Yoshi's Safari

released on Jul 14, 1993

Yoshi's Safari is the first and so far the only dedicated rail shooting game in the Mario franchise, and one of the few games to use the SNES's Super Scope light gun peripheral. Gameplay consists of shooting enemies before they attack. There are bosses along the way that must be destroyed before players can move on to the next area.


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this is probably absolute hell on an actual Super Scope, but I wouldn't know cause I played this on my Wii using Snes9xGx, and it was a ton of fun

For some reason, my uncle insisted that I played this game with a PS2 controller and I could not understand why.

Then I realized I was playing an illegal NES and SNES collection of games on the PS2 and it all made sense. Game was unplayable tho so like what was even the point?

10/10 Give Yoshi a gun more often.

mouse gives an unfair advantage

When it came to Nintendo’s earlier consoles, there were many different weird, yet sometime completely pointless peripherals that were made to “enhance” the gaming experiences. Some of these terrible peripherals include the Power Glove, a motion-based glove that barely worked whatsoever, the Power Pad, an exercise mat that also barely worked at all, R.O.B. the Robot, a robotic buddy that would help you out when playing certain Nintendo games (and by that, I mean only two games), and the Speedboard, which is literally just a piece of plastic that is supposed to “put the speed at your fingertips”, when in reality, you would just throw it in the trash. One of their best peripherals though, even if they can’t be used properly nowadays, would be with the NES Zapper and the Super Scope, which were both gun-based controllers you would use to play games like Duck Hunt and Battle Clash, and they worked pretty well for the most part. Alongside these gun-based peripherals would also be gun-based games that took full advantage of them, such as with today’s game, Yoshi’s Safari.

Ever since I had heard about this game, I had been interested in trying it out for the longest time for several reasons. One, it was a game where Mario wielded a GUN, which is something you don’t see every day, and two, because it did look like a genuinely fun game, even if it was all based around this light-gun gimmick. But like with everything else I was interested in, I put it off for a long time, until I ultimately decided to check it out, and yeah, it is a pretty good game. It wasn’t exactly amazing, and what you see is what you get, with no other extra bells or whistles, but it is definitely the best Super Scope game that I have ever played… which is mostly because it is the ONLY Super Scope game that I have ever played, but eh, semantics.

The story is one that is mostly what you would expect from a Yoshi/Mario game, where Bowser and his Koopalings DON’T kidnap Peach, but instead two other royal figures named King Fret and Prince Pine, steal the 12 gems, and take over Jewelry Land, and it is up to Mario and Yoshi to go shoot them all in the face to save the day, which is an incredibly silly and basic premise, and I love it, the graphics are pretty good, looking pretty similar to other Mario titles on the system, but is still very appealing to look at and experience, especially with some of the sprites of enemies, the music is… alright, being what you would expect out of a Mario/Yoshi soundtrack, but none of the tracks really stood out as being great or all that memorable, the control is extremely simple, especially if you are playing single-player, and you should get used to it very quickly (at least, if you are playing it on an emulator like I did, because I am not buying a bunch of stuff in order to play just one game), and the gameplay is also simple and straightforward, but it still provides for a decent amount of fun, despite how brief it is.

The game is a first-person shooter, where you take control of Mario while on the back of Yoshi, go through a set of twelve different levels all across Jewelry Land, shoot the fuck out of everything and anything that moves in front of you using the gun that Mario just has for some reason, gather plenty of coins, items, and powerups along the way to not only give you a helping hand, but to also help increase certain stats to make the journey easier, and take on plenty of bosses, with most of them being typical for a Mario game, except now they all have giant mechs for some reason, which is absolutely hilarious and weird as hell. It is extremely basic for an FPS, but for what it is, it can still be very fun to play, and it does make great use of the Super Scope.

