Yoshi's Island DS: The reviews are in

[J.J. McCullough]

Yoshi's Island DS, which came out on Monday, is good but not great according to IGN. Apparently what's most surprising about the game is its lack of surprises:

"Everything about Yoshi's Island DS, from the story, background, player interface, musical theme, visual style and - most importantly - game and level design, is tightly centered around what Nintendo did for the original Super NES game more than a decade ago. [...] The Nintendo DS game takes all of this and essentially rearranges it. It's not so much a "new" game as it is a "rearranged" one."

Though most other critics are generally saying the same thing- that the new Yoshi's Island is so extremely derivative of its SNES predecessor it basically plays more like a level expansion set than a legitimate sequel- the game is still getting quite good reviews on the whole. Metacritic currently has its mean score at 84 out of 100  based on ten reviews, only one of which is decidedly negative (EGM's).

[The Chef]

JJ! We thought you were dead!

Anywhiles, more of the same is good in this case. Guess Atroon followed the "if-it-aint-broke" rule.

[Eclipsed Moon]

Not quite true, considering that most of the fun in the old game was just how innovative it was.  And then sometimes you look at it and think "Man, remember when pounding the ground was such a new concept?"

[MaxVance]

Even if it is basically an expansion pack, Yoshi's Island was such an awesome game that this is still worth buying.

[MEGAߥTE]

"Rearranged" is an understatement, in any case.  While the core gameplay remains the same, they did actually add a lot more than I expected.