Yoshi Touch & Go

Yoshi Touch & Go Description

With the release of the exciting and capable DS console still very much a recent memory, many people are looking to creators Nintendo for the direction that games on the versatile machine will follow. So far (two weeks after launch at the time of writing) Nintendo have updated old IP in the form of Mario DS and introduced slick and stylish puzzler Polarium. Now the Japanese masters are unleashing Yoshi Touch and Go for their baby. As you'd imagine, the game stars the highly recognisable green dinosaur Yoshi, who must protect baby Mario from the assorted shy guys and other nasties trying to spirit him away. The game is set at around the same time as - and in a similar artistic style - to SNES classic Yoshi's Island, which was re-released on the GBA as Mario Advance 2. The gameplay is quite different though - whilst Yoshi's Island was a short, but beautiful and thoroughly entertaining old school platform romp, the origins of Yoshi Touch and Go are - legend has it - in a tech demo showcasing game ideas for the DS, which has since grown and been developed into a full game. Rather than being a platform game, the style of play is more akin to old puzzle games like Lemmings, in which the player must take action to help little oblivious chaps on the screen progress. In Yoshi Touch and Go, the player uses the DS stylus to ensure the safe passage of Yoshi and baby Mario, drawing clouds in their path. The game features two basic styles of levels - one where baby Mario falls from the sky and must be saved by the timely drawing of clouds beneath him - and a horizontally scrolling one, where your cloud platforms must help the pair move from left to right. Tap on Yoshi and he'll jump in the air, draw circles round enemies and they disappear. If you need to remove the clouds you have drawn, simply blow into the DS's microphone. A simple game featuring two familiar faces, Yoshi Touch and Go is only the beginning of the myriad possibilities being opened up by the Nintendo DS.