For many DS owners, your best bet when purchasing a new game for the cheery little handheld is to go first party. So far, Nintendo has delivered a truckload of fun, addictive games that utilize the touch screen in a myriad of ways, and Yoshi Touch & Go is no exception. The problem is, that however fun this game may be, the absence of any sort of ongoing "story" mode (a staple of any good platform game) and off-the-wall difficulty bring the overall fun factor of this game down quite a few notches.
The gameplay, which is one of the many things about this game that is well done, utilizes the touch screen cleverly; if a game was ever TOO intuitive, this would be a prime example. In the first part of the game, you must use your stylus to guide poor Baby Mario towards the ground by drawing clouds that guide his path in the sky. Along the way, you must avoid enemies and try to pick up as many coins as possible, since the quantity of them will determine the speed and egg-holding capacity of Yoshi, who will eventually catch you. Once you are on the ground, Yoshi moves at a perpetual pace, and it is your job to guide him over chasms and obstacles by drawing clouds; in addition to that, you now have access to a myriad of abilites, one of which is the ability to chuck eggs at enemies by tapping the stylus. You can peg enemies who appear at the top screen with a well-placed shot, usually getting a nice bonus in the process, or you can throw them at inaccessible coins to collect them. Also, you can draw cloud bubbles around enemies and coins, and drag or "throw" these bubbles towards Yoshi to gain points.
The main problem is not with the clever use of the stylus and the gameplay, but rather the game's focus. At the start, you are given two modes, Score Attack and Marathon. Score Attack has you trying to gain as many points as possible in a set distance, while Marathon has you trying to get as far as possible. These modes really have no difference from each other, and when you beat their respective high scores (300 points and 3000 yards respectively), you get two new modes, which are not all that different either. That brings us to the focus of the game; points. In the past, this was the one mechanic that kept us playing games like Asteroids and Space Invaders; the promise of a higher score and, consequently, more respect from our buddies at the arcade. However, in today's more modern industry, we expect a little more from our games than simply a high-score table, and sadly, Touch & Go fails to deliver any sort of cohesive, continual story mode. Even a string of varying levels would have sufficed. Also, for a game that appears to be very kid-friendly, Touch & Go is deceptively difficult, almost to the point of frustration. We're talking Mega Man or Castlevania-level difficult, folks. This saddles an otherwise ruthlessly fun game.
Touch & Go's sound design is ripped straight from the SNES era, which is not a bad thing at all. The voice samples of Yoshi as he jumps or shouts "Nintendo!" at the start of a level are nothing short of cute, and the music that plays through the levels is surprisingly calming and cool. The graphics also have that sort of SNES-era style to them, and the game has a good tolerance level for angles (if for some reason you hold your DS in a crazy way). Yoshi and Baby Mario are well animated and move fluidly. Although there is no 3D in this game, the gameplay doesn't demand it, and I'm thankful that they decided not to implement it as it might have detracted from the charm this game has. It's just too bad that all the good points of this game have to be weighed against the awful replay value.
This game could have been an A+ title, easily. Unfortunately, it's lacking the one element any good platformer needs, a cohesive, compelling reason to keep playing. This game is extremely well done and will stay in my collection for a long time, but as it stands, it's only really good for extremely short bursts of play. Nintendo's 1st-party quality is evident here, as always, but the game's execution is marred. Hopefully a sequel or a continuation will bring a Paper Mario-esque storyline to glue the entire experience together.
BTRs
