and fits two major Scrappy tropes.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: One of the cut scenes in Yoshi's Island DS has Baby Luigi sneak out of the lot of other kidnapped babies. What happens after that?
- It shows that Baby Luigi managed to survive being tested for Stars. If Bowser had found him, he probably would have killed him.
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.
Visual Effects of Awesome: Thanks to the powerful SFX2 chip, many effects were employed here that were thought to be impossible on the SNES.

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