LogFAQs > #967635209

Yoshi - Super Mario World 2: Yoshis Island

Its astounding how consistently good the Yoshi series is when it comes to controls. The games vary wildly in actual quality, but that often comes down to level design, difficulty, and how much they lean into their gimmicks. There are some highs and lows thrown about each game - Baby DK is a blast, for instance, while Baby Wario is nightmarishly dull and spotty to control - but overall, the core established by Yoshis Island still makes for one of the most fun and playful platformers out there. Yoshis Egg Throw is one of the most nuanced moves of its era, turning every single piece of level geometry into a surface to reflect an egg off of. Players are rewarded for this, as turning their eggs red after bouncing it off enough stuff (but not TOO much to break them) turn them into Red Eggs, which explode into stars upon hitting an enemy, which helps the player achieve 100% more easily. The hover jump lets the player make death-defying leaps and even better enables them to get into the right position to launch eggs, mixing the two techniques together to turn a low-risk maneuver into some of the most high-risk, dynamic, skill-based platforming youll see out there. The combo of tongue, toss, and flutter makes Yoshi an absolute standout as a protagonist, but the amount of leeway Baby Mario leaves him in taking damage from enemies and the flutter jump letting him avoid pits still makes Yoshi an incredibly approachable character to newcomers. And THEN you toss in the transformations and fun little gimmicks like skiing and theres such a whimsey to Yoshi that you always want to see what he can tackle next. Hell, you can kill a boss before a boss cutscene entirely based around just how flexible Yoshi is as a character! An absolutely gargantuan effort for the SNES, Yoshi is a delight of a character and has been for years, they just have never stuck him into something as consistently good as Yoshis Island!

Mario Baseball Profile: Yoshi - Weve been talking in terms of best defensive characters before, saying that fielders like DK, Wario, Pianta, Toadette, Waluigi, and others are good. This is completely ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that Yoshi invalidates every single position other than pitcher and catcher simply by existing. Yoshi is not just the best defensive character in the game, he actively warps teambuilding around his presence in a way that only Bowser can match. Yoshis special ability, tongue catch, gives him the largest range for catching balls in the game by far, which is already really strong on similar characters like Birdo and Magikoopa. However, those two have low-to-mediocre speed. Yoshi is the fastest character in the game. Not only does this make him one of the only safe options to steal bases against a Petey catcher, but the combination of his techniques means that he can make catches that are not just impossible for the rest of the cast, but that no one else can even come close to. Opponent hits a line drive? Yoshi on shortstop mashes tongue and catches it before the cameras swapped to a field view. Perfectly placed pop into no mans land? Yoshi nabs it no problem and turns a guaranteed run into a double play. Foul ball? Yoshi on first grabs it straight out of the air without ever leaving the base, granting him a simultaneous double play. This is supposed to be balanced by bobbles, a mechanic that causes accidental errors on fielders. As a speed character, Yoshi has around an 11% chance of bobbling the ball every time he tries to catch it except the bobble pops the ball back up into the air. Yoshi has no problem tonguing up his own error, which causes all sorts of baserunning mindgames if you ever see Yoshi mess up. Yoshi can even tongue a ball that hes bobbled with his own tongue! The only flaw with Yoshi is that theres only one of him in the game - Yoshi is great at every position in the field, but you only get to choose to place him in one at a time. Generally Yoshi will find himself in left field, letting his speed and range shine the most and gobbling up anything in his path, while simultaneously nullifying the effectiveness of Diddys special and neutering Donkey Kongs as they tend to curve left. However, you will find players actively shifting their fielders around for the sake of placing Yoshi in a more advantageous position to counter a specific batter. And on top of that, Yoshis got a decent bat on par with Luigi and Dry Bones, and his special causes the ball to randomly bounce around three times in the infield as a hail mary, so hes not even a detriment to your batting lineup! Yoshi is an incredible character who can do EVERYTHING except actually win you the game. Yoshi lacks the threatening presence of Bowser, DK, Bro, Petey, or even King Boo or Birdo, and presents you with no counters to home run hits. Yoshi needs a team around him to actually get batters over the plate, but his defensive utility is absolutely unmatched.

Best Smash Appearance: Melee - Melee was the last time I felt something from Yoshi other than oh, Yoshis here! Still having his weird SNES dinosaur posture, having so many unique interactions with the cast due to his invincible double jump, Yoshi was weird and wacky and so interesting to see as his playstyle was so, so counter to the rest of the meta. Since his spine was corrected in Brawl, Im disappointed by just how there Yoshi is. Hes far less dynamic than his home series, his eggs probably being one of the most disappointing translations to Smash of any projectile save maybe the Charge Buster. Yoshi doesnt really feel like Yoshi, he feels like a Smash 64 template whos been tweaked bit by bit over the years until hes lost whats special about him. I dont feel any real animosity toward Yoshi, but this is the second game in a row where the conversation has been oh just wait until people get good with Yoshi, his fundamentals are SO strong. And then everyone gets bored of Yoshi and that never happens due to lack of interest. BUT THE POTENTIAL THO. Yoshi is fine, hes cute, but hes boring. If you quietly removed the character, it would probably take me a long while to even realize he was gone. And thats not something that should be happening for a character as prominent as Yoshi! C-