Soft rock

Soft rocks are blocks that appear in the Yoshi's Island series. They first appeared in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and returned in its reissue, Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3, as well as in Yoshi's Island DS. They are composed of thinly packed rocks that can appear in various different color schemes depending on where they are found, most typically either yellow or light gray. Soft rocks automatically merge with other soft rocks adjacent to them, visually appearing as a single mass that reshapes itself as individual blocks are broken.

Soft rocks can be broken using almost any attack, including jumping into them from below (like with Brick Blocks in the Super Mario series) or spitting seeds by using a green watermelon, which breaks them one at a time, or by ground-pounding them from above or throwing eggs at them, which can destroy large amounts of soft rock at once as the ground-pounding Yoshi or egg pierces through the soft rocks as it travels. Chomp Rocks also break soft rocks in front of and underneath them as they roll, and a Yoshi can easily dig through them in his Mole Tank form. Some enemies are capable of destroying soft rocks as well, most notably Chomp Sharks, which tear through large amounts of soft rock as they chase a Yoshi, but also Lakitus' Spiny Eggs and bombs dropped by Item Balloons and similar sources. These enemies are typically encountered in areas where the ground is mostly made up of soft rocks, making traversal dangerous for a Yoshi.

Soft rocks typically contain nothing when broken, but they can occasionally hide Winged Clouds and Smiley Flowers.

During the development of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, soft rock pieces could also be licked up by Yoshi.