Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3

Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 for Game Boy Advance is Nintendo EAD's 2002 handheld version of the Super NES platform adventure Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. Published by Nintendo, it puts Yoshi rather than Mario at the center of a colorful side-scrolling quest. After Kamek intercepts the stork carrying baby Mario and baby Luigi, Luigi is taken away while Mario lands safely on Yoshi's Island. The Yoshis take turns escorting Baby Mario across the island, pursuing Kamek and working toward the brothers' reunion.

Each stage asks the player to guide a Yoshi from its starting point to the goal ring through platforms, hazards, enemies, secrets, and shifting terrain. Yoshi can run, jump, swim, climb, and use a flutter jump to extend time in the air. His long tongue swallows many opponents and objects. Swallowed foes can become eggs, which trail behind Yoshi until they are aimed and thrown at targets, blocks, distant enemies, or elements of the scenery. Ground pounds, careful egg shots, and the ability to search off the obvious route give the levels both direct platforming challenges and small environmental puzzles.

Baby Mario changes the usual damage system. When Yoshi is hit, Mario floats away in a bubble and a countdown begins; catching the bubble before the timer expires keeps the journey going. Stars replenish the available time, while certain hazards can still cost a life immediately. Stages also hide red coins, special flowers, and bonus opportunities for players looking to improve a clear. Completing a course passes Baby Mario to the next Yoshi, carrying the story through six worlds of jungles, caves, snowy areas, castles, and other distinct locations.

The Game Boy Advance edition retains the hand-drawn, crayon-like visual approach associated with Yoshi's Island while adapting the adventure for Nintendo's portable hardware. Yoshi can use familiar transformations for specialized stretches of a level, including forms suited to travelling through water or the air, and can use items such as watermelons for different projectile attacks. Boss encounters punctuate the journey, often turning previously encountered enemies into oversized obstacles that require the player to recognize patterns and make good use of Yoshi's moves.

This version adds material beyond the original Super NES release. Players who meet the necessary completion conditions can access an additional bonus stage for each world, extending the main challenge for thorough explorers. It also includes Mario Bros. as a separate multiplayer option: up to four players can connect compatible Game Boy Advance systems and compete in that arcade-style game. The core Yoshi's Island campaign itself remains a single-player adventure, built around moving Baby Mario safely from one Yoshi to another.

Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 belongs to Nintendo's Super Mario Advance line of Game Boy Advance updates to earlier Mario-era games. Its emphasis on Yoshi's egg aiming, flutter jump, transformations, collecting, and protective role gives it a character of its own within the wider Mario series. For players exploring the Game Boy Advance library, it preserves an early Yoshi adventure in portable form while adding its own set of bonus courses and a link-cable multiplayer extra.