A look back at Yoshi’s other solo adventures...

YOSHI’S (HI)STORY

1991 1992 1993 1996 1998 2001

This puzzle game sees

you swapping stacks of items

to encase enemies between

pieces of eggshell. It’s okay, but

not a top-tier game on either of

its platforms.

MARIO & YOSHI

NES/GAME BOY

This is another puzzler,

in which you mix and match

sweet treats in order to create

matching rows or columns. It’s

another game that’s interesting

but far from tremendous.

YOSHI’S COOKIE

NES/SNES/GAME BOY

In this Super Scope game,

Mario rides Yoshi around

rotating Mode 7 landscapes,

blasting Goombas and Koopas

out of the sky. It’s another

strictly average spin-off, too.

YOSHI’S SAFARI

SNES

It’s the excellent

Japanese puzzle game Panel

De Pon, but reskinned with

a Yoshi theme that was

deemed more marketable to

international audiences.

TETRIS ATTACK

SNES/GAME BOY

Yoshi’s second platform

outing used prerendered 3D

graphics and tasked Yoshi’s

with finding huge fruit quotas.

It’s fun, but a bit easy and not

quite as good as Yoshi’s Island.

YOSHI’S STORY

N64

This short, looping version

of the N64 game was a tech

demo that was never released.

However, it was shown to

journalists to demonstrate the

32-bit handheld’s power.

YOSHI’S STORY GBA

GAME BOY ADVANCE

its platforms. but far from tremendous. strictly average spin-off, too. international audiences. quite as good as Yoshi s Islanddd. 32 - bit handheld s power.

“I don’t think we started out with the intention

of having the roles reversed,” reveals Hino.

“Once we decided to make Yoshi the lead, we

thought he could have something ride on his

back and so decided Yoshi’s mission would be to

carry something through the game. We wanted

to add something extra to the traditional side-

scrolling gameplay of having players just proceed

to the right to reach a goal, and so having Yoshi

need to carry something across the map was a

good fit.” That makes sense given Yoshi’s original

role as a mount for a certain plucky plumber, but

why did Mario need to be a baby? “We decided to

have Yoshi carry Mario because that’s what he’s

always done, but we made Mario into a baby as it

wouldn’t make sense for the game if Mario could

walk around by himself,” Hino explains. “This

setup was also a big help for writing the story for

the game.”

That story started with a stork attempting to

deliver Baby Mario and Luigi to their parents, only

to be attacked by Bowser’s henchman Kamek, a

Magikoopa who could foresee the great problems

that these brothers would cause for his boss.

While he succeeded in kidnapping the Baby

in the path,” adds Hino. “With Yoshi’s Island, we

designed the game so that players can play the

courses over again with different objectives so

they can get better. So, with that in mind, rather

than users going through the game selecting what

level of difficulty they want to play, as done with

the board game-style maps, our intention was to

make it possible for users to progress through the

game by setting their own goals.”

A

s well as the ability to set your own

level of challenge, one of the key

aspects of the game’s gentle pacing

was the ability for the player to get hit

without being in too much danger. In the Mario

games, the player was only ever a couple of hits

away from losing a life, with finite opportunities to

grab power-ups in order to prevent that outcome.

In Yoshi’s Island, getting hit would cause Yoshi

to lose his cargo, and the player had a short

amount of time to recover it – but if they did so

successfully that time limit would reset, meaning

that it was possible to take an unlimited number

of hits per stage. And in a surprising role reversal,

that cargo was Baby Mario.

26 | RETRO GAMER

» [SNES] Get hit and Baby Mario will float of f in a bubble – recover
him in the time limit or the Magikoopas will get him.