Yoshi's Island

Submission 24,178

Part of a series on Yoshi. [View Related Entries]

About

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is a Nintendo game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The game marks the debut of Baby Mario, who must be carried by the player, controlling Yoshi, through 48 levels so he is reunited with Baby Luigi. The game was very well-received and has received numerous rereleases. Its soundtrack also became well known, and was used in numerous video remixes in the late 2010s.

History

The game was produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, who wanted the game to have a hand-drawn art style, leading creators to create the world "pixel-by-pixel."^[1] Development of the game took four years. It was released in Japan in August of 1995 and in North America two months later.^[2] The game was re-released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002 as Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3.^[3] This version was also ported to the Nintendo Virtual Console. The original version was packaged with the Super NES classic (gameplay shown below).

In February of 2019, the U.S. government used music from the game in one of its web games, Recycle City Challenge, which has led to questions about the legality of taking the music.^[9]

Reception

The game was immediately well-received and continues to see praise for its gameplay and visual style.^[1] IGN wrote the game received instant and universal acclaim at release.^[4] Critic Matt Taylor said in 1995 it may be the best platformer of all time. Critics have continued to laud the game well after its release, with many praising it as one of the best Nintendo and SNES games ever created.^[5]^[6]

Online Presence

Yoshi's Story has long been referenced in online culture and continues to see playthroughs on YouTube. It was played by Game Grumps over several days in November of 2018 (shown below, left). It has also been played in numerous LPs. One example by SaikyoMog gained over 780,000 views (shown below, right). Reddit posts discussing the game have been popular in gaming subreddits.^[7]^[8]

Music Parodies

The game's soundtrack has been extensively parodied in numerous popular remixes online. In particular, two tracks, the main theme and the "Athletic" theme, have been most popular. The former appeared in DitzyFlama's original Kirb meme (shown below, left), helping popularize the trend of having the song's melody match a person opening their mouth (example shown below, right).

Popular videos using the "Athletic Theme" include a Gabe remix posted by TheTrollFaceMan that gained over 131,000 views (shown below, left) and a GiIvaSunner remix that gained over 1 million views (shown below, right).