Yoshi's Island

Sure, they might seem cute now, but the minute Baby Mario falls off of the saddle...

Yoshi!

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, released on the SNES close to the end of its lifespan, is the first game in a sub-series of the Super Mario Bros. franchise, starring Mario's Non-Human Sidekick, Yoshi.

The story is set before the original Super Mario Bros. Kamek, at the time young Bowser's caretaker, looks into the future and see the fate of his young master. To prevent it he blindsides the delivery stork as its carrying the Bros to their parents but only snags Luigi, dropping Mario over Yoshi's Island and right on the back of one of the dinosaurs. Seeing the map that was bundled with the baby Mario, the Yoshis decided to work together in a relay style fashion to rescue Luigi, all the while dodging Kamek's troops who are searching for Mario.

Gameplay-wise, it shares much in common with its parent series and it even has many of the common Mario enemies. The game introduced Yoshi's egg-throwing ability as well as the Ground Pound attack. One difference, however, is that Yoshi doesn't have traditional Hit Points; instead, every time Yoshi is hit, Mario flies off Yoshi's back and a timer counts down. You must retrieve the screaming baby before the countdown reaches zero, otherwise he'll get kidnapped and you'll lose a life. You can increase the amount of seconds on the countdown by collecting stars.

A "2.5-D" Spiritual Successor was released on the Nintendo 64 called Yoshi's Story, which did away with the crying baby and instead focused on Yoshi needing to eat 30 fruit to pass each level, with branching paths, similar to Star Fox 64.

The original game was later remade for the Game Boy Advance, exchanging its Super Mario World 2 label for Super Mario Advance 3. This rerelease was later one of the ten Game Boy Advance games available to participants in the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Program, given a limited rerelease to early adopters of the Nintendo 3DS for free on its eShop in December 2011.

In 2006, Yoshi's Island DS was released on the Nintendo DS, which is much truer to the roots of Yoshi's Island, effectively being its first true sequel. This time, you must protect the baby versions of other Mario-verse characters as well as Mario, each baby giving Yoshi new abilities. Clearly aimed towards fans of the original, it starts off deceptively easy, but later descends into Nintendo Hard and eventually Platform Hell.

Other Yoshi-themed games include:

  • Yoshi -- Puzzle Game, featuring the grown up Mario and Luigi; one of the early works of GameFreak
  • Yoshi's Cookie -- A completely different puzzle game, featuring the grown-up Mario, Peach, and Bowser
  • Tetris Attack -- Yet another puzzle game, featuring the grown-up Bowser. Of course, its really just a sprite swapped-version of the Japanese game, Panel de Pon. Also has nothing to do with Tetris.
  • Yoshi's Touch & Go: First DS game to bear the title. More of a tech demo than an actual game though.
  • Yoshi Topsy-Turvy; known by the much better name Yoshi's Universal Gravitation outside the U.S. -- A very short platformer with a tilt gimmick and Yoshi's Story style graphics, as well as featuring the grown-up Bowser.
  • Yoshi's Safari: A light gun game. One of the few games for SNES's Super Scope.
Yoshi's Island is the Trope Namer for:
Tropes used in Yoshi's Island include:
  • Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Several levels in Yoshi's Story.
  • Advancing Boss of Doom:
    • The final battle against Baby Bowser. Not exactly an Advancing Wall of Doom, but once you hit him three times, he gets pretty pissed off and tries to charge into the foreground. Failing to defeat him in time makes him destroy the terrain, making you fall to your death.
    • Sluggy the Unshaven is this- he cannot damage Yoshi in any way, only slowly advancing and pushing Yoshi back. However, the end of the platform leads to a Bottomless Pit...
  • And Now for Someone Completely Different: In World 2-1 of Yoshi's Island DS, you are forced to use Baby Donkey Kong to play through the entire level the first time you play it, and you could only use Mario and Peach upon replaying the level. While Baby Peach had a good reason, Baby Mario gets no justification for why you can't use him. The same thing was done in both World 3-5 and World 4-5, with Baby Wario and Baby Bowser respectively. Again, no justification exists on why you can't use the other babies the first time around in World 4-5.
  • Ascended Extra:
    • The Stork in Yoshi's Island DS now helps Yoshi out via the Stork Stops.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: Lampshaded in the battle with Sluggy the Unshaven: "Just remember, this slug has no weak points!" Unless you count the big red heart in the center of its body, that is. And guess where you have you aim at to hurt him?
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever:
    • All of the bosses.
    • Inverted with Prince Froggy: it's not 50 feet tall, you're 2 inches tall.
  • Auto-Scrolling Level: Many, and they rank among the most obnoxious levels for both games. "The Very Loooooooong Cave" and "The Cave That Never Ends" are utterly ridiculous with this, having the scrolling screen go in many different directions, crossing the same part of the level more than once in more than one different direction. "Hurry and Throw!" contains a section that scrolls in an endless loop until you figure out how to reach the exit.
  • Autobots Rock Out: Final battle theme with Giant Baby Bowser. Blistering electric guitars, anyone?
  • Babies Make Everything Better: In the sequel, Yoshi ends up carrying babies other than Mario.
  • Back for the Finale: Baby Wario and Baby Bowser return for the final level in Yoshi's Island DS.
  • Background Boss: The original Yoshi's Island ends with this.
  • Badly-Battered Babysitter:
    • Except it's not the babies delivering the battering...
    • There's also Kamek. When the first thing your charge does is stomp you flat, there's a reason why he panicks when Baby Bowser wakes up.
  • Bait and Switch Boss: Upon reaching the boss room in the level "King Bowser's Castle", you'll at first only find Kamek ordering you to "HAND OVER THE BABY!!!", then Baby Bowser wakes up and stomps Kamek flat.
  • Big Boo's Haunt: Bigger Boo's Fort and Hector the Reflector's Haunted House.
  • Blackout Basement
  • Blind Idiot Translation: Averted. Looking at the PAL-version of Yoshi's Island, which included English, French and German, there wasn't really much actual translation. Especially the levels just seemed to have been given the most fitting name.
  • Bottomless Pit
  • Brutal Bonus Level: Pretty much all of the secret and extra levels from both games are this.
  • Bubbly Clouds: "In the Clouds" from DS and World 5 in the original. Probably a few other secret levels too.
  • Bullet Seed: After eating a watermelon, Yoshi can spit watermelon seeds at enemies to kill them.
  • Canon Immigrant: Prior to this game, the Shy Guys' only appearance in the Mario series was as enemies held over from when Doki Doki Panic was turned into Super Mario Bros. 2. It was this game that codified them as Mario characters.
  • Cat Smile: One of the fire enemies. Raocow calls them "Catoboos" because of this.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Poochy, who got his own level in Yoshi's Island, appeared as a selectable character in Tetris Attack, had a minor role sniffing out fruit in a couple levels of Yoshi's Story, and since then has only gotten two cameo appearances in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Party Advance.
  • Crosshair Aware: The final boss, and a handful of regular enemies as well.
  • Cute but Cacophonic: Mario is cute as a baby, but you won't like to hear him cry.
