The big issue that a lot of people seem to have is with the way the game controls, specifically the egg throwing mechanics. It isn’t a bad game, as a surprisingly large contingent of people have been saying recently (most notably Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb), but it has some glaring problems, and as the follow-up (or direct sequel, according to the US marketing) to a game that was basically flawless, that makes those problems a lot harder to get past. It turns out, Yoshi’s Island is an absurdly long, tedious game. In doing so, I figured out why it took 20 years to finish a platformer I ostensibly loved. I could never figure out why, since I ostensibly really enjoyed the game so, I buckled down and really made myself play through it, and earned 100% completion on every level.

As much as I loved looking at Yoshi’s Island, anytime I picked it up, I’d play two to three levels of it and not touch it again for a year. As a result, it invokes strong memories of my preteens (a great time in my life), so I always had a fondness for it. It was billed as the sequel to Super Mario World, maybe the first game to ever completely blow my mind, so I pretty much liked it by default, but I never ended up getting it as a kid (I got Chrono Trigger, Earthworm Jim 2, and Earthbound that Christmas though, so it ended up being pretty solid anyway). One that always stands out, though, is Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. Most of these are late-era SNES and early-era N64 games stuff like Mega Man X3, Mortal Kombat 3, Pilotwings 64, Wave Race 64, and others. So while I’m not overcome with nostalgia for games in most cases, there are a few games that I never owned, but fondly remember from specific times in my life, and as a result I do hold some nostalgic feelings for them. Since my memories of Donkey Kong Country and Sonic the Hedgehog go back to when I played them last week and not the summer I spent at my cousin’s house playing them and learning what it means to love a woman thanks to his poster of Tiffany Amber Thiessen, I don’t really have the impulse to go make YouTube comments on songs from video game soundtracks to the tune of “I LISTENED TO THIS SONG AND CRIED BECUZ I MISS MY CHILDHOOD SO PLZ UPVOTE AND THEN LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL I DO GROCERY UNBOXINGS”. for the first time when I was 2, and have held onto and replayed every game I’ve gotten since then. However, I think that precisely because I have spent my whole life surrounding myself with old games, they never seemed old. Considering the way I have spent my whole life surrounding myself with old games, it would be easy to think this was not the case.

I am not a very nostalgia-focused person.

Super mario world yoshis island