Once upon a time there was a little Super NES game called Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, and its bright colors and fantasmic art style were joyous and fun.  Then, one day, there came word of a spectacular sequel called Yoshi's Island 64.  The villagers rejoiced, as one of the best games of the 16-bit era was getting a 64-bit update.  But then the dark times came, and by the time the game renamed Yoshi's Story arrived in stores, the villagers were less than impressed.  The nearly fifty levels of the original game had been chopped to a mere twenty-four, and players only had to complete six of them to win the game.  Moreover, completing a level no longer involved reaching a goal point, but instead required Yoshi to eat thirty pieces of abundantly placed fruit.  Throw in a heavily decreased difficulty level, a cloyingly dumbed-down storyline, and a chorus of singing dinosaurs that can't carry a tune, and, well, you can see how the villagers were not pleased.  Most of them turned their back on the Yoshis and the $60 game pak in which they lived.

Ask most of the villagers who lived during the late 1990s to pick their favorite Nintendo 64 game and I bet that few will defend Yoshi's Story the way others would defend something like Super Mario 64.  For a long time I was one of the villagers dismayed in the Yoshis, but nine years after the game's original release I'm starting to come around.  Yoshi's Story is available on the Wii's Virtual Console now, and even though the game floundered for $60 in 1998, it's surprisingly enjoyable for $10 in 2007.