Talk:Yoshi's Island (series)

The official Yoshi's Island series
The Super Mario Memorial Book actually explicitly mentions the Yoshi's Island series, indicating as part of it only the games that have Yoshi's Island in the name:


 * Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
 * Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island
 * ''Yoshi's Island DS
 * ''Yoshi's New Island

Yoshi's Woolly World is mentioned elsewhere in the same book, so it is not on the list on purpose, not because of when it was released.

Should we follow this official guideline?--Mister Wu (talk) 11:43, 19 October 2016 (EDT)
 * Does it have Yoshi's Story in that book? Then I might be able to answer. But to answer the question without that knowledge, Yoshi's Woolly World should not be included. 11:48, 19 October 2016 (EDT)
 * Yoshi's Story (『ヨッシーストーリー』is indeed mentioned in that book, in Yoshi's bio.--Mister Wu (talk) 12:48, 19 October 2016 (EDT)
 * Re: Mr. Wu - absolutely. - Reboot (talk) 12:31, 19 October 2016 (EDT)

To add some context, here's the description of the series in the book:

「ベビィマリオが登場するスピンオフシリーズ

『ヨッシーアイランド』シリーズ』

ヨッシーが赤ちゃん姿のベビィマリオを守りながら冒険を繰り広げる横スクロールアクション. 敵の攻撃を受けるとベビィマリオが離れてしまい、急いで助けなければならないというドキドキのシステムが面白い. 」

This is Yoshi's bio contained in the same book:

「ヨッシー

『スーパーマリオワールド』で初めて登場. マリオたちの冒険をサポートして、一躍人気キャラクターとなった. 『ヨッシーのたまご』、『ヨッシーストーリー』、『ヨッシーアイランド』など、主役作も非常に多い. 」

And finally, here's a screenshot of the page where Yoshi's Woolly World is mentioned.--Mister Wu (talk) 13:24, 19 October 2016 (EDT)
 * You probably don't know. I don't speak Japanese. Just English. 13:35, 19 October 2016 (EDT)
 * Don't worry, I don't either, and I just use online translators plus a bit more in depth approach (e.g. trying to understand the meaning of single words when needed) to translate them. Still, some users know Japanese, so this text can be useful for them.--Mister Wu (talk) 14:29, 19 October 2016 (EDT)
 * Can you give me the best translation then. I don't have that feature. 14:40, 19 October 2016 (EDT)
 * This is just a preliminary translation, far from being correct:


 * Spin-off series that introduced Baby Mario
 * "Yoshi's Island" series
 * Yoshi's adventure in protecting Baby Mario unfolds in side-scrolling action. When hit by enemies Baby Mario will go away, with an interesting system that makes you hurry to help him.


 * Yoshi
 * He first appeared in Super Mario World. He supported Mario in his adventure, and suddenly became a popular character. He's the protagonist in many games, such as Yoshi's Egg, Yoshi's Story, Yoshi's Island, etc.


 * If you want to use the description of the series as a source to guide the creation of this page, I highly recommend to ask a user who actually know Japanese for a proper translation. I might also add a photo of that box if you want to look at it and have it translated fully, but due to copyright concerns, it's better if you are first sure if you really need it, as there is little more added to the text I reported and the list I made.--Mister Wu (talk) 18:07, 19 October 2016 (EDT)
 * I think I will let someone who understands Japanese figure it out. 18:16, 19 October 2016 (EDT)

Classify Yoshi's Woolly World/Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World as games in the Yoshi's Island series
Currently, Yoshi's Woolly World and Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World are considered to be in the Yoshi franchise but not in the Yoshi's Island series on this wiki. I propose they should be classified as being in the Yoshi's Island series. Here are several reasons why:
 * They have nearly identical gameplay to games in the Yoshi's Island series, being platformers in which Yoshi eats enemies and turns them into round projectiles that are used to defeat enemies.
 * Yoshi's Story is considered to be a member of the Yoshi's Island series despite having differences from other games in the series similar to Yoshi's Woolly World's difference (the lack of Baby Mario, not having Yoshi's Island in the title). Therefore, it's contradictory to count Yoshi's Story but not Yoshi's Woolly World as part of the series.
 * Similar to Yoshi's Story's case, Yoshi Topsy-Turvy is considered to be a Yoshi's Island game despite having gameplay even less similar to the main Yoshi's Island games than Yoshi's Woolly World, and it also doesn't have Baby Mario or Yoshi's Island in the title.
 * Nintendo is vague about what games are and aren't in the Yoshi's Island series and hasn't issued a definite word about this subject. As far as I can tell, they consider there to be a Yoshi series with no further separation.
 * In the section above, there is alleged evidence that excludes Yoshi's Woolly World from the Yoshi's Island series from. However, nobody properly translated it and the rough translation does not necessarily provide evidence excluding Yoshi's Woolly World. The passage is describing the "Spin-off series that introduced Baby Mario", listing the Yoshi's Island games that Baby Mario is in, not necessarily listing every Yoshi's Island game in existence. If someone translates it better, it may change things, but that has not been done yet. Even if this is done, that will also mean Yoshi's Story is not a part of the series.

