Lawrence.com

Nintendo is a firm believer that innovation and simplicity go hand-in-hand. The Nintendo DS is a hardware platform that the big N intends to fuse this idea to. Unfortunately, many third parties haven't really explored the hardware to its potential, but Yoshi's Touch & Go takes a convincing step in the DS's intended direction.

By using the stylus, you will guide Baby Mario and then Yoshi through two distinct types of platforms. First, Baby Mario falls vertically and you must draw clouds on the bottom screen to safely guide him away from enemies all while trying to encapsulate enemies with the stylus to earn baby Mario points. You can also guide baby Mario toward coins to earn more!

Once safely on the ground, you get to ride one color of Yoshi through a side-scrolling level, drawing clouds for Yoshi to jump on. You jump by tapping Yoshi, jump in the air by tapping him in the air, and toss eggs an enemies by tapping elsewhere on the touch screen. Your objective is still to collect coins and kills enemies for points. The mechanics take very little time to get used to and are instantly rewarding.

The coolest feature? Blowing. That's right. If you make a cloud that doesn't work like you think it would, blow into the microphone and the cloud will "blow" away. Never before has this sort of interaction been attempted on a console and Nintendo succeeds on its first try.

The game is really fun. Even the wireless multiplayer is a blast. It's a race to the finish to guide Yoshi ahead of your friend. Since he runs faster on clouds, make sure you keep him on the clouds. If you hit enough objects with an egg, you can throw obstacles in front of your competitor, increasing the depth of the impressive little multiplayer component.

The downside to Yoshi's Touch & Go continues the disturbing trend in recent Nintendo games. It's short. It lacks a cohesive presentation. And it demands that you replay its levels over and over to get better scores. In essence, the longevity hinges purely on how much fun you'll have with the game, which is a subjective length rather than based on pure content.

Still, for what it is, it's innovative and fun- a combination that's very rare. Let's hope that this type of innovation spreads outside of Nintendo's development team.

Graphics: B

Sound: B

First Play: A

Last Play: B+

Gameplay: A

Overall: 89% B+