Yoshi's Safari - an honest review 3

[noobish hat]

So here we have Yoshi’s Safari, or as it’s known in Japan, ‘Yoshi’s Road Hunting’… What the hell is that? Now that’s a bad title, even by Japanese standards. It doesn’t even make any sense. Road hunting..? wha? So he’s hunting roads…? what the fahh… It’s even worse when you consider that in Japanese there’s no difference between that and ‘Yoshi’s Lord Hunting’. That would have made a better game. As it stands we have a steaming pile of… mediocrity. Not a terrible game, especially when lined up next to **** like Mario’s Time Machine and all that dross. It can be fun, but it’s bollock-twistingly repetetive.

The premise is that you play a dinosaur-riding plumber armed with a Super Scope, and it’s one of only 11 games to be compatible with Nintendo’s clunky battery-draining light gun. You’re supposed to be rescuing the King of Jewelery Land from Bowser by collecting crystals or something. The storyline is utterly uninspiring, but to be fair, that’s the case for most Mario games. One thing that bothers me though is how they keep introducing new areas – Sarasaland, Dinosaur Land, Jewelery Land, and how many sodding lands were there in Mario 3? When the **** is Nintendo going to give us a definitive map for this crazy ass continent? Until they do, I’m not buying into it.

So it’s basically a lightgun shooter on rails but with the Mario universe painted over the top, and I gotta say, after all the ****ty spin-offs there have been for the Mario series, it lends itself really quite well to this genre. There are so many familiar elements that are incorporated and for the most part they don’t seem tacked on at all. Aside from the whole thing being lovingly crafted in Super Mario World’s image, you’ve got the powerups, the Koopalings, the enemies:

Paragoombas

Bob-ombs

...those things...

That guy from Mole Mania looks pissed!

Paratroopas before...

...aaaaand after their Queer Eye for the Straight Koopa make-over. Or something.

And you’ve got Yoshi, who is extra detestable in this game. You just wanna shoot him in the back of the head, and to the games unending credit, you can! A plaster appears on his bonce and he turns round to give you the most pathetic, reproachful look you’ve ever seen. Almost makes you feel bad. Almost.

He does not look happy about being happy-slapped.

But despite all the classic elements, you end up with this image of Mario riding Yoshi around the place firing off a bazooka and it’s just ridiculous. The game certainly has a lot of camp appeal, I'll give it that.

The enemies and crap that the game comes up with on its own are not very inspiring either. Not stunningly bad, just generic. Take a look at some of the bosses:

Shiiiit. They all follow the same pattern too; robot appears, you blast it's limbs off, or other painfully obvious weak spot, until the Koopaling jumps out waving a white flag.
Here’s Ludwig Koopa, yeah I got you, you bastard. Funnily enough he always reminded me more of Tom Hulce in Amadeus.


So again, it's not a bad game. It looks pretty good, since it's presentation is taken straight from Super Mario World (even the map screen and cutscenes look similar), and the gameplay is classic Mode 7 rotation, just like Mario Kart. But it's just too damn repetetive. You can see how they tried to mix it up with different scenery, but because it's Mode 7, it all looks flat. There's even an extra hard mode (and all the cutscene dialogue acknowledges that the same **** is happening again on your second run-through, which is pretty funny), but just you try and sit your ass down to play through this ****er even once and you'll have had enough. Not only is it boring to do, but holding that goddamn Scope up to your eye all day long will ****ing kill you. Imagine holding a telescope up to your eye, only it weighs more than you do, and then Mike Tyson comes up and punches the end of it. Welcome to the Yoshi's Safari.

Sorrel

Next time… Dark Forces on Playstation. Awwww Yeah.

[importaku]

Hehe your reviews are great, i look forward to them as they pop up

[noobish hat]

Thanks dude, I appreciate it :-) By the way, Fantastic Dizzy arrived in the post yesterday, so watch out :-P

[chaoticjelly]

That looks an interesting game. I used to love a bit of the ol' Super Scope action.

I bet it's too easy though.

[noobish hat]

Yeah it's pretty easy, but I don't think I ever finished it on hard mode. The first SNES I ever got was a Scope 6 box set and a pile of crappy loose carts. But I was almost crying at the thought of finally being able to play my sealed Link to the Past I'd bought months earlier (this was when I was still at school and had no money).

[Oldgamingfart]

But I was almost crying at the thought of finally being able to play my sealed Link to the Past I'd bought months earlier (this was when I was still at school and had no money).

Ah, yes I remember when I got my LTTP as well. My brother nicked (or "borrowed to pay back later") the ?20 odd quid I had saved up for it, and went out and got Terminator 2 on VHS. I made him go back to Wollies the same day and not only get a refund for T2, but also get my copy of LTTP I had been saving so patiently for.
They almost didn't refund as the staff at Woolies thought he had made a copy of the tape, but the manager noticed that the tape reel was still on the plastic red/ see-thru bit right at the beginning, and if it had been played the VCR would've moved it forward. Phew!

Anyway, back to Yoshi's Safari. I played this very late on, as I never had a Super Scope (I could hardly afford a copy of LTTP let alone any peripheral device), so had to make do with a second-hand one in around 1996. I thought the game itself felt too much like some sort of demo, although gameplay wise it was still fun. I guess that?s what counts at the end of the day.
Good review noobish