Yoshi's Story (N64) - The adorable but unconventional sequel to Yoshi's Island [ENG/ESP]
Published on HivePostify by @acstriker · Tue Jul 07 2026
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I definitely have to go and play Yoshi's Island start to end one day...
But oh well, in the meantime, I decided to revisit the first game I actually ever played that starred the titular dinosaur, as fate had it that I would have access to this game as a kid. And revisiting it is sure funny in some ways, a bit surprising in others.
If you have heard of Yoshi's Story before, you're probably familiar with how the game ditched the classic level by level get to the goal structure, instead having to collect 30 fruits in a stage to complete 6 worlds...and while each world has four stages available, you can only visit one of the four stages per world on a single playthrough (and that's assuming you unock the other three) before the credits roll.
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A remarkably cute presentation
If there's something that probably had some people from back then thinking that Yoshi's Story was a "kiddy game", it's definitely the presentation, which is NOT to say that's a con against it now...but more so that you can see why some back then would come to that conclusion.
The sweet and adorable stuff is peppered through certain aspects of the game, from the story about the baby Yoshis (yeah apparently they are babies) trying to find the "Super Happy Tree" while being presented as a pop up storybook, to the music when you complete stages having said Yoshis sing happily.
Although oddly enough, going far enough into the game (and sometimes running into certain staes) will make you run into some oddly less cutesy creatures, sometimes even bosses (although the bosses themselves aren't durable at all), as well as the final world being a suitably dark castle, and the screen when you lose a Yoshi showing one being carried away into a creepy castle on the distance.
But the part where I could be "neutral" about the sweetness of it is that the game looks quite nice: Some stages look like they are made of handcrafted things, but others lean more into the 3D-ish CGI look of the elements of the game, as the Yoshis, fruits and enemies all use pre-rendered sprites. And for being a N64 game, meaning its on a cartridge AND on a console that people usually wouldn't think about for 2D games (not that it couldn't do them, but people running 2D N64 games on emulator with upscaling would often show weird artifacts), its quite impressive they got Yoshis to look so smooth in animation overall.
Now that I got that out of the way, I can finally talk about the parts related to playing the game, which are interesting as well.
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Eat fruits, get happy - eat peppers, unlucky
As I mentioned earlier, the game's main goal isn't getting to the finish, there even being a jar to warp to the start if you got to the end of it. Instead, you have to gobble up 30 fruits using Yoshi's tongue to clear the level for good.
Fruits also give points, with watermelons giving more than other fruits except for melons (the light green ones) which give the most points and are uniquely hidden on the stages, although scoring is technically secondary to progressing and there's nothing you unlock for trying to go for high scores.
Each Yoshi actually has a specific "preferred" fruit that gives them more health when eaten, besides melons that always give a bit more health (and points - more on that later) and the specific "Lucky Fruit" selected when starting a playthrough which will always refill your full health.
The flower that shows your heath has 8 petals and will be happy when full, SUPER happy when invincible from eating a small heart item, smiling calmly with less petals...and frowning blue in fear if you're out of petals - get hit in that last state and you're done for. And on that note, death pits do what they do in this game, so don't get fooled into jumping carelessly near one expecting the game to save you from it with pity.
As the heading might have hinted to, there's also peppers and other "yucky" things like bees and bugs that will actually hurt Yoshi when eaten. These aren't as dangerous as the actual hazards you'll see later, but you should still look out for things you shouldn't be eating. But some enemies can still heal you and give an egg when eating, or at least give an egg even if they don't heal you.
There's also flowers that can heal you up and regenerate, as well as a special looking flower that will temporarily turn you into a giant egg you can fling anywhere (even upwards) by flicking the stick the opposite direction you want to go at (holding down and letting go to fling up, for example).
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Making their lives easier, making their lives harder
So an interesting thing I only found out about the game years later after playing it as a kid is that there were two hidden Yoshi eggs in two specific stages, and taking them then completing the stage would unlock them as playable. The Black and White Yoshi, besides liking every fruit (and even eating peppers without penalty), also functionally count as two extra lives, as you can choose between six starting Yoshi that will vanish from the select screen if they are taken.
...Although if you have Yoshis missing and can run into a White Shy Guy from popping a surprise bubble, completing the stage will have them on the select screen, making them go and rescue one of your Yoshis back. But they will only appear as collectables if you are missing any, which you can technically avoid by restarting after death as the game only saves after a stage is completed and you get to the next page.
