Yoshi's Cookie

A skillfully-designed puzzle game with plenty of lasting appeal thanks to the selection of games available. The wonderful Mario World characterisation is the icing on the cookie.

Coming on the heels of the addictive puzzler Yoshi, Yoshi's Cookie provides a completely different challenge. This time you are presented with a grid of cookies of various shapes. You rotate the rows and columns trying to create a complete row or column of the same cookie, which eliminates that row. You must clear all the cookies to advance to the next level. Meanwhile, new rows and columns approach from above and to the right. I like the fact that you can actually "clear" the levels as opposed to playing until you get overwhelmed. I also enjoyed how it's possible to stumble across cool combos accidentally. Yoshi's Cookie is original and fun, but it didn't quite suck me in like the original Yoshi did.

The graphics are clear, with each cookie very distinctive, but it all looks undeniably dull, even by Gameboy standards.

Yoshi's Cookie is a decent enough little puzzler and you could do a lot worse for 500 Wii Points. However, with the likes of Dr Mario coming to Wii Software soon it may be worth holding on for that, since it'll offer better puzzling action...

Overall, this game is quite fun, and a worthwhile diversion, but it doesn’t measure up to some of the other puzzle games on the NES. I would recommend you get this game, but remember that there are other good puzzle games on the console as well.

Jolly lovely and decidedly playable in a not-particularly long-lasting way.

For the sad truth is that even the nice enough VS mode isn't enough to save this. You can squeeze -some- genuine fun out of this, providing that you squeeze very strongly, but it's not that much and certainly not worth the asking price.

Overall, Yoshi's Cookie is a fair and favorable puzzler that – while not a candidate for immediate recommendation – wouldn't be a waste of your Wii Points should you decide to spend 500 of them on it. It's one of Nintendo's more obscure puzzle designs, and it sets itself apart in that it's not a clone of the "falling block" style of Tetris like so many other puzzlers are. Give it a look if you're a fan of the genre looking for something that's just a bit different.