Yoshi's Island
General
Info
Background
Layout
Hazards
Item Appearance Spots
Character Appearance Spots
Strategies
-Luigi
-Mario
-Donkey Kong
-Link
-Samus
-Captain Falcon
-Ness
-Yoshi
-Kirby
-Fox
-Pikachu
-Jigglypuff
My Opinion
General Info
Yoshi's Island is obviously the home stage of Yoshi, or else it wouldn't be his island. I think this is from some Mario Bros. or Yoshi games. I am not really sure which one. The permanent parts of the stage is pretty small, but the boundaries of the stage is actually wider than you think, especially the right boundary which is actually quite far from the main stage level.
Background
The background of Yoshi's Island is an overwhelming pastel orange/peach colour. There are lots of swirly suns and clouds that look like they are made by a five-year-old (a lot of five-year-olds can draw better than that). The bottom of the background depicts mountains and also waves on an ocean. On the main part of the stage there's a vine in the background with a heart in the middle of it. Behind them are two clouds of different colour and size that spins around in opposite directions. There are also some pillow like thingys that wiggle around above two of the clouds and every so often a Shy Guy from Yoshi games will fly across the background.
Layout
This permanent part of the stage is pretty basic stuff. There is a flat platfrom(2) on the very top of the stage, and underneatch it are two platforms (3 & 4) that are slanted towards the centre. The main level of the stage looks like a giant wooden book and is slanted towards its middle. At each end of the main level there is an edge, indicated by the yellow colour. Surrounding this main stage are cloud platforms(1). There is one to the left of the main stage and two on the right.
Hazards
There are no hazards that actively damage players on Yoshi's Island, which is probably a good thing. Among the passive hazards, there is obviously that giant pit on the bottom that is present on most stages. The clouds can also be hazardous because if a character stands on top of one for three seconds straight the cloud will go puff and disappear, forcing the player to jump somewhere else for safety. The cloud will regenerate after three seconds of disappearing.
Item Appearance Spots
Items will appear on all three clouds and also on the top platforms. Items will drop on to the two lower slanted platforms from a bit above. Sometimes the bouncy items will bouncy off the platform and land on the main stage. The final item appearance spot is between the two slanted platforms. Items that appear there will always drop on to the main stage.
Character Appearance Spots
1P starts a bit to the right of the centre on the main level. 2P starts on the top platform. 3P starts on the slanted platform on the right and 4P starts on the slanted platform on the left. The character reappearance spot is above the top platform.
Strategies
Here are some general strategies for Yoshi's Island.
-It's much easier to kill people over the left boundary than the right
if you are fighting on the permanent parts of the stage. The left boundary
is very close to the main stage so hitting people towards that side
will give you a better chance of KOing your opponents.
-Don't try to pick up a barrel or a crate on the clouds because the
cloud might disappear and your character might fall to his/her doom.
-Even though this is considered to be cheap, jumping around on the clouds
can be a good way to evade opponents and get KOs. If your character
has a projectile or has gotten hold of a ray gun, start jumping on the
clouds and shoot people with the projectiles. Jumping on the left side
cloud can also get you easy kills because that cloud is so close to
the boundary. When someone gets launched to the left, help the person
along by hitting them over the boundary for a easy kill. Remember though,
if you get hit by a power move while on the cloud, there's a pretty
good chance you'll die too. You can also trick people into killing themselves
by jumping on the clouds. First get your opponent's attention by throwing
stuff, shooting, or taunting. Once your opponent comes along to make
you stop, stop jumping on the cloud and stand on it. If you time it
just right, the cloud will disappear just when your opponent is about
to land on it. This might of might not kill the enemy, but it gives
you the advantage because the opponent has to take time and recover
while you can wait somewhere else to pounce. Hopping on the clouds will
also induce certain cpu characters to commit suicide. This is because
cpus will never go on the cloud by purpose, but if you jump on the cloud,
they will want to get you, so they'll start jumping at the edge of the
main stage but they can't jump on to the cloud. Sometimes they'll accidentally
fall into the pit because of this. If your character has projectiles,
you can claim a few cheap KOs this way by hitting the dumb cpu before
he/she commits suicide.
Luigi
Luigi is not affected by the stage that much. His good vertical recovery means that you can jump him on to a cloud instead of going towards the edge, which can save Luigi from an edge guarding attempt.
Mario
Mario is about the same with Luigi, but he can use annoying fireball to peg people on the main stage while jumping on the clouds.
Donkey Kong
DK is fine with this stage. The stage is not too small, so DK has some room to maneuver. This stage is also not bad for send downs, so DK can get some KOs there.
Link
Link is not too good on these sort of stages since his jumping is bad, so while other people can make it on to clouds to save themselves, Link probably can't. Link can, however, jump on the clouds and hit people with his boomerang and bombs.
Samus
Samus is okay with this stage. She can get some spike kills and it's big enough that Samus can find some place to charge the charge shot.
Captain Falcon
Captain Falcon is not bad on this stage, but since his recovering ability is bad, he might die pretty easily since it's harder for him to use the clouds to save himself. You can try spiking with Falcon, but he's not a very good spiker.
Ness
Ness is pretty cool with the stage, since he can use his spiking ability and can blast himself back on the clouds for recovery. This is stage isn't like certain stages where Ness will die easily. The clouds can sometime get in the way of the PK thunder attempt, but if the player is skilled enough, this won't pose much of a problem.
Yoshi
Yoshi is pretty good on his home stage. His long jumps makes it easy to hop around clouds and platforms and he can also spike on this stage.
Kirby
Kirby also like this stage because he can easily send people down here and there are the clouds for him to land on.
Fox
This stage is wide enough so that Fox can jump on the clouds and peg people with his blaster. This stage is also pretty good for juggling because of the layers of platforms on top of the main stage.
Pikachu
This stage is okay for Pikachu. Pikachu can always use his thunder attack to fry people who stand above him and can also quick attack himself on to a cloud to escape an edge guarding attempt.
Jigglypuff
Jigglypuff doesn't do too badly on this stage, but there's nothing special here to mention for him either.
My Opinion
This is an okay stage in my books. Its layout is pretty average except for the clouds. Because of the clouds, this stage is actually bigger than it seems to be and there are some cheap things you can do on this stage like jumping on the clouds and peg people from far away. For this reason, it's not the best multiplayer stage since people can just start jumping on the clouds and you'll have a hard time trying to stop them. There is just nothing that really stands out in this stage.