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Yoshi Touch & Go Review: Is It Worth Buying?

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Yoshi Touch & Go Review: Is It Worth Buying?

Yoshi Touch & Go centered around Yoshi, Baby Mario, and Baby Luigi was published and developed by Nintendo for Nintendo DS in 2005. Yoshi’s Touch & Go has a Lemmings puzzle feel to it. As it is your job is not to move Yoshi or Baby Mario but rather to create paths and eliminate objects in their way.

Using the Nintendo DS system’s two screens and touch-screen capability, you’ll have to help Yoshi guard Baby Mario and guide him to safety. On vertical-action levels, players must use the stylus to draw clouds on the touch screen to protect Baby Mario from enemies and lead him to Yoshi. On horizontal side-scrolling levels, players must use the stylus to look out for Yoshi as he gallops across the countryside. On top of all that, Yoshi’s Touch & Go also features two-player wireless play.

The opening sequence showed Baby Mario falling from the sky while there were balloons and of course those gold coins. You had to make a choice and time when to stop guiding Baby Mario towards the coins and then make sure he lands safely. With all that said, is this game worth the time and well, the price?

Gameplay of Yoshi Touch & Go

Yoshi screenshot
Pretty visualization of Yoshi on an adventure.

Controlling the onscreen events is extremely easy and intuitive and make no mistake, it’s fun to do. There are only four controls in the game. Using the stylus, you can draw circles around enemies causing them to be trapped or turn into coins. Draw a line which magically creates a cloud path which can be used a bridge or ramp for Yoshi. A quick tap on Yoshi will execute a jump and hover in the air momentarily and tapping elsewhere on the screen will result in an egg toss from Yoshi.

The gameplay is actually quite addicting as there is always something to be done and once you get further into the game, little time to do it. But it must be said that this particular mode only consists of two, that’s right TWO, varieties of play. 

The first involves Baby Mario floating downward in the sky with three balloons. A collision with an enemy result in a broken balloon and three broken balloons end in death. Once Mario reaches the ground, Yoshi takes over and a side-scrolling event begins. Other modes include a time attack mode in which you must save Baby Luigi, a survival mode which keeps track of how far you make it on foot with Baby Mario and finally a Time Attack/Distance mode where you are competing to see how far you make it in as little time as possible.

Unfortunately, these modes all get old really fast because you are only ever competing against your high score. You won’t see any new levels, any new challenges or even an increase of difficulty.

Final Remarks

Yoshi screenshot
Behind the curtain Yoshi awaits his exciting endeavors.

Surprisingly the graphics in Yoshi Touch & Go aren’t nearly as creative as Yoshi’s previous stand alone titles. Gone are the fabric/pattern inspired worlds and a flat early Mario look has been put in its place. Consider for a moment that there isn’t much to see here at all and you’ll find the graphics decidedly spartan. For the most part Yoshi Touch & Go plays, looks and feels like mini-game escapee from a WarioWare game and as a full priced title, that’s inexcusable. 

The DS is the constant, but the individual software has become the peripheral because they offer a variety of gameplay not found on anything else – and that means that you’ll see a lot of familiar faces with a lot of “out there” gameplay. This usually isn’t a bad thing, but it seems lately that depth is taking a backseat to the overall use of the touch screen interface. The game is addictive and fun and controls like the dickens but it’s really worth a rental at best.

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