While not being a remake, it feels like a copy of the original Yoshi's Island, and I think that on a lot of the levels, if this game had the same artistic style than the original, it would be really hard to spot from which game is each level.

While I think that the visuals are worse than the original, being this time a lot more generic, it's the only real downside I've found, being the gameplay at a similar level on both games.

There's also something that I have to comment and is that this game introduces the new scoring formula, where it's not needed to get all the collectables of a level in a single run, which is more lenient for completionists.

After Elkin beat this game a couple weeks ago with middling reviews, I did go into it this game with a little trepidation, but I ended up being very pleasantly surprised.

The first major thing to get used to, is that Yoshi doesn't move like he used to. Yoshi is a lot slower to build up momentum when he runs and to swallow to make eggs, and this takes a lot of getting used to for someone like me who grew up heavily on the original game. However, after the first world or so, it was totally fine. I compared it to how Mario moves a lot differently in Super Mario U compared to Super Mario World: Not worse, just inherently different.

Speaking of the first world, I can sorta see why some people had problems with this game, because it's pretty slow. The first world was pretty underwhelming, and I really wasn't diggin' it, but I perservered. By about the middle of world 2, and certainly by world 3, I was really digging it as the game comes into its own element. I'm sorry I can't really describe that better, but it's just my experience with the game (perhaps this is why I'm not a professional reviewer ;p).

In terms of difficulty, I would say this game lines up pretty well with the original. I didn't really see myself dying much until I was trying to get all of the collectibles on world 5 and especially world 6. I'm currently going through the original again to confirm those suspicions, but it lines up generally with what I remember in that the game is far from uncompletably difficult.

Also, this game is welcomely more forgiving in terms of those collectibles. Where in the original games you had to get all of the stars, red coins, and flowers on one perfect run through, now you only need to get all of any of them, and it checks it off. For example, if on three separate runthroughs you get all the flowers, red coins, and stars respectively, you'd have a 100 on that level. I'm totally okay with this, especially giving that they made getting 30 stars harder in that whenever you die they reset to 10 no matter how much you had at the middle-ring, and they took out items so no more +20 stars at the end of levels to save your butt. I guess it's up to personal preference, but I don't mind that they made it easier.

With things like that, it certainly made unlocking the extra stage in each world after getting perfect in everything easier, and DAMN, they're as hard as usual. I had to just give up beating the special stage in worlds 4-6. They were just too vindictively difficult for my blood Xp

In summary, considering it's going up against one of the greatest games ever, Yoshi's Island, I never expected it to be better than that game. Although, I ended up having a lot of fun with a game that stands really well on it's own. I'm not usually one for scores, but I'd give this a 7.5 or an 8 if I had to.

I'm split on whether or not this game is truly awful but it most certainly isn't...good. Production values are extremely mediocre and despite the name of the game, there's almost nothing new here. It's the SNES game repackaged in a worse form. Atleast blazing through it can be fun but I have no desire to ever replay this game. It's funny too because the cover art makes it seem like it's gonna be a really good game but then you actually play it and it's the most creatively bankrupt thing imaginable.