So in 1992, what was that joker doing, slumming around on the original NES? It’s not like

we had a dearth of green dinosaurs and needed to fulfill a quota, we had that covered with

Bubble Bobble. But Yoshi’s not here in a platformer, or an action game, or even a dissertation

on dinosaur metabolism as it pertains to cookies. Nope, he’s here... in a puzzle game. A kinda

crappy puzzle game at that. But that’s not the thing that’s nagging at me right now.

Right now, my primary thought is... why does that music sound so familiar?

Seriously. Do you hear it? I know what you’re thinking, “How did they manage to slip forward

in time and swipe Pokemon’s soundtrack? It’s an excellent question, but since we

don’t live in a paradigm in which time travel is feasible, we have to look for a different

answer. How about, “Why does Pokemon sound so much like that old Yoshi game on the NES?”

Much better. Turns out, this strange offshoot of Nintendo’s key franchise was entrusted

to an up-and-coming devleoper called Game Freak, which started out publishing gaming

magazines under the same name. Said magazine was started by Satoshi Tajiri - the creator

of Pokemon - and illustrated by Ken Sugimori - the art director for Pokemon. A couple years

after Yoshi, they’d produce a quirky little RPG for the Game Boy, and you can guess the

rest. But that’s all backstory. I suppose I should actually talk about the game for

a while.

Here’s how it works: Mario-franchise monsters fall from the top of the screen in pairs,

toward the platforms at the bottom which are manned by the main man Mario himself. Pairing

two monsters of the same type eliminates them both, while sandwiching monsters between the

halves of a Yoshi egg eliminates all such monsters, and out hatches a Yoshi under circumstances

I’d rather not think about too hard about it. Anyway, as with most falling-block puzzle

games of the sort, you tread water in pursuit of a high score, and then you fail. That’s

pretty much the size of the whole game. Though much like Tetris, there’s also a B-mode

that gives you a pre-set stack of monsters and challenges you to dig through them and

clear the board entirely.

But here’s where the problem sets in. The playing space itself is very small, and if

a bad run of drops sees you without any shell-tops... well, you’re screwed. Hard. You can go way

too long without seeing any shell parts, which are kinda crucial to the elimination of monsters

in a timely fashion. It’s not any real problem with the player, as it is with the random

number generator, thus turning what should be a skill-based challenge into one entirely

of luck. And not all the tricks in the world, up to and including the fast-switch to eliminate

two monsters from the same platform at once, are going to help you. Just sit back and listen

to the music, and pretend you’re in Celadon City or something.

Game Freak moved on to bigger and better things. Nintendo moved on to bigger and better things.

Hell, even Puzzle Games Featuring Yoshi moved on, with Yoshi’s Cookie bringing some much-needed

balance (and carbs) to the table. Even though you can obtain it rather readily for the NES,

Wii Virtual Console, or even the 3DS Virtual Console, I wouldn’t suggest dropping everything

to do so. Unless you just really like Pokemon music.