Yoshi's Island DS -- The Mechanics of Colorful Dinosaurs.

Yoshi's Island DS essentially controls just as its predecessor did. Artoon has provided four control schemes. I use what's referred to as ABXY Patient. The D-pad controls Yoshi's movement left and right.  With a press of the Y button Yoshi is able to flick out his tongue a considerable distance and latch on to enemies and pull them into his mouth. With an enemy inside his mouth you have two options. You can either press down on the D-pad to convert the enemy to an egg or you can press the Y button again to spit the enemy out as a projectile weapon. Yoshi is able to store six of the eggs he makes at one time as they travel behind him in a line. Why would Yoshi need to do that? Because he can throw eggs at enemies and items. Pressing the A button brings up Yoshi's egg cursor. In the control scheme I use just one press is needed and the egg cursor moves through its arc of potential throwing angles. Pressing the A button again throws the egg. You can move Yoshi while the egg cursor is out. And you have various means of controlling the egg cursor. Yoshi's movement for one. You can also press and hold up on the D-pad while the egg cursor is out to lock it directly up over Yoshi. Throwing eggs at items like coins and flowers will collect those items. Winged Clouds are triggers that can be triggered with the eggs. And of course the eggs are a weapon against enemies and bosses. There are three types of eggs based on their color. Green eggs are the standard egg. Yellow eggs are the next level and if you successfully strike an enemy with one you'll get two coins. The red eggs are the final level and they'll produce two stars if you successfully hit the enemy. You can also lock the egg cursor in place with the X button. You can close the egg cursor without throwing an egg by pressing down on the D-pad. The B button is used to make Yoshi jump. Yoshi still does what Nintendo calls the flutter jump. Yoshi jumps up and if the button is still being held he sort of struggles for extra height. It's a very floaty jump that comes into play heavily in the nature of the stage design. Pressing down on the D-pad while in mid jump causes Yoshi to do his ground pound maneuver. It will nail posts into the ground, stun some enemies, or break certain types of terrain or boxes. In the original Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island the Yoshi in the game only had to deal with baby Mario. The Yoshi this time around have to deal with multiple babies. The cast includes Baby Mario, Baby Peach, Baby DK, Baby Wario, and Baby Bowser. The Yoshi's abilities vary depending which baby they're currently escorting. With Baby Mario you're able to press and hold the Y button to run faster than the others. This faster run allows for further jumping. With Baby Peach you're able to flutter jump longer than the others. You're also able to use her parasol to float and fly further than the others. You can also fly up drafts of wind.  With Baby DK, you're granted a charge attack. Pressing down on the D-pad and the Y button makes Yoshi and Baby DK charge into enemies as an attack and it allows for some types of obstacles to be destroyed. Baby DK is also able to grab on to vines which enables him to be able to climb and swing to places the others can't reach. Baby Wario carries a magnet. It allows for coins within range to be attracted to Yoshi and it enables you to pull metal boxes and platforms. With Baby Bowser on Yoshi's back, pressing the Y button causes a fireball to be shot out. It's an attack that not only defeats enemies, but also has the ability to melt ice. You can see how the inclusion off the different babies ups the action and puzzle potential. Because of the babies, they've added what's called the Stork Stop. In the game Yoshi can only carry one baby on his back at a time and the stork is carrying the rest of them. When Yoshi stands at a Stork Stop the stork comes down and allows you to switch out the babies so you can get the one you need for whatever the situation might be. There have been complaints of the dead zone between the screens. I'm playing on a Nintendo DS as opposed to the Nintendo DS Lite. The dead zone between the screen on the Nintendo DS is greater than that of the NDSL. I have no problems with the dead zone at all. The angles are true. You only need to be able to draw a line between two points in your mind. I can only guess that those people having problems with the dead zone have no spatial relationship understanding. On the force scrolling levels, of which there don't seem to be many, you can alleviate any dead zone issues by proper placement of Yoshi on the screen. Don't be in the dead zone during the forced scrolling levels. It's as simple as that. The controls in Yoshi's Island DS are flawless. They perform perfectly. Everything feels intuitive and responsive. There will be a learning curve for players new to Yoshi's Island. The learning curve will take a while. More than an hour. But you'll definitely get to perfect. Next time will cover the scoring and collection aspects of Yoshi's Island DS...