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From egg to dino 3DS star: the history of Yoshi
The year of Luigi is over: now Nintendo's other green mascot takes center stage.
From egg to dino 3DS star: the history of Yoshi
© Nintendo
As Nintendo was so keen to remind us at every given opportunity, 2013 was the Year of Luigi - a period of twelve months where the lesser-known Mario sibling stepped out of the shadow of his plump brother and into the glorious limelight. Luigi starred in a series of critically-acclaimed titles - including Luigi's Mansion 2 and New Super Luigi U - and ended up being one of the most potent playable characters in Super Mario 3D World on the Wii U, which was undoubtedly one of last year's most enjoyable titles. After a decades of playing second-fiddle, Luigi got the fame and fortune he deserved.
However, he's not the only hero from the Super Mario universe who is closely connected to the color green; there's also Yoshi, who was perhaps unfairly ignored during 2013. Nintendo is clearly looking to remedy this in 2014, as the cute green dinosaur will not only be starring in his very own game - Yoshi's New Island on the Nintendo 3DS - but will also be going toe-to-toe with other famous Nintendo characters in the eagerly-awaited Super Smash Bros. title, as well as embarking on a visually stunning romp in the form of Yarn Yoshi on Wii U. But who is Yoshi, and why is he only stepping into the spotlight now?
The egg hatches
Yoshi may have made his debut in Super Mario World - a Super Nintendo launch title way back in 1990 - but series creator Shigeru Miyamoto has revealed that the dino sidekick was actually supposed to appear much sooner. Miyamoto - who, according to developer Takashi Tezuka, always wanted to add the ability to ride on an animal because he's a fan of horses - originally tried to incorporate the character into the original Super Mario Bros. on the NES as early as 1985, but the format's limitations prevented this. Three years later, Miyamoto returned to the idea for Super Mario Bros. 3, but again wasn't able to make it a reality. It wasn't until the Super Nintendo was launched two years later that the idea finally came to fruition, and Yoshi was born.
Although he's usually seen as a single character, a "Yoshi" is actually a breed of dinosaur with an extendable tongue and various special abilities. In Super Mario World, Yoshis appear in a variety of colors, each boasting a different skill. Despite his newcomer status, Yoshi was deemed popular enough to appear in the Super Mario Bros. live-action Hollywood movie; however, the semi-realistic animatronic Yoshi we see on-screen is quite a departure from the cute version seen in the games. It's just as well that the film bombed at the box office, and few people got to lay eyes on this distinctly un-loveable iteration of the character, as technically impressive as it was - the latex covered robot required nine puppeteers to control it, and was one of the last cable puppets employed before CGI took over in Hollywood.
Super Mario Bros.
© Nintendo / Buena Vista Entertainment
Yoshi proved to be such a hit with fans that the sequel to Super Mario World pushed him to the forefront; 1995's Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island served as a prequel to the original game where the player controls Yoshi and not Mario or Luigi. The iconic plumbers are portrayed as babies, whom Yoshi needs to convey to safety through a series of hazard-packed levels. With this status as a front-line mascot now confirmed, the floodgates well and truly opened, and to date Yoshi has appeared in almost 90 different video games, ranging from his own outings - such as Yoshi: Touch & Go, Yoshi's Cookie and the forthcoming Yarn Yoshi on the Wii U - to supporting roles in some of Nintendo's biggest games, including Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Golf and Mario Kart.
Holding out for a hero
While Yoshi has appeared in an impressive number of different games, he's perhaps best known for those instances where he's claimed the starring role. We've already touched upon Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, but this was merely the beginning of a long and successful career that continues today.
Prior to Yoshi's Island, the green lizard headlined two other titles, both of which reside not in the realm of platforming, but in the puzzle genre instead. 1991's Yoshi - also known as Yoshi's Egg and Mario & Yoshi - is a falling block game like Tetris, and arrived on the NES to underwhelming reviews. Thankfully, the following year saw a semi-sequel for the SNES - entitled Yoshi's Cookie - which went down much better. Both of these puzzlers were ported to the Nintendo Game Boy, but by '93 Yoshi was fronting a very different title for the SNES. Yoshi's Safari made use of Nintendo's ill-fated Super Scope light-gun, a gigantic, bazooka-style plastic weapon which never really achieved its full potential. The limited success of the peripheral prevented the title from gaining mainstream exposure.
Yoshi's Safari
© Nintendo
Thankfully, Yoshi's fate lay outside of matching tiles and shooting things with cheap-looking plastic guns - as the success of Yoshi's Island proved. The 1995 title was Yoshi's breakthrough, and clearly convinced Nintendo that the character was better suited to platforming than puzzle games and shooters. After receiving a cameo role in the seminal 3D platformer Super Mario 64 (our plucky dino appears on the roof of the castle once you've achieved the superhuman task of collecting all of the 120 stars in the game) Yoshi would get his own outing on Nintendo's new 64-bit console, the N64.
It was something of a bittersweet victory, however; Yoshi's Story appeared in 1997 and while it was considered to be a spiritual successor to the SNES title, reviews at the time weren't kind; many critics complained about the simplicity of the game as well as its pre-rendered CGI visuals and small game world. Reviewing the game in 2007, IGN said that the game's system of "grocery-hunting was far and away removed from the style of play presented in the SNES Yoshi's Island, and far and away removed from that game's sense of fun." Hardly the return to glory that many fans had hoped for, then.