Now, on the note of making things harder...well, the softer but still more challenging side to the normal game is actually making sure to get the three hidden big hearts in each stage, which is also the only way to make the next world after the first show you more than one stage as selectable. If you complete stages without finding any, you'll always be stuck to the first stage of the next world.
And some stages do put thse in tricky spots, as well as how you'd have to ignore some of the fruits on the way just to make sure you don't end the stage early BEFORE picking all three hearts.
But the more infamous, "not encouraged but technically intended to be possible" evil challenge some know Yoshi's Story for would be the All Melons/30 Melons. Basically, there's exactly 30 melons in every stage, but only some are visible in plain sight or easy to get - the rest can be hidden within ground pound spots you can only notice by sniffing the ground, boxes, surprise bubbles holding one that might fall into a pit, and even occasional minigames where the only way to get all melons is to do the minigame perfectly.
And said mini games are either balancing a bunch of boxes, reaching the goal quickly, or even being tested on how far you can chain flutter jumps for a looking jump. Any mistakes in any of these means you'll lose one or more melons, ending your chances to win the challenge in that stage.
To say that doing 30 melon stages is not for the faint of heart would be an understatement (let alone full game runs and speedruns like that), more so on harder stages, but even the easier ones will likely have you doing loops around the stage just to try and find every single one.
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Conclusion
It's actually neat that this game basically encourages replayability and exploration by the way its setup. If you were to only say "I'm just getting fruits and moving on as soon as possible", you'll have few to no moments where you can opt for the other levels in a world, but theoretically could finish fast.
But if you take your time to find all three hearts in a stage, sometimes requiring you to look deep and take risks in front of hazards (some you might not know if they instakill or not, like the big fish in Jungle Puddle), you'll have more playtime out of a single stage AND have access to all four stages in the next world if you want to switch things up. Although the game itself doesn't track if you've done that in every stage.
And of course, those who are willing to go through a lot of trial-and-error (even with a guide, considering minigames and one-time melons that can be missable) just for an even bigger challenge than finding hearts can always try getting all 30 melons for style points.
In any case, even if might be short, it's still a neat game to play through all in all, more so if you take the time to find the hearts - similar to how the DKC series (in their SNES versions) technically don't track getting the KONG letters but can make for a fun challenge to get all of them in a stage anyways.
Thanks for reading, and see you next time.
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Spanish translation with [DeepL](https://www.deepl.com/translator). All screenshots were captured by myself.
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Español
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Definitivamente tengo que jugar Yoshi's Island de principio a fin algún día...
Pero bueno, mientras tanto, decidí volver a jugar el primer juego que jugué en mi vida protagonizado por el dinosaurio del título, ya que el destino quiso que tuviera acceso a este juego cuando era niño. Y volver a jugarlo es sin duda divertido en algunos aspectos, y un poco sorprendente en otros.
Si ya has oído hablar de Yoshi's Story, probablemente estés familiarizado con cómo el juego se alejó de la clásica estructura de avanzar nivel por nivel hasta la meta, y en su lugar te obliga a recolectar 30 frutas en una etapa para completar 6 mundos... y aunque cada mundo tiene cuatro etapas disponibles, solo puedes visitar una de las cuatro etapas por mundo en una sola partida (y eso suponiendo que desbloquees las otras tres) antes de que aparezcan los créditos.
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Una presentación increíblemente linda
Si hay algo que probablemente hizo que algunas personas de aquella época pensaran que Yoshi's Story era un «juego para niños», es sin duda la presentación, lo cual NO quiere decir que eso sea un punto en su contra ahora... sino más bien que se entiende por qué algunos en aquel entonces llegaron a esa conclusión.
Los elementos tiernos y adorables están presentes en ciertos aspectos del juego, desde la historia sobre los Yoshi bebés (sí, al parecer son bebés) que intentan encontrar el «Árbol Superfeliz» —presentada como un libro de cuentos con ilustraciones que aparecen al pasar el cursor—, hasta la música que suena al completar las etapas, en la que dichos Yoshi cantan alegremente.
Aunque, por extraño que parezca, al avanzar lo suficiente en el juego (y a veces al llegar a ciertas etapas) te encontrarás con algunas criaturas extrañamente menos «monas», a veces incluso jefes (aunque los jefes en sí no son nada resistentes), así como con el mundo final, que es un castillo adecuadamente oscuro, y la pantalla en la que, al perder a un Yoshi, se ve cómo se lo llevan a un castillo espeluznante en la distancia.
Tags: #gaming#hivegc#yoshistory#n64#platformer#yoshi#spanish