  • Damsel in Distress: Not Peach, surprisingly, as she's actually a playable character in Yoshi's Island DS (she does get kidnapped by monkeys in World 2-1, however). In both games, the damsel is actually Baby Luigi.
  • Defeat by Modesty: Burt the Bashful in the original and the Burt Bros. in Yoshi's Island DS.
  • Degraded Boss: Salvo the Slime, a boss from the first game's first world, reappears in a few endgame fortress levels guarding keys as a mini-boss of sorts.
    • Though in these cases, he's now a bit of a Puzzle Boss, as he no longer drops little Lemon Drop slimes to replenish your egg supply. You have ricochet eggs of the walls and floor to hit him multiple times with a single egg if you don't want to run out before he's dead.
  • Delivery Stork
  • Demoted to Extra: Poochy - see Chuck Cunningham Syndrome above.
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: See Skippable Boss, where the game takes into account if you exploit a bug to defeat a boss before the fight technically begins.
  • Down the Drain: "Naval Piranha's Castle" and "The Impossible Maze" in the original game and "Big Bungee Piranha's Lair" in the DS game.
  • The Dragon: Kamek.
  • Evil Tower of Ominousness: Nearly every boss level in the series is this.
  • Excited Episode Title: The DS game is particularly plentiful with them, especially in the secret/extra levels and World 5.
  • Extreme Omnivore
  • G-Rated Drug: Fuzzies.
  • Galactic Conqueror: Bowser aims to be this is Yoshi's Island DS. He would later try again in Super Mario Galaxy.
  • Gang Plank Galleon: World 3 in Yoshi's Island DS.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar:
    • Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy is called Lustiges Sporen Drama in the German version.
    • In one of the paths in Bowser's Castle, there is a bandit trapped in a small room with burning Shy Guys beneath his feet. Mook punishment?
    • A gross way of doing this yourself in the final battle: just press Y when behind Baby Bowser when you beat his first phase. No wonder Bowser grows up to be a Card-Carrying Villain.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere:
    • Hector the Reflector and Priscilla the Peckish in Yoshi's Island DS - enhanced monsters, like most of the other bosses, but monsters seen nowhere else in the game. Similarly, Six-Faced Sal is an enchanted set of platforms.
    • Moltz the Very Goonie from DS. Very Goonies (a.k.a. the fat goonies that flopped on the ground rather than fly) appeared in a handful of levels in the original game, but Moltz is the only one in DS. And you don't even see him pre-transformation; he floats down from above the screen once the battle begins.
  • The Goomba:
  • Goomba Stomp: Well it is a Mario series, although here, it won't be your primary means of attack.
  • Green Hill Zone: Much of the first world in all of the games in the series.
  • Ground Pound: Trope Namer.
  • Guest Star Party Member: In DS, Baby Wario and Baby Bowser are only usable for very specific sets of levels, after which they leave the 'party' until the final level.
  • Heel Face Turn:
    • Baby Bowser in Yoshi's Island DS. And he Face Heel Turns RIGHT BACK when you reach the Final Boss.
    • Also some of the bosses and enemies in Tetris Attack.
    • Most notably among the bosses turning good would be Raphael the Raven, who also appeared in Paper Mario and helped Mario get access to the volcano.
  • High Altitude Battle: Rapheal the Raven from the original and Moltz the Very Goonie in Yoshi's Island DS. Former battled on the moon, latter literally battled in free fall.
  • I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy.
  • Implacable Man: Tap-Tap the Golden, encountered in the cave behind Door 3 in Baby Bowser's Castle. He will steadily chase you across the cave and cannot be damaged or defeated by any means; even if he falls into one of the Bottomless Pits he will somehow manage to jump back out. Your only option is to knock him backwards with eggs and flee.
  • Interchangeable Antimatter Keys : In castle levels, it is apparent.
  • Interface Screw: Four words: "Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy".
    • There is also the "Grim Leecher", which thankfully is encountered only in a bonus level in Yoshi's Island.
  • Jack of All Stats: Mario in Yoshi's Island DS.
  • Jungle Japes: World 3 in the original Yoshi's Island, and world 2 in Yoshi's Island DS.
  • Kangaroo Pouch Ride: In the DS version.
  • King Mook: Nearly all of the bosses.
  • Last-Episode New Character: Baby Yoshi in The Stinger of Yoshi's Island DS.
  • Lethal Lava Land: Many levels, but Yikes! Boiling Hot! is the most obvious example of this, as the naming suggests.
  • Living MacGuffin: The seven star children (Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Baby Peach, Baby Donkey Kong, Baby Wario, Baby Bowser, and Baby Yoshi) in Yoshi's Island DS.
  • Mama Bear/Papa Wolf: Yoshi himself. Except for bottomless pits and a few instant-death traps, nothing can actually kill a Yoshi, and the player can kamikaze through entire hordes of enemies if necessary to get Baby Mario back before the timer runs out.
  • Make My Monster Grow:
