August 2020

Nintendo released Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island on August 5, 1995. Shigeru Miyamoto’s response to the overly techy pre-rendered graphics of Donkey Kong Country came in the form of this game which appeared like an animated coloring book. Bolstered by the Super FX2 coprocessor the game featured dazzling scaling effects to go along with its unique art style. Like previous Miyamoto projects, Yoshi’s Island features Koji Kondo’s rich score to amplify the game’s dreamlike aesthetics. Featuring deep gameplay that almost requires you to be a geometry angle master, there’s plenty of challenge abound in an effort to score 100s on the levels. Unlike previous Mario affairs, this one features Mario as a baby piloted by the Yoshi character introduced in the game’s predecessor on a grand journey to rescue his separated brother Luigi from young Bowser. I 100% completed this in 1996, one of my finest feats in gaming. (I hope that game save is still alive.)