Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe’s guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo’s download service. Written by Sam C Gittins

If you're a fan of multi-coloured dinosaurs then you may be in luck. Anyway enough from me and on with the game!
 
Available for download this week we have...     

Yoshi's Island DS


 
Price: GB £6.29, EU €6.99
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Artoon
Released: 2005
System: DS
 
Nintendo were at the top of their game when it came to the release of the original Yoshi's Island on the SNES which came with the sub-title of being 'Super Mario World 2' even though it clearly didn't need it as this charming title turned out to be one of the most cherished experiences available during the 16-bit era. Ever since then it feels as though there has been intention to recapture that great feeling ever since, perhaps less so in the case of Yoshi's Story which was its own excellent adventure but particularly here the attemtped homage is clear; though there seems to at least be intention to expand the scope with new content it should be clear from the fact that this was farmed out to a barely-known developer Artoon - also responsible for a certain Yoshi title on the GBA - that this was going to be something which would never live up to the legacy despite it being rather accomplished on its own merits.

Fortunately this is at the very least a completely capable side-scrolling platformer featuring solid controls, there are five expansive worlds to explore which provide a reasonable challenge especially when you consider that you'll need to collect everything if you wish to see everything on offer. On the other side of it though the actual level design is less than exemplary as it just feels like the template of the original has been borrowed but has been butchered in the process, the new enemies feel significantly lacking in charm too which doesn't help, it's a wonder that Nintendo tried the same trick with the more recently released Yoshi's New Island on the 3DS which is another example of a similar title which fails to hit a high note.

But at least to the credit of this title there is a new mechanic which works quite well in changing things up as you can "Stork-Switch" between different babies which will then grant you different abilities, Baby Mario as standard allows the different coloured dinosaurs to dash in addition to hitting "M" blocks, while Baby Peach has a parasol which enables a stronger flutter jump in windy conditions but the best has to be Baby Donkey Kong who grabs vines in addition to swinging from ropes. There are other baby characters which I won't spoil, it is an interesting mechanic even though it invariably feels forced meaning that at certain points you will be required to swap to a specific character in order to progress in a way which doesn't feel natural at all; don't forget to take both screens into consideration as the enemies can come down from the top-screen onto the bottom screen and if you aren't paying attention then you can get hit if you fail to judge exactly where the "gap" between screens extends to, not a huge problem but it is there still regardless of how you choose to display both screens in this Wii U version.  



Visually it's plain to see that the original style has at least been used as inspiration, so some of its spirit has made it across but the majority has been lost somewhere in the development process, it still looks decent in terms of what is capable on the DS, the animation on each character is endearing as well but it's just not that impressive. I can't even pretend that the audio is up to the same standard as the original Yoshi's Island because there really is no comparison, again it's not a bad attempt but it's hardly pushing any boundaries in the aural department plus some of the newer sound effects are grating.

This is an entry which is only worth playing if you missed it the first time around, if you're curious about it then it's just about worth your while investigating it because at the very least it seems to be better than the recent 3DS entry plus it's more substantial than Yoshi's Touch and Go which fell more into the category of being a glorified demo, Nintendo will surely re-release that as a Virtual Console title as well soon enough and of course I "can't wait" to review it. If anything titles like this should prove that focusing efforts  more original titles like the soon to be released Yoshi's Wolly World are far better bets these days, indeed it's a shame that Nintendo isn't able to emulate the Super FX chip properly yet as it would truly be a treat to have the original Yoshi's Island available once again; still there is always the GBA game for 3DS ambassadors.

Verdict : Yoshi's Island DS is a pale imitation of the original classic.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!