    • Just about every boss fight. It's almost a Running Gag for the final Bowser fight in the series now, after a basic fight against Baby Bowser/Bowser, he gets made 20/200 times bigger by Kamek's magic and ends up trying to crush Yoshi and the final castle level flat.
    • Inverted one time when Kamek shrinks Yoshi and he gets eaten by the boss.
  • Maniac Monkeys: Aw, look at the cute little monkey... wait, did it just steal Baby Mario from me? And why are the other monkeys throwing cactuses and bombs at me?
  • Marathon Level: The Very Looong Cave and The Cave That Never Ends from the original and DS games accordingly, along with A Light in the Dark and Yoshi's Island Easter Eggs from the DS game.
  • Meaningless Lives: In the DS game, it is very easy to rack up over 100 lives in the first half of the game. Subverted in that, in the second half of the game, you WILL need them.
  • Mighty Glacier: Baby Donkey Kong and Baby Bowser.
  • Minecart Madness: "High Speed Cart Race" in Yoshi's Island DS.
  • Monster Compendium: DS has a museum of every enemy defeated with an egg.
  • Mordor: The last level of every game.
  • Mushroom Samba: The Fuzzies, which cause Yoshi to stumble around as if drunk for a little while, screwing up his movements.
  • Musical Nod: The end credits play a slowed-down remix of the Super Mario Bros. Course Clear fanfare.
  • Nerf: In Yoshi's Island DS, red eggs will not bounce off surfaces. Though it nerfs the egg projectile in general, the primary effect is that it makes exploiting the fact that eggs change colour as they bounce to gain red eggs harder than in the original.
    • DS nerfed the entire game in general by completely removing the inventory system. Now, not only can you not make the game easier by refilling your egg supply at the touch of a button or whipping out a melon to spit seeds at enemies, but you are now forced to guard your health bar with your very life, since you can no longer max out your star count at the goal ring simply by using a +10 or +20 star card.
  • Nintendo Hard:
    • Yoshi's Island DS.
    • As well as Crazy Maze Days/Endless World of Yoshis and Kamek's Revenge in either the original game or the Super Mario Advance 3 remake of the original game.
    • Getting all of the totally useless stars on the opening screen in the original game and the DS sequel, which involved finding twenty red coins, five flowers, and having a completely full health meter on every level.
  • Nostalgia Level: Most of World 4, but especially 4-1, consists largely of classic Mario enemies including Goomba, Koopas, Piranha Plants and Wigglers, featured in higher abundance than other levels.
    • In the DS game, World 1-1 is a recreation of 1-1 from the original game, while 4-1, "Rock 'N' Fall", is more or less a combination of "Visit Koopa and Para-Koopa" and "Lakitu's Wall" from the original game.
  • Obstacle Ski Course: Two of the snow levels are this, one is regular, the other bonus. The latter also happens to be the most difficult of the 6 bonus levels... while being the 5th.
  • Ominous Floating Castle: Bowser's Castle in Yoshi's Island DS.
  • One-Winged Angel: All of the bosses do this.
  • Only Fatal to Adults: All of the inhabitants of Yoshi's Island become zombie-like except for a couple of Yoshi eggs in Yoshi's Story.
  • Platform Hell:
    • It would not be surprising if Endless World of Yoshis/Crazy Maze Days inspired or was inspired by various ROM hacks and Kaizo type games. And the secret levels in Yoshi's Island DS fit this trope to a T, with the whole point of Yoshi's Island Easter Eggs being ludicrously over the top and somewhat unfair platform challenges.
    • Ultimate castle challenge is even worse, with a ridiculously hard obstacle course of one hit kill spikes. However this area can be avoided entirely by stocking up on green watermelons and simply blasting your way through.
  • Plot Tailored to the Party: The DS game is structured so that you have to use all of the babies at some point or another by setting up obstacles which require a particular baby's unique ability to get past.
  • Prequel: All of the games take place before the main Mario series.
  • Raymanian Limbs: This might not be the case in official art, but in-game? Legs do not exist. There is only disembodied feet.
  • Ring Out Boss: Roger the Potted Ghost is probably the UR example, and there's also Big Guy the Stilted in Yoshi's Island DS.
  • Rise to the Challenge: "Welcome to Yoshi Tower!" in the DS game.
  • Rotoscoping: Bowser's sprites in Yoshi's Island DS actually come from Yoshi Topsy-Turvy, redrawn to fit the graphical style of the former.
  • Scenery Porn: The scenery of this game is really, really great, even in a cartoony, hand-drawn way. Especially the underground levels, where you walk on crystals that are glimmering.
  • Secret Character: White Yoshi and Black Yoshi in Yoshi's Story.
  • Sequel Difficulty Spike
  • Shout-Out: The final chamber in the final stage of the first game is a long side-scrolling area full of blocks. Kamek randomly appears in the room and tosses out spells that turn the blocks into enemies, identical to how Magikoopas attacked in Super Mario World.
  • Skippable Boss: Naval Piranha in the original game. If you position yourself on the far left end of the boss room ledge such that Kamek doesn't appear, you can throw an egg at the Piranha Plant to finish it off, skipping the entire fight against it.

