Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Release Date: October 1995

Amazingly enough, as the mid-90s approached, Nintendo seemed to be distancing itself from its flagship character. Though Super Mario World was followed by several Mario-themed spinoffs like Super Mario Kart and Mario Paint, a direct sequel to World was not immediately forthcoming. As a kid I wondered if Nintendo wasn't abandoning Mario. When Nintendo of America introduced its edgier "Play It Loud" advertising campaign in 1994, Mario seemed to all but disappear from the company's portfolio, with glitzier franchises like Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct suddenly monopolizing the headlines.

In this climate, Yoshi's Island was not the subject of a grand unveiling, nor was it hyped by any of the video game magazines of the period. My first notice of it was a tiny picture of the Baby Mario sprite riding Yoshi in a collage of upcoming SNES games in the January 1995 Nintendo Power. I don't believe any actual mention of the game was made in that issue, so it left me wondering intently as to whether a new Mario might not be on the horizon.

Little notice was attracted when Yoshi's Island was finally revealed. People didn't know what to think. A Mario game where you don't control Mario, but rather Yoshi carrying a baby version of Mario? "Simplistic," hand-drawn graphics in the midst of the CGI craze started by Donkey Kong Country? Quickly the game was shoved to the back pages in favor of what were perceived as more graphically-advanced 16 and 32 bit games.

For these reasons I was reluctant to purchase Yoshi's Island upon its release. It didn't seem like a "real" Mario game, and the graphics weren't all that impressive in magazine stills. I bought it a few months after its debut almost as an afterthought, but boy was I glad when I finally did.

Yoshi's Island indeed isn't truly a follow-up to Super Mario World(the Japanese version doesn't even include SMW in the title), but forges its own path. It establishes its own set of basic mechanics, centered around the making of eggs which Yoshi can use to defeat enemies and solve puzzles. Yoshi never dies(unless he falls off a cliff), but when he is hit he loses Baby Mario and precious seconds off the timer. It goes without saying that the controls, which first introduced Yoshi's now-famous butt-stomp and flutter-jump, are tight and smooth and the level design is as clever as can be. The hand-drawn worlds appear as if they have literally been scribbled with crayons, and are sprawling, colorful, and bursting with life and charm-- much of which is made possible by the powerful Super FX2 chip built into the cartridge, which allows for advanced sprite handling capabilities termed by Nintendo in advertisements as "Morphmation."

Though the game generally received good reviews, a few outlets viciously criticized it for what were termed as "simplistic" or "childish" graphics. Game Players magazine in particular wrote an infamous critique which rated it in the 60s out of a scale of 100 primarily for its graphical style. Many game reviewers were put off by the lack of computer-modeled sprites or 3D polygons, particularly given the game's use of the Super FX2 chip. Those reviewers have been proven fools over time, and many of them are now among the very people who include it in their various "Best Games of All Time" lists. Yoshi's Island indeed is one of those rare games that has actually accumulated more respect and adulation in the years following its release than it received in its own era.

Similar to what Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 did with Wario, Yoshi's Island also spawned a new series of platformer games based exclusively around the Yoshi character. This series has spanned several systems, including the Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS. Nintendo would even do a makeover of its Japanese puzzle game Panel de Pon with Yoshi's Island assets and publish it for Super Nintendo in North America as Tetris Attack in 1996. Just like with all of its franchises, Nintendo has without a doubt gotten its money's worth with Yoshi, Baby Mario and company.

Altogether Yoshi's Island oozes with that trademark Nintendo ingenuity and charm. It is one of the most purely fun and original platformers ever created and puts its flashier contemporaries, such as Donkey Kong Country and Sonic the Hedgehog, to shame. It is in fact rumored that Shigeru Miyamoto specifically settled upon the "childish" art style because his bosses were ordering him to use that same inhuman, cookie-cutter CGI look which Rare used for Donkey Kong Country. Miyamoto then ruffled more than a few feathers when he stated publicly that DKC proved gamers will settle for mediocre gameplay as long as the graphics are nice. He has been proven correct over time, as Yoshi's Island, though not as popular upon its release, has withstood the test of time far better than Donkey Kong Country, and is recognized today as residing in a higher echelon of quality than most every 2D platformer that has come either before or after. It is truly one of the greatest Super Nintendo games ever made.

Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind

Publisher: Accolade
Developer: Solid State
Release Date: May 1993

This franchise gets a lot of hate in retrospect, mostly because of the 3D sequel that was later released for the Playstation, but the original game was actually not so bad.

While it seems ridiculous now, Bubsy was one of the more hyped 3rd party games of 1993. It appeared in the midst of the "animals with attitude" craze initiated by Sonic the Hedgehog, and was a dyed-in-the-wool imitation, from the smart-aleck main character, to the open, multi-tiered level designs, to the game's pacing and physics. In fact Bubsy was regarded by some onlookers at the time as potentially being the Super Nintendo's answer to Sonic. Though it was later released for Genesis as well, the SNES version came out first because of an Accolade lawsuit with Sega at the time.

I bought into the hype completely and remember purchasing Bubsy as summer vacation began in 1993. Though I was disappointed that it was not quite as fast as Sonic, I wasn't displeased altogether. Bubsy is definitely in the upper echelon of 16-bit platformers. Though it doesn't do anything groundbreaking, the levels are huge and challenging, with lots of items to collect, and the graphics and sound are above average for the period. Bubsy was certainly hefty for a platformer of that era, weighing in at 16 megabits, and was packed with colorful animations and the sound samples of famed voice actor Rob Paulsen to give the Bubsy Bobcat character life. Since at the time the only other games of that size were usually fighting game conversions like Street Fighter II, notice was attracted for that fact alone.

Bubsy generally received positive reviews and was successful enough to merit a disappointing sequel released a year later. Accolade, which had re-branded itself upon Bubsy's launch as offering "Games With Personality," obviously had big things planned and intended the series as a flagship for the company. A cartoon pilot was actually made, a special edition was produced for Windows PC, and a next-generation sequel was licensed for the Atari Jaguar. Poor follow-ups however ultimately doomed the franchise to obscurity as the 32-bit era dawned, but it will always be infamous for the failings of its final installment, Bubsy 3D.

Ninja Gaiden Trilogy

Publisher: Tecmo
Developer: Tecmo
Release Date: August 1995

I first got into gaming at the tail-end of the NES era, and the Ninja Gaiden series was one of my most cherished from the 8-bit days. The action was tight and challenging, the cinema sequences were groundbreaking for the period, and the graphics and sounds were among the best the NES had to offer. As hard as it may be to imagine now, those games were considered killer-apps at the time. So you could imagine my delight when I heard that Tecmo would be releasing a compilation of all three games for Super Nintendo! Instantly images of 16-bit-quality renditions of these classics, a la Super Mario All-Stars, began dancing in my head.

And what a letdown it was. While the gameplay is relatively unchanged from the originals, which is to be expected, the graphics are only very lightly touched-up, with some of the sprites and backdrops looking a bit crisper with an extra color or two. What is thoroughly disappointing is that the graphics are actually worse in places! Details like the lightning strikes in Ninja Gaiden 2 and the beautiful parallax scrolling backgrounds of Ninja Gaiden 3 are completely removed!

And the music! Though Tecmo did virtually nothing to alter the graphics, it decided to go out of its way to fiddle with the music. The NES trilogy featured some of the most outstanding tunes of the 8-bit era, but the SNES version simply does not do them justice. The cheap midi instruments, along with various ill-conceived "creative" changes applied to the notes and pacing of certain songs, result in a disastrously underwhelming soundtrack. In fact some songs in Trilogy are completely remixed and barely recognizable when compared to the originals. Tecmo would have been far better served retaining the original NES instrumentation and arrangements and redirecting its energy toward geniunely improving the graphics.

