12/7/2007 - Yoshi

Say what you want about Nintendo being geared to the younger crowd of games, you can't deny that they know how to handle their mascots. Mario, Link, Samus are universally known video gaming icons and first party titles with them as the main character are almost always classic games. Nintendo has also created an industry with some of the spin-off characters from these games. Who would have guessed that a fatter, uglier version of Mario called Wario would have his own successful line of games (or I should say microgames)?

Perhaps the most popular spin-off character from the Mario series is Yoshi, the cuddly dinosaur with a long tongue and lays eggs. Yoshi first appeared in the SNES launch title, Super Mario World, as a sidekick for Mario... perhaps his first sidekick other than his brother Luigi. In the game, Yoshi wasn't that much more than just another power-up. It would let you kill enemies by having them be swallowed with its tongue, but this can be considered as an attack power=up for Mario. If you were hit by an enemy Yoshi would run away, but you wouldn't lose a life. So, in effect, Yoshi was just another notch in your "life bar". This is not to say that Yoshi did not have an impact on Mario or Nintendo in general. It proved that cute and cuddly could still sell games, even in a market of an ever-changing and aging population.

Yoshi would go on to be the main character in many games. Yoshi's Cookie was a puzzle game for the NES, Yoshi's Safari was a light-gun game for the SNES, and Yoshi's Island is considered by some to be the best 2-D platforming game on any system. Not bad for a spin-off mascot. He's also the star of this brilliant parody video: