Patreon button  Steam curated reviews  Discord button  Facebook button  Twitter button 
3DS | PC | PS4 | PS5 | SWITCH | VITA | XB1 | XSX | All

Yoshi Touch & Go (DS) artwork

Yoshi Touch & Go (DS) review


"The Test begins…….NOW! "

The Test begins…….NOW!

Yoshi’s Touch & Go! would’ve made a pretty good demo, test or one of those beta roms that you find of older games. That’s what it certainly feels like, something that isn’t yet completed. Poor you, Nintendo. You took something that was originally just a showcase of what your new little silver pet could do and unleashed into the gaming market, with a reasonably hefty price tag (well, hefty for the content in this game.)

Poor you, for buying a Nintendo DS and expecting new and exciting ways to play games! Poking and stroking Wario was fun, until you completed it the next day. Super Mario 64 was never fun to begin with; it still sucked with added characters and, no matter how hard you try to make it interesting, Metroid Prime will always be as fun as trying to peel your fingernails back with a screwdriver. Since its release last year, only a small handful of DS games have been worth getting, Yoshi’s Touch & Go!, is not one of them.

Its use of the DS’s innovative features is clever and creative, I’ll give it that. Incorporating the touch screen and the in-built microphone into an on-rail platform game is an interesting concept. You’ll play Yoshi’s Touch & Go! for the first time and be mildly happy at the way Nintendo have managed to blend these features into a game genre that was seemingly unable to do so. But, after you play through it again, you’ll feel a small sharp pain in your stomach as you realise that you’ve done everything there is to do in the game after playing it for an hour.

It starts with baby Mario and Luigi will be comfortably resting in the satchel of a stork as he glides across the sky; in search of the two children’s parents. However, the evil warlock, Kamek attacks the stork and flies off with Baby Luigi in tow! The sudden impact also sends Baby Mario hurtling to the ground!

NO!

I hear you shriek in terror!

Don’t panic though, with clever use of the stylus, you can guide the falling baby Mario to the ground by drawing clouds to redirect him. Using this ability, you can guide Mario towards coins and away from enemies. If enemies get too close to the falling Mario, you can use the stylus to draw bubbles around them. This quick technique turns most hostiles into coins, which you can throw into Mario. Collecting a certain amount of coins won’t give you an extra try but it will change the type of Yoshi that will be waiting for him when he finally descends to the ground.

When the falling baby Mario lands safely on the saddle on the awaiting Yoshi, the second portion of the game begins. Yoshi will move forward automatically and with the use of the stylus and the microphone, you’ll have to guide him through the various perils of Yoshi’s Island. Yoshi’s long tongue can be used to consume enemies and convert them into eggs. Like in Yoshi’s Island, you keep a small amount of eggs to throw at enemies or to snag down floating coins. The stylus can be used to draw clouds, which can be used as bridges across large gaps or to entrap enemies in bubbles. Unfortunately, you can’t use the stylus to tickle Yoshi until he wets himself, but you can use it to poke him into the air. Using this method, you can guide the little green dinosaur over pits, masses of enemies and the dodgy cloud paths you’ve carved out in the sky.

The entire object of the game is to keep on going until you are killed. The marathon mode will ask you to play until Yoshi walks five thousand kilometres, and will then swap Mario over to a different coloured Yoshi, the only difference being the different Yoshi’s is their capacity to hold more eggs than their previous colour. It sounds like a recipe for boredom and repetition, and it is. If you are hit just once by an enemy or are killed by a hostile obstacle, you will have to start right from the beginning of the marathon, which questions the point of the mode. Other additional modes include Score Attack, which gives you a limited amount of distance for Yoshi to walk and asks you to rack up as many points as you can. The unlockable Time Attack mode is the same game repeated except the collecting coins and hitting enemies will add seconds to your overall time.

As you can see, it completely relies on one method of play and slowly tweaks minor factors to label as it as a “new mode.” Hopefully, after a while, you’ll finally figure out that they’ve essentially re-packaged the same game four times in a rather dire attempt to boost the game’s replay value. Sure, Yoshi’s Touch & Go! is a rather unique display of the unusual features that the DS relies on but aside from that, it’s an incredibly slow moving and repetitive title, something that is best to avoid, even if you’re desperate for a new DS game.


The Test is over…..NOW!



goldenvortex's avatar
Community review by goldenvortex (August 03, 2006)

A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.

More Reviews by goldenvortex [+]
Super Fantasy Zone (Genesis) artwork
Super Fantasy Zone (Genesis)

Despite being average at its core, Super Fantasy Zone certainly possesses a unique charm and pleasant aesthetics. Taking a similar structure as its predecessor, Super Fantasy Zone combines the cartoonish buoyancy of any 16-bit platform game and the fast-paced action of any other 16-bit shooter to create a creative blen...
Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000 (Sega 32X) artwork
Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000 (Sega 32X)

To this day, I have no idea why I'm a 32x fan. I mean, I know the entire concept of the 32x was stupid and that the majority of the 32x game library (if you can call it a library. I think bookshelf would be a more appropriate description) was mediocre. Yet, I still have some hideous attachment to the add-on, despite no...
INXS: Make My Video (Sega CD) artwork
INXS: Make My Video (Sega CD)

Now, I’ve only played a handful of games that I’d describe as truly awful. These games were either unplayable due to horrible controls, an awful grasp of the subject matter or they were just plain boring. However, despite my exposure to these horrible titles, nothing in the world could prepare me for the sheer atrocity...

Feedback

If you enjoyed this Yoshi Touch & Go review, you're encouraged to discuss it with the author and with other members of the site's community. If you don't already have an HonestGamers account, you can sign up for one in a snap. Thank you for reading!

board icon
zippdementia posted November 12, 2008:

Saying Super Mario 64 wasn't fun?! BLASPHEMY!

It was all I could do to keep reading after THAT.

You must be signed into an HonestGamers user account to leave feedback on this review.

User Help | Contact | Ethics | Sponsor Guide | Links

eXTReMe Tracker
© 1998 - 2024 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Yoshi Touch & Go is a registered trademark of its copyright holder. This site makes no claim to Yoshi Touch & Go, its characters, screenshots, artwork, music, or any intellectual property contained within. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors. Staff and freelance reviews are typically written based on time spent with a retail review copy or review key for the game that is provided by its publisher.