Yoshi & Birdo

[Soul]

Have any of you noticed that in Mario Tennis, when Birdo hits the ball real hard, his/her/its voice changes? It seems to me as if Birdo were still pretending to be a girl, and that his/its/her REAL voice comes out at times. The fact that he/she/it is called Catherine does not change this theory, as the name may also be part of this.

I want that thing MILES away from Yoshi

I think that all this uncertainty exists because Nintendo does not see Yoshi as a critical character to the Mario universe (Mario, Bowser, Peach; You take out any of these three and the Mario universe's purpose is lost). And because of that, they are constantly changing him (along with all the other secondary characters). Nintendo is not interested in giving these characters well-defined personalities and abilities because this would make it harder to make their newer games truly look and feel "newer", because they wouldn't be able to change these characters from game to game. They have to leave space for expansion for future games. (Not that I'm happy for that... ¬¬ I'd rather have the same Yoshi in a different adventure, rather than a different Yoshi in a different adventure). I'm positive NOBODY at Nintendo believes in psychological association with story characters.

[Bry]

I really don't think that's Nintendo's intention. They just happened to decide to use what sounds like a duck passing out in a gas chamber for Birdo's voice. Not really a very flexible sound, but Nintendo have always preferred snippets or sound effects to full on speech. And after what they've done to Peach's voice, that doesn't really seem like such a bad thing.
That line in the SMB 2/USA manual is pretty much the only reference on Birdo's 'position' being that way and back then, manuals were usually pretty inaccurate anyway.

I don't think Nintendo really concern themselves with a time line or defined story line in the Mario Universe simply because they don't see it as a priority. And given the mess its all in, I guess its not hard to see why. One minute wooden doom ships with cannons seem to be the pinnacle of technology, the next Peach has her own royal transport aircraft with modern real world turbo fans. Oh yeah, and there's a helicopter in Delphino Island too.

I'll let it all pass though as long as I still have fun playing the game. Yoshi may not ever be a critical character in story terms, but he's still had two, soon to be three, full games of his very own. Two of which were full scale console titles, not Gameboy ones. I don't think many other side characters could make that kind of claim.

As a side note, right now I'm working on a kind of 'tribute/history of Yoshi' video out of gameplay footage of no less than 13 different games. Sadly missing Yoshi's Story as I no longer have that game, but there should be plenty to see.

[Yoshi9]

Simba said:

Birdoshi is not a kid to have.

I just drew a quick picture of what I think a Birdoshi would look like, its not so terrible, its just....interesting in a way. No, nintendo really doesn't put much effort into a storyline for the games, do they? Then again, what other plots could they have? I think quite afew still, but if they advanced things, or made detailed backrounds, it would be differn't. I think I would still want more detailed plots, and a tad bit of a story plot for some games in the near future though, not now, but somewhat soon. For Birdo&Yoshi, I would still like to see a yoshi, and a yoshi.

[Moot]

They probably stuck the two characters together because they look alike.

Look atthe partners each character has in Merio Tennis, or Double Dash or sometthing, they're basically just a variation on the first character.