Is yoshi a frog???

[teh yoshi]

He doesn't all the time. That was recent with the GameCube games, and I'm guessing as of now, shortlived.
I don't support their relationship one bit, hehe.

I'm no fan of Birdo at all.

[Bry]

Actually, little Yoshi in the Super Mario World TV show was born with no shoes. He didn't have any toes.

Well remembered. Thing is, the cartoons and comics mean nothing. The cartoons also renamed and redesigned all the Koopalings and a whole host of other things.
They were signed off by Nintendo of America but don't really contain anything that would be described as 'canon'.
Just like the Zelda cartoon! (Dare I say it: Excuuuuuuse me, princess.")

As for Birdo, it seems to have been a bit overstated really.
Birdo was his partner in Mario Kart DD.
But beyond DD? Or in any other games besides possibly Mario Tennis 64?
His partner in Mario Golf TT was Koopa Troopa.
And in Mario Power Tennis, it was Donkey Kong.

[Yosher]

And in Mario Power Tennis, it was Donkey Kong.

No, DK's partner was Diddy, Yoshi's partner was also Koopa in this one (or Boo, if you count Koopa and Paratroopa as partners).

I think Yoshi should just be called a dinosaur anyway. I mean, he lives in Dinosaur Land. AND Nintendo calls him a dinosaur almost all the time. In Super Mario World though, he referred to himself as ''Super Dragon Yoshi'', but I think that was more a way for Yoshi to sound a bit more 'cool' there. He can't breath fire, only with the help of a certain object. Dragons can do it without help. I never thought of Yoshi being a frog though, but now that I think of it he kind of does look a little like one. Not enough to fully make him one though, so I prefer him as a dinosaur, in both his dino-ish and more humanoid forms.

About Birdo.. I wish they never had paired her with Yoshi. Birdo is ok, but I don't like to see her as a girlfriend to Yoshi. I'm sure they'll pair him in other future games, like recently in the Mario Party series, but I sure hope they don't. If it'd be my call, I'd let Paratroopa be his buddy. He doesn't have an annoying sound like Birdo does too (I liked her better with a voice, in the Mario Advance game). Or maybe Donkey Kong, as both are the main animal characters in most games they both appear in. Any which way, NOT birdo.

[Bry]

I'm going by the intro movie.

The final was Mario & Luigi vs Yoshi and Donkey Kong.
Before Wario and Waluigi muscled their way in.

Given the only way we know Yoshi's partner in Mario Golf TT is Koopa is also via the intro movie...

[Yosher]

Oh, yeah the intro movie. I never go with intro movies, you never know in what stage that was made. I mean, Toad and Toadette were on the tournament roaster board in the movie but they weren't in the actual game. I also never saw Koopa in the whole movie but he WAS in there, along with Diddy, so I think they just paired DK and Yoshi when they made the intro.

[Bry]

That would be a bit selective then As I say, its only via an intro movie we know Yoshi and Koopa 'teamed up' in Golf: TT.
Koopa and Diddy were both in the intro movie. In the same scene actually. But Koopa was actually partnered with ShyGuy. (Normal characters are almost never partnered with hidden characters because, well, they are hidden)
They were two of the characters who had been sitting in the crowd and used their rackets to hit bob-ombs back at Wario and Waluigi.


Toad and Toadette are probably more like a little easter egg for sharp eyed people. Just like how Baby Mario and Baby Luigi also make a subtle appearance.

[Yosher]

Ah yeah, forgot about that part. Haven't seen the movie for some time. LEVEL UP ! ! But I think since Toad and Baby Mario were playable in the N64 version they must've been intended for Power Tennis as well, along with Toadette and Baby Luigi.

Anyway the main reason I think DK isn't Yoshi's partner is because he's always with Diddy in the Tournament mode, when their CPU's. But does it really matter who is who's partner? LEVEL UP ! ! For the same case we could say Mario and Peach are partners and all, hehe.

[Bry]

Exactly, in-game is often random and always gets shuffled about once hidden characters are unlocked (even Mario Kart DD).
FMV intros and publicity shots cannot be changed and so can be treated as 'definitive' in those games. Even if they are made ahead of time and might suffer from potential cuts or additions to the final game.

So, to the original point regards Birdo, lol.
Yoshi hasn't been teamed up with her all that often and indeed, Yoshi is often teamed up almost randomly with different characters even in official materials, not randomly generated in-game scenarios.
Yoshi and Koopa Troopa being one of the weirdest since, y'know, Yoshi has kinda devoured thousands of them.

