Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is a prequel to all the other Super Mario and Yoshi games. Therefore, it is the first Mario and Yoshi game in chronological order. This game takes place when Mario, Luigi and Bowser were babies. In this game Yoshi and his multicolored friends have to protect Mario and rescue Luigi from the clutches of Kamek the Magikoopa (Bowser's adopted father). Luigi is taken to the Koopa Kingdom (World 6). After Yoshi rescues Luigi, he frees the stork. Then the stork takes Mario and Luigi to their parents in Mushroom Kingdom. Kamek was alerted about it. Mario and Luigi had to be warped to Brooklyn to hide from Kamek's Toadies. After many years of living and growing up in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, Mario and Luigi warped back to Mushroom Kingdom. They were in Brooklyn when Yoshi's Island's N64 sequel, Yoshi's Story, and Tetris Attack took place.

This is widely recognised as one of the best 2D platform games in existence with excellent game mechanics, varied gameplay, catchy music and beautiful visuals. The game's graphical style is said to have resulted from a conflict with Nintendo's internal evaluation committee; impressed by the recently released Donkey Kong Country which sported pre-rendered graphics, they ordered Miyamoto to move the visuals in this direction. Upset at this, Miyamoto instead altered the graphics to look as if they had been drawn with crayons and felt-pens and resubmitted it to the evaluation committee, who admitted their mistake and passed the game, sporting a juvenile look.