Pro Tip of the Day - smw2

Pro tip: playing some mini games in Yoshi's Island any time you want

Will — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:24:12 +0000

In Yoshi's Island you occasionally find a locked door that, when unlocked, will lead to a bonus game where you have to play a game against a Bandit for extra lives.

But what if you're low on lives and you haven't taken the time to stock up, and you don't want to bother going through a stage to find one of those locked doors?

Well, good news!

If you go the map screen

And on Controller 1 hold Select while pressing X, X, Y, B, A, you'll be greeted with fanfare and a new screen

Which lets you choose which of the mini games you want to play (as an added bonus, you can play a couple of them with a second player)

And if you lose, there's no penalty, so there's really no reason to not go for it.

Pro tip: winning the Match Cards game in Yoshi's Island

Will — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:33:20 +0000

When you're playing through Yoshi's Island, you occasionally run into some bonus games, one of which is the Match Cards game.

It's kind of like Memory, you get a quick look at the cards, and then they're flipped over and you have to make matches. Screw up a couple of times and you lose.

But what if you don't have a camera or some other way to take a screenshot for reference? And what if you don't have a photographic memory?

I like to use a pen and paper. You have just enough time to write down what's being shown to you if you're quick and use a kind of shorthand.

For instance, with the screen above, I'd write:

G F 1 G B
2 1 2 B
R F M R M

Then, it's an easy matter of matching up the items by consulting your notes. Which will fill up your inventory and

The last thing you match will turn into a 10UP!

Double bonus!

Pro tip: Naval Piranha is a pushover

Will — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:04:10 +0000

In Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, you get familiar with the boss shtick pretty quickly. You work your way through a castle, and at the end Kamek appears and makes a common enemy real big, which you then have to fight. The enemy at the end of World 3 is pretty obviously going to be a Piranha Plant.

So you make your way through the twisty and turny passages and eventually make your way to the boss's room, and you can see the little plant over on the far right. Just kind of ease into the room. If you get too close, the fight will start, and we don't really want that.

If you get the plant just on the screen, try throwing an egg at it. If your aim is any good and you can smack it, you'll defeat it with one hit, surprising... well, everyone.

You can also stand just on the edge of the platform to make the egg-throwing easier, but I tend to walk over too far and get the battle started when I do that, which isn't that hard or anything, but this is much easier.