Nerd Mentality

Yoshi's Touch & Go is a spin-off game design that brings back a lot of elements and situations from one of, if not the finest 2D platformer ever created: Yoshi's Island. Players begin the game guiding a falling Baby Mario through hazardous airborne level creations, drawing soft, fluffy cloud paths that will, hopefully, force Baby Mario down a specific channel. The idea is to keep him out of harm's way, but also to have him collect coins on his trip down. After Baby Mario makes it safely to the ground, it's off to side-scrolling levels where Yoshi must carry him to the stork who will flutter off with Baby Mario. Players, again, draw cloud paths to guide the dinosaur, as well as create circles around enemies and tap on the screen to throw eggs at enemies for points.

As simple as the concept is, Yoshi's Touch & Go is one hell of a challenge. While it may be an easy feat getting Baby Mario down to the ground below, it's incredibly tough keeping track of his status on the upper screen while creating paths down below. Because what you create might not exactly work -- Baby Mario may get stuck in a little groove that will cause the cloud to vanish, which means he'll fall out of the strategically laid-out channel that you've created three steps ahead of him. The actual difficulty level between Baby Mario levels and Yoshi levels is like night and day...at least in the early stages. Guiding Yoshi through his side-scrolling hazards is a cakewalk in comparison, though it's just as difficult trying to score the highest amounts of points in the round. It also cleverly puts to use the system's capabilities; the touch screen and dual-screen functions become obvious as you play through the game, but it also uses the microphone similar to what Feel the Magic XY/XX and WarioWare Touched pulled off. If you don't like the path you've created for Baby Mario, you can simply "blow" into the microphone and wipe the clouds off-screen.

Yoshi Touch & Go also offers a surprisingly fun and addictive two player mode that only requires one copy of the game. In this challenge, it's an exclusive Yoshi level that takes place on one screen -- the upper screen displays exactly what's going on the other person's touch screen. In this multiplayer mayhem, it's a race to the end of the level; Yoshi runs faster on clouds than he does on the ground, which encourages players to keep the dragon airborne. Blasting eggs at spiky enemies will remove them from harm's way, but blasting three or more with one egg will send larger and stronger enemies to the other player's screen...sometimes right in their path. The game ends when either someone gets hit by a spiked enemy, falls off the screen, or actually finishes the race. There's only one "level" in multiplayer, but the enemy locations are randomly placed each time you play the game.

This game also gets one step closer to the appropriate way to handle the Nintendo DS "community," though we're still far off from the optimal solution. In Yoshi Touch & Go you can turn on an option that enables the game to seek out any PictoChat sessions in the area. If it senses one, a Pictochat face icon will pop up in the upper left corner of the lower screen. Tapping on it will bring up an option to quit the game and shut down the system so you can chat in PictoChat. It's a good step forward, but we still would like to be able to PictoChat within the game in order to tell "buddies" that we can start a multiplayer session with them.

The biggest concern when Nintendo revealed Balloon Trip and then Yoshi Touch & Go months later: How will the game hold up as its own game presentation? Can Nintendo sustain the concept with a fleshed out game design on the same level as other Mario and Yoshi platformers? After all, the idea is just as simple and basic as an unlockable mini-game in Super Mario 64 DS or WarioWare Touched!. Honestly, it isn't as fleshed out a Nintendo design. It's more harkens back to the game designs of the NES where the game continues ad infinitum (we think), and the only incentive to playing the game is to best your high score.

But after playing through the first few rounds of Yoshi Touch & Go, it's a presentation that works extraordinarily well on the Nintendo DS system. True, there's no real story or cutscenes to speak of, with the strength of the gameplay exclusively supporting the design. Though players can't enter their initials on a high score, they can pick from an assortment of character icons to mark their territory -- the game also keeps track of the date when the specific score was obtained based on the internal clock of the Nintendo DS system. It's one of the strongest original titles in the Nintendo DS line, by far, not just because it's a concept that could only work on the dual-screen, touch screen set up...but also because it actually does work. And it's fun as all get-out.

This sounds very promising indeed. I wasn't planning on getting it, but perhaps...
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rodney666

to shoot eggs all you do is touch the screen

I know, but IGN was complaining about "one too many" touch screen functions.

It's all controlled with the touch screen, which is a noble effort in simplicity -- our only problem with the game, which we would love to see Nintendo fix before release, was that there was one function too many for touch play in the Yoshi stages. Egg tossing was a delicate timing trick -- you tap and hold for just a little bit to launch your eggs -- and although players can pick up the timing, there's that left trigger (or the right one, for lefties out there) just sitting there, unused. The way it is now, if you tap too short, nothing happens but a puff of air, and if you drag while touching to prep an egg toss, you're drawing a cloud. This is a necessary mechanic to the gameplay, and a lot of casual gamers might have a hard time figuring it out (if at all -- we weren't even sure we could fire our eggs at any given time the first few plays until we did it accidentally.) If Nintendo could slack off its self-imposed limit for touch-only play in this game just a bit, it would help some folks out, and might do a favor to the more hardcore as well so they have instant access to their eggs.

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rodney666

jgkspsx have you played it? you can call it whatever you want arcade game, platformer whatever, the bottom line is there is not very much content to this game, and it really does feel unfinished, when you play it you'll see what i mean

Nolan Bushnell's golden rule of gaming: make an innovative but simple game that never ends, just gets harder and harder.
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(the real deal)

:conan:

Gamer3742

DAMN IT! Yoshi's Touch & Go was pushed back til' April 18. Now I will get Wario Ware Touched! alone.

I know. This totally sucks. That's the same week that Jade Empire comes out too.

rodney666

it's not good, you guys will see

Thanks for looking into the future for us.

Gamer3742

DAMN IT! Yoshi's Touch & Go was pushed back til' April 18.

What's with these DS release dates? Every single game since launch has been delayed by at least a month. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken.) What work is involved in the port, translation of title screens? Sheesh.

If Wario Ware Touched is delayed, I will be very vexed.
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rodney666

i have warioware touched, and twisted too, they are both really good, you'll want to play them for more than 5 minutes.

Neither you nor I know that for sure.

But Touched and Twisted sound sweet.

rodney666

you wont believe thats it's a full game, it seems like an unlockable mini game or something.

Even so im sure some casual gamers will enjoy it.

Really though i can't see how your suprised; Just by reading the previews for it i could have told you it be like an unlockable mini game sort of thing.

I won't be getting it, nor will i get any of the mini game esque titles like wario ware, im waiting for the epic games like M:H and NFSU to come out, games with alot of depth.

Games like that seem to be made with the purpose of very short gaming sessions; Something you can learn quickly, and just pick up and play, yet it is difficult enough to be a challenge. A game like that isn't going to have alot of depth to it, thats a given, and they arn't ment to be played in long sessions. They are great for the casual people who just want to play a short game in their free time.

The latest batch of touch games remind me of cell phone games you would play while waiting in line at a fast food place; I dislike them, they bore me very quickly, but im sure other people will like them. I just wish they would hurry up and start releasing games, not stand alone mini game.

But im not going to start complaining just yet; i'll give them till the PSP's launch before i give up on it. Hopefully by then either Mario kart, Metriod, or a new Pokemon DS game will be out, or some good 3rd party games. If not, i'll prolly just get a PSP. The DS is great for casual gamers, but for more "hardcore" gamers like myself, it's frustrating that there isn't any new involving games with serious substance. Until then, my DS is just a stylish GBA emulator.
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rodney666

i have warioware touched, and twisted too, they are both really good, you'll want to play them for more than 5 minutes.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you here judging by your taste in puzzle games. How can you dislike Mr Driller