The game primarily has you using the Super Scope to take out enemies, where in single player mode, Yoshi will automatically move forward, and all you need to worry about is just mowing down all the enemies in front of you. There is a two-player mode, where one of you controls Mario and just keeps shooting enemies, while the other person controls Yoshi, and is responsible for moving through the stage, which is most likely the best way to play through the game. I myself just stuck to the single-player mode, because I have no friends, and I still had a great time regardless, but I would definitely imagine that you and a friend could have a more enjoyable time with what we have here. And speaking of which, one of the biggest qualities that this game has going for it is the fact that it exists at all, at least for me. Seriously, it is a Mario FPS, which has never been done before and since, and while it is all as family-friendly as you would expect, the fact that it just has Mario carrying around this bazooka with nobody questioning it is hilarious. Although, I will have to dock some points for the fact that Mario does try to shoot at Yoshi at the end of every level. It is clear that his violent tendencies from Donkey Kong Jr. are still around, and I will not tolerate any harm to the good dino!

In terms of actual problems that the game has, one of the biggest that it has is that it is too short and too easy. While there are quite a few stages to tackle, you can beat all of them pretty easily in around an hour, which isn’t all that bad considering when it came out, but what also doesn’t help is how overpowered you are. The game gives you more then enough ammo to take on anything that comes your way, which recharges really quickly, and on top of that, all of the powerups that you can get will make it so that it is impossible to lose. I didn’t die once throughout my entire playthrough, and yeah, maybe if I were actually using the real hardware, it could potentially be harder, but I highly doubt that. But hey, to the game’s credit, it does give you a code for a Hard Mode once you beat it, and there are multiple pathways you can take in levels, so if you are looking for a more difficult and somewhat varied experience with a second playthrough, there ya go.

Overall, despite its short length and easy-as-hell difficulty, I still ended up having a lot of fun with Yoshi’s Safari, with it definitely being the best Nintendo light-gun game I have ever played, and I do wanna eventually give it a shot on the harder difficulty to see how much it could ramp up after what I had experienced. I would definitely recommend it for those who are Mario fans, as well as those who are fans of the Super Scope, because it is definitely the best game to make use of this peripheral out of all of them. Now, if you excuse me, I need to go hunt down Mario myself. Again, I will not tolerate any harm being brought to Yoshi, and that plumber has gone too far.

Game #436

It's times like this, I realise how far I've sunk into the rabbit hole. Depending on your perspective, playing Yoshi's Safari on original hardware in 2023 is either a sign of thoroughly cultivated taste, or a cry for help. I'm struggling to determine what my stance on the matter is. I guess I'm just feeling especially self-conscious about the decisions I've made right now.

In a way, it's healthy that I bought a much cheaper Japanese copy ("Yoshi no Road Hunting"). On the flip side, I blew out my SNES's power intake while experimenting with a dubious unbranded import adaptor, and had to send it away for an expensive modding procedure. It's for the best. I value the ability to play Super Famicom carts. I feel that is a characteristic I want to see in myself.

Yoshi's Safari is a Super Mario World spin-off designed for the Super Scope/Nintendo Scope; a toy bazooka you point at your CRT television. You play as Super Mario, riding Yoshi and shooting Bowser's minions. Princess Peach has asked you to visit Jewelry Land to rescue Prince Pine and King Fret. "Please, Mario. They are my friends!!"

This is an R&D1 game, and fairly representative of their work. Dr Mario, Wario's Woods, Mario Clash. It's "that" kind of Mario game. Everything's just a little bit off. Muted colours, slightly off-model designs, fairly boring gameplay.

Yoshi runs around a series of Mode 7 tracks, looking very like F-Zero or Super Mario Kart. You aim at incoming enemies and hold the fire button until the rapidfire meter runs out and you have to wait a second for it to recharge. Sometimes you have to jump, but not very often. You can get power-ups, but I'm not really sure what they do half the time. Levels all take less than five minutes to complete, and you can pick from the first seven in any order you like. You might as well just go in chronological order though, because that's how the difficulty curve goes. There's sometimes an option of which path to take, but it all plays and looks about the same. Some of the bosses take ages to beat because they decided to try something clever with the design, and it didn't really work. The game's really easy, and you'll be struggling to pick out highlights in its monotonous campaign.

I'm adding half a star because Bowser looks really sad while you're hurting him.

Crazy how I've used this site for so long yet I still end up realizing I never logged some games.

This game is alright. It can be pretty fun at times but I imagine it's near unplayable outside of emulators with the reputation the super scope has.