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Wednesday 6 February, 2008
3rd assignment
2nd entry
Gameplay
My second session with the game was spent completing the game. Actually, all I needed was to complete one level. Once I completed the final level, I had to face the final boss, Baby Bowser. This battle felt like the easiest final boss fight ever. After the final boss was defeated, a colorful cut scene appears showing all of the pop-up pages of the Yoshi’ Story. Once the game has been finished, the player can play it over but this time with the other sub-levels. There are a total of 24 levels, but only 6 are needed to pass the game’s story mode.
I found myself reminiscing about my childhood after playing this game. I first purchased this game when I was nine or so. Therefore I may seem a bit biased when I write about this game. It isn’t anything groundbreaking, but it is a solid, fun, and beautiful game that should be in every gamer’s collection. Yoshi’s Story substitutes challenge and difficulty with plain fun.
Design
One design aspect of Yoshi’s Story that’s interesting is the jumping mechanic. Jumping is one of the most important elements in a platformer, and Yoshi’s Story does it right. You can control the direction of Yoshi’s leap smoothly which is a problem in a lot of platform games. Many platformers have a strong gravitational pull programmed inside of them. Yoshi’s Story has realistic gravity that feels right. Also, if you hold the jump button, Yoshi extends his jump for higher platforms.
The art style is another important design element in the game. All of the environments and characters have this realistic look to them, even though the game is a 2D game. It doesn’t look aged to me at all. I am still visually impressed by the game even though it is a 10 year old game.
The main design element that can be noticed by any gamer who gets their hands on Yoshi’s Story is the difficulty. It feels like that game is always on easy mode. A hardcore gamer can possibly complete the story in a half hour. The bosses feel like mini-bosses and the puzzles only take a mili-second to think about. This game is aimed for kids. However, that does not mean that it’s a bad game. This game does what any 2D platformer does, but better. It’s smooth, pretty, and never boring.
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