Super Mario is one of the biggest media franchises of all time, with over thirty years of games, movies, shows, books, and merchandise, many characters have been created over time to flesh out Mario’s universe and give players options for who they want to play as. Yoshi is a dinosaur who was created for the fourth mainline Mario game, Super Mario World. His purpose was to give players a “friend” that could provide new challenges over the course of the game, since his introduction Yoshi has become one of the most popular Mario characters and species ever and with that came his own line of games and media. In his series we see multiple differently colored Yoshi, and different types of Yoshi, even special Yoshi with admirable abilities, however through this treasure trove of Yoshi, I would argue that the green Yoshi is the best. The green Yoshi is the original and it was the Yoshi that popularized the species and redefined the platformer genre.

    Part of the green Yoshi being the most important was the birth of Yoshi, the green Yoshi was the first conceptualized Yoshi. When making Super Mario Bros Three, Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto wanted a friend who could traverse the entire game with Mario and create new and interesting platforming challenges for the two. This is where Yoshi came in, a green dinosaur who wore a red saddle and orange boots, he could jump higher than Mario, could eat fruit and enemies with his tongue, and, in certain instances, could be used as an extra platform for Mario to jump off of to gain extra height. However on the original hardware of the Nintendo Entertainment System, creating a character like Yoshi wasn’t possible and so he was put on hold until he could be pulled off. After introducing the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the next Mario game had to be made for the release of the system and Miyamoto immediately knew what new feature he wanted headlining the game. Since then Yoshi has been a mainstay of the Mario series and the green one especially has been the headlining Yoshi in all Mario content, including being the only Yoshi to exist until the video game, Yoshi’s Island, where the rest of his species was introduced.

    Since the introduction of the species different Yoshi have appeared alongside the original green Yoshi, for every color that exists there’s most likely a Yoshi for it, there’s helicopter Yoshi, submarine Yoshi, yarn yoshi, cotton ball yoshi, but none of them have truly outshined the original green yoshi. Even in games where Yoshi isn’t playable the green Yoshi will still make a cameo appearance, like in Super Mario Bros Sixtyfour where Yoshi appears on top of Princess Peach's castle or in Mario Galaxy where the green Yoshi’s face can be seen on his house and in the ending of the game, hinting at his inclusion in the sequel to Mario Galaxy. The green Yoshi is clearly the main Yoshi who has and forever will appear in all Mario and Nintendo related media over many other colored Yoshi. What the future holds next for the green Yoshi isn’t clear however it seems he will be headlining his own Yoshi themed ride in Universal Studios Japan’s Super Nintendo Land.

    In conclusion, the green Yoshi is the best, he was created at a time where Mario needed a new friend to diversify the universe, add gameplay challenges, and just flat out add a new feature to an already feature packed game. After that he popularized the Yoshi species, brand, games, and has appeared as the default Yoshi for almost all Mario and Nintendo media featuring him. All of these reasons and more that could be brought up just show why the green Yoshi is the obvious best and will continue to be the head Yoshi for the rest of time.