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Credit to Author: Zack Kotzer| Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2017 13:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n Last week, the video game website Polygon published a ranked list of the best Super Mario<\/i> video games<\/a> that sent shockwaves through the Mario enthusiast community. By ranking celebrated entries like Super Mario 64<\/i> in the 11th spot, and dark horses like New Super Mario Bros. U <\/i>in the top spot, the list’s author Jeremy Parish defied conventional wisdom with well argued points.<\/p>\n I respect Jeremy Parish. His YouTube videos on retro Nintendo wares are very thorough and informative<\/a>. He’s a knowledgeable and talented writer. But his recent list is wrong. I also respect anyone taking the piss out of his list, but SB Nation\u2019s rebuttal list is also wrong<\/a>. They are both wrong and rep Super Mario 3D World<\/i> way too much. <\/p>\n Fellow video game people, I personally ask you to be skeptical of any list where Super Mario World<\/i> and Super Mario Sunshine<\/i> don\u2019t crack the top five. But I professionally require<\/i> you to disqualify any list that doesn\u2019t include Yoshi\u2019s Island<\/i> at all. Not only because it’s a great game, but because, yes, it’s a Super Mario <\/i>game. How do I know this? Well, to start with, it’s in the damn name, the full version of which is Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island<\/i>. It might be easy to forget after so many years, but it’s true. Look it up<\/a>. <\/p>\n Perhaps, one would argue, Yoshi’s Island <\/i>doesn’t deserve to be on the list because it doesn’t play like a Super Mario<\/i> game. Similar to Donkey Kong, since starring in his own platformer, Yoshi has irreparably forked the Super Mario <\/i>series. The saddled dinosaur has fissioned its own sub-franchise in which Yoshi is the star and not merely the steed. It’s as if Epona (Link’s horse in The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time<\/i>), the Batmobile, or Falkor<\/a> got their own spin-offs. Since Yoshi\u2019s Island<\/i>, Yoshi went on to star in Yoshi\u2019s Story<\/i> and Yoshi\u2019s Wooly World<\/i>, both Mario-less games. <\/p>\n Even though Mario is ostensibly on-screen for most of Yoshi\u2019s Island<\/i>, the reason it felt outside of the franchise is how much of a departure it was. Before Yoshi\u2019s Island<\/i>, Mario had always accumulated new abilities from game to game. Running didn’t just help Mario cross jumps, with a cape or a tail it could make him fly. At some point Mario learned to pick up shells like a football, not just kick them like a European football. (This excludes Super Mario Bros 2.<\/i>, which was in fact a re-skin of a non-Mario Japanese game Doki-Doki Panic<\/i>, and all its turnip picking nonsense.)<\/p>\n Yoshi\u2019s Island<\/i> didn\u2019t build on any of that. Yoshi has new moves, mainly creating and lobbing eggs. There were secrets in both games but the Yoshi games move at a slower pace, and there\u2019s more sussing out the environment for treasures. Mario was given a steady drip of power ups and costumes, whereas Yoshi\u2019s long-term power-ups come in the form of new enemies it can eat and immediately poop out. <\/p>\n Funnily enough, Yoshi\u2019s Island was the introduction of the ground pound, a skill Mario would pick up in his next adventure, Super Mario 64<\/i>, and has kept ever since. Yoshi\u2019s Island also added those red coins, which, unlike the normal coins, are red.<\/p>\n If Yoshi’s Island<\/i> is “too different” to be on a list of the best Super Mario<\/i> games, why is Super Mario World<\/i> allowed on the list? Players ride Yoshi in the latter and become Yoshi in the former. Is it really that big of a difference?<\/p>\n If difference is the disqualifying factor for Yoshi\u2019s Island<\/i>, then other games in the series deserve just as much scrutiny. Super Mario Sunshine<\/i> (which, again, owns) is as much of an outlier to the timeline. The game revolves around a water cannon, and feels like it has more in common with the Splatoon<\/i> games than Super Mario Galaxy.<\/i> <\/p>\n And lastly, again, there\u2019s the name. The full name of Yoshi\u2019s Island<\/i> is Super Mario World 2: Yoshi\u2019s Island<\/i>. So yes, Yoshi\u2019s Island<\/i> is a Super Mario<\/i> game, you bums.<\/p>\n Yoshi\u2019s Island<\/i> exclusion from the canon seems like too severe an oversight. Mind you that including Yoshi\u2019s Island<\/i> is no guarantee that your list will be correct, it will just be much more closer to correct than before.<\/p>\n Here is the correct top five ranking of the Mario games:<\/p>\n 5: Super Mario Bros. 3<\/i>
4: Super Mario 64<\/i>
3: Mario\u2019s Time Machine 2: Mario Fucks Up Napoleon <\/i>
2: Super Mario Sunshine<\/i>
1: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi\u2019s Island<\/i><\/p>\n