Golden Yoshi Returns

Just got done playing this for the first time. I've played the sequel, Golden Yoshi Returns Again many years ago, but for some reason I never played the first one. My playthrough took a while, maybe around 45+ minutes, but I was combing through the whole level making sure not to leave any secrets behind. I finished with 100% completion.

This is a great hack! Just as the description says, it's one long challenging level. Level design style will switch up between longer rompy sections, shorter and more challenging sections, and the "giant hub room where you need to find keys to progress", a Yoshi's Island classic.

As far as difficulty goes, most of the individual sections aren't that hard, but the difficulty comes from having to survive several sections without dying. You can get quite far in the level without seeing a checkpoint, most notably during the castle section. Yoshi's Island is limited to only four checkpoints per level, so that's why the checkpoints can feel a little sparse in this hack. I imagine that a full no death/no hit run would be pretty satisfying to pull off.

There are times where it's possible to reach a point of no return and miss some of the collectibles. It can be hard to indicate to the player that they're about to cross a point of no return, so missing collectibles might just come with the territory of YI hacks. You could still miss collectibles in the original YI after all. Perhaps letting the player backtrack to previous sections would have worked, but that can come with its own design issues (e.g. might be faster for the player to just die instead of backtrack)

You also have to deal with limited lives, so don't run out of lives or else you'll get punted back to the start! In most ROM hacks, you'll usually be showered with lives, but in this hack, you only start with three lives. 1UPs are hidden in a few places throughout the level, so exploration is always a good idea. In the skiing section however, the 1UP is placed AFTER one of the harder jumps, so it's very possible to run out of lives in the skiing section. I know I almost did.

Overall, I enjoyed playing this. If you feel like playing a marathon session of Yoshi's Island, I recommend Golden Yoshi Returns!

Since I'm a crazy person, I still slightly prefer the much more difficult sequel hack (Golden Yoshi Returns Again), though I imagine most will prefer to play the more mellow marathon experience of Golden Yoshi Returns.

This was a good way to occupy some time. I ended with a score of 98 (I missed two red coins) I'm kicking myself, I feel like I should have explored the section with all the monkes a little more thoroughly..

Regardless, I enjoyed this a lot. And I plan to go back and attain 100% at some point. Maybe after I play Golden Yoshi Returns Again.

Definitely 5 from me

One of the best hacks i played, too short but too fun

This is a really good hack. sometimes I got a bit lost in the level but still awesome