Yoshis Island Unlockables

Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 (SNES) Cheats. Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 cheats, Tips, and Codes for SNES. Jump to: Tip (3) Cheat (6). Yoshi's Island Code. All Extras Unlocked Yoshi's Island Code. 4202C8A4 03E8 000. All Levels Unlocked Yoshi's Island Code. 43006B6E 012 0002. Press Start and L to End Level Yoshi's Island Code. 74000130 01F7 330. 5/5 Flowers Collected Yoshi's Island Code. 73006B04 0D00 33006A9A 0005.

Update, Sept. 6, 2020: It's Labor Day Weekend in the US, and even though most of us now also call home 'the office,' Ars staff is taking a long weekend to rest and relax. For many, that includes gaming on titles new and old. We planned on resurfacing a few pieces from the archives to keep the lights on over a holiday, so it seemed only right to select one honoring an all-time classic that turns 25 this year. (And it can now be played through Nintendo's Switch Online service.) Our Masterpiece essay on Yoshi's Island originally ran in September 2012 and it appears unchanged below.

Back in 1995, I thought I knew what a Mario game was. Running left to right (or maybe down to up). Jumping on things. Eating mushrooms to get big. Flying, sometimes. You know the drill. Then Yoshi's Island came along and showed that Mario games could be about a lot more than that.

Yeah, you were still running through levels and jumping on things, but the myriad ways Yoshi's Island expanded on the Mario formula made it feel like an entirely new game. Yoshi went from an occasional helper in Super Mario World to a permanently controllable character in Yoshi's Island, tasked with protecting a near-helpless Baby Mario riding on his back. Yoshi's oversized tongue let players slurp up enemies and transform them into projectile eggs that could be fired in any direction. What used to be a run-and-jump series was now run-and-jump-and-slurp-and-shoot game, and the Yoshi's Island designers built levels that catered to these new abilities wonderfully.

But the true key to Yoshi's Island's appeal, to me, is the flutter jump. If you continue to hold the jump button after the peak of Yoshi's arc, he'll kick his feet in the air to first slow his descent and then start floating upward again, achieving a new, slightly higher peak. If you have enough elevation, you can flutter multiple times before eventually floating to the ground. This new feature added a crucial, extra bit of post-jump precision to the standard Mario jump, and allowed for a lot of platforming challenges that required mid-air direction changes or extra-long flutter leaps. It's hard to explain to someone who's never played Yoshi's Island just how right it feels to trace a series of gentle, perfect curves through the air with a well-timed executed series of flutter jumps.

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Then there's the way the game looks. Mario games have always been bright and colorful, but Yoshi's Island brought a hand-drawn aesthetic that really captured the game's sense of childlike wonder. From the gentle pastel backgrounds to the stark black outlines of the primary-colored characters and enemies, there's the slightest bit of imperfect sloppiness to the visual design that evokes a grade schooler's dream world more than a pixelated game system.

A lot of people don't realize that the 2D sprites in Yoshi's Island were backed up by a version of the polygon-pushing Super FX chip—the same one that powered early 3D SNES games like Star Fox and Stunt Race FX. This allowed for massive bosses that could stretch, rotate and move with a smoothness that was unknown in games at the time, but also provide subtler effects like the way Yoshi's head compresses a little bit when he bonks it against the ceiling. The Super FX powered character animation carries a level of detail that makes the characters seem much more lively than the keyframe animation of previous Mario games.

Avoiding enemies is still important in Yoshi's Island, but getting hit one or two times usually isn't an instant death, as in previous Mario games. Instead, you can just quickly recapture the floating Baby Mario and continue on with the level. It's an important change for a game that marks a transition point of sorts from the simpler 'get to the end without dying' Mario games that came before to titles that focused more on exploration and secondary goals.

Yoshi's Island doesn't have a time limit, allowing players to search out the five giant flowers and 20 hidden red coins in each level to their heart's content. Finding these bonuses isn't necessary to beat the game, but searching out a perfect score on each level provides a great excuse to go back and really absorb all the nooks and crannies of the excellent, puzzle- and secret-filled level design. Plus, finding all the secrets on each level unlocked a series of six extra-hard bonus stages. You know a game is good when you're excited that the reward for playing well is that you get more levels to play.

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That's because every new level in Yoshi's Island showed more originality and imagination than the entirety of many other platform games of the day. There are enemy monkeys that spit watermelon seeds at Yoshi and try to run off with Baby Mario. There are giant, screen-filling Chain Chomps that try to chase Yoshi down (before inevitably falling and chipping a tooth on a cement block). There are items to transform Yoshi into vehicles ranging from a helicopter to a submarine. There's a spike-proof dog that serves as a barely controllable transport. There's the infamous level where Yoshi gets high (sorry, 'dizzy') by inhaling floating spores. You never know what to expect when you unlock a new level in Yoshi's Island, and that expectation of new content keeps you going at least as much as anything else.

The magic of Yoshi's Island has proven hard to recapture. I'll never forget the feeling of disappointment I felt when I bought Yoshi's Story on the N64 only to realize it was a pale, simplified shadow of the game that inspired it. Years later, Yoshi's Island DS did its best to expand on the SNES classic, but everything from the controls to the level design just felt the tiniest bit off. The Game Boy Advance rerelease of the original Yoshi's Island might just be the quintessential version of the game, featuring six new unlockable stages that feel perfectly integrated into the larger whole.

The radical experimentation of Yoshi's Island holds up amazingly well even nearly two decades after its first release, and stands as a testament to how even the most well-known and beloved series can be tweaked and expanded successfully.

