He whines--he dines. She screams--he teams. He clings--he brings. Yoshi: Pulling diaper duty since 19-dickety-five.

Is Mario the offspring of a crack wh*re? Where is his mommy? Where is his daddy? Why isn't his brother around when you need him? Most importantly, why are there only three persons inhabiting the Mushroom Kingdom? It's all about the 'shroom delusions, isn't it? Drug anecdotes aside, we may never know Mario's true lineage, but we'll always be able to tell the story of Mario's odd yet exciting upbringing by none other than a dinosaur tribe. Mario's longtime pal (and pet?) Yoshi and his clan have returned once more in the sequel to that classic platform game that you played all those many years ago on your Super NES. Ah, memories.... Making babies is one thing, but in Yoshi's Island DS, making babies go through a platform adventure is something for another story... this one!

Alert! Alert! We've got scoopa on the latest and nastiest Koopa dealings yet. Baby-snatching Kamek and those like him (flying, poindexter glasses-wearing magicians) have swept in over Yoshi's Island at beddy-bye time, the one time they knew the reptilian guardians of its infants would be off their guard. Bastards! Who other than a stray stork to bump off a couple of the diaper-bagged babies and meddle with their ingenious scheming? One hairless Mario and one breastless Peach fall from the heavens, and with the help of the Yoshis set out to set things straight, and take back what is rightfully theirs. Parenting has never been so messy.

The 2002 Game Boy Advance port aside, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island has never seen hide nor hair of anything else to do again with the official sequel to Super Mario World. Past more than a decade, not Nintendo but Artoon (makers of the lame Blinx the Cat series) have said it's time to take action. Partnering with Nintendo, they've essentially recreated the original's Super NES platform formula from scratch. Adding new levels, new enemies, new bosses, and best of all new babies, Yoshi's Island DS is the fresh and fun update that we've all been waiting for. But, to what point?

If there's one thing you don't have to worry about, it's that Yoshi's Island DS keeps the exact same basic concept as the original. With fully tight controls, you'll be a-hopping and a-bopping on your foes like you were preprogrammed to do exactly that. Especially if you've played the Game Boy Advance port of the previous entry, you'll know that the face buttons operate almost everything from targeting enemies with Yoshi eggs, to the process of making said eggs by gulping enemies in and out of Yoshi's stomach cavern with his tongue. The same can pretty much be said about the creativity in level design. As you go off on your baby-hauling journey, you'll encounter a variety of baddies, like staff-wielding shy guys, bomb-spitting piranha plants, and the always helpful Lakitu of whom you can steal away his cloud and guide it through a spiky ball passage at one point. Cloud equals fast. Spikes equal death.

So what's the problem? Yoshi's Island DS isn't necessarily an outstanding game compared to its former self, that's the problem. It's not the gameplay - that's fun. It's not the concept - that's been borrowed and updated. Really, it's both the story and the imbalance in difficulty that sets things apart the most. Whoever wrote the story in the game doesn't carry the same charm that any script writer from Nintendo can. *rubbing cranium* It hurts in the entertainment value, Doc. Each of the five ascending multi-tiered stage areas is fitted with their distinctive adversary themes, including the big boss challenge at the end. However, some of these battle scenarios make the definition of accomplishment almost moot. If you can stand by idly blasting eggs downward into the path of a giant antlion whose only offense is to spit up spiked balls that can't even touch you, it gives off the impression of a failing in the Mario brand. And it's not that all boss fights stink, either. This criticism is more about pointing out the game's unnatural progression level. Difficulty is hardly an issue in the first couple of sets, and that's when the designers start raising the challenge bar a little too high. Simultaneously, last-minute additions like that aforementioned antlion are included later rather than earlier, giving the game a questionable blend.

As it was once and is again, the system of operations throughout Yoshi's Island DS works like this for those not in the know. Yoshi carries baby. If Yoshi gets hit, baby drifts away in a bubble. Yoshi must reach baby before the metaphorical hour glass runs out. Picking up items as you go - specifically red coins, flowers, and star pieces - is also key to being graded better on play performance, resulting in mini-games to unlock more lives. Let's not forget either the small touches that actually breath some new life into the game (and at times hurt it), being the franchise expansion into DS screen space as well as its all-new roster of babies. The good news is that you'll have more to look at and more to think about at any given time with concentration on a second screen. The bad news is the DS has a barrier in the center that not only blocks your vision of items, enemies, and reachable platforms, but also complicates the adjustment of vision control. Pressing up or down on the d-pad lets the screen zoom either way to detect what's occurring in the zones above or below, but in doing so will oftentimes get stuck in either position that will leave you wrestling it back into a "normal" perspective. Expectedly, a fine addition is done through the game's versatile stork-swapping method, or in other words a station allowing for "diaper changing" right in between the levels. You'll empower Yoshi with distinctive abilities in each swappable tyke, like Baby Mario's quickness, Baby Donkey Kong's vine clinging, and guest star Baby Wario's attraction to metallic objects. Ooh-la-la!

Not much has changed since we last saw Super Mario World 2 more than a decade ago. Okay, the truth is nothing has changed except for the scenery. Yoshi's Island on the DS is almost like looking in a mirror for the game. Its reflection of 2D hand-drawn, crayon-colored sprite quality is crisp, clean, colorful, and just what's needed for returning and beginning fans alike. You get what you came here to see, from skyward balloon-springing, watery man-eating fishy, colossal spiked ball-crushing levels, to the life-of-the-party cast. Tiny Mario hops to and fro, tiny Donkey Kong is all hands draped along vines, and as the leaves blow so do they drift up tiny Peach's would-be skirt, whisking her parasol to new heights. Hey, it's not 3D-2D stylized Mario like New Super Mario Bros., but if you've got a thing for the series that's not what you came here to see.

Given its childlike theme, the fanciful and gloomy tunes of Yoshi's Island lore turn up where they should when spread across the both playful and cheerless levels. The audio feedback touches right where it should, from the ground-pounding smashes of Yoshi's butt to pole, to the ring-a-lings of coin accumulation, and to the wailings of a boss when egg meets soft spot. Mario be-a baby now, so he-a not talkin' like-a this yet, okie dokie? Aside from the occasional Yoshi squirm, you do get to hear him and the rest of the brats cry. That's not a bad thing either, unless you don't like the sound of baby tears.

One game did it for you ages ago. Yoshi's Island was unique in that it was a different way to play with Mario. "Yoshi's Island: The Sequel" is not so different, but that's forgivable. Here and now what needed to be done was for not just another trip through the paces of Yoshi's Island, but one that's greater than great, better than best, and essentially more prolific than the last. Had Nintendo dreamt up their own sequel, Yoshi's Island DS could've taken you beyond the fence. Instead, Artoon has decided to repaint the wood. It's not necessarily a bad effort, but it's not a step up from the first time it was done either.