There are several reasons why Yoshi's Woolly World should be considered part of the Yoshi's Island series and seemingly few reliable reasons not to. As far as Yoshi Switch goes, it is most likely in the same situation as Yoshi's Woolly World, but I will withhold judgement of that until more information is revealed about the game.

Proposer: Proposed Deadline: July 9, 2017, 23:59 GMT Date Withdrawn: July 8, 2017

Support

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2) If Yoshi's Story and Yoshi Topsy-Turvy are considered Yoshi's Island games, so should these games.
 * 3) Per all.
 * 4) Per all.
 * 5) Per all.

Oppose

 * 1) To me, the Yoshi's Island series  explicitly  refers to games where Kamek attempts to kidnap the Baby Mario Bros., so Yoshi's Story shouldn't be included as a game there, and neither should Yoshi Topsy-Turvy. It should just be known as side games in the franchise.
 * 2) - Per Mister Wu in the comments. This proposal should go in a different direction, preferably by the first option (using a more broader term than "Yoshi's Island").

Comments
According to this, Yoshi's Island was to include anything with Yoshi and Baby Mario. Which, Yoshi Touch & Go has. The only thing I based it on was were it was set, if it didn't have Baby Mario. Yoshi's Story takes place on Yoshi's Island. Therefore, it must be part of the series. I tried putting Yoshi's Woolly World as part of the series, but I think Reboot said no. I am not sure how I am going to vote. 15:51, 25 June 2017 (EDT)
 * I meant to say Yoshi Topsy-Turvy, which doesn't have Baby Mario. I've edited the proposal to correct the mistake. Whether a game has Baby Mario is an arbitrary thing to base it on. In my opinion, gameplay is far more important then it having Baby Mario, although this does not mean Yoshi Topsy-Turvy should not be a part of the series. 15:57, 25 June 2017 (EDT)
 * Yoshi Topsy-Turvy also takes place on Yoshi's Island. 16:01, 25 June 2017 (EDT)
 * True, but Yoshi's New Island takes place on Egg Island, not Yoshi's Island. Now, it does say that Egg Island is next to Yoshi's Island on the article, but even so, I don't think Yoshi's Woolly World should be excluded just because it doesn't have Yoshi's Island itself. 16:11, 25 June 2017 (EDT)
 * Good point. I am not going to vote today, but sometime this week I will. 16:33, 25 June 2017 (EDT)

@ Toadette the Achiever What proof is there that the Yoshi's Island series is only games with Kamek and the Baby Mario Bros.? Nintendo hasn't said anything to that effect, and the gameplay of Yoshi's Story and Yoshi's Woolly World is nearly identical to the main Yoshi's Island games. 21:22, 25 June 2017 (EDT)

For the record, is the part of the Super Mario Pia ((「スーパーマリオぴあ」, actual name of the memorial book as stated on ) that mentions the Yoshi's Island series, I'll have it translated soon, but there's no room for interpreation here, the box lists four entries and you can easily see which entries are listed even if you don't know Japanese. In case you're legitimately wondering about the officiality of the book, it was written in collaboration with Nintendo as you can see in : 「協力」 means cooperation, collaboration (you can see this on jisho), while 「任天堂株式会社」 is Nintendo Co., Ltd.'s name.--Mister Wu (talk) 06:57, 26 June 2017 (EDT)
 * Thanks to, we now have the translation of the box:

Title: The spin-off series where Baby Mario debuts!

Red text: Yoshi's Island series

Right:

A side-scroller action game where Yoshi protects the baby-form [of Mario] Baby Mario as an adventure unfolds. If hit by an enemy's attack, Baby Mario is separated. This heart-pounding system where you must quickly rescue [Baby Mario] is fun!

Image caption 1: If separated, because Baby Mario cries and screams, [you] instinctively panic.

Orange text: Carrying Baby Mario on his back, Yoshi does very well!

Image caption 2: In Yoshi's New Island, Yoshi can shapeshift into things like balloons and submarines.

