First Four Is Review: Yoshi Touch & Go

[ShadowMarth]

Alright, this is our first one. In case you havn't been paying attention to this forum, a Four Is review will not focus on the traditional features (Graphics, sound...) but they will be covered. Instead it focuses on Iwata's Four Is: is the game Innovative, Intuitive, Inviting, and how is the Interface.

Innovation- 8.5
It is a very cool and pretty new concept. Obviously the story isn't new, but the gameplay is is absolutely new. Of course, most of the touch screen utilizing games are pretty innovative. The ability to use the mic to clear the clouds is also very cool.

Intuitive- 9.5
What can I say? Once you figure out how to make clouds and bubbles it just takes off from there. Really easy to pick up and just start playing.

Inviting- 8.0
The Mario world has somehow always been extremely inviting without a large storyline. I find myself going back to play it constantly. However they do it, keep it up.

Interface- 9.5
Very simple and easy. It just uses two devices: the touch screen and the microphone. Just take a deep breath and weild your stylus and you are ready to go.

The Traditional: Graphics, Sound, Replay Value, and additional features
Graphics
Pretty standard stuff. Better than GBA, but not by much. The animation is traditional yoshi's story/mario stuff. Very colorful and imaginative.

Sound
Each segment of the game has its own soundtrack. It's good old yoshi's island style music. Soft tunes, dischordant whistling, that kind of thing. Very fun.

Replay Value
It's an arcade style game, so the replay value is good. It also has two additional modes that you can unlock if you score high scores. It's not going to have you sitting for hours, but you will play it frequently.

Additional Features
Yoshi's Touch & Go has a couple especially good features. First off, it has Download Play Multiplayer. In the multiplayer, you race your opponent with him showing up on the top screen. When you score a good combo, it sends your opponent a few extra enemies to dodge. Other than that it's not that deep. Secondly, it has a feature I didn't expect. In the options menu it has the option to alert you by picture and/or sound when anyone in the area starts to pictochat. I would suspect it would be useful if you didn't know when other people had a DS, but I havn't tried it yet.


My Personal Score- 8.2
It's a really fun game with good gameplay and is a lot of fun to play, but it isn't very deep and doesn't have a great multiplayer. Overall I would say a very good game, but whether you want to get it is up to you. It isn't a must-have, but if you like this kind of game, than go for it.


This concludes my first review. Please weigh in on how I did, and if you would like to join the Four Is Review Team, just visit the thread in this forum and state the game you would like to review.

[theONE]

nice review and good use of the 4 review method

[Lkr]

should i buy this instead of emerald?

[ShadowMarth]

Instead of it? No. But if I'm correct, that is a good ways off, and this would not be a bad game to have in the mean time if you like the classic mario and yoshi games.

[Skyline]

Good review. It's given me a better insight into how to do my review. 'Cuz i wasn't sure of what to put etc. But now i've read yours i know what i'm doin.

[ShadowMarth]

Good, that was half the reason I got it done so quickly. Once I had played it for a day or two, I just sat down for a good while and did the review. Since it's not very deep at all I didn't have to mash every aspect of the game into pulp before I wrote it. Also I wanted to see for myself how the new review format would go.

[ShadowMarth]

Yes! After some feindish clouding (?), I managed to not only unlock every mode, but get the high score. Open to questions. A few tips: Use clouds creatively. Use them for things like blocking yoshi on the tough parts where you are required to have good egg marksmanship, and also use them for trapping non-bubbleable enemies.