Yoshi Touch & Go

Yoshi's debut on the Nintendo DS is a return to classic arcade game design. Guide Baby Mario and Yoshi via the stylus and strive to beat your high score.

Overview

Yoshi's Touch & Go is a Nintendo DS game developed and published by Nintendo. While resembling Yoshi's Island, Touch & Go is a throwback to Nintendo's arcade days, with no story whatsoever in the game. First shown as an E3 demo for the freshly unveiled Nintendo DS, it was known initially as Balloon Trip, before this there was even plans for a Gamecube game. The game's exclusive use of the DS touchscreen and microphone served not only to ignite developer interest in the system, but created a compelling retail product in its own right. The stylus is used to guide a falling Baby Mario or a marching Yoshi, while blowing into the mic clears drawn paths from the playing field. The pair move without player control making the goal to guide them as far as they can go unharmed, achieving a high score.
 

Gameplay

The gameplay focuses on you guiding Baby Mario and Yoshi by drawing lines that form clouds, you can use it to guide a falling Baby Mario down to Yoshi or create bridges for Yoshi to walk over and walls to protect you from incoming enemy attacks. You can blow on the screen to clear all the clouds that you have drawn away. It is important to try and keep yourself safe from the enemies as one hit will spell your end. A major part of the gameplay is bubbles, you can create bubbles by drawing a perfect circle which can then be flicked at enemies to knock them away or draw a circle around an enemy and turn them into a coin.  Tapping Yoshi will cause him to jump, if you then tap on Yoshi again while he is in the air he will begin to flutter jump. An alternate way of dealing with your foes is to throw eggs at them, Yoshi gains the ability to do this by eating fruit, tapping away from him throws an egg in that direction. 

Modes

The game has four modes. Two start unlocked and for the other two you must beat the top score for the first two.

  • Score Attack - You have to make your way to the Stork at the end of the level, aim to build up your score on the way.
  • Marathon -You travel over an unlimited course and every 1000 yards, Mario is handed over to a new color of Yoshi. For every 100 points that are collected you earn a super star.
  • Time Attack - In this mode, the sky level has more enemies, bumpers and Super Stars. Your mission on the ground is for you to catch Toadies who are carrying Baby Luigi away. The clouds are yellow which lets Yoshi run faster on them. You save Luigi by attacking the Toadies with your egg's until they drop the baby. The faster you save Luigi the more points you will earn.
  • Challenge - This mode is a mix of Time Attack and Marathon. Yoshi and Mario walk across an unlimited stage like in Marathon, but if the timer on the screen runs out, Kamek will swoop in and steal your baby!
  • Versus mode - This is the games multiplayer mode. The clouds are also Yellow here. You race against the other player to try and finish the course first. You can make more powerful enemies appear on your opponents screen by defeating enemies on your screen but the downfall of this is you have to slow down to defeat your enemies.