[Yosher]

The ones he devoured were all bad guys, there are friendly Koopa's now too. I don't know why but I kind of like the pairing of Yoshi and Koopa. Maybe it's because they share some things, like the boots and stuff.

I actually think the pair of Yoshi and Birdo is weirder, if you don't look at physical appearance. Yoshi and Birdo never appeared in the same game in the main series, except one of the Mario Advance, the Super Mario Bros. 2 remake one.

[Lord of the Dance]

Ahh, good point.

Sorry, I've only played about half the Mario games. Especially not the newer ones, as I only recieve around three games a year or so.

[Bry]

Going back to Yoshi's appearence, I just stumbled on this on the Nintendo-Europe website.
The following is a quote from Satoru Iwata, the current president and CEO of Nintendo, while he was interviewing developers from Zelda: Twilight Princess. (No 3rd Parties involved. Iwata interviewed the Zelda staff and Nintendo did all their translating etc, so this is about as accurate a quote from the man as you could get)

Sidetracking just a little, when Miyamoto-san got Mario to ride Yoshi in Super Mario World, the thinking behind that idea was "functional". What I mean is that the SNES was a console which didn't allow a lot of sprites (the technical mechanism that allows graphics to be displayed on the screen) to be lined up on-screen at the same time. To explain why Yoshi ended up looking like that, it's because that shape allows you to limit the number of sprites lined up on screen when Mario and Yoshi are overlapping. You'll understand if you take a look at the original blueprint that Yoshi was designed purely from a functional point of view. So the reason Yoshi ended up being a dinosaur is not because we wanted Mario to ride a dinosaur. Rather, it was because something like a dinosaur was the shape which was allowed by the technical limitations. Sorry, I digressed slightly there! (laughs)

wiiportal.nintendo-europe.com/94.html

The basic point of this? Well, that Yoshi's design is a result of technical limiations in a game just like Mario's. In other words, Yoshi's design in Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island was heavily affected by the hardware.

This is probably why Yoshi's appearance began to change significantly on in the N64 era, when these limits were removed.

[Sayunu]

Yoshi is a mixture of dinosaurs, dragons, lizards, chameleons, horses (which you can ride) and other creatures, I think. Yoshi is all and none of them. Like goombas/kuribô which wouldn't belong to any of known species other than "goomba".
And I should mention that "dragon" in Japanese has more wide meaning than English "dragon". Probably "dragon" in English refers by default to European mythical dragons, but in Japan, it also refers equally frequently to Chinese dragons, Japanese dragons and even dinosaurs ("dinosaur" in Japanese (kyouryuu) use kanzi meaning "dragon"(ryuu)). True that Japanese "doragon" is more likely to refer to european ones than "ryuu", but they are basically same. "Dragon" includes "dinosaur".

Regarding Birdo/Catherine, it is still male in Japan... or at least, it's not announced that Birdo's gender has changed since it was clearly refered as a "guy who believes he is a girl" in Super Mario USA manual. We don't use words like "he" and "she" in Japanese, so a character's gender is not clear unless especially mentioned, nor important.

Phew. Hard, English, write.

[yoshinator]

He is sometimes referred to as " a Yoshi " or just " Yoshi " as a name. My theory? He's a Yoshi with the name Yoshi, and his descendants are dinosaurs. Anyways, how are we to know that the Yoshi's don't have different names? It's kinda weird to refer to them as "Red Yoshi" or "Green Yoshi". It's like saying "Come here Black Human" or "White Human". Therefore, there just happens to be a Yoshi with the name Yoshi, heck there might be a yellow Yoshi with the name "Pete"...

[UMS Author Lava]

Come now, Yoshis' tongues are long just to fit them in even further into the Mario universe.

[XanDer]

Of Course not.
I see in him as a Dinosaur. Refer he into a dragon, it's kind of the same thing. I think, Yoshi is a Dinosaur & Dragon at the same time. Just Thought. if Yoshi is a dragon, the reason are: someone can ride on him (like the medieval stories ou medieval/fantasy stories, humans ride on dragons), and he can spill out fire and other kind :S; As a Dinosaur, he can eats "everything".
Well, Nintendo join this two type of species, to make one (Yoshi).

The fate of the long tongue, it's also the join of Dragon, Dinosaur and Frog. He is a fusion of Dragon, Dinosaur and Frog, for some specifies that those 3 species have.

[UMS Author Lava]

Right, but Yoshis are still technically dinosaurs, right?

[XanDer]

For the specie that Nintendo calls, yes. Yoshi continues to be a Dinosaur.