Ever since his introduction in Super Mario World, Yoshi has become one of the most popular and beloved characters not just in the Mario series, but in video game history. So, given the character's immediate popularity, Nintendo decided to take advantage of this pretty early by giving the dino his own game, which would lead on to plenty of other games down the line. So, with the help of Game Freak, who would go on to develop nothing else that would be noteworthy (definitely not any franchises about monsters in your pocket), they then developed and released Yoshi for the NES.

As the first instance of Yoshi having a starring role, I would say it's a pretty alright game. It is an interesting choice for his first game, and it can be fun, but only for bits at a time.

The graphics are definitely some of the NES graphics of all time, the music isn't all that memorable, the control is extremely simple and easy to pick up on, and the gameplay is also extremely simple, and can get pretty challenging in certain stages.

The game is your basic puzzle game of this era, where you have to match up enemies in order to clear them and get points, while also trapping a bunch of them in eggs in order to create more Yoshis (which is only the best objective in any game ever), while also making sure that the enemies don't fill up the entire grid. Like I said, it's pretty simple and it can be fun at times, but this leads to my main problem with this game: it gets boring pretty quickly.

Sure, the game is fun in small bursts, but unlike other puzzle games like Tetris and Dr. Mario, it doesn't really do enough to keep me playing for more than 10-20 minutes, as it gets really repetitive. There are multiple modes that you can take on, but there isn't too much difference between these modes, and it is moreso just a way to keep you playing with no change.

Overall, while it can be pretty fun at points, and is a nice little side game for Yoshi, it doesn't have enough staying power to make me consider ranking it any higher than this.

Game #100

Played this long enough to the point where if it were on Steam, I couldn't refund it. Of all of the Mario-themed puzzle games where it starts really hectic because there are a lot of things to clear at the start and you just kind of wait for RNG to give you the solution as the endgame of a given stage slows to an agonizing crawl... wow it's weird that they made three of them in just as many years, huh? But between this, Yoshi's Cookie, and Dr. Mario, this is certainly the worst of them. Forcing the game into a match-two system, solely vertically, takes out any sort of thrill from potential chains or strong building of anything; it's a purely reactive puzzler with a few moments at the start of rounds where you're shuffling around columns. If you are a fan of Mario's Puzzle Party from Mario Party 3, that will give you far greater depth for a match-two puzzler than Yoshi can give. There are moments where it's engaging, but you will either get past that in the first 20 seconds of a round or lose.

Yoshi is a game I really want to like but it's just something I can't really get into. It's a puzzle game similar to the later Yoshi game, Yoshi's Cookie. But unlike that game where I have some appreciation for it, not much of that is here.

So the goal of Yoshi is to stack enemies onto eggs and sandwhich them with the other half of the egg to hatch a Yoshi. You'll move Mario to move the 4 stacks around so enemies will land on the correct one but to me the problem I have is that it's just too boring, even when you get the best Yoshi possible to hatch, it's just not satisfying.

There's also another mode where you have to clear every enemy on a board and I have to say this, I swear it feels luck based, sometimes you'll have an easy time getting rid of all of them but sometimes the game just doesn't get me the right enemies to poof them away. I get this can be a problem in other puzzle games too but here it feels the most annoying.

There's also multiplayer that uses the 2nd game mode but I didn't play much of it cause the person I played with didn't have a good time.

The presentation is nice. It's got some decent graphics to it and the music is pretty good and is composed by the same person who composes for Pokemon. In fact, I have failed to mention that this game was actually made by GameFreak so that's pretty interesting to see them make games before Pokemon.

Yeah I don't really have much to say, it's not really worth your time nowadays to actually go play this game. There are much better puzzle games you could be playing now, it's honestly a shame Nintendo isn't legally allowed to rerelease Yoshi's Cookie because I would have definitely preferred that one on the NES/Famicom Online for Switch.

Obviously made in the era of Nintendo trying to capitalize on Tetris hoping to find another Dr. Mario in case they manage to find gold, and this one didn't.

If you've heard of the term, fun and addicting, well this game has plenty of fun but little addicting. As the gameplay takes on Tetris pretty well of stacking various Mario enemies on four plates.

My opinion is the way you wipe out the enemies by gaining points, turning the enemies into Yoshi eggs but putting two pieces together and then hatch into Yoshis. And the Yoshis vary in size based on enemy amount, and much like Tetris, you have that need to make the best combo that gives this game it's a fun drive.

But it's not an addicting drive, as you'll find yourself having the funnest 8 minutes of your life, but having no desire to continue for a good long while.

What I'm saying is that Yoshi is a fun game to come back to once in a while as a solid C tier falling puzzle game

Yoshi is one of those games that get kinda put on the way side because it just seems like a knock off of Tetris. While I wouldn't say it is, there really is no reason not to play Tetris over this. Still I think Yoshi is a pretty thrilling experience if you play it with friends, and at the least is fun to experience once as a new puzzle game.

The game roughly has two modes to it, high score mode in which you continue to play the same set till you get a game over, and Game B's stage clearing mode where you get a small scene of Yoshi eating something for extra points after beating a stage. Both modes don't have an actual end aside from a game over, but you can set goals like getting to the P switch or collecting 10 eggs to get some neat cutscenes. Aside from that Yoshi is a standard match and clear puzzle game. If you match certain enemies together they disappear, and if you put the enemies in a Yoshi egg, which you do by putting a bottom egg part and a top egg part together, you can make a Yoshi. The higher amount of enemies, the bigger the Yoshi and points you get.

Sadly part of why this game isn't remembered so well by others is due to how luck based or how daunting it can be to clear a field when you're just not getting the right enemies for it. While I certainly think this is fun in practice with friends, as a mechanic in a solo puzzle game, it can be frustrating. Still, I really wish Yoshi mechanics would be revisited here because they have plenty of interesting pacing movements in the game despite it being a simple left or right mechanic.

Overall Yoshi remains a memory of one of the fondnest times in my college days. The thrill of panicking while my friend waits for a blooper to pop down as my friends were cheering for them to win. It's not something everyone will experience with this game, and honestly asking anyone to play an over 20 year old NES puzzle game is a big ask. If the mechanics were better for solo play or perhaps the game had more nuance we may have seen more Yoshi tournaments out there. As it stands though, Yoshi is just a decent puzzle game that Nintendo made once.

Pros: Surprisingly very fun multiplayer falling block puzzle game. Very easy to learn, most can pick it up rather quickly and get competitive.

Cons: Why is this game called Yoshi? Like, that's it? Just "Yoshi"?? It's a fine simple game, but I feel that title deserved a bigger character focused experience, this hardly has anything to do with Yoshi, aside from the best block chains using the eggs, which, yeah, that's great, but that shouldn't be enough to earn the title of the character himself.

What it means to me: When I was a kid I was at first annoyed by the name, expecting an NES precursor of sorts to Yoshi's Island. Don't let that fool ya though, once I got into this game, I had a ton of fun playing it with my bro! In fact, it's probably my favorite puzzler on the NES.