The 64-bit era ultimately saw our long-tongued hero fall into the shadows somewhat, reduced to supporting roles in many of Nintendo's sporting titles. 2002's Super Mario Sunshine - on Nintendo's GameCube console - could be seen as a regression for the character; Yoshi would once again be relegated to a ride-on helper for Mario himself, just as he was over a decade earlier in Super Mario World. This submissive role would continue in New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario Galaxy 2, but Yoshi at least got the chance to flex his heroic muscles on Nintendo's handhelds.
Yoshi's Universal Gravitation on the Game Boy Advance was notable for employing special technology in the game cartridge which allowed players to control the game world by tilting their console - a mechanic which is common on smartphones today but was unique back in 2004, while Yoshi: Touch & Go and Yoshi's Island DS - both on Nintendo's dual-screen DS system - revisited the hand-drawn, whimsical world first witnessed in the 1995 SNES outing.
Timeline
© Red Bull/Nintendo
Yoshi the sportsman
Like so many or the characters from the rapidly-expanding Super Mario universe, Yoshi has been called upon multiple times to swell the ranks in numerous spin-off titles. The SNES version of Super Mario Kart was the one that really got the ball rolling; Nintendo's genre-defining racer also showcased the talents of Donkey Kong, Bowser and Toad. Yoshi has been an ever-present in each subsequent sequel - a sure sign of his enduring status.
As Nintendo tirelessly searched for other genres for Mario to infiltrate, his dino chum was never far behind. The first tennis outing - released in 1995 on Nintendo's hardware flop the Virtual Boy - placed a racquet in Yoshi's chubby green fingers, and the sequels which followed on the Game Boy Color, N64, GameCube and 3DS have all featured the character. Clearly a talented lizard, Yoshi has also brandished a club in Mario's golf outings, the first of which hit the market on the Game Boy Color and N64 in 1999.
Yoshi the sportsman
© Nintendo
Elsewhere, Yoshi has been all too keen to support Mario's other sporting endeavors by appearing in a raft of sweat-covered releases. He's taken to the basketball court in Mario Hoops 3-on-3, swung at errant pitches in Mario Superstar Baseball and Mario Super Sluggers and scored impressive goals in Super Mario Strikers and Mario Strikers Charged. Finally, we have the series of Olympic sports titles to consider; Yoshi has taken part in all of these releases, from the first entry on the Wii in 2007 to the more recent outing on Wii U, which ties in with this year's Sochi winter games.
Off the beaten track
Yoshi's cameo appearances are almost as numerous as his starring roles - a fact which goes to show how popular he is not only with players, but with developers, too. He managed to sneak into The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on the Game Boy - in toy form, no less - and would replicate the trick over a decade later in Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes as a desk toy which emits Yoshi's trademark yelp when shot. Keeping with the Metal Gear theme, Yoshi would later feature in the 3DS remake of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, where he replaces the collectable Kerotan "frog" toys which are littered throughout the game in secret locations.
Yoshi's Island
© Nintendo
As a dinosaur with a very limited vocabulary, Yoshi has felt it necessary to communicate his feelings via the medium of art in 1992's Mario Paint on the SNES. He also enjoyed a key roles in the infamous "edutainment" titles Mario is Missing and Mario's Time Machine, although the jury is still out on whether or not either of those games really had any educational benefit for those unlucky enough to have endured them. On a lighter note, Yoshi's involvement with the long-running Mario Party series has been robust; he's been in all twelve of the games in the series and clearly likes to let his hair down just as much as the next anthropomorphic dinosaur.
While Yoshi has starred in plenty of titles, it's worth touching upon an outing which was never meant to be. Yoshi 3D was supposed to be a title which pushed the character back into the limelight during the N64 era, and was prototyped by UK software house Argonaut - famous for helping Nintendo create the Super FX chip which powered the very first Star Fox game on the SNES. Sadly, Nintendo turned down the pitch and the game would go on to become Croc: Legend of the Gobbos on the Sony PlayStation in 1997.
Outside of video games, Yoshi's cute and colorful appearance has turned him into something of a merchandising legend. Yoshi's plush toys are commonplace in any self-respecting Nintendo fan's bedroom, and when the almost inevitable Mario Kart radio-control cars hit the market many years ago, it should come as no surprise to learn that Yoshi was one of the characters lucky enough to have his likeness commemorated in plastic. Mario and Luigi aside, Yoshi has to be one of the most in-demand Mario cast members when it comes to commercial products - he’s even appeared in a series of Nintendo adventure books played with a pencil and paper, and as the knight in an official Nintendo chess set.
The future of Yoshi
As we've already said, 2014 could end up being a bumper year for Yoshi. Yoshi's New Island is shaping up to be one of the 3DS handheld’s most high profile releases in the next twelve months, and takes the core mechanics laid down by Super Mario World 2, with Yoshi guiding baby Mario and Luigi though a series of levels, each rendered in a unique art style. Those waiting for a proper sequel to the 1995 SNES classic may finally get the game they've been craving all these years.
An even more exciting prospect is Yarn Yoshi, the Wii U game being developed by Good-Feel, the team behind the superb Kirby's Epic Yarn, which hit the Wii back in 2010. Notable for being only the second title to star only Yoshi (the first being Yoshi's Story back in 1997), Yarn Yoshi is stylistically similar to Kirby's Epic Yarn, featuring a world created entirely out of textiles and fabrics. It's not actually known if the game will see the light of day this year - Nintendo has been cagey about revealing the release date - but given the Wii U's lack of software, we'd be very surprised if this wasn't out by the time Christmas 2014 rolls around. Come to think of it, we can't picture a finer way to spend the festive period than in the company of one of Mario's most loyal and charming pals.
