BlogSuper Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is a true masterpiece. Everything comes together so nicely -- style, music, gameplay, level design -- to make it one of the very best platform games in the midst of a golden age of platformers. That the GBA re-release would be included in the "ambassador" package of 20 games given to current 3DS owners who payed $80 too much for their systems gave at least some small level of solace.

But will Yoshi's Island be included? According to the initial corporate news brief¹:

These include games like Yoshi's Island™: Super Mario™ Advance 3, Mario Kart™: Super Circuit, Metroid™ Fusion, WarioWare™, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ and Mario vs. Donkey Kong™.

But after I contacted Nintendo customer support about some more details, I was given a slightly different list of GBA games. This is the response I received:

...you’ll be able to download 10 Game Boy Advance Virtual Console games. Unlike the NES games, these will be available exclusively to Ambassadors—we currently have no plans to make these 10 games available to the general public on the Nintendo 3DS in the future. Again, not all the games are known, but here is the list so far:

• Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3
• Mario Kart: Super Circuit
• Metroid Fusion
• WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgame$
• Kirby & The Amazing Mirror

As the email says, not all the games are known yet. Mario vs. Donkey Kong is also missing from the list emailed to me.

So are we getting Super Mario Bros. 3 instead of Yoshi's Island? SMB3 is still an excellent game; Hopefully we'll be getting both!

Update: Aug 7. North American 3DS owners should have received a message sent to their Notifications folder with details regarding the Ambassador program. The message doesn't reveal anything new, but it does expressly mention Yoshi's Islandand not Super Mario Bros. 3.

Notes

1. An exciting message for people who own a Nintendo 3DS and those who want to (Nintendo) ↩