3.5/5 ★ – Casinopolis's review of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.

It is difficult to call this a Mario game, and yet even so, this is arguably the best of the classic Mario games. Super Mario World 2 does not attempt to reinvent the wheel. Players control Yoshi, who has a deeper and more fleshed-out moveset than SMW 1. The objective is simple: escort Baby Mario to the end for the level with many similar themes and enemies along the way. A new tethering system between Yoshi and Baby Mario seems clever at first, but grows annoying over time. But lessons do appear to have been learned from Mario games before it. Its ideas are good. There’s a noticeable effort to make level difficulty feel more balanced, obstacles feel more varied (even it recycles a lot of tricks) and bosses to feel more substantial than just “jump on its head to win”. Levels are less cryptic on the whole, but still contain more than a few long-winded puzzles. The bigger issue, and a major momentum killer, is that the game is simply too big for what it is. Yoshi’s Island weighs in at 48 levels to beat the main campaign (6 worlds with 8 levels). It’s way too many given that most of these levels are back-to-back substantial and deep affairs. What would have helped are more “gimme” levels - short breezy gimmicky levels that switch up the pace. Either way, it’s welcome to see Nintendo do something slightly off-piste with classic Mario even if its ambition got the better of it.