Mini-Yoshi

Yoshi is Mario's fourth party member in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. He's a spunky little kid and the youngest of Mario's party members (being newborn). His purpose in the overworld is to allow Mario to ride him and move him around much faster and use a Flutter Jump-like ability to cross gaps (like Lakilester and Parakarry in the first Paper Mario).

While Mario, Goombella, Koops and Flurrie are fighting in Glitzville's Glitz Pit, they find a problem: One of the fighter teams, the Armored Harriers, seem to be invincible to any attack they use. At an earlier time, Mario had found a Yoshi Egg bouncing around, being chased by the owner of the Hot Dog Stand (who had hopes of making a Southern Fried Egg Dog of Tastiness with it). Mario eventually caught it, and Mr. Hoggle allowed him to keep at as most people "don't like to eat things that move". After Mario returns from his problematic battle with the Armored Harriers, the egg hatches into a Yoshi kid who thanks Mario. He then joins Mario, who proceeds to name him. The Yoshi Kid can defeat the Armored Harriers by eating them and spitting them at each other.

At the end of the adventure, he goes solo at the Glitz Pit, going under the name "The Great Gonzales Jr.", and is getting close to the title match. Yoshi is notable for calling Mario "Gonzales" throughout the entire course of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (in a manner similar to non-player characters such as Goldbob and his family); his odd familiarity with this name is due to the fact that Mario took up the pseudonym "Great Gonzales" while fighting in the Glitz Pit, where he met Mario. By the end of the game, though, Yoshi would appear to have slowly realized that "Gonzales"'s real name was Mario.

As Yoshi's foster parent (of sorts), Mario names him when the Yoshi is born. This means Yoshi is the first character in the Mario RPG sub-series that could be named by the player. In the Mario series as a whole, though, there have been many nameable characters, starting with the main character from Mario Golf.



The color of Yoshi is determined by the amount of time that passes between the point where its egg joins Mario's party atop the Hot Dog Stand to when Mario eventually meets the newborn dinosaur after running from the Armored Harriers. The egg starts off with a green Yoshi Kid inside, and changes color every few minutes, as shown on the chart below. If more than twenty minutes elapse before the Yoshi Kid hatches, the cycle restarts. The color has no effect on his power, despite popular belief.

In Super Paper Mario, Yoshi appears as a Catch Card won by winning the Duel of 100 in the Sammer's Kingdom.

Catch Card

 * Card Type: Rare
 * Card Description: It's Yoshi from the last Paper Mario adventure. This scrappy Yoshi was the only way to travel!

Trivia

 * As stated above, Yoshi's Glitz Pit origins resulted in him calling Mario by the name "Gonzales" throughout the whole course of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. As a matter of fact, Yoshi only calls him "Mario" twice in all of the game: Once at the ending of the game and yet again if Mario brings him along to the top of Riddle Tower for the first time, which will result in him saying "Mario! Check that out!". Although the use of "Mario" in the ending was deliberate and even played somewhat of a role in Yoshi's character development, the latter listing was likely a mistake on the developers' part.
 * In Super Paper Mario, Francis has a collection of seven Yoshi dolls, each one a different color.
 * Yoshi is one of two Yoshis that can be seen outside of battle in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
 * Super Smash Bros. Brawl features a Yoshi Kid sticker.