Yoshi (video game series)
Yoshi is a video game series developed and published by Nintendo. It is a spin-off of the Mario franchise. The games, primarily consisting of platform games and puzzle games featuring the titular character, have been developed by a variety of developers including Nintendo, Game Freak, Intelligent Systems, Artoon, its successor Arzest, Good-Feel and Bullet-Proof Software. Yoshi games have been released on Nintendo video game consoles and handhelds dating from the Nintendo Entertainment System to the current generation of video game consoles. Several games in the series have been ported to the Game Boy Advance or the Virtual Console.
The series revolves around Yoshis, who are dinosaur-like creatures. They were first introduced in the 1990 Super Nintendo Entertainment System game Super Mario World, where Mario and Luigi can ride on them.
The first Yoshi game was the NES puzzle game released in 1991, Yoshi, which was developed by Game Freak. The first game in what is considered the main series, as well as the first to feature Yoshis in a playable main-character role, is the 1995 SNES game Super [Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island], which introduces staples of the series such as colorful storybook graphics and numerous gameplay elements. It serves as a prequel to the Super Mario series alongside its sequels, and features Yoshis that traverse levels with Baby Mario, Luigi and other characters. The antagonists of this series are Baby Bowser, the young king of the Koopas, and Kamek, a Magikoopa who was Bowser's caretaker as a child; they recur in other Yoshi games without said Mario characters.
Yoshi's Story, released on the Nintendo 64 in 1997, took a more puzzle-oriented approach, as did Yoshi's Universal Gravitation and Yoshi Touch & Go, released respectively on the Game Boy Advance in 2004 and on the DS in 2005. The next entries in the series were Yoshi's Island DS, released on the DS in 2006, Yoshi's New Island, released on the 3DS in 2014, and Yoshi's Woolly World, originally released on the Wii U in 2015 and later on the 3DS in 2017. The latest game, Yoshi's Crafted World, was released on the Nintendo Switch in 2019. A new game, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, is scheduled to be released on the Nintendo Switch 2 in 2026.