of these were platform games, and Yoshi’s only

appearance in a platform game so far had been

as a sub-character. So while Yoshi had certain

established abilities such as his ability to grab

enemies with his tongue and eat them, the team

had a great deal of freedom to decide on new

abilities and a new style of play that would provide

a clear break from traditional Mario games.

T

hat said, it wasn’t easy for the team

to come up with these new and

interesting ideas – according to Hino,

such things were quickly seized upon

when they did arrive. “I remember Mr Tezuka

coming in suddenly one morning and dropping

an idea on us,” he says. “The development team

were hungry for the seeds of an idea and so we

ran with it; we discussed them over and over

and polished them into something we could

implement in game.” Abilities that Yoshi gained

in Yoshi’s Island include the ‘flutter jump’ – an

extended jump where the dinosaur struggles

against gravity in a cartoonish fashion – as well

as the ‘ground pound’ jumping attack that could

be used to smash stakes into the floor, something

Mario would later adopt. Yoshi also gained

a variety of possible vehicle transformations

including helicopters, cars and submarines, but

these could only be used in certain places.

However, the ability that most closely tied into

Yoshi’s existing skillset was his unique capability

to create eggs. As in Super Mario World, Yoshi

could use his tongue to eat enemies and then

spit them back out at other enemies

as an attack. However, by pushing

the down button with an enemy

in Yoshi’s mouth, the player

could have Yoshi lay an egg.

Instead of containing items

or more Yoshis, as they

did in the likes of Super

Mario World, eggs could

be thrown, rebounding off

walls, breaking through

barriers, collecting objects and

smashing enemies.

“We wanted to include

egg-throwing as throwing actions

weren’t something that had appeared

much in Mario games,” Tezuka tells us.

“Having said that, though, giving users the ability

to simultaneously control both Yoshi’s movement

and the direction they throw eggs in proved

challenging and gave us quite the headache!”

However, it proved to be a crucial element of

the game. “Having said that, though, fusing this

egg-throwing mechanic into a platformer helped

us invent ideas that hadn’t been possible until that

point,” Hino points out. “It was a real boon for

ideas for the game!”

While the egg-throwing mechanic would be

easy to implement in modern games

thanks to the prevalence of dual

analogue sticks, achieving it in

Yoshi’s Island required some

ingenuity. The development

team managed to hit upon

an elegant solution that

managed to squeeze the

whole process into two

button presses. By hitting the

A button, the player would

reveal an aiming reticule that

moved back and forth along an

arc in front of Yoshi – while still

allowing him to run and jump freely.

Hitting the A button again would cause

Yoshi to throw an egg in the direction he was

currently aiming for. It was the trickiest of Yoshi’s

skills to get to grips with as a player, but it gave the

game a unique feeling amongst platform games.

One of the other things the new star allowed

the Nintendo EAD team to do was make an

» [SNES] The flut ter jump is a useful trick that can of ten

save Yoshi when a regular jump might see him plummet.

» [SNES] Transforming into a helicopter is fun,

but it ’s impor tant to find a way to transform back

• you won’t get any where without one.

24 | RETRO GAMER