Yoshi's Cookie

Name: Yoshi's Cookie
Year: 1993
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Bullet-Proof Software
Genre: Abstract Puzzler
Hours Played: 2
Beaten: No

When Tetris first came to the States from Russia in 1984, there were a lot of legal battles over who owned the rights (in Russia, according to laws at the time, the game was owned by the government and not the creator).  After many lawsuits, Nintendo ended up with the rights to the game, but only for a limited period of time.  They used those rights to push the Nintendo and especially the Game Boy to success (as Tetris co-creator Henk Rogers stated, "Tetris made Game Boy and Game Boy made Tetris").  The downside of all this was that Nintendo knew they couldn't keep the rights forever, and so the search was on to come up with a replacement.  Hence, during the NES's lifespan, Nintendo came out with a number of abstract puzzlers, including Yoshi, Dr. Mario, and Wario's Woods.  The game we'll be looking at today is Yoshi's Cookie.

Yoshi's Cookie is neither the best nor the worst of these games released by Nintendo; what it is is the most reflex based and least contemplative of the series.  At first glance, it looks like a predecessor to Candy Crush - everything from the arranging pieces game play to the confectionery theme feels immediately familiar.  But spend a couple of rounds with the game, and the huge differences quickly become clear. The relaxed gameplay in games like Bejeweled and Candy Crush is nowhere to be found; the emphasis in Yoshi's Cookie is strictly on making matches as quickly as possible before you get overwhelmed and the screen fills up, Tetris style.

The gameplay is simple: you have cookies in a rectangle-shaped grid, and more cookies fly in from the top and the right.  Arrange a row or column so that all the cookies match, and it clears that line.  Clear all the cookies, and you progress to the next stage.  The basic problem here is that the extra cookies come flying in pretty quickly, so it's near impossible to formulate any kind of long-term strategy; your only bet is to clear the screen as quickly as possible.  From what I've been able to determine (from my own gameplay and making family and friends try it), if you can't clear a screen in less then 30 seconds from when you start, the statistical chances of you making a comeback and beating it are very low.  It stops you from ever getting into the classic puzzle-game "trance"; you're too busy staying constantly on your toes.

As an experiment, I had my wife, who's obsessed with beating Candy Crush without purchases, try the game.  To my surprise, I (who hates Candy Crush) was much better at is then her; her abstract puzzle-solving strategies weren't nearly as useful as my gamer reflexes.  The end result is that the game doesn't satisfy either audience; she'd rather be playing a game at a casual, relaxed pace, and I'd rather be shooting bugs and stomping mushrooms.

Graphics & Animation: 2 (Average)
The graphics here aren't anything to write home about, but they are a lot of fun.  Everything here is easily identifiable, especially the cookies, and Yoshi looks pretty good rendered on an 8-bit system.

Music & Sounds: 1 (Bad)
The music here is pretty forgettable.  Not to compare games, but the Super Nintendo version has an opening theme that manages to sound like a Mario game without copying music from other games; why couldn't the NES version have anything that memorable?

Controls & Level Design: 1 (Bad)
The controls in this game are frustrating.  Unlike some puzzle games which purposely limit how you can move pieces (Yoshi, Tetris Attack/Puzzle League), in Yoshi's Cookie you're free to move any piece to any spot you like; so why make the controls so awkward?  Instead of simply picking and moving a piece, you grip a piece and then use the D-pad to slide that row or column around, sort of like a 15 puzzle game.  The titular Yoshi's Cookie (a cookie shaped like Yoshi's Head) is suppose to serve as a wild card, but it's extremely difficult to get it where you want it without accidentally making a match on the way.

Story & Presentation: 4 (Excellent)
The game is called "Yoshi's Cookie", and they drive that theme home wherever they can.  Mario wears a chef's outfit to oversee the playing field, and little Pac-Man-esc cutscenes play out every ten levels where Mario opens boxes of cookies and tries to hide them from Yoshi.  It's silly, but they still went the extra mile to include it,

Length & Replayability: 1 (Bad)
Kudos to the game for having a two-player mode, but also including a puzzle mode where you clear pre-designed boards (like the Super Nintendo version of Yoshi's Cookie) would have went a long way towards giving this game more replayability.

Total: 9 (Average)