YMMV / Yoshi's New Island

• Alternative Character Interpretation: There’s the possibility of the wrong parents being actually the Mario Brothers’ aunt and uncle, assuming the stork memorized the last name of one parent, but not the rest of the first/last names. If the game confirmed it, this would have alleviated the Happy Ending Override somewhat.
• Ass Pull:
  • After defeating Baby Bowser, adult Bowser appears out of nowhere from time and space to prevent his defeat as an infant. The game itself even lampshades how sudden and forced his appearance is.
    Suddenly... warping through space and time... King Bowser appears!
  • You might notice that Mr. Pipe has Mario's eyes if you look at him closely. Otherwise, there's no indication that time travel is involved before Bowser shows up.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: Rarely does this happen to show up first on the intro cinematic itself. While the game's initial reveal was generally looked at positively, the game's infamous plot of undoing the ending of the original managed to alienate a good percentage of players, many not giving the game a chance after realizing how cheaply the sequel undid the SNES original's ending.
• Awesome Music: Though the game's music is overall widely considered to be a massive downgrade from prior games, it does have its few moments.
  • The Complete World Map theme, in series tradition, is a great mix of all prior World map themes with a lot of catchy instruments added to the mix, it even has a well mixed reference to Totaka's Song.
  • The True Final Boss theme, which is an excellent remix of Bowser's theme and gets you excited for the encounter in spite of how much of an Ass Pull his appearance might have been.
• Broken Base: While every Yoshi's Island game since the first has been contested in some way, New Island is easily the most divisive entry in the franchise:
  • The graphics. Instead of reusing the "coloring book" look of the previous two games, the developers have chosen a style that resembles Yoshi's Island's artstyle mixed with Yoshi's Story pre-rendered 3D visuals, with backgrounds looking more painted and characters looking like claymation. Some love the style and think it fits in well with the usual Yoshi's Island aesthetic while still giving the game its own identity, while others think it looks bland and lacks the charm of the previous games' coloring book style. ^note  Hell, Models Resource itself didn't get more enemy models/renders from the game due to those debates, while work has stalled in another gallery.
    Peardin: While there are a few genuinely interesting novel ideas and moments, the game's biggest fault is that it tries to stay super close to the original SNES Yoshi's Island while doing everything slightly worse. The story, the basic gameplay, the enemies, the level themes, all of it. Even the progression of levels and worlds is very similar, down to timing of using enemies and gimmicks. I wanted to enjoy it more, but it constantly reminded me that it was trying to be the original. At least with Yoshi's Island DS, Artoon's previous attempt, the game forges its own identity.
  • The game's opening cancels out the original's ending by including a twist that the parents who were brought the Mario Bros. are actually not their parents at all also has the fanbase split between the people who don't mind it and find it hilarious, and the people who think that this is very disrespectful of the original Yoshi's Island's ending, which was considered one of the most Heartwarming Moments in Super Mario Bros. history.
  • The redesigned vehicle sections which use tilt controls. Some dislike them for being hard to control, considering them to be forced Waggle; while others think they are innovative since it's the only instance of using motion controls in the series, fit the vehicles well for the most part, and are not that hard to control.
• Contested Sequel: Easily the biggest example out of all the Yoshi games. Some people hate it for being too similar to the original, its aesthetic, its music, and canceling the ending of the original. Some don’t mind those issues and think it's a solid enough platformer. There are also those who do mind the issues but still think it's solid enough, just inferior to all other games.
• Fan Nickname: Due to the game's... interesting soundtrack, some refer to it as Yoshi's Kazoo Island.
• Fanon Discontinuity: The Sequel Reset that cancels out the beautiful ending to the original game is disliked by many of the players, both those who like this game and those who don't. The completely unexplained appearance of the adult Bowser as the Final Boss doesn't help matters. Of course, those who don't like the game just tend to ignore the whole kit-and-kaboodle altogether.
• Fridge Brilliance: Mario and Luigi's actual parents called on the stork because they biologically can't have children.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Ironically, where a sizable number of fans of the original game initially found DS to be too different from the original game, many found this one to be too similar (right down to even having the same plot: Stork and Luigi get kidnapped by Kamek's men again, Mario falls on another island filled with Yoshis, another adventure ensues- even the appearance of Adult Bowser was used in DS, though done far better as he is shown to be involved in the plot before the final level and has an explained and coherent motive- he wants to capture all the main characters before they can grow up to ruin his life) with just some slight tweaks here and there. Most reviewers cited this against the game as a result since it's just the first game with a newer coat of paint and with none of the things DS introduced.
• It Was His Sled: Bowser bends time and space just to show up as the Final Boss.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The title theme and especially the second half of the opening cutscene theme seem to have headed into this territory due to how ear-grating they are. While the game's soundtrack as a whole tends to get a bad rap, it's those two pieces that people tend to make fun of the most often, and they frequently get tossed around as a humorous "annoying music" post on social networks.
  • "Suddenly...warping through space and time...King Bowser appears!"
• One-Scene Wonder: Bowser, who stars in the game's most baffling moment. Similarly, there's Mario at the end.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The invisible clouds in this game, which most of the secrets are hidden in now. It creates a lot of Fake Difficulty (and subsequently, Fake Longevity), especially considering that many of them are hidden in obtuse locations you may not even think of going.
  • The fact that some coins (yes, even the red ones) don't appear until you walk in a certain place. Once again, these trigger spots are often in places you would simply ignore, wouldn't think of going into, or just have no indication of anything special.
  • Unlike in previous games, the checkpoints don't track the amount of stars you have, meaning that if you lose a life after hitting one, you're knocked back down to ten. This can really be a pain, especially when trying to get all stars in the levels for 100% Completion and especially when trying to get them all in the forts/castles where it's very easy to get hit by a boss's attacks.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: The game is much easier than the original and especially DS. Indeed, some of the carryovers from the classic game have been simplified. Take the final boss fight, where the arena is much more forgiving, for starters, as you aren't threatened by bottomless pits.
• So Bad, It's Good: "The Yoshi Clan" is a track that's so infamously awful among the Mario fanbase that merely playing the first few seconds will cause them to burst out laughing.
  Arlo: WHO APPROVED THIS?!
• So Okay, It's Average: While far from a terrible game (in fact, many will tell you that it's still pretty good certain mechanics aside; and that while similar to the original, still tried to be different from it in its own way by changing certain things —even if they ended up as divisive— unlike a certain other much more unoriginal 3DS game), New Island is vastly regarded to be inferior to most of the other Yoshi's Island games including both of its prequels.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • A major point of criticism of this game was doing a Sequel Reset that retconned out the very heartwarming ending of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.
  • Its soundtrack, being vastly considered a major step down from all prior games. For example, changing the theme just before the proper start of the game from this to this (which is now associated with the phrase "The ass band will play a song of farts to celebrate your failure.") or this to whatever is this.
  • Unlike both Yoshi's Island and Yoshi's Island DS, levels on the world map lack unique hand-drawn artworks showing what each level is about, instead being replaced by just numbers.

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