Yoshi's Island series list:

Column headings: Title, Release Year, Hardware

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, 1995, SNES

Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3, 2002, GBA

Yoshi's Island DS, 2007, Nintendo DS

Yoshi's New Island, 2014, Nintendo 3DS
 * At this point from the box it's clear that an important feature of the series is what I'd call the baby rescuing mechanics: if Yoshi is hit while carrying a baby, the baby is put into a bubble and Yoshi must rescue them before the timer runs out. All the games with Yoshi's Island in the name have this mechanics, that is also shown in the screenshot.
 * At this point, I would suggest two things we can do:
 * Using a broader name for the page, just like Nintendo UK did in this video here, that includes also Yoshi's Story and Yoshi's Woolly World along with the Yoshi's Island series. This way, we are no longer dealing just with the Yoshi's Island series, but more in general the Yoshi platform games.
 * Putting both Yoshi's Story and Yoshi's Woolly World into a Related games section of the page, noting in the paragraph before the table the gameplay similarities with the Yoshi's Island games, as well as the differences.
 * Regardless of what we choose to do, I think this box from the Super Mario Pia prompts us to consider broader changes to the page.--Mister Wu (talk) 10:48, 7 July 2017 (EDT)
 * So it is about gameplay, not location or Baby Mario. Interesting. By the way, Spin-off games are basically related games. So, we could move Yoshi's Story there and when this proposal passes, put Yoshi's Woolly World there too. 11:24, 7 July 2017 (EDT)

Woolly World?
I'm confused by the progression of the above proposal. Why isn't Woolly World considered part of the Yoshi's Island series but Yoshi's Story is? Andd why is Topsy-Turvy a spinoff? The "Yoshi's Island" series isn't dependent on involving "Kamek going after Baby Mario" just as Super Mario series games don't need Bowser going after Peach, or Bowser at all for that matter, and not all Donkey Kong Country games are 2.5-dimensional. What I see is a page with a glaring hole here, and a page with a glaring inconsistency that is going to make passerby question our competency, because unless it is publicly and thoroughly explained, its placement there can and does look lazy and arbitrary. For what it's worth, I consider Yoshi's Story and Woolly World both to be part of the Yoshi's Island series, as well as Topsy-Turvy, which I equate to Super Mario Land 1 (lackluster handheld title that still should be treated as main-series). Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 06:57, 25 September 2017 (EDT)
 * You can see the explanation above. We unfortunately used a term which is also used officially by Nintendo, and Nintendo this time also clearly defined the criteria: side-scrolling action game (probably in Japanese now they use this term whenever there is scrolling involved, as of course there's also vertical scrolling in these games) with the heart-pounding system where you must quickly rescue [Baby Mario], in which after you are hit you lose the baby and need to get them before the timer runs out. Indeed, all the games with Yoshi's Island in the name have these mechanics. The idea is now to simply change the name of the page, add YWW and then probably do some other changes, but this hasn't been done yet, I was personally waiting for the original proposer to come with another proposal.--Mister Wu (talk) 08:07, 25 September 2017 (EDT)
 * We could always have it, YS, YTT, and the upcoming Yoshi game under some sort of "Material-based Yoshi platformer spinoff series"-type section...Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 02:43, 1 October 2017 (EDT)
 * I mean, I think we generally agree on the page renaming, as that's also what Nintendo UK did to put Yoshi's Story and Yoshi's Woolly World along with the games of the Yoshi's Island series, if you want you can contact the original proposer so you together can find a name for the new page as that's really the only thing missing in order to proceeed, at this point.--Mister Wu (talk) 13:42, 1 October 2017 (EDT)
 * I don't understand why we would need to change the page title for Woolly World to count as a Yoshi's Island game just because it uses health. If the Baby Mario mechanic is required for games to be considered part of the Yoshi's Island series, then Yoshi's Story should be removed since it uses a health system just like Woolly World and Yoshi 2018. PikaSamus (talk) 15:57, 1 October 2017 (EDT)
 * We can, and probably should remove Yoshi's Story if we don't come up with a new name for the page - it is a Yoshi platform game not part of the Yoshi's Island series due to lack of baby rescuing mechanics, and its name indeed reflects this. The point was actually not considering just the Yoshi's Island series as it's just three games and a remake, and rather using a different page name to cover also the similar Yoshi platform games that are not part of the series, just like Nintendo UK did. After all, even the new game is currently named just Yoshi to reflect it not being part of the Yoshi's Island series while still being a Yoshi platform game. Then of course in the new page we can group the games part of the Yoshi's Island series together explaining that the baby rescuing mechanics is what sets them apart from the other Yoshi platform games. I think the current situation should be changed to reflect what Nintendo stated on the matter, I'm open to multiple ways of changing it - keeping the name and being stricter, coming up with a new name and having a broader coverage, or even something else, if you have an even better solution.--Mister Wu (talk) 17:12, 1 October 2017 (EDT)

Merge into Yoshi (platform series)
Which Yoshi games are mainline? A European trailer for Woolly World gave us the answer: Island 1, Story, Island DS, New Island, Woolly World, and (well, presumably) Crafted World. So, that said, we should have an article that covers them as a series, right? Well, we do...if you can even call it that. But alas, thanks to a certain other article (aka this one), that article is nothing but a ginormous mess.

