Yoshi's Story

Yoshi's Story for Nintendo 64 is Nintendo's colorful side-scrolling platform game, released in Japan in late 1997 and in North America in March 1998. It follows 1995's Super NES adventure Yoshi's Island, but presents its action as a pop-up picture book rather than a conventional 3D N64 world. Nintendo developed and published the cartridge, placing the familiar dinosaur hero in a handcrafted-looking journey of paper scenery, fabric clouds, cardboard woods and other toy-like materials.

The story begins when Baby Bowser steals Yoshi Island's Super Happy Tree and turns the island into a storybook. Six newly hatched Yoshis set off to bring the tree back and lift the gloom. Their route moves through sunny woods, caves, mountains, jungles, oceans and a castle, with a choice of colored Yoshis before a course begins. Yoshi colors are chiefly a player choice, while hidden Black and White Yoshis can also be found; locating both earns extra lives.

Yoshi's Story uses the Nintendo 64 Control Stick for movement and keeps the series' recognizable actions close at hand. Yoshi can run, jump, flutter in midair, swim, crouch, ground-pound and use a long tongue to swallow enemies. Swallowed foes become eggs, which can then be aimed and thrown to hit enemies, collect items or interact with the scenery. Damage affects Yoshi's Smile Meter, while special Heart Fruits can restore a particularly cheerful state and change the feel of the music.

Rather than requiring a trip to the end of every stage, the central objective in each course is to fill the Fruit Frame by eating 30 pieces of fruit. Fruit can be lying in the landscape, floating in bubbles or carried by enemies. The system also rewards planning: eating matching fruit in succession builds points, and Favorite Fruit, the course's Lucky Fruit and especially hidden melons can improve a run's total. That score-focused design gives Yoshi's Story a different emphasis from a straightforward race through a platform level.

Story Mode is arranged as six storybook pages. Each page offers courses, but the player selects one path onward instead of completing every available course. Special Hearts hidden in a course determine how many choices become available on the following page, encouraging return visits to reveal alternate routes and secrets. Reaching the final castle leads to a confrontation with Baby Bowser. Trial Mode uses the courses unlocked in Story Mode and focuses on improving a player's score.

The Nintendo 64 presentation is one of the game's defining features. Its pre-rendered backgrounds and animated characters create a deliberately flat, storybook stage while still using the console's color and texture capabilities. The score responds to play in places, shifting with Yoshi's condition and special states, and composer Kazumi Totaka also supplied Yoshi's vocal sounds. Nintendo later made the game available through Wii and Wii U Virtual Console services and added it to Nintendo Switch Online's Nintendo 64 library, but the N64 original remains the platform game built around its unusual fruit-collection routes and pop-up-book world.