Yoshi Topsy-Turvy takes place in a pop-up book. Bowser is behind the mayhem that has trapped the entire Yoshi’s Island and its inhabitants inside this book. The book spirit has given Yoshi the power to tilt the world within the book. This is accomplished via a tilt sensor located in the cartridge, but it’s not the same sophisticated mechanism found in Warioware Twisted. The game plays similar to any other 2D side-scrolling action-platform game. The D-pad moves Yoshi about the screen, A jumps, and B uses his tongue. By tilting the GBA left or right, you are controlling gravity within the game. If a huge wall is blocking the path to the right, simply tilt the GBA to the right and Yoshi will be able to climb over it with ease. There will be all sorts of obstacles scattered throughout the game that will require the tilt function. Some are more clever than others, but overall the tilt function is simply a fun diversion.

The biggest problem with Yoshi Topsy-Turvy is its level design. Very often the areas of a level only consist of several screens. You’ll literally move a few screens to the right, see an obstacle that must be passed with the tilt function, and go through a door to the next area. The levels seem very disjointed with very little flow to them at all. This makes the overall game feel very generic and becomes tedious by the second level. Unlike Yoshi’s Island and previous Mario games, Topsy-Turvy lacks the magic of discovering hidden areas, items, and play mechanics. The tilt aspect was no doubt integrated to create some puzzles, but there’s only so much you can do with the tilt technology before it becomes old hat. Before each level you’re given a mission. These are often fetch quests, like “bring me 3 apples or find 10 coins”. This creates a very linear objective that sometimes can be obtained near the beginning of the levels, which leaves very little incentive to keep grabbing items since the missions are essentially complete. Many times I just rushed to the end of the level knowing I had already obtained the items required. And what’s the deal with not being able to shoot eggs? That whole game play dynamic has been taken out, but I think that would have been really fun to use the tilt sensor to aim the cursor and fire eggs at enemies.

Graphically the game is adequate, but nothing earth shattering. Yoshi’s Island on the Super NES had a distinct color-pencil look to it and it still remains one of the most beautiful 2D games ever created. On the N64, Yoshi’s Story used rendered graphics and some other cool tricks to make it stand out. Here, the graphics are sort of a combination of those two previous games, but many of the enemy designs are just boring. There are some recognizable baddies, like Shy Guys, but it just lacks the Nintendo touch in most of the levels.

If you are looking for a game that will entertain young kids (4 to 8 years old) the short level design and gimmicky tilt control will do the job nicely. If you are a fan of platform games and love Nintendo’s previous efforts you won’t find much fun or excitement here. For those of us who are old enough to have grown up during the Super Nintendo and Genesis era, think back to when Mario and Sonic were the all-powerful mascots. Remember how practically every other company in existence thought it would be “cool” to have its own action-platform superstar? Remember the sub-par games that resulted in the inevitable glut of “me-too” games? That is exactly what to expect from Yoshi Topsy-Turvy. It’s not a horrible game, but it’s far from a great one.