Collection essentials #432: Yoshi’s Story (N64)

Yoshi’s Island on the SNES was an instant classic. The game served as a prequel to the Mario series, as the Yoshis transported baby Mario while attempting to rescue baby Luigi and bring the kids back to their parents. For the next Yoshi game, however, Nintendo decided it was time for the Yoshis to have a little more independence from Mario, and the next game would not feature an appearance by the plumber in any form. 

Yoshi’s Story takes some gameplay basics from Yoshi’s Island, such as the midair hover. You can also eat enemies and turn them into eggs which can be thrown in much the same way. There are differences in the egg-throwing system; now you can use the analog stick to freely aim the cursor, and the throwing Yoshi stands in place while aiming, and eggs won’t ricochet when hitting a wall. But Yoshi’s Story is different from Island in a lot of ways. Unlike most platformers, you don’t clear a level by reaching “the end”, as Yoshi Story levels loop and don’t have a conventional “goal” area. A Yoshi can clear a level, instead, by eating 30 fruits, of which there are a great many scattered throughout each level. And then, if the level has a boss of some kind, the Yoshi will then fight the boss before the stage is cleared.

There are two main game modes in Yoshi’s Story, which are Story Mode and Trial Mode. The former is what must be played first. In Story Mode, the Yoshis must clear six levels in order to get back the Super Happy Tree from Baby Bowser. It doesn’t take long to get through it, but the thing is that Story Mode is meant to be replayed many times, as each of the six “pages” which contain the game’s levels actually have a total of four different levels to play. You start with one level unlocked by default for each page, and you have to unlock the other three by finding hidden hearts. And once a level is beaten, it will be unlocked for Trial Mode, which lets players pick any level that they wish to jump into. You’ll also find that Yoshi’s Story is a high score-oriented game, as Trial Mode has a leaderboard which shows the best scores for each level. There are a variety of ways to score more points, such as limiting your diet to the 30 melons in each stage which provide more points than the other fruit. Perhaps surprisingly, there is no multiplayer mode in this game, even though so many Nintendo 64 games at the time tried to get on that multiplayer bandwagon.

Yoshi’s story has a very nice soundtrack, and has a catchy and memorable main theme that gets remixed in many of the game’s tracks, and it will get stuck in your head. The game’s got a pretty stylish look, too. They also changed the noises that Yoshis make in this game. Since their debut in Super Mario World, a Yoshi always made a certain distinct two-beat sound that I can’t really describe with words, but if you’ve played Mario World then you know what I’m talking about. That was thrown out the window in this game, as the Yoshis now have a high-pitched voice that they use to make various sounds, though they don’t ever say words except occasionally their own species name (what are they, Pokémon??). Yoshis in practically every game since have used this same voice style.

You may be surprised to learn that Yoshi’s Story did not receive a lot of critical acclaim and did not go down as a great classic Nintendo 64 title like a lot of Nintendo’s other titles did. Why is that?? Well, for one thing, the game just doesn’t have a whole lot of content, with only 24 levels, and for the most part it’s pretty darn easy. It feels like a step down from the excellent Yoshi’s Island, which was much longer and more challenging. It seems that Nintendo made this game to particularly appeal to young children, which is evident from the low difficulty, cutesy aesthetics, and new high-pitched Yoshi voice. There’s still enjoyment to be had with Yoshi’s Story for people of any age, but especially in the shadow of Yoshi’s Island, it feels like a step backward for older gamers. Not to mention, Nintendo found themselves with a bit of an image problem in the ‘90s, as young gamers viewed other consoles and their games as intended for more mature audiences and therefore “cooler”. You heard the word “kiddie” thrown around a lot back then to describe Nintendo, as some gamers thought their games came off as too childish and lame, and if you were a teenage Nintendo fan back then, those people likely bugged the heck out of you. You could debate against those people about whether or not Nintendo actually deserved such a label, but Yoshi’s Story is certainly one of the prime examples from back then of why they had that perception.

As for my own history, I had played Yoshi’s Island previously, and then my cousins Kevin and Peter got this game either with or very early on in their days of owning the Nintendo 64. So I felt right at home with it, happy to go on another egg-throwing adventure. I didn’t like it as much as Island, but that game set a high bar anyway. I was actually surprised later on when I found out through the internet that Yoshi’s Story had a relatively low reputation for a Nintendo game. I do agree that the game could have and should have been better and contained more content, but on the whole my feelings for this game are positive. It still stands out as something a little different, and for that, along with nostalgia and being a defining moment for Yoshis as a species, Yoshi’s Story gets a place on my essentials list.