Previous Masterpiece articles

Yoshi's Island Nintendo 64

Strategy Guide
Bonus gamesIslandYoshi

At the level selection screen, hold Select and press L(2), B, A, R. A list of bonus games will appear. If you win the selected game you will get a prize.

Bonus levels

Successfully complete the game to unlock an extra level for each world. Finish all eight levels in each world with a 100% completion to unlock a ninth level in each world.

Hard mode

Get 1,000 points in a world (100 points on all ten levels including Extra and Secret levels). A star will appear on the game selection screen. Get five stars on that screen to unlock hard mode.

Alternate ending sequence

Successfully complete the game in hard mode.

Lucky 777

Get your total points for a world to equal exactly 777, to get 7 extra lives.

Special Yoshi eggs

To get special Yoshi eggs with out having to find special boxes, fire a Yoshi egg in an area that will cause the egg to bounce off the walls and back to you. When the egg returns to you, quickly use Yoshis tongue at the egg. If successful, you should have a special Yoshi egg.

Shoot eggs upward

Press any direction on the D-pad and the target will stay up.

Yoshis Island Unlockables

Defeat Naval Piranha Plant with one egg

When you arrive in the Boss room where that small plant is located, step on the first block on the platform, then shoot a egg at him. However, do not go further than the first block on the platform or Kamek will appear and turn that small plant to a huge monster.

Yoshi's Island Unlockables Characters

Infinite lives in Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy

Grab a Melon Bug (the creature that rolls up into a ball) and go to the pipe with Shy Guys jumping out of it. Spit the Melon Bug close to the pipe on the left-hand side. When Shy Guys jump out, after a while you will get a '1-Up' for each time a Shy Guy hits the Melon Bug when it is in its melon form.

Easy lives in World 1-2

Pick up the shell at the start of the level and throw it at the row of Koopas. Quit level and repeat for endless lives. Also in level 2 (the one with the ten red Koopas at the start). you can get close to thirty extra lives. When you first enter the level, hold B and run forward. You should run into a shell and will be holding it. Run back with the shell to the ten red Koopas and throw it at them. If you hit them all, you get an extra life. Get a Yoshi out of the block and run forward to the next block with a Yoshi (by the moles that pop out of the walls) and hit it. An extra life mushroom will appear. Climb the beanstalk to the clouds. To get the beanstalk, hit the block on the far left of the walls that the mole appears from. There is a Dragon (Yoshi) Coin there. Collect the other four and get another extra life. Go down one of the blue tunnels near the end of the level. There will be flying blocks. You can pick up a block and throw it at them, but an easier way is to simply jump with Yoshi then jump off in mid-air (press A while on Yoshi and R at the peak of its jump). An extra life will be in the third flying block. Leave the tunnel, then run back to the entrance. Go down the same tunnel again and hit the third block to get another extra life. Do this until you have about forty seconds remaining, then sprint to the goal with your extra lives.

Easy lives in World 1-7

Pick up a Rollie-Pollie Guy with your tounge. Do not turn him into an egg or spit him out for anyone until you get to the pipe that spits out Shy-Guys. Once there, spit the Rollie-Pollie Guy out into a 1 (square) hole on the right of the pipe. Once placed, jump onto the platform above and to the right of it. Let the Shy-Guys jump out of the pipe and onto the Rollie-Pollie Guy. Points will accumulate and will eventually give you 1-Ups continually. After a few hours, you will have 999 lives.

Hidden area in World 1-7

Immediately before completing the level, there is a bridge that bends. Get the two Red Coins, then go to the other bridge. After that go on the piece of land with a log sticking out of the ground. Stand on the edge of the log, then shoot an egg straight up. A spring ball should fall. Jump on it and you will go to a hidden stage through a pipe.

Easy lives in World 1-9

Yoshi's Island Unlockables

Yoshi

Grab a Melon Bug (the bug that curls when you approach) and take him to the Shy-Guy Pipe (where the Shy Guys appear from). Look up and shoot the bug. If done correctly, the bug should fall in the tiny space on the right side of the pipe, between it and landscape. Stand on the elevated surface and make sure you have no eggs. The Shy Guys will pop out towards you, but hit the bug. You will keep getting extra lives until you have 100. Then, get a perfect completion on World 5 and you will get the roulette game. If you get the X3; you will get 300 lives.

Hidden area in World 3-1

There is a location in the water in World 3-1 where you can go beneath a land mass to access a hidden area, by jumping off of a giant spring arrow. If you curve to the side and go above the normal hidden entrance, you should enter an area where you will be falling towards nothing. Keep going right (stay in the air as long as possible) until you reach the edge. You will be teleported to World 1-1 (and gain credit toward World 3-1) where you can gain more red coins and hearts than the maximum. It will only go to the top, but it will be 10 times easier to perfect the level.

Easy lives in World 4-1

Go up the first steep hill until you get to three pipes and a Koopa walking around. Two will have Piranha plants and one will be a Shy-Guy generator. Throw away an egg so Shy-Guys will start jumping out. Kill the two Piranha plants, eat the Koopa and stand on the pipe. Spit the Koopa shell towards the Shy-Guys. The shell will bounce between the two pipes, knocking out the Shy-Guys. As soon as ten Shy-Guys are knocked out, you will start getting a 1-Up for each consecutive Shy-Guy. The shell will keep bouncing around, killing the Shy-Guys that pop out. You can get up to 999 lives this way.

Free mini-games in World 5-4

Go to a door on your left. Use a POW block or '?' and go to the door and get the secret code. This code will give you free mini-games when you go to the level selection screen.