Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island/Version Differences

A number of changes were made to the international version, mostly graphical in nature.

Map Icons
The Japanese icons for extra stages have a red and orange background, while the international versions changed this to a star.

The international versions have generic icons for the bonus stages. The Japanese version has enough room to fit the bonus game names in the icons.

The controller buttons were changed to reflect the US button colors: Light and dark purple instead of red, blue, yellow, and green that the Japanese and European versions use. Since the buttons on the controller menu for the US weren't changed as well, this was a bit pointless.

The score icon was completely redrawn. The pencil was also thickened to fill up the whole icon. Notice how the US and European versions use similar, but different designs.

The squished balloon was redrawn a bit here. Yoshi's hands also seem to have been rounded out.

A slight alteration to the fins of the Cheep-Cheep in the stage icon for World 4-6.

Font
The font for the PAL version, as well as US revision 1.1, was made thicker, though graphics such as Controller buttons were left the same. The thicker font was later used in all versions of Super Mario Advance 3.

Pause Screen
A lot of changes here. The font is thicker in the international versions of the game. "Star/Coin/Flower/Point" were pluralized to "Stars/Coins/Flowers/Points". The string of dots were altered, with the one by "Coins" changing from 5 to 6, and the one by "Points" changing from 6 to 5. Exciting stuff.

Tutorial Graphics
The sound effect "pon" is removed from the tutorial graphics of Yoshi making eggs. This is about equivalent to the sound effect "poof" in English. It's also the sound Yoshi makes when laying eggs in later games.

More sound graphics removal. "Bun" is a swishing sound.

Mini-Game Graphics


Yet another sound effect graphic removed. In the Balloon Popping mini-game, this graphic appears when the incorrect balloon is popped. This is "suka", a sound effect used to represent a miss, like the sound of a bat whiffing.

The Japanese version has 当, the Kanji for Win/Hit, surrounded by a circle of stars when the correct balloon is popped. This was changed to a giant star for the international release.

World 6-Extra
An alternate romanization for Yoshi's Japanese name is "Yossy", as can be seen here. For all other versions of the game, this section of World 6-Extra was changed to reflect the common spelling. The layout changes make this section a bit more difficult.