Yoshi, the beloved dinosaur non-sibling companion of Mario, has had his share of adventures. Yoshi has undergone a transformation from a mere voiceless powerup to a staple character in the Nintendo library. Love him or hate him, Yoshi has undergone an extensive re-imagining that is similar to the evolution of Mario himself.



Yoshi began his illustrious career as a powerup in Super Mario World, the SNES pack-in launch title (if you have not heard of this game). He was basically mute in this game, uttering only strange bouncing noises. He had two different forms and four different colour variations. The green yoshi was the default yoshi, who Mario could instantly ride when he hit a question mark block and a yoshi egg would appear and hatch out a full grown Yoshi. He ate most enemies and could spit them out again to kill other enemies. If you held the enemy in Yoshi's mouth for too long, Yoshi would consume it, leaving you with no ability for spitting. When Mario was hit when riding Yoshi, the dinosaur would run away. Mario would lose no other powerups that he had equiped, and if Yoshi did not fall to his (assumed) death, you could simply retrieve him. Yoshi also let Mario jump off of him, even when mid-jump. This ability afforded the player quite an easy way to avoid pits at the last second, and reach high-up locations without following the regular level design.
Yoshi also got certain powers from koopas of different shell colours. Green shelled koopas yielded no such powerup, showing the default nature of the colour green for Yoshi. Red koopas let Yoshi shoot three balls of fire in front of him instead of simply spitting out the shell, the blue let yoshi fly until he spit out the shell or swallowed it after a set amount of time, and the yellow shelled koopas gave Yoshi's landings after a jump a sort of stomp. This stomp shot some dust around Yoshi and killed nearby enemies. This game also had different coloured Yoshis. The default colour that would hatch as a powerup was the green yoshi, but baby yellow, blue, and red Yoshis could be found among the levels of Mario World, and they were particularly prevalent in the Star Road section. Once fed either a certain amount of enemies or a single power star, a Yoshi would instantly grow up to be available for Mario to ride him. These coloured Yoshis, when they ate a green koopa shell, would take on the ability that the koopa shell of their colour represented would have. So a blue yoshi would fly when he ate a green shell, a red one would shoot fire, etc. This is pretty much the extent of Yoshi's abilities in his first game. Some of them would remain his staples, and others would not be found in any other game.



Yoshi, from here, would appear in a bunch of games. Some were good and some were not good, but none of them really furthered Yoshi along as a character. He could be found in puzzle games, and the amazing first iteration of Mario Kart. The only thing you could really take out of his non-evolutionary SNES games was that he: could drive, liked cookies, was in a super scope game, and could attack tetris.



Moving on we have Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. Those of you who have only played the GBA iteration of this game may be shocked by some of the things I say here, but believe me they are true. Yoshi still was mostly silent other than his bouncing noises. He was now the main character, with mario serving only as Yoshi's health. Mario was also, in certain circumstances, the powerup in this game. When Yoshi came in contact with a power star, mario would run around (and when I say around, I mean up walls and everything), could parachute with his cape, and was invincible. Yoshi could flutter jump for the first time, but without his trademarked "hhhhrrrrrrmmmmmmm!". Yoshi could now shoot watermelon seeds as well as fire and ice from certain powerups. Yoshi also had a butt stomp in this game, it may have been inspired by the stompy yellow shells and yellow yoshi from the original Mario World. Yoshi could now turn into different things in this game, from helicopters to moles, Yoshi sporadically obtained transformation technology when he touched a bubble with a picture in it. The final addition was how yoshi could now eat enemies, turn them into eggs (somehow) and then throw these eggs as weapons. Yoshi may have been the first pro-choice dinosaur with this sort of tactic. He was also much more animated in this game. While the entire game had an amazing art design, it wasn't part of Yoshi's evolution, but it is awesome enough to mention.

Yoshi did develop some new abilities, but some of his original abilities were lost. Different colours of Yoshis did not mean they had different abilities (while there are many different colours of Yoshis in this game, they all have the same abilities), different coloured koopa shells did not mean new abilities, Yoshi himself was no longer a powerup, and no more baby yoshis.

Yoshi's time on the N64 started out rather forgettably. His cameo in Mario 64 was so short and unimportant that he could have easily be interchanged with any other character in the Mario universe. He was in Mario Golf, Smash Brothers, and Mario Kart 64. In each of these games he still shared the same sort of boince noises found in previous games, there was no real evolution except that he moved into 3d (except in mario kart 64). You may, or may not, be asking "hey, what about mario tennis? Well sir or madam, I'll get to that in a second.



Yoshi's Story for the N64 was the last big turning points in the Yoshi's evolution. I'm not going to go through the subtle details of Yoshi's abilities in this game, as I think this game is a bit of a throw-away. Yoshi has been in many games since Yoshi's Story, but it was this one that gave Yoshi his voice. He was given nearly his entire range of "sayings". He says "Yoshi" alot, grunts out "hhhhrrrrrmmmmm" when flutter jumping, and all of his other adorable dialogue. Mario's N64 Tennis outing came out after this game and adopted Yoshi's new vocal stylings, and each subsequent game to come out after that, featuring Yoshi, would feature this style of Yoshi's voice. His 3d appearance would constantly be tweaked, but his appearance will never vary significantly. This is obviously up to exceptions, such as his 2d appearances from SMW to SMW2:Yoshi's Island to CGed, non-sprite based form in Yoshi's story. He would return to his usual self in Yoshi's Story 2 on the DS, but his 3d form usually remains the same. The only thing that has changed about his 3d form is the inclusion a higher poli-count. Sometimes he'll don clothes for specific sporting outings, but he is usually without. Most of his abilities are taken from his second outing, Yoshi's Island, in his appearances in games. Flutter jumping, egg throwing, butt stomping all tend to be his MOs.



In closing, I used to really despise Yoshi's terrible bouncing noises. I found him particularly annoying in that regard. His new ultra-cutesy voice may be troubling to others, but I find this new version much cuter and appealing. He is never my racer, baseball player, baller, Kart racer, striker, olympiad, golfer, or brawler of choice, but I do enjoy him much more since he attained his new voice. Also, he has adorable boots.