This article's only purpose is to steal away information from our other article about the mainline Yoshi games. Why does it exist? It's not like we have an article about the SMB or NSMB series, which are both subseries of the mainline Mario games. But the reason they don't have articles is so that they don't become an utter mess like the aforementioned mainline Yoshi article. So why do we have this? It's not only completely redundant with Yoshi (platform series), but that article screams incomplete because it's constantly referring readers to this article to see the other half of the series.

Yoshi's Island is not an independent series. It is a subseries of the mainline Yoshi games, which also has an article which suffers because of the existence of this one. Other subseries, like New Super Mario Bros., don't have their own articles. Therefore, I propose that we merge this into Yoshi (platform series). We can still distinguish the YI games from Story/Woolly/Crafted, but the specifics can be decided on later. This proposal only deals with merging.

Proposer: Deadline: May 10, 2019, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per my proposal.  Redundancy is bad and messiness is worse, and the existence of this article creates both.
 * 2) In addition, the Yoshi-related spirits in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate recently refer to the series of origin as the "Yoshi Series" (I'm aware that there may also be some leeway on what exactly is considered the "Super Mario Series", "Donkey Kong Series" and "Wario Land Series", but perhaps that is our cue to reevaluate them as well).

Oppose

 * 1) As stated by the Super Mario Pia (an official book written in collaboration with Nintendo), not only the Yoshi's Island games have Yoshi's Island in the name, they also all have the baby rescuing mechanics with timer when Yoshi is hit, which is misssing from all the other Yoshi platform games. This time, an official source provided us an actual valid reason beside showing us a simple classification, I think it makes sense to follow that.
 * 2) Per Mister Wu.
 * 3) Regardless of how similar they are, the Yoshi's Island series is a legitimate series of games and deserves an article. Also, you're incorrect that the Yoshi's Island games and other Yoshi platformers are two halves of a series; they're actually both parts of the Yoshi spin-off franchise, which does contain other games. See the Yoshi (franchise) article. Your example about the NSMB games doesn't work, Nintendo officially considers those part of the main Super Mario series, alongside the original platformers, the 3D games, and others like Maker and Run. As far as I'm aware, Nintendo does consider these two Yoshi series as separate, aside from the single example you've mentioned.
 * 4) I feel the current set up of having three separate articles on three different and defined (per above) aspects of the Yoshi franchise works well enough.

Comments
@Mister Wu: Hmm...you have a good point. Maybe we could merge this page, but add a section to the other article that describes the differences between the YI games and the others? - 10:11, April 26, 2019 (EDT)
 * If you want to update the proposal by adding this choice (a section covering the series, adding why it's not exactly like the other Yoshi platform games beyond the name) or you want to update the main choice, I'd be open to that. There are various possible implementations (separate table, special mark on the same table), but those can be discussed afterwards.--Mister Wu (talk) 10:50, April 26, 2019 (EDT)
 * I updated the proposal to reflect this; this proposal now only deals with merging, and the specifics will be decided on afterwards. But thus far, it sounds like a good idea. - 11:09, April 26, 2019 (EDT)
 * If I have to be honest, I'm still a bit puzzled. I'm not against merging the Yoshi's Island series with proper acknowledgement in the main page of the Yoshi platform games, but I'm not sure about the introductory text, since most of your questions have found an answer in that official description, which also sets the Yoshi's Island case apart from that of subseries which often aren't even mentioned and, in the vast majority of the cases, aren't given a proper explanation of their peculiar features in official material (case in point, the material of the 30th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros. didn't even mention the New Super Mario Bros. games as part of a subseries, but rather as part of the Super Mario Bros. series - Super Mario Bros. being the Japanese name of the Super Mario series).--Mister Wu (talk) 16:19, April 26, 2019 (EDT)
 * Yeah, I see now that this is a distinguished subseries, unlike stuff like NSMB, but Yoshi (platform series) still reeks of incompleteness. Perhaps we could keep them split, but still list the games on Yoshi (platform series) instead of constantly directing the reader to this page.  The current setup of that article is undeniably awful and could easily mislead a clueless reader into thinking that the YI games are not mainline Yoshis.  That's my biggest issue, to be honest. - 19:55, April 26, 2019 (EDT)