Kamek: OH MY!

  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: World 5 in Yoshi's Island, the second half of World 4 in Yoshi's Island DS.
  • Space Zone: Raphael the Raven fought Yoshi on the moon, and Yoshi's Island DS has space rocket piloting sections.
  • Species Surname: All of the bosses have this kind of name.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": The Japanese version is romanized as Yossy Island on the box art.
  • Spike Balls of Doom: The ones in this game are spinning at the end of a spiky contraption. Lakitus can also throw orange variations of them. Later, blue ones can be found on walls.
  • Spinoff Babies
  • Stalactite Spite: In some of the levels, there are icicles which await for Yoshi before falling.
  • Super Title 64 Advance: Yoshi's Island DS.
  • Synchronized Swarming: The swarms of bees in the Jungle Hut stage of Yoshi's Story form a large open palm to prevent you from passing by them.
  • Team Pet: Poochy.
  • This Looks Like a Job For Aquaman: Wario's only advantage over the other babies is the magnet he carries. This only comes in handy for obstacles that are specifically designed to make use of it.
  • Time Keeps on Ticking: The second game's Time Trial mode will let NOTHING stop the clock. And it taunts you for it.
  • Time Travel: It's not explained how Bowser did it, however.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Melons.
  • Trailers Always Spoil: Nintendo Power's "A Journey Through Yoshi's Island" promo video featured a clip of the Final Boss battle at the very end. It also mentions Baby Luigi during its summarization of the game's story, while the game itself never refers to him by name (in fact, he wasn't actually shown on camera until the very end).
  • Traveling Pipe Bulge: Present in Yoshi's Island DS.
  • Turns Red:
    • Happens literally for Raphael the Raven. Each successful hit against him makes him start turning redder and angrier. He becomes faster, and also gains a Shockwave Stomp attack.
    • Wiggler/Flutter does this too.
  • Underground Level: The Very Loooooong Cave and The Cave That Never Ends, along with many more.
  • The Unfought: Kamek much prefers mutating enemies into bosses than directly confronting Yoshi. The closest he's come to a boss battle is when he attacks you throughout the final hallway in Bowser's Castle in the first game. Even then, he's more of an obstacle than a real enemy, and can't be defeated. When you get into the boss room, it looks as though you're finally going into a real battle against him, but unfortunately he turns out to be a Bait and Switch Boss.
    • Though not technically the same series as the Yoshi games, Kamek is the third-to-last boss in New Super Mario Bros. Wii and you do get to hurt him. Since he serves the same function in that game as he does in Yoshi's Island ("enhancing" bosses), it's quite gratifying.
    • Kamek can also be directly fought in Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time, but the closest Yoshi's ever come to fighting him is competing with him in Tetris Attack.
  • Unique Enemy: Smaller versions of Burt the Bashful only appear in Burt's Fort. Later, orange, bouncing Bullet Bills turn up in just one level of the GBA edition.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: One jungle level in Yoshi's Island DS is filled with happy, smiling, helpful, delicious monkeys.
    • Think about how the monkeys treat you.
  • Villainous Breakdown: In the DS version, Baby Bowser throws a tantrum when he finds out his future self is still a loser trying to take over the world.
  • Warmup Boss: Burt the Bashful in the first game, and the Big Burt Bros. in the second.
  • When All Else Fails Go Right: Subverted at the beginning of both "Hop! Hop! Donut Lifts" and "Shifting Platforms Ahead". Yoshi even turns around automatically if you don't move the moment you gain control of him.
  • Womb Level: The fight against Prince Froggy, where, instead of the boss being giant, you get turned tiny, and Froggy immediately eats you up.
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