As I mentioned, the gameplay largely remains intact, thankfully, as do the cinema sequences. The trilogy basically plays the same, with a few exceptions: each game now has a password system, and Ninja Gaiden 3 is restored to its original Japanese difficulty(the NES version dealt the player double the damage, among other cruel devices).

Ninja Gaiden Trilogy happens to be one of the pricier games to obtain on the Super Nintendo aftermarket, but that is because of rarity rather than quality. Obviously the game was released near the end of the Super Nintendo's life and was distributed in small quantities. In fact the only copy I ever saw in person was the one my local Blockbuster Video was renting out at the time. Unless you're a hardcore collector, you're honestly better off saving your money and purchasing the original trilogy for NES.

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja

Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Release Date: February 1992

This game was a revelation for me as a kid. Never before had I seen so much variety in one cartridge! In fact no one in the western world had even heard of Konami's Goemon series before The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, and to be honest, no one had afterward either. The reason? Konami renamed the series' two iconic characters, Goemon and Ebisumaru, to "Kid Ying" and "Dr. Yang." But that is a superficial point.

The variety of gameplay at the time was striking. The heart of the game is the exploration of each town, as the player controls Kid Ying(and a second player Dr. Yang in 2P mode) in attacking enemies and collecting coins and power-ups. Each town has a variety of shops and mini-games to play, but the goal is ultimately to reach the entrance to the 2D side-scrolling "action stage" at the end of the town and to defeat the boss.

Besides the main action, Mystical Ninja offers nearly as much content in the form of mini-games which can be played at the abundance of shops in each town. Among them are a first-person maze, an Arkanoid clone, and even the first level of Konami's original Gradius! This game had so many different little games to play that I thought it was huge and amazing as a kid, and certainly very fun.

The graphics are good and pleasant for a first-generation title, and the music is yet another memorable early SNES soundtrack, this one of generally soothing, traditional Japanese-style music and instrumentation. The song on the title screen is one of my all-time favorites, and brings back vivid memories of the early days of the Super Nintendo whenever I hear it.

The Goemon series would continue in several iterations on the Super Famicom in Japan, but would not again grace western shores until the release of Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon on Nintendo 64. It was definitely to the detriment of western gamers that we missed on the sequels.

Super Adventure Island

Publisher: Hudson Soft
Developer: Hudson
Release date: April 1992

This is one of the first games I ever played on SNES, so it has always held a special place in my heart.  Hudson's Adventure Island series, a slight variation of Sega's Wonder Boy arcade game, had been very popular on the NES and quickly received a SNES incarnation in the system's first year.

In all honesty, Super Adventure Island is a simplistic and somewhat unremarkable game on its surface.  The design is very basic: You generally run to the right while shooting and avoiding enemies, you die with one hit, you ride a skateboard on occasion, and there is nothing to collect other than a few weapons and fruits to increase your score and timer-bar. In fact the game is actually more simplistic than the series' previous two incarnations on NES, which featured a variety of dinosaur sidekicks and the ability to collect spare weapons in an inventory which could be accessed between levels.  In all, besides enhanced graphics and sound, the SNES rendition has very little more to it than the mechanics from the original Wonder Boy.

Of course, anyone who played Super Adventure Island back in the day knows the most memorable part was the music.  The game has a jazzy, R&B-style soundtrack composed by Yuzo Koshiro which was quite distinct and notable for the time.  This was one of those early SNES games that really showed off what the SPC700 sound chip could do, and which made the Genesis's FM synthesizer seem archaic in comparison.

Altogether, Super Adventure Island is a fun, fast-paced arcade-style game that doesn't do anything unexpected, other than dazzle us with one of the more spectacular soundtracks on the system.  A sequel was later released on SNES in 1994, but was more of an action/RPG style game in the mold of Zelda II, and lacked the prodigious Koshiro soundtrack which had made the original so memorable.